# Dear Deeply Misguided Bicycle Riding Bitch **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 2, 2008, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010 "2008-07-02T04:46:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/61 "2008-07-07T16:07:33Z")
[QUOTE=jacquilynne] Behind whichever car they are behind when traffic comes to a stop, in front of whichever care is behind them when traffic comes to a stop. [/QUOTE] This doesn’t make any sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/62 "2008-07-07T16:18:02Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] This doesn’t make any sense to me. [/QUOTE] I think she(?) means just once traffic stops, stop where you are. Which seems insane to me, and other than when a serious biker is riding _in_ traffic and needs to make a left turn, I’ve never seen it done. Also, most bicyclists aren’t particularly slow taking off: I’m almost always moving before the car I’m stopped next to. I’m sure the riders around you appreciate (absolutely very much, no sarcasm intended) your careful passing. That does not mean I’m going to delay my journey so that you don’t need to pass me repeatedly. Most people on bicycles know the risks perfectly well and accept them as fact\*. Yes, there’s a certain element of danger to it - but I still need to get where I’m going, and I’m going to do it as quickly as possible, even if it means you are for whatever reason uncomfortable. \*Hell, sometimes being aware of the risks makes riding even more fun. You don’t get adrenaline rushes like that in a car! ---
**Author:** ![Santo\_Rugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/63 "2008-07-07T16:30:17Z")
[QUOTE=jacquilynne] \So riding up beside the line of cars and forcing them all to pass you again and again just increases the chances that you’ll eventually get sideswiped. [/QUOTE] If it’s not you passing me, say, 5 times, then it’s five other cars passing me once each, so it’s not increasing the chances of anything. > [@](#): > > Not to mention the fact that you just rode up on the right means you’re now in my way if I try to turn right on the red, or even, since cyclists are slow getting started, if I try to turn right once the light turns green, and I can’t take what should have been my right of way to turn right in the first place, but magically isn’t, because the cyclist decided to jump the line. If you’re first in line, you’d be turning right on red, and you could just go in front of the cyclist. If you were second or farther back in line, the cyclist will be out of your way by the time you’re ready to turn. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/64 "2008-07-07T16:55:15Z")
I’m not Lance Armstrong by any means, but I usually beat the cars next to me to the middle of the intersection, if not all the way across. If I see your right turn signal on, I will stop behind you, so that you can make the right on red. If you don’t have your TS on, be aware that I don’t ride with a crystal ball. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/65 "2008-07-07T17:37:51Z")
The reason I get in drivers’ way so much is because there is often no place else for me to go. The city streets were designed to manage congestion, so traffic is channeled onto major streets. As a result I am regularly faced with choices like: either make an unsignalled left turn from one major street onto another (overtop of streetcar tracks), or go the wrong way up a 1-way street and cross at the crosswalk. Navigate an intersection gridlocked with traffic (I know that every gridlocked driver loves cyclists coming up from behind them!) or turn right at a no-right-turn corner. Ride on a sidewalk and cross at a pedestrian crossing (where traffic never stops for me, even if I’m standing beside (not atop) my bike), or cross two lanes of traffic at high speed and then cross them back again in under 500 metres. (Please note: the last example is faced by everyone who uses the only major east-west bike lane through the city.) In each of these cases (and countless more), either choice I make is going to earn me the ire of drivers. Sometimes I just can’t win. It seems to me that drivers who hate sharing the roads with cyclists should be the strongest of advocates for bike infrastructure, such as physically-separated and signalled dedicated bike paths. Give us a place to ride safely and we will most certainly use it. But I go to a lot of bike advocacy meetings, and I never see drivers there. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/66 "2008-07-07T19:15:04Z")
Generally, if I’m riding for exercise, I go to a designated path (like those ones that are made along old train tracks and such) that have no car traffic on them at all, and specific bike/pedestrian rules. If I’m riding in an area with streets, it’s probably not for very far and not very fast. I.e. riding down to the local pool a mile away. It will generally be in a predominantly residential area, and depending on what the traffic is like I’ll either ride in the road or on the sidewalk. If there are pedestrians on the sidewalk, I won’t ride there. If there aren’t, I will. If I am on the sidewalk and I see a pedestrian up ahead, I’ll move to the road until I’m past them. I’m generally riding quite slowly and I pay a ridiculous level of attention to all the driveways that I cross over and am always looking behind me to make sure that I know if there are cars coming. I feel safer riding on the sidewalk [again: NOT with pedestrians] than I do in the street because of the cars, the narrow roads, and the condition of the roads. I only ride in the road if there either is no sidewalk or there are pedestrians on the sidewalk, or if there are likely to be no cars (some of the deeper-in residential streets are typically deserted and I feel safe riding on those, for example). Where I live, this isn’t a problem. I’m not in a metropolitan area with tons of pedestrians _or_ cars. All the roads I ride on are 25mph for cars, and as I stated before, I ride slowly. If I were in a city, it would be different. If I were riding fast, it would be different. As it is, anybody who watches me ride as I do now and says what I am doing is unsafe? Is an idiot. Is it technically against the law? Depends on where you live. But in a lot of areas, oral sex is also technically against the law. ---
