They’re not exclusively for cars. They’re also for bikes, school buses, garbage trucks, mail vans, and any number of other vehicles that go at speeds below the speed limit or make frequent stops.
Exactly. Which is why it’s incumbent on motorists to bear the responsibility for their actions: because they’re the ones driving the life-threatening vehicles.
Not if you’re speeding.
I agree.
Cyclists and pedestrians follow the speed limit because it is usually physically impossible for them to break it. If it were possible for them to break that law, they would, every bit as often as drivers. Every other law that is conceivably possible for cyclists and pedestrians to break, they do, in large numbers.
Cyclists and Pedestrians rigorously follow the law under 2 scenarios, when it is impossible for them to break the law and when breaking the law will result in their deaths.
What I am having a problem with is that somehow you have cars going at just 10mph through intersections. Reality has shown us that is simply untrue. Cars probably average 25-35mph through intersections in low-traffic conditions. That kind of speed can do injury to another driver quite easily.
And I see drivers turning right on red without looking or blowing red lights and extending the yellow or jumping the green all the time. All of these things are dangerous behaviors you seem to be ignoring.
Bikes do not belong on the sidewalk. It is dangerous. They belong on the road unless local conditions and laws permit riding on the sidewalks.
Yet for some reason, garbage trucks, delivery vans, and buses rarely inspire the kind of rage that cyclists do. I guess as you’ve got to have an internal combustion engine if you want to go slow, or make people go around you.
Which is exactly my point. Here in the bay area we have a lot of bike riders who zoom on sidewalks illegally, and very very fast.
Rule #1 for raging bullies: Pick on somebody smaller than you.
Oh, I see. Those people should be cited and face heavy fines. Bikes on sidewalks is illegal for several reasons, all of which are good ones.
To be fair, fearing death also keeps many drivers in line–at least the ones who don’t care about getting tickets. Nearly every driver breaks the speed limit at least some of the time, but there is a sizable fraction of cyclists who do stop at stop signs even when there is nobody to see them.
Also, it’s definitely possible for cyclists to break speed limit laws on many roads. Given a slight downhill on a 25 or even 35 mph road, and the speed limit could be broken if the cyclist really wanted to. Also, there are plenty of mixed-use paths that have a speed limit for bikes. In my hometown we have several mixed-use paths that have a speed limit of 15 mph and, aside from a few jerks, this limit is obeyed.
The problem is speed differences. Motorcycles are not a problem. Slow-moving vehicles have no business being on roads.
Why?
My business being on a road is that I want to get from point A to point B. Which is exactly the same business a car has being on the road.
You want to know what’s crazy, though? Yesterday, a driver got mad at me for not breaking the law. We were both stopped at a red light, and he said to me “You know you don’t need to stop, right?” I just shrugged and said “The light’s red for me, too”. Then he tried the “You shouldn’t be on the road at all!”, and I told him that a bike’s a vehicle, too. “No it’s not!”. The conversation ended then because the light changed.
The really odd part is, I wasn’t even impeding him at all. We were next to each other.
Far too many drivers don’t know the laws regarding bicycles, or worse they only read select parts they want to read (case in point would be the ‘right as practical’ bit from the Uniform Vehicle Code).
Even worse is the rank hypocrisy in actions vs. words. Driver *say *they want cyclist to obey the laws, and then punish them with various driving behaviors when they do so.
I live on a rural road. So far today the mailman has blocked part of the road while delivering my mail, the UPS guy blocked part of the road while delivering my package, the fuel oil guy blocked part of the road while pumping my fuel, two farm tractors have slowly gone down the road, and a school bus brought traffic to a complete standstill for a while.
Can you please explain to me how those things are different than the bicycles that have also passed by, sometimes causing traffic to slow momentarily until it was safe to pass? Is it only because they are bigger than your car? Or will you ban them from the roads also? Unless they are delivering to you personally … that would be ok?
Cite?
After starting this thread and hearing others talk about near 100% compliance with stop signs by cars I started observing cars at stop signs. I didn’t right it down and nothing was controlled, so this is purely anecdotal, but the results were painfully clear: Out of the dozens of cars I saw, only 1 or 2 came to a full stop when they weren’t compelled to stop by cross traffic.
This site backs that up:
So no, I don’t agree that cars are good at stopping at stop signs. Not even close.
Let’s hire some married gay couples to take turns riding a tandem bicycle ahead of Melchior’s car.
I can’t count how many times I’ve seen semitrailer hold up four directions of traffic and take up two or three lanes while they slowly try to maneuver their trailers through ordinary city intersections. People calmly wait for them. Sometimes they’ll even back up, so the ass-end of the trailer doesn’t run over them.
Yet they never inspire the kind of homicidal rage that a guy on a bicycle does.
There have been times where I have been following a car that is toodling along the street hoping for a perfect parking space. The speed they go is around 10mph. I am behind said driver, cars then stack up behind me. We go like this for a few blocks until the parking space hunter either finds a space or turns off onto a side street. Then as I tool up to a speed of 15-20mph the car behind me invariably has to PASS ME RIGHT NOW!!! They either end up tailgating me or diving over the double-yellow line into oncoming traffic to get around me. :rolleyes:
What did the bicyclist look like? Let’s see now. He was wearing:
White cowboy boots with red stars up the sides. Check.
Black fishnet stockings. Check.
Vibrant green spandex Racing Thong. Check.
Push up bra with gold tassels. Check.
Sun glasses with Rose colored lenses. Definitely Check.
Black and white checkered Bowler with peacock feather. Check.
Right arm extended holding red lace parasol with black fringe. Check.
Oh, and multicolored streamers attached to each hand grip of the handle bars. Yeah, those too.
I guess we won’t be hearing Melchior’s explanation as to why he thinks bikes should not be on the roads.
Now we just have to wait until Little Pig comes down off of whatever he’s been snorting.