Even though I’m on a bicycle, I’m still subject to all the same traffic laws that you are, even in your big old minivan (why is it always a minivan?) So, your attempt to wave me through traffic, although motivated by I assume courtesy, instead constitutes a gross display of stupidoty on your part. In fact, let me itemize it for you:
I was at a stop sign. If I were to run it, even though you decided to let me go ahead of you, I would be subject to a ticket just the same as if you had run it. Which would have been very likely because
B) There was a cop car sitting in the opposite intersection from me. I am not about to do something quite as stupid as run a stop sign when there’s a cop car directly in front of me.
III) There was another car directly behind you. I’m sure they were pleased at having to wait while you made that little wavey motion towards me.
Finally, and perhaps most amazingly, there were cars coming in the other lane! If I were to heed your wave, I would have made it about halfway into the other lane and then smooshed by oncoming traffic, and it would have been my fault. Your attempt at courtesy was more like an attempt to murder me. So pardon me, while I don’t move and point at the stop sign beside me to remind you that there are traffic laws.
This happened at the start of my ride too, so I had to seeth about it for the entire time.
As a non-bike-riding, non-driving pedestrian, I’d like to thank you for actually obeying traffic laws on your bike. THe vast majority of bicyclists I see here in Boston (although maybe I’m only noticing the ‘bad eggs’) just breeze on through stoplights and stop signs in an alarming manner that is, occasionally, dangerous to me as a pedestrian and, almost always, dangerous to the bike rider. if you want to ride on the sidewalk (I know this is not the proper way) and ignore traffic laws, fine, but if you’re going to ride in the street like a car, then behave like a car and stop at the light!
Whew. Guess I just had to get that off my chest. Anyway, thanks for being a polite rider, and screw the idiot who’s encouraging you to kill yourself.
Gee, ray; all you had to do was:
[ol][li]Stop at the sign, wave back “Thanks,” and continue on your way.[/li]or
[li]Stop at the sign, wave back “Thanks,” indicate that the other person should go on, and then continue on your way.[/ol][/li]
You know, just like you do in a freaking automobile when someone does the same thing.
Btw, in this town, the police actually ticket bicyclists.
He’s got all sorts of nice reasons for being so courteous but one of these days the drivers behind him are gonna deck him. it’s especially fine when he’s waving people onwards and they are staring at him like he is crazy and the whole traffic flow comes to a standstill.
Ray, you missed the point. The van driver clearly hates cyclists and was trying to get you killed and/or ticketed. Did you see if he had any cyclist “kill” stickers on the side of his van? They’re usually next to the wheelchair kill stickers.
And while we’re at it… let’s talk about the guy zooming down the sidewalk directly at me yesterday. I dive for cover, and he admonishes merrily, “Just keep your trajectory and we’re all cool!”
It is not a natural reaction to keep one’s trajectory when being faced with a hurtling hundredweight of metal.
YOU should not be RIDING your FUCKING BIKE on the SIDEWALK where people are WALKING. FUCK OFF!
I had someone do this to me the other morning- I was attempting to pull into the hospital parking lot (a left hand turn), I put on my signal, then I waited as 2 men (who were deeply engrossed in a conversation) approached the area I was trying to turn into. They were REALLY poking along, and suddenly one of them became aware that I was trying to pull in. They both stop, and 1 of them (while still looking at his friend) starts waving for me to pull in. Unfortunately, he didn’t see the car coming down the street in the opposite direction. When I DIDN’T pull in, he looked at me totally irratated and they kept walking (so I got to wait some more for their pokey asses).
I parked and approached the front of the hospital and one of the guys was out front- he’s a hospital security guard. He looks at me, annoyed, and says “Didn’t you see me waving you??” I replied that when HE is driving , he may turn whenever he likes, even into oncoming traffic, like the kind he waved me into. I, however, would continue to make my turns when they are safe and legal.
And at the opposite end of the scale from the OP, the bitch who drove on the wrong side of the road to pass me and make it to that red light a few seconds quicker Monday afternoon. There’s a parked car a hundred feet in front of her and she has to break the law to be there first.
I’m really confused about this whole idea of ticketing bicyclists. I’ve, uh, seen other people drive through red lights and stop signs on bicycles directly in front of cops many times, and they’ve never batted an eye.
Sometimes you have to run a red on a bicycle, the other day I was waiting at a red light and when it’s turn came to go green, it didn’t. I realised that I hadn’t been heavy enough or something to trip the sensor in the road and the light was never going to go green for me.
