Lookit, folks, I too own a bicycle, I think bikes are a valid form of transportation, I think everyone should share the road appropriately.
But you’re lucky I have decent reflexes. Because I’m in a Volvo and you’re on a bike, so suddenly pulling out of your lane and deciding to play chicken with me on a rain-slick street is a dumbass thing to do.
I’d have a helluva lot more respect for you if you obeyed the damn traffic laws and had some common sense.
Fucking Volvo drivers and bicyclists! What a bunch of assholes!
I think you miss that the point of Critical Mass is to piss off everyone not participating. It’s quite effective.
Oh, I know that that’s the point. OTOH, I’m not gonna be real sympathetic if some of them get ground into the pavement because they’re deliberately being stoopid.
Wasn’t Critical Mass going on when that guy deliberately plowed into all those bikers? You’d think that incident would teach bikers some forbearance, or at least to not bunch up.
At least they were dressed…
I would really like to see my city become more bicycle friendly, and I would happily pay taxes to make the city more bicycle friendly.
That said, I despise critical mass. I think they are deeply immoral people who purposely put people’s lives in jeopardy through their antics.
Fuck Critical Mass. A bunch of them staged an “incident” last year that ended with one of them throwing his bike at my husband’s car and doing about $1,500 worth of damage. I, too, wish my town was more biker-friendly, but now anytime I see someone on a bicycle, I kinda want to run them over.
I’m also a cyclist, and I’ve never understood them either. We have a Courteous Mass here, that actually obeys all the road rules, which I think does a much better job of accomplishing their goal.
The Critical Mass people are intentionally putting themselves in danger and trying to make it look like the motorists fault. Once I was driving and a huge group of them ran a red light on a very busy road. I waited until I thought they were all gone before going, but two stragglers zoomed by at the last minute. I was so close to hitting them, it just about made me sick. I notice that a lot of them don’t wear helmets, either. So if their antics do get one of them hit by someone, the damage could be that much worse.
I don’t understand why the police here don’t do something about them blatantly breaking road laws.
This being my first time hearing of this, I had to look it up. My verdict: Wow, that’s a lotta dickweedery.
I’d love to see a pedestrian version of critical mass that mobs the critical mass bikers and gets in their way while they’re trying to get in the way of the cars.
I ran into these morons about three weeks ago. I have never before or so desperately wanted an oil slick maker on the back of my car. Here’s a hint, shitheels, if youre being assholes just to be assholes, your cause suffers.
The Critical Mass riders are a bunch of punk assholes who get their chickenshit jollies by being a pain in the ass.
Case in point. And that’s just lately.
There are a number of other cyclist advocate organizations that don’t randomly fuck with people, and I do support them. I ride a bike myself, and as far as I’m concerned these assholes actually make things more dangerous for me by pissing off drivers. I don’t know why the cops just stand around and watch them play games in the road. These pukes should be arrested just like anyone else that blocks traffic and assaults people just for fun.
The whole point of these assholes’ ride is to be in the way.
Yah. The first (and thankfully, only) time I ever saw them was in San Francisco a couple years ago, when I was interning for the summer. Huge crowd of people on bikes, cursing at the occasional motorist, and occasionally shaking fists at drivers or pounding on car windows. What is wrong with these guys?
Bike cops sometimes come along to CM in Toronto. They are often friendly and supportive (“We’re cyclists ourselves”) and help with traffic. CM-ers grumble about the cops on motorcycles (who think nothing of sneaking up behind you and gunning their engine suddenly) but generally everyone gets along quite well. The only tempers flaring belong to people (drivers or cyclists) with an exaggerated sense of their own importance.
I think if I were driving, legally, obeying the law and all that jazz, and some douchenozzle decided he needed to bang on my car, he’s gonna get a my ice scraper jammed in his spokes for his trouble.
When we had our little incident, a bunch of them were taking up one whole lane of traffic, on a major 4-lane street. When we went to go around them, they’d move into the left lane and put on the brakes. My husband was driving, and went into the turning lane to avoid hitting them. One dude, as our car was slowing down, walked his bike into the path of the car, so we touched him with our bumper. That was enough. They all started screaming “share the road” and hitting our car with their fists, trying to get us to get out and fight them. Then the guy who we “hit” picked his bike up and slammed it down on our hood.
We called the police, but they said they couldn’t do anything since they didn’t see it happen. We were going to sue him, but found out from people who knew him that he didn’t have any money. I kinda wanted to steal his bike. Apparently he’d been arrested before, and had to be tasered after he punched a cop.
I put around 5,000 miles a year on my bike commute. The last thing I need is a bunch of massholes pissing of drivers to all bikers in general.
First things first.
Charge all bicyclists the same license tax that cars are charged.
Require a license to ride a bike and charge for that as well, just like cars.
Require all bicyclists to have insurance just like car owners.
If a bicyclist is caught without one…their bike is confiscated plus heavy fines…just like car owners.
Then we can discuss their ‘rights’ to be on the road.
Heck, if enough of them actually do this, there would be money for a vast expansion of bike lanes/trails.