F***ing cyclist!

[protege]

I always try to give cyclists plenty of room...the vast majority (about 99.9% locally), usually do something stupid. I don't know about you all, but I have this thing about scraping idiots off of my car...

That's not to say I haven't had my share of idiots. In fact, I had some fool rear-end me (I was driving!) as I was sitting in traffic. His argument? I shouldn't have "stopped suddenly." Never mind there was a car in front of me

Then there's the one who hit my mother. One of my friends, in fact. This fool, who was riding with another friend, thought it would be awesome to come flying down a hill, and blow through the stop sign. Problem was, they forgot it was a T intersection, and that people coming down the hill...have to stop.

Well, my mother was driving through the intersection, saw someone on a bike come down the hill, barely make the corner and keep on going. Second guy...wasn't as lucky. He missed the corner, and plowed into the side of my mother's Volvo station wagon Other than a black mark on the driver's door, the car came through relatively unscathed. The bike though, was destroyed. As for the rider, well, he's lucky to have come away with only lots of cuts. He'd somehow jumped clear--otherwise, he'd probably be dead now.

[ditchdj]

Hey Protege try getting a red car. That way, the next tool on wheels that splatters your hood it won't show.

[McGoddess09]

I remember one time, I was riding my bike in the street, on the very edge so cars could pass. One car passed me and at the stop sign, they yelled "Use the damn sidewalk!"

Did I forget to mention that it was clearly visible that there were no sidewalks? Just grass on people's property.

In the "city" area, there are sidewalks that I use because the areas I could use for riding my bike, but cars take those spaces and it's constantly busy in the road. Sidewalks are a foreign thing to use for people where I live, so pedestrians are never on the sidewalk, always in the street.

[Primer]

Cyclists don't think they have to stop like regular traffic?

Tell that to the cyclist who is in critical condition at the hospital who pulled a similar stunt the other night and got hit by an SUV who had a green light and the right of way.

About a week ago we had a cyclist blow a red light and broadside......



















.....wait for it.....





































....a police car!

gee, I wonder who got the ticket on that one?

[candyshopgirl]

Last summer there was a bicyclist that was hit and dragged under a construction vehicle. People didn't care that it was the bicyclist's fault,they wanted that construction guy's head on a platter. Is this just my city or has everywhere done it?

[One-Fang]

I suspect everywhere, yes. People see "the little guy" as the one that needs sticking up for. Oh, that poor cyclist that could have been killed. The construction truck is soooo much bigger than he is. It's a David and Goliath thing, and they'll almost always root for David.

Even if Goliath is the BFG.

[Iced Coffee Man]

I have no problem riding in the bike lane during daylight.

The last time I used it at night, I was honked and yelled at numerous times by upstanding car drivers, most likely drunk or stoned. Yes, I DID have lights and a bright orange safety vest. In fact, that's probably why it happened. They saw me riding along and thought "let's be a fuckhead to this guy."
Now I don't care if a cyclist hit your mother, sister or pet monkey, I'm using the path at night. You think they should start enforcing it? Fine, maybe they should start enforcing the hoons in cars too.

[Kogarashi]

I've seen quite a few light-runners and wrong-way cyclists around here. Luckily none have tried to play chicken with my Jeep. I think the Jeep would win.

I did more cycling back at undergrad than out here in CT, mostly because I had more reason to and here I wouldn't know what to do with Baby. I had one job that I regularly biked to, and the following school year I regularly biked to class when the road conditions were good enough.

Biking to work, I had to traverse two and a half roads. The first was two nice, wide, Utah lanes wide (big enough to do a U-turn with a horse and wagon, supposedly), complete with marked bike lane and pretty low on the traffic side of things. I was good and stayed in the bike lane for that stretch. About two blocks before I had to change roads, the street became two lanes each way, with a grassy median in between (entering the "historic" business district). There, I signalled and switched to the left-hand traffic lane (the bike lane disappeared there), so that I could change to riding on the sidewalk.

