Beyond the Bell

Is there a more decent way to let people know you're behind them?

Leg Day is a newsletter about pursuing joy as a city cyclist. This post contains affiliate links for a single product. If you click through and buy it, I’ll earn a small commission.

My bike is an outlaw.

According to the New York State traffic laws, all bikes must be equipped with brakes (check), reflective wheels or tires (check), and a headlight and taillight when used at night (check). Oh, and one more thing:

A bell or other device capable of giving a signal audible for a distance
of at least one hundred feet

You feeling lucky, punk?

Most of the bikes I have ridden in the last few years have been in full compliance with this clause. I bought a nice little bell for the Raleigh I rode until last spring. Kong sent me a lovely purple bell that I used with the Cannondale I had on loan from Buycycle. My Brompton came with a bell, a wicked loud one at that.

It’s really loud!

After scrapping the Raleigh and returning the Cannondale, I had a choice of bell to add back to my Schwinn. But though I’ve had the bike for almost seven months, I’ve never once thought it important to do so.

The truth is, the more I’ve biked in New York, the less essential I’ve found a bell to be.

The main danger to cyclists in the city is drivers. But a bell does very little to get their attention. You simply don’t get a drivers attention by ringing a bell that won’t be heard over the sound over their engine, let alone any music they’re listening to¹. In my experience, they tend to only response to visual cues like blinking lights or exasperated arm waving. On occasion, I can get a driver to make eye contact with me if I drop a full-throated “Yo!”

Of course, most New Yorkers aren’t drivers². Walking is the defining mode of transit in our city. It’s how we get around the corner to the grocery store or coffee shop. It’s how we get to bus stops and train stations to commute to our jobs or visit our friends. It’s how drivers can take advantage of the massive public subsidy that is free street parking.

A bell, in theory, should be the ultimate way for cyclists to communicate with the walking majority. Indeed, the sound of a bell is certainly more likely to be heard by someone crossing the street on feet than someone sealed away in a vehicle.

Unfortunately, I have often found that hearing a bell doesn’t always lead a walker to act in ways that make both the walker or cyclist safer. Most of the time I ring a bell to try and let a pedestrian know I am coming towards them, the pedestrian stops (often in the middle of the bike line), and spins around until they can figure out where the sound is coming from. By the time they’ve seen me, I’m usually right next to them and we both have to awkwardly move around each other.

I say a pedestrian is more likely to hear a bell than a driver, but that’s really only true when they aren’t wearing headphones. More and more New Yorkers seem to be wearing headphones that actively hinder them from hearing the sounds of their environment. And even if a headphone doesn’t have software-assisted noise-cancelling, they’re at least designed to minimize the amount of external noise let in.

After a few months of exclusively ringing my bell in vain, I started to see whether my voice was actually the only communication tool I needed all along. When I would come up behind people walking in the bike lane in the park, I would drop a quick “on your right,” which always worked to make them shift in the other direction. When I was approaching an intersection and noticed people starting to step off the curb into the bike lane, I’d belt out a strong “coming through!” which usually made them look directly at me. And now, when I need to make a turn in a crowded area, I don’t just use my arms to signal. “Left turn, left turn!”

Using my voice has definitely decreased the number of times I’ve had to employ technical maneuvering to get myself between a group of pedestrians who had stopped in my path. But I’ve started to feel it’s having the adverse affect of freaking people out. People, it turns out, don’t always react kindly to a 200 pound man yelling at them. Go figure!

I try to soften the blow with my winning smile and a loud “thank you,” but I worry I’m leaving people with the impression that cyclists are noisy disruptors.

A few weeks ago, in the middle of a ride where I was feeling particularly bothersome, I threw a poll on my Instagram. “As a pedestrian, how would you prefer cyclists get your attention?” The two options: Saying “Yo” or “Ringing a bell.” The early results were a landslide victory for “bell,” but I was noticing that most of the people who disagreed were themselves cyclists. So I asked a follow up: “If you voted ‘yo’ … are you a cyclist?”

Follow me @drvarg01 if you want more of this kind of nonsense.

In the end, about 2/3 of folks voted for “Ringing a bell.” And of the 1/3 who voted for “Yo,” about 2/3 said they were cyclists. Interestingly, a few people they told me they preferred people ring a bell, but that when they are biking, they usually just signal their presence with their voice.

For me though, the results are skewed too far in one direction to ignore. So, earlier today, I re-installed that purple Knog bell to my orange Schwinn. Even if I don’t end up using it that much, it’s probably a good idea to get my bike setup in line with traffic laws before … uh … biking itself becomes a crime or something?!

This machine politely lets facists know I’m behind them.

1. By the way, what is the deal with more drivers wearing headphones behind the wheel? I see it so much I feel like it can’t just be Uber drivers worried about having their ratings ruined by horrible passengers who don’t want to listen to their phone calls.

2. The Hunter College Urban Policy and Planning department looked at data from 2018-2022 to estimate that 55% of New Yorkers live in a zero-vehicle household. The concentration of vehicles is way higher in Staten Island (where 84.6% of households have at least one car) and way lower in Manhattan (where only 22.7% of households have one).