@spokker — the Effective Cycling paradigm is an improvement on the Segregated Cycling paradigm that preceded it. But giving cyclists exactly the rights and responsibilities of motorists is not a matter of accommodating the convenience of cyclists. Rather, it is a way of forcing cyclists into a paradigm built around the safety and convenience of motorists.

Feel free to reread the extensive list of examples I provided.

You are entitled to take the lane when you deem it necessary and drivers are supposed to pass when it is safe to do so. Is that isn’t convenience I don’t know what is.

But there is no paradigm in traffic law that accommodates the *convenience* of the *biker* — that recognizes and accommodates such facts as that slowing down and stopping, then shifting back through gears while accelerating, is a big pain in the ass for the biker; that proceeding cautiously through intersections is almost always harmless; that bikes are dextrous in ways cars are not; that bikers suffer more from the exhaust, noise, and heat of cars than drivers; that bikers are much more aware of their surroundings than drivers; that bikers are threatened by car doors; that bike traffic on residential streets does not disrupt peace and quiet; etc.

I don’t claim to know how to change the law to accommodate these facts. (Although the Idaho stop and easing residential one-way laws for bikes would be a good start.) But that they are facts, and that the law does not accommodate them, seem hard to dispute; and to the extent that the law is not to be discriminatory against bikers as a class and on behalf of drivers, surely the law should be changed to accommodate them.

@pedestrian — not really sure what the relevance of this issue is, aside perhaps from the status of a (rather tangential) factual question: my desire to avoid injuring myself is sufficiently strong that the benefit of possibly offing a pedestrian doesn’t make me any less careful (joke). In any event, fatal collisions of this sort are so rare that I haven’t been able to find any statistics on the proportion of fatalities for the pedestrian or the cyclist or both.

Next, pedestrians have a dedicated right of way zone — it’s called the sidewalk. Bikes do not.

Finally, whether the law is “designed” to do x needs to be carefully distinguished from (a) whether it succeeds in doing x (b) whether some other law could do x better (c) whether some other law could do x while causing fewer negative collateral impacts. My view is that current traffic law imposes inappropriate burdens on cyclists with no gains in safety. Indeed, there are *costs* in safety: if I run a red light, this means that I will not be run over by a car turning right — a serious threat, by the way; if I engage in lane sharing it means I will not sit around sucking tailpipe exhaust, and that I will get ahead of traffic snarls (with attendant benefits to the convenience of drivers whom I would otherwise be slowing down).

@spokker — I find it utterly opaque how my ignoring a red light when doing so is obviously safe has any bearing at all on what you can or can’t succeed in.

You have no idea whether you are better at driving than I am at biking; nor do I. Nor do I even know what this apples-and-oranges comparison could mean (unless you mean that you never drive).

I’m glad you like trains — great for commuting, not so great for popping around running errands (or getting out moving in the sun).

http://dd.wcsx.com/?p=4324

I have no intent of killing you with my vehicle. My intent is to drive safely with respect to pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers. You undermine my ability to do that by riding with reckless disregard for certain laws, as you say. Because of your “expertise,” you feel justified in your actions. I would suggest that you don’t know what it is to drive with expertise. I would even wager a bet that I am far safer on the road as a driver than you are as a cyclist.

I invite you to watch videos by a guy who calls himself cambridgecyclist on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=cambridgecyclist&view=videos). He records his commute and posts the results online. He spares no one, not drivers, other cyclists or pedestrians.

His videos have been poorly rated by those who feel slighted by his evidence of bad behavior by all. If a driver did wrong, then drivers vote him down. If a cyclist did wrong, then cyclists vote him down. Everybody is fucking up out there, no matter what their mode of transportation is.

Personally, I would rather be out of the road completely and on a train…

My stance is that pedestrians are more vulnerable than cyclists. I don’t see how I undermined that. Whatever you personally do when you ride your bike, however careful you may be, has no bearing at all on the question of how vulnerable a pedestrian is relative to a cyclist. Cyclists have the bike frame and usually a helmet, at least, to protect them from collisions, whereas a pedestrian has…its clothing, maybe an umbrella or bag of some sort. There’s no comparison. It’s not even close.

The laws regulating traffic are there to protect everyone, not just cyclists, not just motorists, and those laws should be obeyed by everyone, regardless of how careful a bike rider you think you are.

