No you don’t. You have to behave in the same way as a car, or a motorbike, or other road user. With a few tiny exceptions, the rules are the same.
That makes me even more 
and :mad: . I did an informal count in my city last summer, and I came up with a count of 37 cyclists on the sidewalk to 3 cyclists on the road. I walk all the time, and I’m scared.
Ha, all of this is because cyclists do whatever the hell they want to with complete disregard for laws and safety (theirs and everyone else’s).
Yes and hell no. We watched a cop watch a cyclist break three laws simultaneously last summer - didn’t bat an eye.
Like
I bike, but I try to stay on residential streets or trails as much as I can. I hate asshole bikers.
[quote=“CatherineZeta, post:2, topic:619371”]
"Thankfully that’s illegal.
If the street is wide enough for both cars and bikes to be side by side there’s no reason for the cyclist to not approach the light and stop at the front. It would be more disruptive of traffic to actually get in line with the cars."
I am a very experienced vehicular cyclist and was an instructor for the Canadian Cycling Association’s CANBIKE program (Cdn equivalent to the US Effective Cycling course) and one thing we teach is to “take the lane” at intersections (in other words go in line with the stopped cars, between them). It does not disrupt traffic and it ensures your visibility. Passing a line of stopped or slower cars (in dense traffic for example) is a good way of accidently getting cut off by a right turning car. This is actually one of the negatives about bike lanes as they encourage passing on the right and, in cities with significant numbers of commuter cyclists, you can see these knots of five or six cyclists clustered at the stop line at intersections - it’s a treat to watch them get going when the light turns green.
I was hit by a bicylist in NYC back in the days when everyone wore suits. Had to get mine drycleaned as it had tire marks on the pants. Guy blew through a red light.
That said, I’d much rather deal with bicycles than cars that zoom through red lights. Especially SUVs with Jersey plates driven by women using their cell phones. I’ve almost been killed by a couple of them over the last several years. In both cases they never saw me (or the red light) until I screamed “RED LIGHT!!” at them. Both gave me dirty looks as if to say their right to drive and speak on the phone was unabridged by any traffic laws.
One of the things I sincerely hope to see before I die is a jerkoff bike rider on a sidewalk crusing up behind an elderly person with a cane and yelling at them to get out of the way.
And the elderly person then sticks the cane in the bike spokes and dumps the rider on his ass.
I’ve seen way too many occurances of the first case and not enough of the second.
This is correct. I recall a few years ago, when Houston was branding itself as a “World Class City”. They put in a few bike lanes on a few roads with the promise of more. After a short time they began removing some of the lanes and not replacing them with alternatives. The lanes they did have were inadequate and generally did not go anywhere or connect with other routes.
If you were able to ride somewhere, the bike facilities were poor to nonexistent. Auto drivers need to be taught and it needs to be reinforced that bikes are vehicles and belong on the road. Bicyclists need to be taught that bikes are vehicles and have to obey the laws, if not they need to be ticketed and treated like bad car drivers.
Sadly, I don’t see this happening. Even as gas prices go up, there is no talk of making it easier for people to ditch their cars and find alternatives to getting around.
Cars pay for the roads. Bicycles don’t. Get a car or get out of my way.
I pay for the roads, not my car. I also ride a bike.
I can support this pitting. Just Wednesday I almost ran one down. I was turning left onto an interstate on-ramp, I got the left turn light, started to turn and this moron on a bike came blasting by the cars in the oncoming (stopped at their light) lane. Fortunately for him, he stopped just in time. I wouldn’t have been able to. I would have been quite happy to add him as my 35th roadkill.
They make clips for that. Cheap.
Yes, but they aren’t as foolproof as rolling up your pant leg. The clips and straps usually work, but not always.
And you assume bicyclists don’t also have cars, buy gas, pay taxes and contribute to the roads in other ways? Sorry, but “screw you, you self entitled arrogant asshole car driver”.
So you need better cops or more traffic cops. Write to the city council rep. and tell them.
In addition, if part of the problem comes from lack of proper bike lanes to ride on in the first place*, tell city council to make some bike lanes. Then the good bikers can follow the laws and the insane rebel ones get tickets.
- This is still hard for me to believe, that you lack such an important part of infrastructure. But then apparently some suburbs don’t have walkways for pedestrians, either…
Taxpayers pay for the roads, and cyclists pay more than their fair share, spare wear on the road surface, and reduce the number of cars, thereby reducing congestion for you. You should be thanking them.
I ride my bike in the summer, and I can get behind most of the bitching in this thread. So many cyclists do seem to be trying to give the rest a bad name. I don’t ride on the sidewalk or run red lights and I always where a helmet and have reflectors and lights on when needed. The idea of texting or listening to music while riding sounds crazy to me (although texting while driving is undoubtedly a bigger problem). I was hit once (as a pedestrian) by a guy riding on the sidewalk, and it really hurt and pissed me off, so I do get it.
But, having said all that, I wish some drivers weren’t such assholes about sharing the road with bikers and pedestrians. I’ve had a few close calls, and almost without exception they’ve been due to drivers acting unpredictably. Changing lanes without signalling seems to be a favourite, but there’s also turning left without signalling or slowing down (when I’m coming into the intersection from the other direction, on a green light), and throwing the car door open without even a glance back to see if a bike is there.
Of course most drivers are fine, but most cyclists are also fine. It annoys me that an encounter with a bad driver usually just makes someone angry at that specific driver, but an encounter with a bad cyclist often makes people curse all cyclists everywhere.
Where helmet? There helmet!
The thing that’s either - depending on your perspective - funny or makes you sad about the human species is* that here in Europe, most people are more than one:
they drive a car AND walk on foot AND often ride a bike**
and still complain about how those pedestrians and bikers are so careless while the car drivers are considerate and pay attention (when driving a car)
how those same car drivers and pedestrians are so neglient and respectless while the bikers all obey the traffic laws (when riding a bike)
how those same bikers and car drivers are all careless and always ignore the poor pedestrians, who never cross the street wrongly (when walking on foot)
yet never notice any discrepancy in the complaints.
*similar to how everybody believes themselves to be a good and safe car driver, but everybody else to be a bad, careless driver, although it’s mathematically impossible
** obvisouly not simoultaneously, but consecutivly.
That’s How it Works. That’s exactly how minority-group perceptions operate.
Ha! Oops, I even read that over and everything. I swear, I know the difference between where and wear!
And the answer to “Where helmet?” is clearly “on head helmet”.
Yes we do. Once we head into full biking season here, I plan to make a report every time I see a cyclist on the sidewalk. I’ll be making A LOT of reports. 
In my opinion and experience, Calgary is a very car-oriented city (we make our money in oil & gas, after all). Pedestrians are very much an after-thought here.
ETA: About my hatred for cyclists - it has been well-earned. Cyclists can’t get all self-righteous when so many of them are acting so badly.