So you freakin moron, you think it’s wise to turn left in front of me while I’m waiting for the car in front of me to turn and there is oncoming traffic as well. Luckily I was semi-alert having just had my coffee and didn’t turn you into a puddle of blood and twisted metal. What is it with people that they think riding a bike means you can ignore not only the rules of the road, but the laws of physics? What kills me is that he was probably a liberal, pro-Obama, pro-mass transit dude. I don’t want fuckers like you on my side! At least put a Nader sticker on your messenger bag so I can hate you completely.
Semi-Alert?
Fucking bicyclist?
ETA:
Seriously, though, what an idiot. Whether he’s getting any or not is irrelevant, because he will soon be a greasemark if he rides like that.
Are you me?
Luckily I only travel through downtown once a day, but I still see my share of messengers who not only ignore the red lights, but seem oblivious that there’s even an intersection. I can’t tell you how many times my light turns green (which means the other light has been red for at least three full seconds (sometimes even longer since the walk sign shows up first for a few seconds first) and as soon as I hit they gas…hey, there’s a guy on my bike right in front of me. What’s worse is honking or yelling* at him doesn’t seem to get any response what so ever as he’s either oblivious or blatantly ignoring me.
As far as I’m concerned, the cops ought to be ticketing them just as if they were cars.
*yes, I will yell obscenities at them from time to time, not every single time, but after a while I get fed up with them and it feels good to roll down my window and yell “Watch the fucking road asshole.”
If you can get arrested for DUI on a bike, you should be vulnerable to all other laws as well.
They are. One of the problems is that they don’t have license plates so it’s hard to report them to the police.
Whereas if you see a dangerous car driver and report the license plate number to the police, they’ll do - what?
If someone’s cycling really dangerously, there’s no point in gnashing your teeth over whether you can sic law enforcement on them. Natural consequences will do the job much more thouroughly…
I’ve nothing but anecdotal evidence, but my older brother called to report what appeared to be a drunk driver (car was driving very erratically), the police had a patrol car in the area sent over to check it out. Sure enough, the guy was arrested for DUI.
Yes, but probably at the cost of involving an innocent driver who will be saddled with the psychological trauma of having killed the jerk although it was entirely the jerk’s fault.
As posters here know from previous bicycle threads, I’m very harsh on drivers who vilify, or worse, endanger cyclists who are obeying traffic laws. But I have pretty much zero sympathy for cyclists who think they’re entitled to run red lights and turn left against the light in front of traffic and do all the other things that asshole bicyclists do. They are making the roads more dangerous and hostile for everybody, and all for what? To save two minutes as they race around town. Fuck 'em, and I hope they all get flat tires, sunburn, and hemorrhoids. Simultaneously.
The idiots get hit & it’s the driver of the bigger vehicles fault. Joggers too. They both cruise around on busy roads wearing dark clothing in low light situations. Bicycles should have the same lighting requirements as motorcycles.
You should get points for running their dumb asses over
Outside my complex, there is a hill with a stop sign at the bottom of it. In order to come from my old office home, I would have to stop at the sign and then drive up the hill. There is a road off to the side that comes in at an angle (it’s a Y shaped intersection, not a T) and this road does not have a stop sign.
Soon, the bicycle people in their Lance Armstrong costumes will be out. They will ride down this hill in both lanes, and will not even pause at the stop sign or look for cars coming out of the other road. One day, someone coming from the arm of the Y that doesn’t have a stop sign is going to cream one of these morons.
And the survivors will blame the driver.
Cyclists like the one in the OP piss me off to no end. They fan the flames of hostility toward cyclists and that affects those of us who ride safely. They also make the road more dangerous for everyone. Eg/ Stupid-ass courier whose weaving made a car take evasive action and nearly kill me. I also don’t need trauma of seeing someone get smushed on the pavement, thankskindly.
I wish there was a way to licence bikes (with size requirements so that children’s bikes would be exempt, assuming they wouldn’t be riding on busy roads without a licenced adult), but I’m at a loss of figuring out how it could be managed.
Not always. A few times around here, aside from the emotional trauma, some drivers have not at all been charged or considered at fault by the police when there’s been obvious cyclist negligence. Some guy was killed not far from my house, and all witnesses (there were several) said he suddenly made a left turn from the right lane, with cars in both lanes next to him. If not the right lane car, the left lane car would have hit him without question.
I am also in favor of more bike lanes. around here hardly any of the overpasses have a pedestrian or bike lane. There have been 5 deaths in recent years. All kids but one. This could be a state or federal law that any overpass undergoing major improvements would have to have a pedestrian/bike lane added.
This is more deaths in this area than were perpetuated by gun violence.
Correcting my last post: I misremembered because there was another fatality (in which a woman obliviously flung open her car door and knocked a cyclist into the path of a truck). The idiot cyclist I mentioned above actually lived, although initial reports, based on copious amounts of blood at the scene, said he died.
I have actually had this happen. If it had occurred whilst there was a vehicle behind me, I’d likely be dead now.
I’m in favor of a law making it legal to check, clothesline, face-punch, spoke-spear* or otherwise violently disrupt bicyclists who insist on riding on the sidewalk.
- quickly jamming a rod or stick into the spokes of a bicycle’s front wheel, thus enabling the rider to flip over the handlebars and land painfully on his face.
Every day it is above 20F I commute by bike (Yes, I’m a cold weather sissy, what’s it to ya?). So I put a lot of miles a year on my bike. I have taken to yelling at them, and I wish more bikers would yell at these morons. It is amazing the reactions I get when I yell at them not only from the bikers, but the drivers. Only once has the person I yelled at been at all confrontational, they tend to know that they are in the wrong. They seem to be deaf to drivers yelling at them, but are a bit taken aback when a biker does. But the people in the cars look at me like they have a new hero. If drivers respect the bikers everyone’s lives will be easier. And the bikers being asswipes aren’t helping matters. Speak up fellow bikers.
Shit like what happens in the OP is the reason I regularly ask my elected representatives, at all levels of government, during and between campaigns, for more and better infrastructure for people to cycle safely in the city. This way cyclists can get where they need to go without having to interact with drivers at every intersection, because that clearly makes things much more dangerous for everyone.
Who’s with me?
Sorry, but you pedestrians are usually too wrapped up in your own little world to be able to do something that required quick reactions!