To the piece-of-shit cyclist who attempted to curse my husband and I out on Saturday on Joseph Howe, FUCK YOU! It was with great pleasure I put you in your place. “Share the road” works both ways, dickhead. If you can’t pass our car, wait your turn like a good little boy instead of getting pissed. It’s people like you who give real cyclists a bad name. By the way, chickenshit, maybe next time you can find your spine and insult me to my face rather than mumbling to my husband (who held me back, by the way).
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2008.
“Held you back”You are all talk, I like to see someone get their ass kicked by a man in tights.
herb can help us, harvard studies
So you’re pulled over too far on the the side of the road, blocking the way, and the cyclist gets mad at you, but you figure he should have to just wait his turn -hopefully I have this right.Does that mean that when traffic is moving and there’s a cyclist ahead of you peddaling at 30km/h that you just pull in behind him and wait your turn “like a good little girl”?probably not. I’d bet that if a cyclist actually tried to exercise his legal right to stay in the middle of the line while traffic was moving (forcing you to go excrutiatingly slow behind him) you’d be honking your horn going crazy, threatening to run him over.You *expect* him to pedal on the side of the road to let you get through right? so is it so crazy for him to expect you to leave him some room on the side of the road to get through?I wasn’t there, of course, so maybe I got the details wrong, but it sounds to me like he had good reason to bitch you out.
Yeah, its funny, bikes don’t have horns (as loud as in a car in any case) and you would think nothing of blasting at a guy on a bike holding you up, but some guy does what amounts to the same thing with his voice or his finger and and its all about ‘being held back’. What were you gonna do, bitch? Hit him for saying something to you. Glad to hear road rage isn’t gender neutral, theres twice as many a-holes on the road to be wary of…
Not condoning her actions at all, but…if you pull up to a light you stay in the position you arrived at…motorcycles aren’t allowed to ride up the side or yellow line to the front, they would get a ticket. I think all of this hostility and bitching that has occurred till now is the municipalities fault, they have failed to fully explain the details of what is expected on the road of each driver (car, motorcycle and cycle) The cat bylaw was more important than hammering out a definitive and clear means for the public to understand their position and right of way.
Yeah, true enough. When in traffic if it isn’t safe to proceed on the inside (for whatever reason, there are many) I would just sit and wait my turn. I have watched some fuckers look in their rear view mirrors while sitting in traffic and slide over to the right and hug the curb just before I get there. Its assholes like that who grind my gears. And of course, they get a nice finger pressed up against their driver side window while I (safely) travel around their shit box vehicle. I mean, honestly, they’re sitting there motionless in bumper to bumper traffic, what is it to them what I do? shrugs.
Brendan,your quote “…I’d bet that if a cyclist actually tried to exercise his legal right to stay in the middle of the line while traffic was moving (forcing you to go excruciatingly slow behind him)…” is a bit misinformed dude, a bicycle/cyclist is considered a “slower moving” vehicle and therefore MUST keep to the right as to not impede normal traffic flow; as quoted from the NS Driver’s Handbook. A cyclist has no “legal right” to drive their vehicle in the middle of the lane and you could/should be ticketed accordingly. Having said that, it is common courtesy (or maybe not so common, eh?) to give enough room where safely possible for cyclists to operate their vehicle along the right shoulder of the roadway.
On the topic of misinformed… actually, it states that the cyclist is required to ride as close to the right as is safe to do so. Sometimes riding in the centre is required, like this morning when a Hoyts moving truck couldn’t safely get by me on my approach to the rotary and came within an inch of my shoulder. Had I been in the centre of the lane it would have had no choice but to wait until it was definately safe to pass, as opposed to ‘kinda safe’. I couldn’t hug the curb as per normal due to snowbanks and potholes so had to be a little farther to the left. Its funny, cause we both got to wait to enter the rotary the same amount of time when we both sat there.
cranks, you are nuts, completely nuts for driving a bike in the winter specifically in Halifax. I laughed so freakin hard when I read that (not in mean ha ha way).A salute to your fearlessness
JamesK, and Cranky:you’re completely full of it. Did you even read the nova Scotia Drivers handbook before typing that bull****? it says:”Riders of bicycles must obey the same traffic rules and regulations that apply to all road users. …. You must also respect the bicyclists right to share the road.”the part about “slower moving vehicles refers to automobiles, and the fact that they have to use the right lane on a multi-lane road.I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, but if you’re gonna cite sources and then blatantly lie… well then you deserve to be told where to stick it.
From the current handbook:”Drivers must drive on the right side of the road except when passing, turning left, or avoiding an obstruction. Slow moving traffic must drive as closely to the right edge or curb of the highway unless it is not practical to do so””Riders of bicycles must obey the same traffic rules and regulations that apply to all road users”Doesn’t leave a whole lot open to interpretation does it? I may have given an abridged version before, but I didn’t think some twat was going to get all up in my grill about it. I mean, how do you know that “lower moving vehicles refers to automobiles”? Oh right. You just KNOW.
The “slower moving vehicles part’ is referring to choosing your lane… it doesn’t say anything about staying to the right.The part that you quoted: “Slow moving traffic must drive as closely to the right edge or curb of the highway unless it is not practical to do so” is talking about the shoulder of the road in the highway section.” This is probably intended for tractors or farm-equipment. Anyway, if I got up in your grill, it’s cause you said I was mis-informed, and I’m not. This review of the drivers handbook (which I thought would never happen after YD) makes it clear that municipal laws make no distinction between cyclists and cars. Bicycles therefore are *technically* expected to “drive” right in the middle of the lane. There is, after all, no “speed minimum” -only a maximum. The real point of this whole discussion is how totally unregulated and unclear the conventions of the road are regarding bikes, and why the city needs to get its act together.
ok just to head off retorts before they happen: when I say that there’s no “speed minimum” I mean within city limits. There is nothing legally stopping a cyclist from bringing traffic down to a snails crawl if he really felt like being a jerk.
