Posted on 05/11/2010 10:41:01 AM PDT by End Times Sentinel
Professor Peter Furth has ridden his bicycle to work at Northeastern University each day for the past six years. The two-mile trip through the Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts, is usually without incident.
Furth's journey is worlds apart from his former Boston commute, which for 13 years was a battle with drivers who wanted him on the sidewalk.
"I've had motorists that drive a couple of inches from my elbow, trying to scare me," he said.
Furth would catch up with drivers at stoplights and ask them whether they knew how close they'd come to hitting him. Invariably, they would say, "Yes, move over."
It's a cultural thing, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
And bicyclists hate recumbents
I want them on the sidewalks, too. An automobile is far deadlier to a bicycle than a bicycle is to a pedestrian.
It happens. I ride a bicycle to work when I can, and there is always some jerk on the road intent on trying to ruin my day. Unfortunately, a great many FReepers seem to hold anyone who rides a bicycle in utter disdain.
If he thinks it is wise to sneak back up on the cars who passed him and ride in the gutter to "get ahead" then he isn't sharing the road. I've just about hit a-hole bicyclists who do this and who then try to run through the light when no cross traffic is coming. EXCEPT that I have the ability to make a right on red.
Share the road means SHARE it.
Too many cyclists exhibit the “I’m special” culture of demanding the right of way per law, but then running red lights, slipping alongside lanes, progressing too slowly, failure to signal, failure to yield, improper lane usage and so on.
How many cyclists do you observe truly obeying the law as if they are in a motor vehicle?
just stirrin’ the pot ;-)
No, there are a FEW a**holes on both sides, that make everything miserable for everyone.
Most cyclists aren’t retarded. They know that they have absolutely NO safety on the road, if a car so much as touches them, they wipe out and at the very least wind up with a painful case of road rash - at most they pay with their lives. Thus, 95 out of 100 are courteous riders.
However, there are those militant few who go out of their way to show the cars ‘who the man is’. And this bad karma is magnified because a car may come across hundreds of bicyclists in the future who will feel his wrath - and potentially send that immature driver to prision with a manslaughter charge, for killing a cyclist who had never done anything to deserve that wrath.
IMHO, if there were a 3-4ft lane that the bikes were allowed to ride in, they would.
IMHO, for a benefit, you need skin in the game. I’m ALL FOR requiring licensing and insurance for bike riders. If they pay, then they get the rights to the road like the cars and trucks have. If you don’t want to buy insurance and get a license - then stay off the roads.
Well to take that to the extreme, there are a-holes in cars who will steer INTO a puddle to splash people on the sidewalk too. And I’ll bet that happens more often than a driver trying to “challenge” a bicyclist.
Bicycles do not belong on the sidewalk, period. Maybe small children still on training wheels but that’s about it.
I can understand when there is no path for them but I just don’t get it when there is a bike path built for them and they still use the road. All throughout my neighborhood there are county built bike paths which they don’t use instead they insist on biking on the 45 mph road and wonder why people in cars get pissed.
BULLSTALIN. Critical Mass is a national anarchist group that sets out to snarl roadways and run traffic lights at will. Drunken nighttime rides by agro-bicycle messengers.
They have them all over Philadelphia and it's usually the people in the colorful insect costumes who ride in the auto lanes anyway.
Bikes don’t belong on the roads. They are for motor vehicles. Bikes stay on the sidewalk.
They must be fat. ;-)
Critical massholes are just "concerned activists" whereas "teabaggers" < /Anderson Cooper > pose a threat to personal safety in this nation.
Notice the burning car in the last graphic?
If I were king, there would be a nice officer passing out $250 tickets to those 'insect' wannabes. It's amazing how effective a $250 ticket is at correcting bad behavior.
No ID? No problem.... consicate the bike until the fine is paid. Most bikes on the road cost far, far more than a mere $250. Win-win solution.
The good bikers will save some money, and not have the 'bad' one's getting drivers to automatically HATE every bike on the road. The Hwy dept gets a revenue stream, and there are a few less deaths on the road (and the traffic jam they cause).
IMHO, if you want the priviledge to use the roads, you should pay for that priviledge just like everyone else. Bikers should NOT have a free ride.
Dead is dead. Unless road conditions are very extreme, providing no right side clearance or highway speeds, bikes belong where they have been for 100 years; on the road with cars. Hazards presented by pedestrians are far more numerous; unpredictability and dogs on leashes being just a few.
Even designated bike paths, on a nice summer day, are far more hazardous than the shoulder of the adjacent road. I'll take my chances with a driver that drives all the time any day, over some lard butt that just pulled his bike out of the garage for the first time all year.
Ignorance of safety, the law, and history of metaphysical proportions.
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