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To: sphinx

I personally don’t have a problem with sharing the roads with bicyclists, or pedestrians for that matter.

But there are rules, and these two groups blatantly refuse to follow them.

Sharing the roads whether cars vs cars, cars vs trucks, bicycles vs pedestrians, etc. is based on trust and right of way.

If no one trusted anyone else driving, than stoplights would be worthless because no one would venture into an intersection without stopping. Likewise crosswalks.

Bicyclists, especially, violate that trust by routinely and blatantly ignoring traffic rules and laws. When you compound that by the fact that they’re fragile, and tiny compared to most of the other vehicles on the road, its a dangerous situation for everyone. If a bicycle is such a difficult vehicle to operate that the rider can’t signal their intentions, stop at stop signs and stoplights (not to mention crosswalks), then perhaps they shouldn’t be sharing the roads.

That’s not to say motorists, or motorcyclists or trucks or any other vehicle is blameless as a group, but my observation is the percentage of other vehicles that run stop signs without even slowing down is around 5%, but with bicyclists it’s around 80%. Failing to signal with other vehicles is probably 40%, and bicyclists, it’s 99%.

Pedestrians, as a group, at least have the good sense not to dare cars to hit them, in most cases. I don’t know why bicyclists don’t seem to have that kind of sense.


42 posted on 08/17/2012 5:27:58 PM PDT by chrisser (Starve the Monkeys!)
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To: chrisser
I largely agree with you. I drive a car, and I don't like cyclists who dart through traffic and challenge cars. Stupid and rude. I also enjoy bicycling and am fortunate enough to be able to ride to work most mornings. I do my best to pick quiet side streets and stay off the main roads, and I hop on the sidewalk if traffic is heavy.

Bike lanes and sidewalks solve most of the problem.

As to cyclists running through lights and ignoring stop signs, I plead guilty, sometimes. If there is a fair amount of traffic, I scrupulously obey the rules. But if there is no traffic, or the nearest car is down at the end of the next block, I sail through, for the same reason that pedestrians routinely jaywalk. People moving by muscle power tend to take the path of least resistance. This includes following the law of inertia, which means you try to keep moving, and the law of people-over-forty-not-wanting-to-jump-up-and-down-off-bicycle-seats-unnecessarily. This is an unwieldly formal name, so this principle is generally known as "Sphinx's axiom."

I once strolled through a campus with a university president, an otherwise bright guy, who started bemoaning the trail students had worn in the grass across an otherwise immaculate quadrangle. I was impertinent enough to laugh, and point out the doors of the buildings that the students were obviously traveling between. I told him that his only solution was to plant barriers, or give in and provide a landscaped path. People on foot are simply not going to take the long way around just because the President is trying to grow grass on the shortest route. I don't think he liked my answer, but I wasn't sure I really wanted the job for which I was interviewing, so I didn't much care.

58 posted on 08/17/2012 5:49:04 PM PDT by sphinx
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