I haven’t said that it isn’t. I’m not saying that anyone should take unnecessary risks. But if part of your regular bicycle route requires you to regularly take the lane, then you shouldn’t be riding a bicycle down that route. I don’t have any beef with doing this when it’s unavoidable. But if you know there’s not enough space on the shoulder of a particular road, and you ride your bike there anyway, it’s not exactly unavoidable, is it?
I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to. None of the roads between my apartment and work have paved shoulders or bike lanes.
You cannot have this discussion without acknowleding – and accepting – the legal rights of bicyclists to use the roadways. If someone is ABIDING BY THE FUCKING LAW, they are NOT being an asshole. Period. You can call them an asshole all you want, but that doesn’t make them an asshole.
It has everything to do with the fucking thread, your protestations to the contratry notwithstanding.
I made a list of ways drivers in general are “inconveniencing” bicyclists by some of their behavior on the road. The fact that I used examples that are actually illegal, actually makes my point (stay with me here) fucking relevant. It matters not one whit whether anyone in this thread has admitted to such driving behavior, it only matters that if you want to restrict the use of roadways based solely on the concept of “inconvenience,” I actually have a stronger case against car drivers than car drivers have against bicyclists – at least bicyclists acting in the way they’re describing in this thread – you know, legally using the lane when necessary.
Which, I remind you, has nothingwhatsofuckingever to do with the point of the Original poster, who was decrying the illegal behavior of bicyclists riding two abreast in the roadways, when there was apparently no obvious obstruction or safety reason why that would’ve been necessary (seeing as how at least one of them was safely riding along the far right), with whom I agreed.
Bull. Shit. You are simply wrong. The law says we are all as entitled to use the roadways as each other, and that faster-moving vehicles are required to watch for slower-moving vehicles and make the appropriate accomodations, like slowing down, passing on the left, or merging in behind them to turn right. PERIOD. What you feel is fucking irrelevant.
Why should we give a shit about your personal beefs on the matter? Bicyclists are ALLOWED TO RIDE ON STREETS – wait for it – whether there’s a shoulder or not, whether there’s a bike lane or not, whether it’s wide enough for them and a car to share side-by-side or not. Get over it.
I have NEVER seen a Freeway in CA where it’s legal to take a bicycle- and I have driven all over this State for 30+ years. I have *heard * there are certain short stretches where they are allowed on the shoulder as the Freeway is the only bridge, etc.
However, in CA you can be ticketed for impeding traffic even if you are going exactly the legal speed limit (this assumes everyone else is going faster).In many areas they even have signs “slower traffic keep right”. Generally, it’s only enforced IF the vehicle has several vehicles piled up behind him and has passed turnouts. There’s even a special Code section about the number of vehicles, but they can just ticket you for general “impeding traffic”. Thus, if you ARE “impeding traffic” you are not “obeying the law”. Of course, a LOT of “facts & circumstances” go into a general “impeding traffic” citation.
In general- I’d say a bicyclist would be wrong for “taking a lane”, but there are exceptions. Personal safety is paramount.
But- back to the OP; spitting on a car is just plain stupid- Darwinian stupid.
If 99.99% of the people on the road are travelling within certain speeds and you are travelling regularly at less than half that speed and thus hindering other traffic then you are an asshole regardless if you have the right to be there or not. I am not talking about combines that occasionally use the road or other such vehicles, but people who on a regular basis deliberately get on the road knowing that by their actions they will be doing something that inconveniences others. I’m talking about the guy who uses a main route when there are alternate routes that would be safer for all concerned. You can get almost anywhere in the city I live in by residential side streets rather than main routes with higher speeds. I’d take the side streets all the time if I choose to ride to work. It only makes sense to do so.
Ladies and gentlemen, the dumbest thing I have ever read.
You miss my point. Or perhaps you illustrate it.
The contradiction between what you point out and what I say largely derives from a high degree of cognitive dissonance in drivers minds for which I am not responsible. Sure, drivers complain about traffic in a generalised kind of way. “The traffic’s really bad.” “Someone should do something about the traffic.” Common enough.
