I was standing on a corner in DC the other day, L street, and saw a bike messenger run a red light and slam into the rear side of a car. He splatted on the street and almost knocked over a policeman that was standing right there. The cop helped him up, asked him if he needed an ambulance. When the biker said he was fine, the cop walked him over to the curb and wrote him a ticket for running the stop sign. Then he asked the biker if he had insurance! as he was liable to pay for the dent in the car. Then the cop told the crowd to move along so I didn’t get to see the rest. But the Biker was screaming at the cop by then and I’m sure it didn’t end well for the biker.
I’m all for better infrastructure, but it won’t stop the maniacs. The problem is the purely insane riders won’t stick with the bike lanes anyway. There are a ton of bike couriers around my office and they’ll use any route that will fit their tires. Wrong way down a one-way street? Sure. Flying down the steps of a pedestrian-only terrace? You betcha! Streetcar-only lane? But of course!
In all honesty, I’d say 85% of cyclists are law-abiding riders who are respectful of traffic, 10% are sloppy, and the remaining 5% are so batshit nuts it feels like a Hitchcockian plague of CRAZY swooping down onto the streets. It feels like they are everywhere!
They are also immune to anyone yelling at them. As per NurseCarmen if another cyclist yells at you for being an idiot, you may be taken aback and actually think for a minute. The crazies? Nah. They’ll get off their bike and get in your face or try to stub their cigarette out on your arm. I have seen this happen.
You might be surprised. Please note that I am not defending the actions of all cyclists who behave like assholes. I will just point out that a cyclist sometimes has to choose between an action that is safe, and an action that appears safe to nearby drivers.
Sometimes the cyclist is forced (through lack of appropriate infrastructure) to do things that are both safe and legal, but which startle / terrify nearby drivers. And sometimes the legal option is not safe at all (and vice versa). Situations like this result in increased danger for everyone.
I have no comment on the circumstances in the OP. I just know that there are situations in which I (as a cyclist) have startled/terrified a number of drivers (while doing something perfectly legal, and unsafe only because the driver is not expecting it), where proper bike infrastructure would eliminated the problem (e.g. road markings and a sign saying “Watch for cyclists in this part of the road that is marked.”)
Better infrastructure for people to bike safely would reduce a lot of unsafe situations.
It is hard for me to get behind outrage at cyclists from drivers in the city I live in, because I know that the bike infrastructure here regularly puts cyclists in danger, and they are often forced to take the least unsafe action (because there is no safe option available). I know there are asshole cyclists in this city but there would be a lot fewer if there were decent options for them to get where they need to go safely and efficiently. I promise you, the vast majority of lycra-clad couriers (or whatever cyclist villain is the flavour of the day) would much rather NOT be challenging you and your car for road space.
Also, people who support cyclists (by, for example, asking their elected reps for better bike infrastructure) have a lot more claim to the moral high ground (and will be taken more seriously by cyclists) when they bitch about the inevitable asshole cyclist they encounter.
I’m all for better bicycle infrastructure. Portland is consistently voted one of the best in this regard. But nothing will work unless car and bike drivers obey the law. I regularly see bicyclists run stop signs and red lights, ride on the side walk, ride the wrong way down one-way streets and pull all kinds of other crap.
Thank you, I appreciate this acknowledgment. I am glad that Portland is better set up than Toronto.
I am looking for acknowledgment from drivers that this
is not always true. If I obey the law all the way home, I will end up riding my bike on the Don Valley Parkway. There is another part of the city that’s smack in the middle of a major, legal, marked bike route, where there is simply NO safe and legal option for cyclists.
It would help enormously if non-cyclists joined the movement for bike infrastructure, because we would all benefit from it, drivers and cyclists alike.
Oh, don’t misunderstand, I’m so totally in support of more infrastructure for bikes. My fiancee bikes to work all year, including the rough Canadian winter, and I’d love to do the same (had to get a new bike for the winter). I support any initiative for more infrastructure for bikes and public transit. We don’t drive anywhere within a 10-12 mile radius.
I’m just saying that the very worst offenders are going to be blitzing around enraging people no matter what you do.