Exactly, based on the drivers handbook the interpretation of the law depends on how you want to get to where you want to go, on a bike or in an ambulance.
A lawyer would have a field day with you inclusion of the word “probably” in your defence. And using “technically” as well. Sorry.
Cranky:yeah, well a lawyer would also have to concede that according to the strict letter of the law, I’m right. maybe you should think about doing that.
Think about doing what? I don’t think you’re right. I think you have a different interpretation of the information provided, thats all.
This discussion is exactly why the NS Driver’s Handbook needs to be revised to include Cyclists and clearly define who is to be where and what you/they can or can not do while operating a vehicle. I would bet money that if several police officers were to read the above discussion they would all have differing opinions of how the laws outlined in the NS Driver’s Handbook pertain to this situation.Also this is why HRM & the NS Govt. need to require testing, licensing, registration and insurance of cyclists just like every other “vehicle” on the road.
Considering that all of the cyclists that I know already have their drivers licenses, what other ‘testing’ will be required?
Brendan, YD eh? That explains sooo many things!The term “highways” was mentioned above several times, many city streets are actually registered highways, for example Quinpool Rd. is an extension (past the rotary) of Hwy #3, the Herring Cove Rd, is listed as Hwy #349, Windmill Rd, and Prince Albert St are listed as Hwy. #7.The NS Driver’s Handbook’s statement about keeping to the right refers to all vehicles on all roads (roads being Highways, Streets, Lanes, Etc.) and is in fact a law that is generally not very enforced, 100 series Hwys do post reminders “keep right except to pass” but this applies to all roadways.
Cranky,Testing to operate as a cyclist. A valid Driver’s license will do nothing for you if you are operating a motorcycle….why not separate testing for cyclists? I know this is pretty harsh but I extend my views of licensing to all other forms of drivers/vehicles as well. Do you really think a 16 yr old YD graduate who learned to drive in a Yaris is qualified to jump in an H2 or a Navigator, turn on their cell phone and go cruising? Again I think Service NS needs to revise it’s driver’s handbook and it’s qualification/testing to reflect the type of vehicle you are operating. I’m not saying I’m some all star driver either, if I have to take one for the team and go back to driver’s school, then so be it!
(sigh) James: “keep right except to pass” refers to choice of lane when there is *more than one lane*i.e. stay in the right lane, unless you’re passing, in which case take the left lane it’s really very simple. Secondly, The streets you mentioned may be listed as highways, but within city limits they have no minimum speed, therefore the point I was making is still perfectly valid, and you are just trying to score points off irrelevent information. read the handbook over again, think about it, and when you can remove your ego from this discussion, get back to me.There is nothing ambiguous about the information in the handbook, it makes it definitively clear what the law -technically- is.The problem, of course, is that “the law” is totally irrelevant in view of what people actually do on the road. Cyclists are not given equal access to the road, and are almost never given the right of way. if motorists are going to continue to bitch about bikes getting in their way, they need to be told that they are benefitting from a double-standard in the law -i.e. it only seems to apply when it’s in the motorists favour. And the city needs to get off its ass and create laws that reflect the reality on the street.
Well wouldn’t some of the rules of the road that you need to abide by be:- stopping at stop signs and red lights versus driving through if there is no traffic?- how about signalling that you are changing lanes or even slowing down since there are not a lot of brake lights on bikes?It’s I had a dime for every time I saw these things being obeyed I’d be lucky to have a shiny new dime.I don’t mind sharing – but I find cyclists pull out these “rules” when it’s good for them and forget about them when they need to – like riding on the sidewalk and across a crosswalk versus walking the bike (in my defense that last one might be REAL old and could have been changed since I needed to know it). I see more than a few motorists drive safely around cyclists and I’ve had cyclists bang into my car on the right when there was room, I wasn’t crowding the curb – but they were nervous, or there is one of our famous NS potholes of death or a well placed grate. They don’t stop to say sorry or make sure there was no damage – we’re all dicks sometimes – but we can at least be reasonable dicks.
Yeah, and if I had a dime for every motorist who drives over the speed limit or speeds through yellow lights or doesn’t come to a full stop before making a right turn on red I could afford a second car.
Let’s all just admit that we (all of us) are not always going to be the best on the roads all the time and that the root cause of all this back and forth and hate is directly connected to the fact that the NS government and the Halifax Municipality are waaaayyyy too busy dealing with cat by-laws and name calling to get around to doing what they should be doing….like ratifying not only the Driver’s Handbook but the actual laws regarding all things drivable on any road in NS. Take a look at some of the “bike lanes” they have put in…only go for a few blocks and not properly marked…you see the problem here is that the respective political heads (City and Province) are in the perpetual business of Half-Assery (yes that is a word I have created in another bitch), they hardly ever do a thorough job, it’s about making it look like they are working for the public.Take the city councilors that fought against shooing them away from parking around a WAR MEMORIAL in downtown Halifax because their lazy-asses couldn’t park at Scotia Square and walk across the street. Do you really think people like that give a shit about anything except themselves?
Give cyclists a fucking break !!! They should get the right of the road. They aren’t polluting the fucking city like the rest of us.