I don’t own a car, walk or cycle everywhere, and have always supported pedestrian and cyclist rights & initiatives. But: to all the cyclists I see going against the one-way on Charles street – at least two or three a day: please stop! And don’t even try to be indignant when a vehicle almost smacks you when they turn onto the street to find you heading straight for them. And to all the people going the wrong way on Charles that I don’t see – and I know there must be a lot of you: same. And to all the cyclists I see and don’t see doing all sorts of dumb stuff all over town – going the wrong way, sailing through red lights, stop signs and pedestrian crosswalks, moving way too fast on crowded sidewalks etcetera etcetera: just stop it! I used to staunchly defend cyclists whenever some obnoxious driver started the usual rant about ‘cyclists should get off the road blah blah,’ but now, to be honest, I find myself saying ‘Yeah, well, a lot of cyclists do dumb shit but we’re not all bad…’ Pretty weak. It’s hard to defend our rights when so many of us blatantly abuse them. But it’s really not so hard to obey traffic laws.
—Disillusioned
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2009.
People are stupid, whether they be walkers, drivers or cyclists, most of them are gonna do dumb things. What we have to stop doing, during our occasionally smart moments, is defending them.
Well said PAS. What pisses me off the most is the cyclists who switch back and forth from “the road is mine too” to “the road is too dangerous for me” all for their convenience. Like when one of them rides their bike along the road until the get to a crosswalk, then zip across the road like they’re a pedestrian. Pick a side people! Either you’re a vehicle or a pedestrian, you can’t be both!!
Another bike bicth eh…I’ll jump on that bandwagon!
4-way stops folks…know how to use them!!!!! The next time I see a cyclist NOT stop at a 4-way stop (i.e. Jubilee & Vernon) you will be catapulted from my front quarter panel over the hood of my car. Hey you hit me…I hope you have insurance!
Also, stop for pedestrians. Just because you are on a bike doesn’t mean you don’t have to stop…this goes out to the “professional looking” fuck in the yellow helmet at said intersection who nearly plows down parents & toddlers leaving the daycare on the corner (Jubilee & Vernon) almost EVERYDAY! I swear if I get there before you some day I’m gonna walk that cross walk, take a bead on you and plant my shoulder…’cause hey, I’m a pedestrian and I have the right of way.
I hope you seat makes your nuts go numb. 😉
jamesk – get up early tomorrow and nail the bugger.
r take a photo and persuade Tim to have a ‘Bad bugger photo Gallery’ just like the Municipal Malfunction feature.
Too bad we can’t post pics to the comments section.
Bad Bugger photo gallery….that freakin rocks dude!
I don’t own a bike or legs and i drive everywhere, and have always supported car driver rights & initiatives. But: to all the car drivers I see breaking basic traffic laws – at least ten or twenty times a day: please stop! And don’t even try to be indignant when a cyclist almost smacks you when you fail to signal or open your car door without looking. And to all the car drivers who I don’t see – and I know there must be a lot of you: same. And to all the car drivers I see and don’t see doing all sorts of dumb stuff all over town – speeding, not signaling, coasting through stop signs and pedestrian crosswalks, moving way too fast on crowded streets, etcetera etcetera: just stop it! I used to staunchly defend car drivers whenever some obnoxious cyclist or pedestrian started the usual rant about ‘cars should get off the road blah blah,’ but now, to be honest, I find myself saying ‘Yeah, well, a lot of car drivers do dumb shit but we’re not all bad…’ Pretty weak. It’s hard to defend our rights when so many of us blatantly abuse them. But it’s really not so hard to obey traffic laws.
To be honest, i do partly agree with you in the sense that some cyclists/pedestrians don’t follow the rules. Why just yesteraday i saw a guy on the sidewalk without a helmet. But he was also smoking and i believe he was a “recyclable stuff collector guy” and i’m not sure if he counts. 🙂
I’ve always found it interesting that when we use this argument against cyclists, we don’t apply the same criteria/logic against car drivers. I mean, i see car drivers all the time breaking traffic laws but i don’t automatically assume that because of this that all car drivers break the law. Why not,..because it’s faulty logic and i’m not sure why people seem to think it’s alright to apply it only to cyclists.
Basically what you’re asking here is for one group of citizens to police the actions of another group of citizens. I follow the rules when cycling 99% of the time (just like when i drive a car) but i have no power/control over other cyclists to force them to adhere to the law. Just like when i drive a car i have no way to force other car drivers to follow the law.
And yes, i do hate it too when i see the odd cyclist blantenly breaking the law because i know there are so many simpletons out there who will then take this and apply it to all cyclists and make ME feel responsible for the other cyclists. WEll i will when car drivers start taking responsibility for the actions of other car drivers.
So yes,..you may see some cyclists who don’t act the way you think they should act but you have to elevate your thinking a bit and realize that it doesn’t make logical sense to assume your small sample reflects the actions of all cyclists. Or at least be honest enough to apply the same logic to all groups of road users. I’m not saying “don’t bitch” but you need to bitch to the individual you see breaking the law you and not to a whole group of citizens, most of whom ARE following the law.
One other point regarding cyclists and motorists who break traffic laws. When a cyclist breaks a traffic law, he’s generally (not always) only putting himself at risk (car paint jobs don’t count) but when a motorist breaks a traffic law, there’s a good chance that they’re putting other people besides themselves at risk. So which traffic law violators should we be more concerned about, cars or bikes? Doesn’t make it right for cyclists to break traffic laws mind you, just food for thought.
