Just wanted to point out that here, Australia and Britain car owners pay road tax with their registration fee and a large percentage of petrol is taxed for roads. That would mean that car road users pay way more than bike road users. How about the US?
And thank you for being considerate. But my own experience with cyclists locally is often not so pleasant. It’s not as if they’d have to wait for an endless stream of cars to go by, either – most of the local roads are sparsely traveled, with no one backing up behind me, yet still many of the cyclists I overtake can’t be arsed to pull over no matter how long I’m lurking behind them nor how patiently and courteously I wait for a chance to get by without endangering them.
Heck, your concerns about dangerous drivers are legitimate; I gave up bike riding for pleasure around here because too many of the drivers are oblivious assholes (and don’t get me started on reckless vehicular stupidity around ridden horses! :mad: !), but one would think cyclists, being so keenly aware of their disadvantage vis-a-vis motor vehicles, would at least try to make drivers’ lives easier when it takes so little effort.
By the way, a local cyclist group works closely with the local horsefolks’ trails group to educate each side about the others’ issues, on and off-road, to both parties’ benefit. Would that the average driver had the same willingness to understand why it’s less than advisable to zoom past inches away from a 1000-pound animal with prey-animal reactions to scary stuff and the ability to leap several feet sideways in a heartbeat.
And you honestly believe that for them to ride side-by-side makes them SAFER? I suppose it makes the inboard rider safe, but the outboard rider is at far greater risk than if they were properly riding single file. If you really believe that they’re safer riding side-by-side, we really have no basis for any sane conversation.
Yup, that’s a very accurate portrayal of those assholes on their bikes, thanks for agreeing with me.
At least in the US, car registration and petrol (gas) tax is not enough to maintain all the roads. Taxes from other sources are used to supplement them. I think that’s the case for most countries.
But cars need more than just roads and road maintenance. There’s also the cost of law enforcement on the roads, parking space for public and government buildings, all the undesirable effects of urban sprawl, and cost to the health care system from automobile accidents, pollution (smog) and lack of excercise. And arguably, the environmental cost from oil drilling, and the cost of military operations necessary to guarantee a supply of oil.
This really pisses me off. This may apply to a lot of people that you encounter, but it most certainly does NOT apply to me, the OP.
I apply the exact same standard to people on bikes as I do to people in cars: if you are being considerate, I’ll return the same. If you are not obviously being stupid, I’ll cut you some slack, if needed. If you are obeying the law and operating your vehicle in a reasonably safe manner, I’ll respect you and your right to be there.
But if you are obviously an inconsiderate, self-centered asshole, you’ll get no respect and no tolerance from me. The driver of a car who stays to the far right on the freeway entrance during bumper-to-bumer traffic so that he can merge in as far ahead as possible is bieng an inconsiderate, self-centered asshole, and if I am in a position to do so I will not make room for him to get in ahead of me. That other driver who needs to merge across in order to exit, I will happily slow down and let in.
A pair of bikers riding single file on a narrow street, I will gladly slow down for. The assholes who insist on ridiing side-by-side for no fucking good reason, get my ire and my horn.
Even though that wasn’t directed at me, I’m compelled to put forth my views once again: I happily show courtesy to and respect the legal rights of bikers, as long as they do the same to me. The two bozos from the OP started out, by riding side-by-side, showing no respect to ANY of the cars on the road, so why should I show them respect?
The point has nothing to do with me being at all inconvenienced. My complaint was not and is not that I had to turn the steering wheel of my car a bit.
My complaint, repeated yet again, is that the bikers were simply being rude, inconsiderate, and self-centered. It pisses me off to see people doing that. Is that really a hard concept for you to grasp?
Well, by pointing it out maybe people who do such things will take a look at their actions and change things accordingly.
I do ride a bike, but not to commute. Because of this I know where the bike paths are. You circumstances may differ than mine. But if someone is driving down a 5 lane highway when a bike path runs right along beside it just because they don’t want to go at the 20km/hour on the bike path and by doing so make many others have to slow down to their speed on the main thoroughfare, then I think they are assholes.
