If you’re a vehicle, you should act like it.

Paul Quick hosted a bALLISON LOVE/Staff

Such is the theme of BikeAthens member Paul Quick’s bike safety class, which came to campus on Tuesday.

“You should never sacrifice our safety for another person’s needs,” Quick said, explaining that most automobile-bicycle accidents occur when a bicyclist is being a little too conscientious, which has a side effect of making them easy to ignore.

“Being too far to the right is more dangerous than being in the lane.”

Quick said hugging the curb too tightly makes drivers less likely to see a cyclist and slower to respond when a cyclist suddenly has to turn or cut across lanes.

According to him, it is incumbent upon a biker to be visible and predictable, which allows automobile drivers to notice what is, by all rights, another vehicle that enjoys equal access to the road.

Mistakes like these inspired Creswell R.A. Ian Guathier, a sophomore psychology and anthropology double major from Alpharetta, to contact BikeAthens about their safety courses for the welfare of his charges.

“I heard that the first week, five people who live here had crashes on campus,” he said.

Guatheir said at least one of those accidents, which involved crashing into a bush, needed stitches.

Another accident involved hitting a curb.

“Some of it sounds like it’s pretty funny, but it’s not,” Guathier said.

Quick said these sorts of crashes are the rule rather than the exception, with the majority of bike injuries being a case of operator failure, and a great deal of that stems from a combination of timidness and not knowing any better.

Michael Brugger, manager of the Bike Recycling Program, used clothing as an example.

He encouraged reflective or at least lighter-colored clothing when biking at night to give drivers a sign that you are sharing the lane, which, in turn, gives them more opportunities to react if a cyclist has to do something unexpected.

“Black is sexy, but it doesn’t work,” he said.

He also highlighted the importance of proper signaling, whether turning or slowing, so that drivers aren’t caught off-guard.

Quick said rear-end collisions are some of the rarest forms of accidents in the bicycling world — cyclists have far more to fear from poor decisions like darting off of a sidewalk into a lane or assuming they will be safe riding against traffic in a bike lane simply because they are in a bike lane.

“I needed this,” said Lauren Blaise, a journalism major from Athens and a web developer for the Terry College of Business. “I had my first harrowing, scary traffic experience today.”

Blaise said she was nearly hit by an inattentive driver when she was trying to make a left turn and the driver was exiting the parking lot. Blaise said the driver didn’t even see her.

Quick and Brugger also had advice to impart for those unavoidable incidents, whether it was a demonstration of how to patch a punctured tire or pointing out a technique to roll over an object with only the rear wheel is often the best option on a crowded road.

Brugger said cyclists may not have the freedom to pull far out into the main lane, so it’s a matter of putting the least amount of pressure on the wheel that controls most of the bike’s movement. Brugger called the move “the rock dodge.”

The BikeAthens safety course in its usual form spends more time on minutiae and calls for its students to spend time practicing maneuvers like the rock dodge and scanning back, or looking back over one’s shoulder before making any sudden moves on a bicycle.

Quick said scanning back isn’t simply a matter of seeing what is behind you. It lets the rider communicate to drivers that he or she is about to move.

Quick said anyone who missed the workshop can find the pertinent information on the BikeAthens web site or through the full safety training course, which requires a fee.

BikeAthens as a whole encourages safe driving, handing out items like free blinkers, which are required by law.

Anyone who doesn’t observe the proper rules of the road runs the risk of winding up like Guathier, who had a face-to-pavement meeting with reality a year ago.

Guathier said it was a horrible moment to be delirious and covered blood in the middle of a class change, but it could have been worse.

“I had a concussion and a lot of stitches in my face, but I was wearing a helmet,” he said.