**Author:** ![jacquilynne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jacquilynne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacquilynne)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/67 "2008-07-07T20:39:20Z")
[QUOTE=cowgirl] It seems to me that drivers who hate sharing the roads with cyclists should be the strongest of advocates for bike infrastructure, such as physically-separated and signalled dedicated bike paths. Give us a place to ride safely and we will most certainly use it. [/QUOTE] We’re too selfish to care 😉 We’d rather you just got off our roads, we don’t care where you go. I’ve often wondered about allowing cyclists to use the (above ground) dedicated streetcar lanes in downtown Toronto (where I presume you are, though there are a couple other cities in Canuckistan with streetcars). It seems like in the places where they have them, they’d be relatively safe, you could pass one streetcar as long as there wasn’t another one coming in the other direction, and riding between the tracks probably causes you to ride across the same number of, if not fewer, tracks than riding in the other lanes. You could easily get in and out of them at intersections that cross them. There might be a totally obvious reason I’m missing that makes this screamingly dumb, of course (possibly the passing thing is much harder than I imagine it to be). ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/68 "2008-07-07T20:53:34Z")
When on a bicycle you have to cross rail tracks at a large angle. If you are going in the same direction as the tracks and try to make a lane change, most likely your tire will fall into the tracks and you can’t get out without stopping and lifting your bike out. Ask me how I know this. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/69 "2008-07-10T02:52:36Z")
[What happens when a driver thinks bikes don’t belong on the road.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=9985992#post9985992) ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/70 "2008-07-10T10:53:56Z")
I thought this was a relevant quote from **[this article](http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article4304006.ece)** in The Times! > [@](#): > > But, as all cyclists know, tiny details can mean life or death on our frenetic roads. A pothole at the wrong moment, a smashed bottle, the door of a parked car contemptuously flung open, a driver misjudging his left turn, a lorry forgetting that his wing mirror protrudes at the height of a cyclist’s head - any of these spell disaster on a bike. And disasters happen every day. Last year 136 cyclists were killed on Britain’s roads, and 2,428 seriously injured. The number of motorists and pedestrians killed by cyclists in the same period? One. > > That doesn’t excuse aggressive behaviour. But it does explain why cyclists feel proprietorial about that vital metre between the kerb and the passing truck. And it also explains why cyclists so dislike being forced to share space with cars travelling at twice their speed. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010/71 "2008-07-11T01:43:44Z")
I fully support bicycles as transportation and think they have just as many rights as cars, but there are a surprising number of asshole bicyclists who refuse to follow traffic laws. There was an incident in Portland yesterday that illustrates the fucked-up attitude of some bicyclists: > [@](#): > > Colin Yates, 47, was driving with his wife and two teenagers in his family’s green Subaru Legacy when he saw a bicyclist pass him on the left and blow through a stoplight… Yates honked his horn, leaned out his window, and chided the bicyclist for making other cyclists look bad. Yates, a self-described bike advocate for more than 30 years, told the bicyclist that he was a responsible bike rider who gets upset when he sees fellow riders disobeying traffic signals… Yates said McAtee picked up his bike and wielded it like a weapon, smashing it against the Subaru’s hood and windshield. Yates stepped from his car and told McAtee to back off. > > McAtee turned on Yates. He lifted his bike above his shoulders and struck Yates with it, Yates said. Yates tried to use his hands to block the blows and then ducked back into his car and attempted to leave. But McAtee got in front of the Subaru and repeatedly struck the vehicle with his bike, Yates said. Yates stepped from his car again and was struck five to seven more times with McAtee’s bicycle, police reports say. Note that the car driver was “a self-described bike advocate for more than 30 years”. Really people, start behaving or the backlash against bicycles is going to be huge. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-deeply-misguided-bicycle-riding-bitch/455010.md?page=3)