Hey Shayna: You’re ugly.
Damn, I was a real asshole for saying that. No, waitaminute, calling someone ugly isn’t illegal, so I was abiding by the law. So I guess I wasn’t being an asshole after all . . .
Ok, one more reply to something not directed at me: In my case, this is a failed analogy. I never said those assholes should get off the road, only that they should be considerate of the other vehicles on said road and show a willingness to SHARE the road, rather than showing the obvious desire to OWN the road. It was THEY, the bikers, who clearly demonstrated their desire for the cars to get off the road so that they (the bikers) wouldn’t be interfered with.
Why on earth would you feel compelled to address this in response to me, when I clearly, multiple times in this very thread, have agreed with you 100% regarding the situation described in your OP?
[
](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7039825&postcount=10) [
](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7042978&postcount=98) And then you post this?
It should be obvious to anyone with more than 2 brain cells to rub together that I was referring to to the specific case of bicycles legally using the roadways, as that’s what we’re discussing in this thread.
What the hell is the matter with you people?
I’m outta here. I have better things to do with my life. I think I’ll go get on my bike and ride on the damn roads just to piss off all you self-centered assholes.
Huh. I’ll go on record here as saying that I do not think bikes ought to be able to legally share the road with cars (at least, not roads with a higher speed limit.) It’s fundamentally unsafe. It seems to me that the addition of a few pounds of bike frame to an essentially unprotected human body is poor qualification for the term “vehicle.” On a higher-speed-limit road, it’s pretty much the same as saying that traffic has to wait behind a couple strolling down the lane.
I was recently coming down the Scenic Highway off Lookout Mountain (in Chattanooga, TN) behind a road biker. I was giving him lots of room, but his behavior was, simply put, unsafe. He was shredding road, taking the lane, leaning waaaay into sharp curves. I kept thinking, “If this guy leans too far and lays the bike down, he’s a dead man. He’s going to slide right into the oncoming lane, and some soccer mom is going to be wearing him on the undercarriage of her minivan.” You know whose fault it would be? His. He created the dangerous situation.
By the same token, I think that there should be alternate bikeways separate from, perhaps parallelling the road, but faster roads belong to automobiles, and bikers should not have the right to slow me down. Period.
Get them off the road, and nobody dies.
See what I mean? The very reasonable OP aside, look at the hatred expressed for law-abiding bicyclists in this thread. Where does this come from?
Look. The vast majority of the time, a bicyclist in the roadway is either no inconvenience or a very minor one. You lose a couple of seconds in manoeuvering around the obstacle without commiting murder or grievous bodily harm. Sorry about that. Try to remember that we’re averaging about 10 mph on our journey, and for every bicyclist you have do deal with, each bicyclist has to deal with four zillion cars and a buttload of buses. We can do it safely even on high-speed-limit roads if everyone obeys the rules of the road.
Perhaps it is discourteous of us to slow you down. If you would give us a viable alternative (long-distance dedicated bicycle highways?), I for one would be glad to take it. But “Stay home or get a car” smacks of the same logic that would restrict the blind and disabled to their homes. It’s inconvenient for us, the majority, to deal with the needs of a sizable minority, so please just go away and quit pretending you have a right to exist and share the public good.
Tandem riding isn’t really feasible on the roads. In a normal situation, the right lane is wide enough for a moving bicycle and a moving car. Unless an obstacle forces a bicycle into the main lane, he / she should be on the shoulder. But if seeing a bicycle riding on the **shoulder ** gives you conniptions, or if you seriously think the presence of a well-behaved bicyclist or twelve slows your journey painfully down, perhaps a few sessions with a qualified therapist would help you learn to manage your anxiety?
You slow us down. Why is that acceptable?
I’m totally for that. The bicyclists need a powerful lobby.
