> “Militant bicyclists want the rights and privileges of both cars and pedestrians but the responsibilities of neither.”
There are jerks in all large groups, of course. Riding a bicycle, though, is a mode of transportation that’s in between walking and driving a car. In my opinion safety requires sometimes acting like one and sometimes like the other (or in a similar way).
I occasionally ride a bicycle, and to increase my chances of survival — remember in a collision with a car we bicyclists stand a good chance of being killed, not just having a dent in our vehicle — there are times when I switch from the road to the sidewalk. I’m careful about not endangering pedestrians, though.
Some bicycle club members and serious bicyclists make a point of obeying the same rules that drivers of cars do. On heavy-traffic roads with narrow lanes, though, that means taking the whole lane, and delaying cars that can go much faster (the delay for the driver to change lanes may just be ten or fifteen seconds, but some drivers are quite willing to risk killing you to avoid it).
On low traffic roads, or roads with low speed limits and wide lanes, I ride on the side of the road itself. On roads where I’d seriously delay cars, and risk being killed for it, I get on the sidewalk and ride slowly. So far I’ve managed to stay alive that way (though in recent years I just ride short distances on known roads), and I’ve never hit a pedestrian either.
Except in high traffic areas, riding a bicycle is a good way to travel short distances on a nice day, and persons who do that aren’t necessarily evil. Neither are the ones — more foolish ones, in my opinion — who risk traveling longer distances in the proximity of high-speed car traffic. Even the jerks don’t deserve the death penalty.