I would also like to see more non-car traffic information being taught in driver’s ed courses. Primarily because my mom and aunt are exactly the kind of drivers who are startled/terrified by perfectly legal and safe cycling. As wee lad, I was taught the rules of cycling on the road in school: how to signal a left turn, a right turn, stop etc. And it’s all utterly useless when you consider that tons of people like my mom and aunt are driving with no clue about what those signals mean.
They never had to learn what hand signals meant to get their driver’s licences. When I was driving once, one of them started yelling “AAAH! What’s he doing? What’s he doing? He’s crazy! He’s crazy!!!” when a cyclist needed to make a left turn and was signalling a lane change to move into the left turn lane, then pulled in front of us (perfectly safely), crossed our lane, moved into the one next to us, then patiently waited in line to make his left turn. My aunt or mom (I can’t remember which one was in the passenger seat) was totally freaked out by this “crazy, unpredictable” bike.
When I informally polled some of my co-workers, I was amazed by how few had any idea that there are hand signals for cycling, let alone what those signals looked like.
That happened recently while my girlfriend was driving. She merged onto the DVP and saw a frightened looking woman on a shiny bike. My girlfriend wasn’t able to stop safely, so got off at the next exit and came back around to help the women, but a pick-up truck beat her to it, and got the woman off the highway safely.
What bike route are you referring to that has no safe option? (Well, okay there are tons, but you 're referring to one specifically). Queens Quay?
In a vehicle that did not come with turn signals originally, hand signals are perfectly legal here. Hand signals were test on in the written and on the driving test when I was 16, yeah, 49 years ago but … As a person who rides choppers and old motorcycles, I still use hand signals. All the official ones and all the unofficial ones… 
The highway onramp - it’s not exactly that there is no legal option, just none that isn’t terrifying and (therefore) unsafe - is going eastbound over the Bloor Viaduct. The bike lane is also the on-ramp for the northbound DVP. (You can see it here - while you’re at it, scroll west a little and ask yourself how a cyclist can turn south onto Parliament without scaring drivers.) So you have to change lanes to the left across an on-ramp, working your way between drivers who are accelerating to highway speeds and certainly not looking out for cyclists who are trying to pass to the left. (More information can be found here.)
No safe/legal option - going through Queen’s Park westbound (Wellesley to Hoskin): There is one legal option, which is to quickly cross two lanes to the left, go around the top of the roundabout, and quickly cross two lanes to the right. I have seen cyclists do this but never without terrifying everyone in the vicinity. I consider myself pretty brave and I would never try it (and if I did, I would expect to see myself pitted by the drivers who were surprised to see me do such an apparently stupid and dangerous thing).
The alternative is to go through U of T (which requires going through a pedestrian walkway, with bollards and cobblestones, through a parking lot, and then turning left at an unsignalled intersection), or else through the park (which is always filled with people - once while biking through I got hit in the face with a ball thrown by a playing child).
It is not legal nor safe for cyclists to mix with pedestrians in areas without clear markings.
Going eastbound through Queen’s Park is a different matter - there is a way to do it that is both safe and legal (moving to the middle lane and proceeding through the roundabout like a car), but I often get grief from drivers when I do so. If you make the mistake of following the marked bike lane, you will go south on Queen’s Park Crescent to University Ave whether you want to or not.
(I also once found myself on the ramp from the DVP to O’Connor Drive (hardly a safe place for drivers let alone cyclists). I have no idea how I got there, but I was in unfamiliar territory and following mandated bike routes, so it should not have happened.)
Thanks for your support. I really do appreciate it. I think a lot of anti-cyclist venom comes from people who really don’t want to kill us, but don’t understand that things that might appear dangerous from their cars are often the safest available option for a cyclist. The solution for this is not always to blame the cyclist.
Oh, yeah. That sucks even when you’re in a car! And the added pissy thing about it is that drivers who want to turn right onto Broadview often get fooled by that lane, and will suddenly scoot left when they realize the lane they are in is headed onto the highway.
My pet peeve is that they have this awesome east-west artery, the divided bike lane/activity path, that’s as wide as a street and pretty much hugs the lake front with plenty of activity paths joining it, then right when you get down town where traffic is the heaviest with car commuters pouring off Lakshore and the Gardiner, where you most need a designated and separate bike lane, it pretty much fucks off and leaves you biking on the road in heavy traffic.
Really there is no good way to travel east west in the downtown core that is south of College. My morning commute into the financial district sucks ass.