But when was the last time you heard a driver say other drivers should get off the road so that the road would be clear for them? That would of course do more to improve traffic flow for them than getting rid of a handful of cyclists. But it is never a thought that enters drivers minds, for obvious reasons.
You’ve obviously never been in a car with me, going 15 mph behind a 92-year-old.
And guess what I’ve done a half dozen times in this thread?
Are you retarded? I’m serious, here, because I don’t know if I’ve ever read something this stupid on the internet before.
No, it doesn’t, you hysterical moron. Nothing in this thread, from the OP on down, has been about unsafe driving. I know you’re desperate to paint yourself as some sort of oppressed bicycle minority, or some shit, but it’s not going to fly. No one is arguing that drivers should not respect the safety of bicyclists. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with this thread.
No, it’s entirely fucking irrelevant, because nobody in this thread has said any of that shit is okay! Got that, princess? On the other hand, people are saying that riding your bike at half the flow of traffic in the middle of the street is totally hunk-dory. Yes, I know it’s legal. Lots of shit is legal, while still being rude, stupid, or even immoral. Is that clear yet, or do I need to explain it again? Would a diagram help?
I KNOW IT’S LEGAL! You are allowed to ride in the middle of the street! I’ve never said otherwise! NOBODY has said otherwise! THAT’S NOT THE FUCKING POINT! The point is that it is rude to obstruct traffic if you don’t have to, and if your regular bike commute means that you frequently have to obstruct traffic, then you’re being fucking rude! This isn’t about the law, it’s about showing courtesy to other people on the road! How fucking dumb do you have to be to not get that by this point?
Or with my dad, on any road, in any amount of traffic. I’ve actually heard him say, “Where the hell are all of these assholes going on Christmas morning?”
And exactly the same logic dictates that you should never use your car except when absolutely necessary. A very logical point which has been made several times in this thread but which the motorists in this debate are doing their best to ignore.
[quote]
And before someone busts out with another idiotic tu quoque, yes, I have to be on the road. I need to get to work, so I can get paid, so I don’t fuckin’ starve to death. And the only way for me to get to work, is by car. I don’t have a choice in the matter. You do, and you’re choosing to do so in a way that you know inconveniences and pisses off other people, you just don’t care. And drivers are the ones with the sense of self-entitlement? Like hell. [q/uote]
But of course you never use your car except for essential purposes? Like hell.
I need to get to work, so I can get paid, so I don’t fuckin’ starve to death. Furthermore, by being on a bike, I don’t hold up the traffic at rush hour as much as I would if I was adding to the queues of traffic. Lucky drivers, eh?
And again, I don’t mind sharing the road with cars so long as there arent’ too many of them and they start to clog. Which, on many streets, particularly in the outer suburbs, they can do with no problem. But if it’s too much to expect some common courtesy from you on the streets where there isn’t room for you, I guess I’ll have to take your advice and see what I can do about making it illegal for them to ride on the street at all.
Fine, call us assholes. That’s the only thing you can do about it, really.
Unless you are a cyclist, you aren’t in a position to say which routes are safer and/or more practical. For example, a moderately busy 2-lane residential street can be dangerous because drivers try to squeeze past bicycles, without waiting for a break in oncoming traffic. If there is an alternative 4-lane highway, that may be a better option overall because cars can safely use the passing lane to pass the bike. You wouldn’t necessarily know about such factors if you never ride a bike.
Amen to that. Your entitlement attitude is so heavily ingrained, you don’t even know you have it, which causes you to carry on like a fuckwit standing in a glass house hurling rocks by the handful.
Every time we have one of these debates people like you will come out with statements about how cyclists endanger others, yet the statistics show that it is absolute and utter bullshit. Motorists and cyclists (when it comes to danger) are not flipsides of a coin. If there’s an accident, cyclists die and motorists maybe, you know, at worst feel a bit bad at having killed someone. Delusional thinking indeed.