35 miles an hour does not constitute a highway – nor, often, does a 50 mph road. Also, in most states and/or cities, it is not only legal for bicycles to share the road with cars, regardless of 50 mph status, it’s mandatory. While I’m sure you’d love to drive on a 35 mph road without all those “innumerable morons”, it’s usually illegal for us to be on the sidewalk, and a whole lot less safe for everyone involved. I’m sure you’d be pleased as punch if a cyclist came flying at you when you were trying to walk on the sidewalk.

You may be interested in the Bike Coalition’s page on cyclists not belonging on sidewalks; they’ve done a good job on it. http://www.sfbike.org/?sidewalks

You might also be interested in the DMV’s website on bike laws here: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/tocd11c1a4.htm

@daniel: in most states bikes are vehicles and consequently do have a right to drive on many roads — those with lower limits on legal speed: mostly freeways, which no one would want to ride on anyway.

@spokker: who is the bigger asshole, the guy on the tiny non-polluting 25 pound vehicle or the guy in the 4000 pound steel fortress spewing exhaust in my lungs? Also, you are doubtless aware that the point of those radio shows is for guys who feel a lot of resentment to get a safe frisson of bullying on. Yeah, you can kill me with your vehicle, that makes you less of a punk.

@atrios (who made an implicit reference to this thread): I’m behind this idea that urban traffic laws should be rewritten to force people to be cautious.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/03/AR2007020301735.html

Hey cyclists! Listen! You do not have the right to drive on the road on a highway! Get on the sidewalk!

Do you people ever think how horrible I would feel if I accidentally hit a cyclist and killed them? When you aren’t on a highway feel free to use the road, but you need to follow the rules whether you are in a car or a bike.

And I will always do my best to make sure I never hit a cyclist.

Better wear a helmet and pads when benj is barreling down the street.

I guess you’re the asshole these shock jocks were talking about, then.

You can’t seriously be telling me that the pedestrian comes out better when it gets hit by a cyclist. The one time I was mowed down by a reckless speeding cyclist who was using a pedestrian path, I got the worse end of it, including getting flipped in the air and injuring my back. He rode off with a scraped knee.

Cyclists, with their mandatory helmets, are not the most vulnerable creatures on the road. Pedestrians, slow-moving and unprotected, are the most vulerable, and cyclists would do well to remember that.

A lot of the laws you seem so proud to flaunt are in fact designed not just to protect cars and cyclists, but pedestrians as well. Red lights and stop signs? They’re as much for the foot traffic as they are for the vehicle traffic. Think about that the next time you blow through one.

What I do not do is ride with reckless disregard for my safety: who does? that would be clearly insane! While incompetent bicyclists might wrongly assume that I do, they have no idea of what it is to ride with expertise, so their assumptions are unwarranted. Only the crudest paternalism would mandate that my cycling style be that which would be safe for a novice.

Nor do I ride with reckless disregard for anyone else’s safety: how could I? Bikers are the most vulnerable creatures on the road: in any crash with anyone, pedestrian or car, I lose. So to ride with reckless disregard for anyone else’s safety would be to ride with reckless disregard for my own safety, which as stated I do not do, nor does anyone else.

So when we combine:
>large road capacity
>fewer drivers
>much less income
will it be a big surprise, to anyone other than these schlock jocks, that Detroit becomes a major bike town.

As their local economy continues in to it’s black hole the scale of the lack of cash flow will further drag down median incomes. At some point the price of auto ownership will be too much and some will turn to bikes.

or we could create reasonable laws, and face the reality that those who continue to blame bicyclists for disregarding unjust laws are putting bicyclists in danger.

http://www.myballard.com/2009/07/21/bicyclist-hit-by-blow-dart-on-ballard-bridge/

For instance, “the hate” is nothing new. Few people realize that others wanted to (and did) hurl bottles at our heads long before there were cars. Bikes are freedom and at some point they were a display of the wealth of the new leisure classes, at another an important tool for emancipating women, and such displays of freedom (running unnecessary stop signs is just another manifestation of this freedom) will always be much to the dismay of certain segments of the population. This issue goes way back to the very beginning of biking and exploring the history of it is extremely helpful at understanding and dealing with it – at least I find it is. Robert Hurst offers a good summary of this in his “Cyclist’s Manifesto”. Please, I would love to see more intelligent posts on this topic!