I Pit the moronic night cyclist....

That reason is well in the minority.

There are two reasons people on bikes ride against traffic:

  1. The most common reason is because they were taught that if they were walking in a road, to walk against traffic. This mindset is then extended to being on a bike, although the advantages of going against traffic are lost when on a bike are lost.

  2. The less common, and in many ways much more inexcusable, is that these folks think they are more in control when they go against traffic. It is at best an illusion, and the collisions that occur with wrong-way riders has perhaps the highest fatality rate.

In my neck of the woods, the predominant reason that folks ride a bike is that they’ve lost their driver’s license. Unfortunately, they use about as much sense riding a bicycle as they did driving a car.

There’s a third: a cop told them to.
Really.

About a year ago, I caused a longboarder to wreck in a way that I’d say was about 1/4 my fault. I was leaving from an unfamiliar area, in an unfamiliar car, and had my left blinker on at a stopsign. The road looked clear for a mile in both directions, and as I pulled out I realized I was about to turn the wrong way. I switched my blinker and made a right turn, just as the longboarder nearly hit my right quarterpanel. I didn’t even see him until he yelled out, “Mother fucker!”, at which time I glanced out my window and noticed him flying by, wearing a dark gray sweatshirt and black pants. Dumbass.

If Og wanted us to bike in dark clothes at night, he wouldn’t have invented this brand:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280220811279&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=018

Good point.

Yup, it seems a pedestrian and bike rider have a better field of view than a driver does, stuck in a little car.

A couple weeks ago, I was in a crosswalk and almost got hit, because it was dark out. I had to remind myself that the driver of the car can’t see as much as I can. (The driver may only be able to see what’s actually in the small light cone, whereas I can see his lights all the way down the street.)

Never assume the other guy is paying attention, either. He may be fiddling with his radio…

1/4? You signaled one direction, then reversed your turn signals and turned in another direction. Did you pass him on the approach to the stop sign?

Has far less to do with field of view than with emitted light. If I’m walking along at night with Xenon high-beams strapped to my chest and back, while you’re driving in a black car with your lights off, who’s going to see whom?

What’s a longboarder?

This is my new favorite euphimism for masturbation.

Skateboarder with a downhill style, longer board. As opposed to a skateboard with a short board designed for tricking. Longboards are more stable.