Such a high horse you’re on. A group of riders forms a safety hazard and an irritating delay on the road, and we have the problem?
I don’t hate law abiding bicyclists. I think some of the laws about bicycling need to be changed, but hate? Nope. I don’t much care for the supremely arrogant attitude and often stunning lack of reading comprehension a few bikers in this thread have displayed, but that’s more of an interpersonal issue than a road safety issue.
You have a viable alternative. It’s called “a car.”
That’s a very stupid and insulting analogy. You’ve made a choice to be a bicyclist. It’s not something that was forced on you at birth. And often (not always, not even “most of the time,” but often) that choice interferes with other people. That’s where I have a problem with it.
Speaking of a stunning lack of reading comprehension, where has anyone in this thread complained about people riding bikes on the shoulder?
Why isn’t it?
Why are we so convinced that if we don’t get to do what we want to do precisely when we want to do it at exactly the speed we want to do it that it’s someone else’s problem?
There’s always someone who wants to go faster. There’s always someone being inconvenienced. You slow me down, I slow you down, we both slow someone else. It’s just crazy, over-the-top, to scream that no one is allowed to slow us down, nothin’s gonna breaka my stride, baybee!
If you’re in that much of a hurry, you should have left earlier.
The other day, I was walking up the street to the market and I ended up briefly behind a very old woman using a walker. She was slow. I couldn’t pass her. She slowed me down. Why is that acceptable? Because she’s a human being who is allowed to share the spaces I inhabit and to use the same resources I use.
Other people are inconvenient. If you can’t accept that fact, you’ll end up having a stroke or being committed to an institution.
Clarification:
“a bicyclist or twelve”… I was thinking of twelve individuals over the course of a commute, not a Critical Mass style clump.
“shoulder”: Sorry, this must be a terminology issue. I meant “as far to the right as is feasible, whether it be the actual shoulder or the right-hand portion of the lane.”
As for the analogy with disabled folks, I used it because I’ve seen people make similar objections to accomodating disabilities in the public sector. I didn’t mean to imply that bicyclists had some sort of moral high ground or societal oppression.
Oh my God, you’re an idiot. How do you even get dressed in the morning? Do you have someone to tie your shoes for you? Or do you just go with velcro?
Okay, fair enough, but the point still stands: no one is objecting to sharing the road with bikes when there’s enough room. The argument here is that, when there’s not enough room, then that’s not an appropriate place to be riding a bicycle.
I’m sure you have, but the difference between a guy on a bike and a guy in a wheelchair is that the guy in the wheelchair doesn’t have a choice about being in that wheelchair. You have a choice about being on that bike.
That applies to your little old lady on a walker, as well, jsgoddess. Tell me, if she’d been a healthy twenty year old who was just meandering down the path, maybe talking on a cell phone, wouldn’t you be just a little annoyed at him for blocking your path? Even if it was just for a few seconds? The same goes for bicyclists: they’ve decided that their hobby is more important than consideration for other people. I’ve got a real problem with that in any context, not just when I’m behind the wheel.
How wonderfully Zen of you. In that spirit, my new hobby shall be strolling at a deliberately sluggish pace down the shoulder along high-traffic areas where bicyclists like to ride. I shall do so in a perfectly safe manner along the side, but I will not get out of the way of bicyclists. They will have to go around me. Traffic volume too heavy to pass? Tough shit, sister. Get off your bike and walk it for as long as I dictate the pace. Oh, and if they protest, I’ll spit on them. After all, why should they get to go as fast as the bike and the law allow them to? It’s a speed limit, after all.
Your hobby should not get to dictate traffic conditions. Whether I’m in my car speeding or not is none of your concern. I may have a perfectly good reason to do so. I might have a family emergency. I might be taking my pregnant wife to the hospital. I might be doing any one of millions of human activities that might require a certain amount of haste, and your pokey, fragile butt should not have the right to hold me up while I’m using a thoroughfare on which people normally travel at many times your speed.