I’m always grouchy when I see somebody with the Bicycle “Share the Road” sticker. This is of course an extreme example of why.
Cyclists were blocking traffic in protests and one guy had about enough. Not a nice move, but I can understand. Also glad nobody was killed. Still I have the same thought when I have to cross the double-yellow to pass a cyclist doing 15mph below the posted speed limit….only to have the asshole pass me again while I’m waiting at a red light that he cruises right through because the laws don’t apply to him.
When I’m riding my bike I’m WELL into the breakdown lane and I do EVERYTHING I can to stay away from the cars. I don’t want to be “One of them”, as “Sharing the Road” is the LAST thing they want to do. They don’t want to share, they want total control.
Critical Mass in Portland avoids doing their stupid protests on Portland bridges. The Portland police won’t touch them since the city council are all a bunch of hippies.
The area between the high water marks on a navigable waterway is in the jurisdiction of the Oregon State Police.
A small group of state cops stopped an entire Critical Mass protest on the Burnside bridge, and issued every last one of them tickets for obstructing traffic. They got fined $100 extra for each car they obstructed by slow driving … the law says pull over if you have a line of more than 5 cars behind you.
The organization paid the tickets, and ended up coughing up over a quarter of a million dollars to the OSP.
I’d just like to state that we aren’t all retarded. I always try to obey all the laws and not act like a douche. But I pretty much never ride in city environments, either.
That’s why I mentioned that I have a bike that I ride.
If I lived close enough to work to commute AND have enough energy to work I totally would….but not if I had to go down crowded, congested urban streets and hold up traffic. And if I’m in the road and on wheels, traffic laws DO indeed apply to me.
Not all of them, but in Metro Boston there are a LOT of assholes.
Sometimes it seems like I’m the only guy out there using hand signals.
Those Critical Massholes are ruining bicycle diplomacy for the rest of us.
Of course that does not excuse homicide by automobile.
And yeah, the Critical Mass guys are pretty much the OWS movement of the cycling world. Hen riding slowly through traffic does not make people want to avoid murdering me.
I commute by bike most days, but I try to be as nice about it as I can. The guideline is that cars should give bicyclists about five feet of space. The bike lanes are about five feet wide, and I’m pretty much always closer to the curb than the white line. I know people who do the opposite and wonder how they haven’t been hit yet.
Bottom line: As a bicyclist, a lot of the traffic laws are on my side, but that won’t mean much to me if I’m in traction on a hospital bed instead of at home where I should be. When a car meets a bicycle, the car wins handily – the laws of physics tend to override the laws of the land. So even with the law on my side I’m willing to give a little more in the name of making it home.
The worst here is in the winter! Boston is HORRIBLE about snow removal, so there will be people riding on narrow streets in ice and slush as I attempt to get to work! I don’t even need to HIT them, they just need to lose traction and fall UNDER my tires!
HATE that!
Depending on the situation, riding more to the left can be a lot safer than all the way to the right. Usually when I am on a road it is a rural, two lane affair. Riding all the way over to the right makes cars think they don’t even have to move over to pass–especially fun when there is oncoming traffic. Taking the lane is definitely good for safety in those situations, but you also don’t want to let a huge line of traffic build up behind you if there is anywhere to get off and let them past.
When I am on a bicycle, I do my everloving best to stay out of the way of the multi-ton objects traveling at several multiples higher velocity than I am.
Why?
Because it makes gorramed sense.
Apparently “sense” is not as common as we would like.
I don’t see how that is physically possible.
In either case, the bicyclists around here are annoying as hell. We’ve got some narrow, curvey, hilly roads with absolutely no shoulder space that go up to 55 mph, and you still get idiot cyclists riding on them. They put themselves and drivers in danger, and yet they act like own the fucking place.
Shit…that was my typo, I meant “killed” also doesn’t sound like anybody was seriously hurt.
Which is, in itself, amazing. Last time I saw a video of a car barrel through a bunch of cyclists like that the body count was fairly high.