I can categorically and truthfully state that I have never exceeded the speed limit. Do I now get to say that cyclists who run stop signs and red lights piss me the hell off? Because they do. They make me wish I had a personal chain launcher to aim at their front wheels. They are even more annoying than people who barge onto the Tube before letting people off. Given the choice between eliminating from the world these cyclists, or Simply Red’s entire discography (including any and all collaborations, spin-offs and side projects), I would choose the former.
Seriously though, this lame tu quoque shit gets more tiresome with every new cycling thread. Why on earth do you feel the need to defend people who run stop signs? Were you born in an intersection at speed or something? Jesus. People here are practically falling over themselves to state that they’re not indicting all cyclists, precisely because people like you (in fact, specifically you, if memory serves) come in to every single one of these threads with the same tired line. You should be more pissed off than anyone at stupid cyclists, because they’re the ones that give all the others a bad reputation (and make it impossible to judge what any given cyclist is about to do).
Did the rules change for cyclists somewhere along the line? I can’t tell you the last time I actually saw a bike riding on the right side of the road. They all go against traffic. Is this a local phenomenon, or what? The worst was the guy who came looming up in my headlights at 10:00 at night, in dark clothes, riding right at me. Scared me to death.
I have the same experience when biking or running - you call out “on your left”, and a significant portion of folks simply spazz - when all you want them to do is continue walking in a reasonably straight line. Not sure how effectively a bell tells someone which side you are passing. And I’m not sure why so many folk have so much trouble walking in a straight line, but that is a matter for other threads.
But I agree, bikes should pretty much stay off of sidewalks. I say pretty much, because there are some streets where I think it might almost be more dangerous for everyone involved for the bike to be in the street - especially if the biker is slow, going a short distance, and/or if there are few pedestrians. But if a bike is on the sidewalk in such instances, I feel they owe complete deference to pedestrians, no matter how clueless or spastic they may be.
Regarding the rolling stops, I generally think there is a bit of a continuum there. If I am pulling up to a 4-way stop with traffic going in all directions, and the car going in my direction is starting to go, I will generally not stop and will instead go thru “on his coat-tails.” Or if I am coming up to a stop sign and I can see there is no other traffic or I have plenty of space to cross, I’ll go right through. But I would never do anything that I would think would force a car to brake suddenly, and follow up by flipping the driver off.
Not at all. It makes you a guy who sometimes disregards a rule in favor of the rule’s intention at your own discretion. Only an asshole would pit such a thing.
I’d say that weaving in and out of traffic at 90 mph without signalling probably puts you on par with the guy running a stop sign with a car already in the intersection and flipping you off.
I’d say that rolling up to a stop sign sign with visibility down both corridors, and going right through it without stopping is on par with doing 37 in a 30 – which every person in the world except Dead Badger does. It’s just a retarded thing to get mad about.
I’m trying to point out that people aren’t pitting stop sign runners for running stop signs.
They don’t care if we run them in our cars.
They don’t care if cars speed.
The pitting of cyclists running stop signs is a sign of being pissed off at cyclists, not the behavior.
Cyclists on sidewalks buzzing you on foot? Pit it.
Cyclists cutting in front of your car when they don’t have right of way? Pit it.
Cyclist running a stop sign? Let’s just not have 20 threads about that, and ZERO threads about cars running stop signs, and cars going 5 mph over the speed limit.
Or at least articulate the REAL reasons you are pitting a cyclist for doing that.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one since I am the retardedly mad one. I could have hit the guy. He could have slammed into my hood and dismounted into a lane of oncoming traffic. These things might not have ocurred if I hadn’t slammed on my brakes to avoid striking him, but I’ll never know because I felt I had to in order to avoid him. I guess if you don’t see it as an extremely dick move to endanger your life and the sanity of other drivers in order to run a stop sign at high velocity and then flip the bird to the guy whose right of way you ursurped and nearly gave a heart attack, I don’t know what else to say.
Well, Trunk’s last post (which you quote) did specify “…rolling up to a stop sign sign with visibility down both corridors, and going right through it without stopping…”
Which really shouldn’t result in you slamming your brakes or any of the other dire consequences you fear.
At least if I correctly interpreted his “visibility down both corridors” essentially met “no oncoming traffic/plenty of time to cross.” If he simply meant, “Yeah, I see you coming, and am going to make you slam your brakes”, then yeah, he’s a dick.
Here I was referring a specific incident where the biker either did see me and expected I would brake for his stop-sign-running (I did), or he did not see me and believed I was just trying to run him down because I hate people.
Well obviously, I hate them and their spandex. I mean that goes without saying.
I… I am trying. Did I not make it clear that the guy ran a stop sign while I was starting to move through the intersection? I don’t know if he saw me or not but I had the right of way and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a wheeled vehicle to stop at stop signs when there’s traffic passing through the intersection.
Now see, when I walk along the bike path, I walk on the left hand side. Walkers are slow. Everyone is faster than people walking. If I’m on the left hand side and a cyclist is approaching, I can see them and step off the path, or at least to the very edge and let them by. Nobody is surprised and the world is a happy place.
When running on roads I also run on the left hand side. You know, so you can see the cars coming. Nothing sucks quite like not knowing whether the car you hear coming up behind you can see you or not and wondering whether you’re about to be taken out at the knees by several thousand pounds of metal and glass.
If my personal feelings can be generalized, I’d say people get more pissed at bikers doing stupid stuff because we car drivers are worried we’re going to kill them. Some dick in car runs a red light, you might get mad, contemplate that he’s going to cause an accident, and so on. A bicyclist runs a light in front of you and you get the flop-sweat inducing experience of imagining mangling a human being during your morning commute.
I’m not saying it’s rational, really, just that for me the added element of my vehicle being likely to reduce the offender to a red splotch on the pavement engages my emotions more.
A few weeks ago, a kid was riding along just ahead of me, on the right side of the road, and I was giving him some room because he was meandering a bit. Then suddenly a meander became a full left turn into a neighborhood - no signal of any kind, shocking the hell out of me and making me imagine what could have happened if it had been a less careful driver than me. I almost followed him in hopes he’d pull up at his house and I could let his mother know what happened.
This week a guy on a bike came to a red light at a major intersection, and rode his bike in circles right in front of my car and the one next to me. Made me very nervous. I mean I know people ride with those clippy shoes, but aren’t they made so you can disengage and put a foot down at a stoplight?
Pedestrians and car drivers actually have to prepare to slow down or (can you believe it?) stop when they see something (a pedestrian, vehicle, or other obstacle) ahead of them in traffic. Why shouldn’t bicyclists operate under the same assumptions? What’s so special about bicycles that they should get the special privilege of never having to slow down or stop?
hahahahaha