Don’t give me that crap, the only thing we cyclists have going for us is speed for maneuverability, if we stop we’re static targets for every texting soccer mom in an SUV, and drivers kill a hell of a lot more people every year than firearms users.

Despite getting hit, I still stop at stop signs, but I do so knowing that I’m taking a greater risk to make a point.

To this incident: Spiro Bikopoulis, where are you when we need you most?

“If you bike often, you discover that some people become enraged at the sight of a cyclist. Weird but true.”

I don’t bicycle, and I don’t become enraged at the sight of them, but I *do* get irritated when I see them blow-through stop signs and expect everyone in a car to jam on the brakes. Because a) I certainly don’t want to hurt anyone, b) the person in the car is “automatically” assumed to be the unsafe one, and c) the bicyclist is pretty much guaranteed to be seriously hurt if hit by a car.

That being said, anyone who shoots at someone else and who is not defending themselves or their family deserves time in “the gray-bar motel” if convicted.

As the parent rode along a busy street in the bike lane, the kid was standing on one pedal, sticking the other leg out in the air and holding on with one hand to the handlebar. It was really quite astonishing – he was definitely circus material! But one bump and that kid would be off that bike. Keep in mind the 2×4 blocks. We’re talking LITTLE KID.

I pulled up (on my bike) next to the parent and expressed some concern about what his kid was doing. The parent’s reaction? “Whatever”

I proceeded onward, metaphorical gun and tongue firmly held in mouth.

I don’t bicycle, and I don’t become enraged at the sight of them, but I *do* get irritated when I see them blow-through stop signs and expect everyone in a car to jam on the brakes.

Think of it as an opportunity to watch a more efficient, more complex, and more sustainable mode of personal transportation in action, as well as a more organic, less rigid, way of reacting to the urban environment: traffic as practice rather than traffic as what the blinking light says to do. Or just get used to it, ’cause we’re not stopping for your car or your red lights or your laws, Mr. Policeman!

/aggro bike snob lecture parody

Or… not.

I see bikes blow through stop signs all the time, “Idaho stop law” style, but I don’t see them expecting cars to stop for them. Quite the contrary, it’s quite dangerous to presume that cars will yield right-of-way to a bike, even when the bike legally has right-of-way.

So, for example, for every empty intersection that a cyclist rolls through, there’s another intersection where the cyclist has no stop sign, but must stop anyway because the cars pulling up to it happily cream or run off the road any bike that comes along.

And they’ll yell at you for getting in their way after they do it.

For twenty years I just always biked off-road to avoid this problem. But in my current location the off-road biking is very limited compared to the road biking (which is spectacular). So I’m learning to be very, very defensive in my cycling.

Also, see this article:

http://www.steamthing.com/2009/07/bike-salmon-omen-or-harbinger.html

which mentions that bike accidents involving cars are rare in the Netherlands, where they are not required to obey traffic laws.

OK, it’s a parody, you say. So I won’t engage in a philosophical discussion about organic vs. inorganic transportation, etc. etc. etc.

The laws of physics are (generally) on the more massive vehicle’s “side.” More momentum, more mass (therefore more inertia). It’s got nothing to do with who’s right and who’s wrong, and everything with who would get more seriously hurt by a collision.

Anyone who expects a massive vehicle to be able to stop instantly is living on borrowed time.

Power trippers of any type can be an instant menace.

The same solution that works to keep young children safe would work here, too: create a safer environment. Build some bike paths separate from the road. Problem solved.

(did I just troll?)

Yeah. Well, as a full-time cyclist, I get a little irritated when I see cars do the same thing. I also get irritated when I see motorists texting, talking on their cellphones, putting on makeup, screwing with their radio, driving in bike lanes, driving drunk, speeding, running red lights, backing up without looking, failing to give cyclists the legally required 3-foot passing buffer, driving down the street with their blinkers on, driving with obviously unsafe vehicles … I could go on like this all day.

Cyclists do run stop signs, and this is illegal. But every time I see article comments on some outrageous act of violence against a cyclist, someone always chimes in that cyclists are a bunch of irresponsible yahoos.

As if motorists aren’t. Gimme a break. And get the hell off the phone when you’re driving, please.

“which mentions that bike accidents involving cars are rare in the Netherlands, where they are not required to obey traffic laws.”

Let me inform you that dutch cyclists have to obey traffic laws like everybody else.
A lot of people here just don’t care though, and accidents do happen because cyclists were not carefull.

I am very happy that the attitude on cyclists is a bit more relaxed here and that we have cycling paths and lanes everywhere.

Allert
The Netherlands

If this becomes a political issue in Asheville, perhaps this incident will encourage the community to invest in more bike-lanes?

I really do think though that you’re overdue an amendment to that Americans Shall Forever Have The Right To Shoot One Another In The Face amendment. Even just a No Guns For Thin-Lipped And Permanently Pissed-Off Looking White Guys Who Keep Themselves To Themselves amendment would help I’m sure.

Takuan @ 72: you OK mate?

I’m the product of an impoverished single mother

and I read boing boing. can’t be that bad.