Princhester, when I’m driving during rush hour, I, personally, am not holding up anyone. It’s the aggregate of everyone using the roads at the same time that slows up traffic. Remove any one driver from the equation, and traffic does not lighten up at all. When one person is riding a bike in the middle of a lane, that one person is holding up traffic for everyone. Remove that one person, and traffic moves much faster. Surely you can see the difference between the two situations.
Can the bike riders and drivers at least come together on this?
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A winding, narrow two-lane road, with lousy visibility for passing, no sidewalks, and narrow rough shoulders.
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A cyclist taking the lane to avoid the debris at the crumbling edges of the pavement.
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A patient, polite driver who upon coming up behind the cyclist keeps a couple of carlengths back, at the cyclist’s speed, with no horn-honking, gestures, curses, or other manifestations of indignance.
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A mile or more of such travel, with cyclist and driver aware that no safe passing places are anywhere near being reached.
Would it be asking too much for the cyclist in those circumstances to pull off the road and halt for the handful of seconds it would take to let the patient, polite driver pass? If that’s too much to ask, when the driver is at last able to get past safely, going slowly and allowing several feet of distance between vehicle and cyclist, would it be too much to hope that the bike rider might respond to the driver’s looking over to be sure the cyclist’s being cleared safely with an appreciative smile and wave, rather than a contemptuous glare?
Christ on a unicycle, riders, do you really want to piss off the people trying their damnedest to avoid hurting you?
And you miss my point too. I’m talking about other drivers who are inconveniencing you simply by being on the road so that they (like you) are causing heavy traffic.
No, I was simply using an analogy that is, you know, actually appropriate.
Yo, DrDeth, I resent the incorrect use of attributing that entire quote to me, as if I stated the first part as part of my opinion, when in fact, that portion came directly from the California Driver Handbook.
Not only did you misattribute and misquote the part you’re responding to here, you obviously didn’t fully read it, or perhaps didn’t comprehend it, I can’t tell. I’ll give it to you again, this time with only the relevant part highlighted:
I’ve never seen a posted sign here, either, but that is completely and utterly irrelevant to the POINT, which is, again, where it’s legal for bicycles to use the roadways, those who do so within the bounds of the rules of the road are not being assholes.
Yes, and I’ll say it again, as I did in my very first post in this thread
If a cyclist is impeding a long line of traffic, or riding down the center of the lane when there are no obvious obstructions or safety reasons not to move over when there’s a posted sign indicating “slower traffic keep right,” then, just like a car driver, the bicycle rider should be ticketed, too. Holy smokes – whaddaya know, I’ve been consistent throughout this thread. EVERYONE needs to abide by the rules of the road. Bicyclists need to stop at stop signs (and I rarely ever see any of them do this in my neighborhood and it pisses me the fuck right off); they need to abide all signage; such as “slower traffic keep right,” and “yield,” etc., etc., etc.
And car/truck drivers have an equal obligation to abide all the rules of the road, which include making certain allowances and/or maneuvers to accomodate bicycles. It is really that simple. Why this concept is so hard to grasp for such otherwise intelligent people is beyond me.
I don’t know about other cyclists, but I’ve already stated that
[ul]
[li]I would try not to get into that situation in the first place, by avoiding 2-lane roads which I know to be crowded.[/li][li]If I do end up blocking cars for more than a couple of minutes, I will pull over to let them pass.[/li][/ul]
I don’t want to annoy or offend anybody. But as I said earlier, that’s a secondary concern. If the choice is between annoying someone or ensuring my own safety, I will choose the latter.
You are illustrating my point beautifully. It’s not me it’s everyone. And everyone is comprised of me and me and me. And it’s not my fault it’s their fault.
Oh yes it does. Not much, but it does. Each driver plays his part. Miller, you’re smarter than to try to argue that no element of a whole contributes to the whole because the whole would mostly still be there if you took one element away.
It depends on the situation. Particularly in heavy traffic, the cyclists will slow down the motorists for the short period while people are passing. Once past, the motorists will speed up to join onto the back of the queue of cars ahead of the cyclist, and their net loss of time is nil. But the loss of time caused by each car ahead of them in the queue is small but real.
And outside of heavy traffic, there’s usually plenty of room to pass cyclists without slowing down much at all.