I really don’t care about cyclist going the wrong way on oneway streets (charles) but the cars got to stop doing it. I’ve seen all kinds of cars, trucks both small and 18 wheelers (coca-cola) i’ve even seen a cop car (without lights flashing). Creighton and Maynard are oneway too so the driver usually turns the wrongway onto these streets while trying to get off charles (going the wrong way). For anyone driving these streets please remember there is an elementary school on the corner of these 3 streets with crossguards on north and gottingen only.
NW, I almost got winged yesterday (walking) by a guy riding across a crosswalk and then turning onto the road as if he magically transformed into a vehicle.
Fucking douche…
Cyclists, they do ruin it for the rest of y’all.
I almost got winged yesterday (walking) by a guy driving a car and making a right hand turn across a crosswalk without looking to see if a person was there before he turned.
Fucking douche…
Motorists, they do ruin it for the rest of y’all. 🙂
Hey Bikeman:
I know drivers do dumb shit; everyone already knows that. I don’t like it either. But you kind of missed the point – actually, you completely missed the point – which is that these days I see so many cyclists doing dumb stuff that it’s hard to argue (like you do) that they’re a non-representative minority. And cyclists (like you) tend more often to take the moral high road, which further results in cyclists, as a group, starting (like you) to sound like the ignorant drivers they hate.
And, like many cyclists, you argue that it’s primarily cars that do serious damage in collisions, which is true in terms of numbers but not in terms of base fact: a bike/bike or bike/pedestrian collision can be very serious. I know: years ago I was in a bike/bike collision (because another cyclist was heading up the wrong side of the street and smacked into me) and my cheek was fractured from my ear to my nose and pushed up into my eye socket. Needed plastic surgery to look normal again.
Yeah, whatever. I see cars going the wrong way up streets all the fucking time. I saw this happening yesterday on Fuller Terrace. As the first poster said, cyclists AND drivers are all stupid idiots. If you keep that in mind, you might not die.
I haven’t biked more that 3 ft on the sidewalk in the past 15 or so years of commuting, but I think I’ll start. Just for the hell of it. Yep.
Seems like the bikers are just going to be hated on no matter what they do, so I’m going to continue riding my bike, minding car’s and pedestrians, and fuck the people that hate on me for riding a bike, cause they are fucking legal last time I checked.
The problem is, cyclists often see themselves as separate from other moving vehicles on the road. Cyclists NEED to see themselves as equal to a motorcycle and a car/truck, and follow the same laws as any other driver. Until then, they’re going to breed some major motor-hate.
(current cyclist…I practice what I preach.)
It’s all well and good to try to treat bicycles like anything else on the road, but they are fundamentally different. They simply cannot keep up with traffic.
I don’t know what the answer is, but it is definitely NOT treating them exactly like motorized vehicles.
By the way, I have not heard any great reasons why they should not be on sidewalks. Some people think they are too fast for the sidewalk, but I can be just about as fast on foot as I am on a bicycle, so should runners be banned from sidewalks too?
Hmm…maybe a speed limit for sidewalks would work…say 25km/h. That would be until we get bicycle lanes on the road (or on the sidewalk??) or come up with some other way to safely integrate cyclists with road traffic.
hey bikeman….
I was informing the other cyclists that those pricks ruin it for you. not taking a shot at cyclists. Was my punctuation there making it seem otherwise? or did it not read as such?
I barely drive so have few issues/encounters like those posted seemingly daily….
but when I’m walking and have a bike encounter…. then there’s a problem.
hey bikeman….
I was informing the other cyclists that those pricks ruin it for you. not taking a shot at cyclists. Was my punctuation there making it seem otherwise? or did it not read as such?
Sorry zZz I guess I read your post wrong.
Disilliusioned – I see so many cyclists doing dumb stuff that it’s hard to argue (like you do) that they’re a non-representative minority.
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I don’t know, I still find that hard to believe but then again I don’t claim to have seen the majority of cyclists in this city, only a small portion of them on my daily route. I guess we all see things from our own perspective.
I know recently that I’ve been watching cyclists very carefully and watching for violations to see how prevalent it is. But my experience is mainly commuting so the large majority of cyclists I see are going to and from work and tend to be older (middle-aged?) men. And they also tend to be the ones who follow the rules more. I’ve been trying to count the total number of cyclists I see and violations to see if it is the majority like some say but i keep forgetting my running count. 🙁 But either way, what I’ve seen so far points to just a slim minority,..just like car drivers. I think it’s more that cyclists who break the rules are more noticeable then cars that do.
From my unscientific survey so far, i’d have to say that the few people i seen on the sidewalks from time to time tend to be younger women on funny little girl-type bikes on residential streets. (no offense ladies).
The 2 people I have seen going the wrong way on one way streets were both poor looking old men. Bottle collector types is the best i can describe them.
So yeah, i admit that not all follow the rules but i think it’s quite a stretch to say it’s the majority by any means. Sounds more like pure opinion then something actually based on fact.
I’ve always found it interesting that when driving a car we want everyone else to follow the rules 100% (cars and bikes) of the time but yet we ourselves want to be able to pick and choose the rules we follow. (speeding, etc). And I’ve yet to meet anyone driving a car or bike who follows the rules all the time even though 99% of us will say we do.
Oh how I dream of the day when we start to examine this bizarre notion that car and bikes should be treated the same. Having done a lot of walking, biking and driving in my life, I have to say that it bikes and pedestrians seem to have a lot more in common then bikes and cars do.