Here in the Northern Territory of Australia riding on the footpath is encouraged. Many of the footpaths are technically dual bicycle/pedestrian paths and so you can kind of change from road rules to pedestrian rules as it suits in order to get through intersections, eg get onto the path just before an intersection thats going to be slow and just cross when it’s safe.
No, not if the van had the right-of-way. I HATE when people try to give up their right-of-way to me.
There’s an intersection a block from my house, a cross street of the main drag through the neighborhood and a side street. The traffic on the main road has a stop sign, but the traffic on the side street doesn’t. It is a little odd; you’d expect the side street traffic to have to stop.
Damn if every freaking day when I stop at that intersection, some idiot coming through on the side street stops (when they don’t even have to!) and waves me through.
Sorry, you can sit there and wave at me all day, pal, I’m not budging till you’re gone.
It’s called “right-of-way” for a reason.
No, not if the van had the right-of-way. I HATE when people try to give up their right-of-way to me.
There’s an intersection a block from my house, a cross street of the main drag through the neighborhood and a side street. The traffic on the main road has a stop sign, but the traffic on the side street doesn’t. It is a little odd; you’d expect the side street traffic to have to stop.
Damn if every freaking day when I stop at that intersection, some idiot coming through on the side street stops (when they don’t even have to!) and waves me through.
Sorry, you can sit there and wave at me all day, pal, I’m not budging till you’re gone.
It’s called “right-of-way” for a reason.
I dislike the wavers too, especially ones who are waving you into a dangerous situation. My mom recently witnessed a terrible accident because of it. My mom was second in line to turn left. The light was green with no turn arrow, so the car in front of my mom was waiting in the intersection for a gap in the oncoming traffic so he could turn. There were two lanes oncoming and a car in the right lane stopped (on a green and he was going straight) and waved to the car in front of my mom to go. The car turned and was slammed in the passenger side by a truck in the other oncoming lane.
Of course the waver wasn’t legally responsible. The driver of the car that turned was responsible for making sure the way was clear. But the accident likely would not have happened without the waver.
Dr. Lao - I was in a car accident when I was 11 under similar circumstances. My mom was driving and at a stop sign waiting to turn left. Another car was stopped on the other side of the intersection, and the driver waved my mom to go on and she did - pulling out in front of an oncoming car that did not have to stop. Yeah, it was my mom’s fault, but I think being waved on can just really throw you off.
Anyway, everyone was okay. My mom had to spend some time in the hospital, but it wasn’t life-threatening, just really scary. And in my four years of driving, I’ve never waved someone on and never gone ahead when waved on. (just shake my head no, no, I said NO! You go! YOU! blargh.) Good thread Raygun.
Great thread! I ride a motorcycle, and have the problem someone mentioned of not being heavy enough to turn the signal to green. Most annoying!!! Anyway, being a new rider, I tend to let others go first a lot. But I never trust a waver carte blanche. That can get you killed!
This thread is begging for a mention of the “Pittsburgh Left.” Where I live–perhaps it’s other places, as well, but it seems to mystify most people not from here–cars who are turning left in at a redlight will often turn left AS SOON AS it turns green, even when there are other cars coming straight through. I’m sure tons of accidents have resulted from it, since some people clearly are expecting to excercise their right of way, and aren’t expecting the car on the other side of the street to turn left in front of them.
So, what this has developed into is many cars that actually just sit there and wait if you have your left signal on. They’ll sit there. Forever. Usually, I just take the turn, but my boyfriend will always sit there, even if the guy honks at him. It’s like a big grudge match. We’ve held up entire lines of cars like this–I’m saying “just turn! it’s not a big deal!” and he’ll be ranting on about how the guy should just go straight through the intersection and obey traffic laws, since he has the right of way. Never a dull moment…
Mr. Pug and I were walking in Paris last year, and noticed a truck and a little Peugeot trying to negotiate around each other in one of those tricky little acute-angle Parisian intersections. Mr. Pug, meaning well, tried to step in and signal to them that they had room to make the maneuver; well, they didn’t, and the Peugeot and the truck ground slowly and sickeningly into each other. The two drivers jumped out, and luckily, blamed only each other and got into a protracted Parisian gesture-and-yell altercation while Mr. Pug slinked guiltily away. It cured him of trying to be traffic cop.
