The traffic laws have been designed for cars, for a car world. As cycling becomes increasingly popular we’re going to have to come up with cycle laws—and these I am all for. In the meantime, drivers need to realize that they are better off having cyclists not follow the rules (even if it feels a bit chaotic at times).

If I had the time, I would organize a “Bike-a-Like-a-Car-Day” to protest for bike lanes and cycle specific traffic laws. In my city, where there are starting to be as many of cyclists as there are cars in the downtown, this would likely double the duration of the local commute.

A stick in the spokes might do…

And Drang, I often times catch back up to people that do dangerous stuff on the road. It beats that awkward conversation where you ask them politely to try not to kill you next time while trying to keep your rage down.

Let’s see how these self-important wankers feel about me throwing things onto their bikes.

I have never once encountered the kind of aggression from drivers towards cyclists that seems to be commonplace in the US (I am also a driver). I find the extreme attitudes on both sides extraordinary, you lot are aliens please stay at home.

I now live in the Middle East where the average life expectancy of a cyclist is about 20 minutes but this is down to stupidity on the part of drivers rather than aggression for the most part.

It would seem that many of the cyclists on this thread have their pressure valves screwed down way too tight, and are always on the edge of rage. Perhaps a little less pedal pumping and adrenaline-surging might help you to realise that, in fact, there’s not a dread conspiracy by all the car drivers to hunt you down, nor do the traffic planners, designing an interchange, keep striking bits of the drawing out and saying “Oh no, that will never do, too favourable for cyclists, let’s put a pinch-point in here, and a drain grid, and stop them just…. here on the steep upgrade. Oh, and can we arrange for some loose gravel to be strewn weekly on that fast turn?

Where have I ever seen a thread in which drivers discuss ways of attacking cylists?
Maybe I’ll invent something, like say a little dispenses of chain-tangling kevlar fibres, that shoots out in response to a sudden flash of something yellow being hurled at my car.
But no.
In reality, I don’t spend my time obsessing at the ill-lit, rule-ignoring cyclists. And nor have I ever hit one.
Yet.

Some people are jerks… no matter which mode of transportation they chose.

And it’s an odd thing: I know MANY MORE pedestrians and drivers than I know cyclists.

Yet I’ve never known a pedestrian who was seriously hurt by a cyclist, and I’ve never known a driver who was seriously hurt by a cyclist. Bu I have known many cyclists hurt by drivers, and a couple that I’ve known have been KILLED by drivers.

The clear inference: among pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists, there is only one combination that *frequently* results in injury or death: drivers v. cyclists.

There are just as many total asshole cyclists as there are total asshole car drivers.

Seriously, it may not endanger my life to have you blocking the lane, struggling up-hill on a 2 lane curvy country road — but after 2-3 minutes don’t you think you could let me pass without forcing me to endanger us and someone in the on-coming lane?

Dumbass drivers who pass too close and get hyper-aggressive with asshole bikers who don’t get out of the way are also a total jerks. I’ve seen drivers escalate bad situations with inconsiderate cyclists into all out wars. Really if that cyclist won’t get out of the way and is a total jerk, chances are he or she is going to turn out to be one of the 10% who will start screaming, yelling and throwing their bike around.

Most of this could all be solved by people being considerate of one another, in both directions.

Irresponsible to post this at all.

I cycled a 8-mile-round-trip commute in Southern California for a while. That’s nothing compared to what some people do, but it was absolutely brutal. When I got to my destination I would be shaking – not from the exercise (if I did the same thing in a park or something I’d be fine) but from the terror of interacting with SoCal car traffic. As others have mentioned with their anecdotes, sometimes people really will go out of their way to yell obscenities or otherwise cause trouble for you – for me it was at least once a week that this would happen, and almost every day I would have extremely close calls with inattentive or otherwise stupid drivers. If this behavior doesn’t make you start raging, you probably won’t last long – you have to be incredibly defensive (and aggressive) to not get killed.

Of course, considering no one walks in SoCal either, it’s generally safe to ride on the sidewalks through particularly dicey areas. But there are obviously a lot of issues with doing that, and I only did in a couple of specific areas where I would have been killed daily otherwise. Everywhere else I followed traffic laws at least 90% of the time – often it is essentially impossible to follow the traffic laws on a bike, though. Those 10% aren’t the situations people complain about cyclists breaking the law, though.

Because it keeps your numbers in check through natural selection?

The point of the magnet is to give cyclists a voice. Anti-cyclists in this thread cite smugness/rule-breaking as their argument that no cyclists deserve a voice. How does that logic even work?

Yes the magnet may be passive-aggressive, but how else do you confront drivers? Let me give you an example:

Google maps recommended biking through the Broadway tunnel in SF, so I assumed it had a bike path. It wasn’t until I was in the tunnel when I realized I would have to take up a significant portion of the lane, and the drivers behind me were not happy about that. They honked, passed me late and with little room. Mind you, I was perfectly within my rights and biking as safely/legally as I could — bikers are allowed full use of the lane, and biking on the sidewalk is illegal (not to mention difficult in that tunnel).

So I ask you drivers, how am I supposed to convey to you that my life felt threatened, and that your honking was rude and unwarranted? Sure, I can talk to the bicycle coalition about that dangerous route (which I did).

In that situation, you have your horn; I need a voice too.

If I had a sticker like this thrown on my car, I’d just take it off and throw it away. You think it’s actually going to change my mind? No, it’s just another piece of trash that needs cleaned off the car, right up there with bird crap.

Works for me.

Call the police – I know sometimes they don’t do anything, but sometimes they DO act on it, and it’s the one of the few ways to take the dangerous drivers off the road.