Why? Because the second road I had to take was two lanes each way with a constant center turning lane, and traffic that regularly went at 35-40 mph, while I could manage, at most, a piddling 20 mph. Also, there was no bike lane, and I would need to cross those five lanes of traffic with a traffic signal, bike down a good 10 city blocks or more, and cross what became seven lanes (adding a traffic lane each way) to get to work. Or I could ride down the (completely empty) sidewalk (seriously, there were never any pedestrians on it), cross a set of railroad tracks and bike down a short side street instead of traversing a dangerous five-lane bridge with no sidewalk/pedestrian crossing, and then finish by crossing the half-street near my workplace before biking down said street to the rear lot entrance. I chose the safer, slightly less-legal route. Though, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure riding a bike on the sidewalk was legal there so long as you obeyed the pedestrian signals.

As for class, aside from crossing two streets by walking my bike across the pedestrian crosswalk, it was almost entirely on campus sidewalks. I had to get off periodically to walk the bike down stairs by the dorms, but the only bike restrictions on campus were a no-bikes rule ten minutes before or after the start of class, and a speed limit of 5 mph or so (sidewalks all the way; there is exactly one street through campus, and it really sits on the edge rather than cuts through it). I made sure to walk my bike during the 20-minute class changeover, and never got pulled over by campus police for it. And believe me, I saw the campus police out several times during said busy time to tell people to get off their bikes.

Of course, campus also had a no skateboards/no longboards/no rollerskates/no scooters rule that was often violated with no police in sight to enforce it. Those were the times I was sorely tempted to clothesline someone, but never actually went through with it.

[Chromatix]

That actually does remind me. While I haven't got a full driving licence yet, I have taken most of a driving course (I ran out of money before I finished it).

On one of those lessons, some kid on a bike crossed the road without looking. Right in front of me.

Fortunately, I saw him out of the corner of my eye and stopped in time, having been doing a very sensible speed in a very residential area. Most drivers go faster, to be honest. (The instructor had his own brake pedal, but I think I was quicker.) This, of course, stalled the engine (manual transmission) and shook my nerves quite a bit, so it took some time to get going again.

My dad took pains to teach me the rules of the road when I got my first bike - at 9 years old. It seems that few parents are that responsible.

[otakuneko]

And here I always thought it was normal for bikes to be on the sidewalk.

Then again, maybe here in Texas, where the only people who use the sidewalk are crazy nature nuts and loitering teens, maybe the law's a bit different. Not much walking to and fro going on in the big wide open.

And if it's not I'd take the ticket over the traffic any day. Sorry tree-huggers.

[Arcade Man D]

I'm not sure on the rules with sidewalks in my area, but I do know that bikes are allowed the rightmost lane.

I can't even ride in the fucking shoulder half the time, due to the assholes who think it's "funny" to slowly drift toward the shoulder when they see a cyclist.






I have been known to run reds, though, but only in very specific cases of it being a pure-sensor driven light, with NO FUCKING CROSSING BUTTON, like the one across from my new job. </rant>


Edit: moral of the story, depending on where you are, either the drivers are jerks, or the cyclists are jerks.

[Mamadrae]

I've had a couple run ins with these people recently.

Run in 1 was the worst. For starters, I'm on a highway. It's a back woods highway though so you only have 1 lane going either direction and gravel for the shoulders. Other then that you have cornfields as far as the eye can see.

Apparently someone though this would be a wonderful place for a MARATHON!
Bad enough that they have some 200 TEN SPEED riders trying to pack themselves on the tiny strip of pavement between the gravel shoulder they can't ride on and the road. It's in the middle of the day on a Saturday so said road is actually busy with people heading into the only civilization for a good 30 mile radius!

I can also see this person going "Well we had the police out there to enforce rules and the riders had to wear all the correct safety gear."

Yeah your cops were sitting at the intersections which were miles apart looking bored out of their skulls. Plus the corn wasn't high enough yet to hide them so you could see the flashing red and blue lights for MILES. I seriously watched these bikers behave perfectly in front of the police and then the minute they were out of sight they would be in the middle of the road, which has a 55mph speed limit! I have seen and heard of people going 100 on that road cause there's nothing there for miles. Not to mention a number of them would pull off their helmets only to strap them back on while coasting when they saw the blinking police lights.

Who in their right mind thought this was a great idea??

The big problem with me was that someone apparently didn't know how to pass their fellow riders and actually hit them. I had a chain reaction of I don't know how many people falling in front of my car. Mind you I was only going 25 due to these idiots with an hour drive ahead of me looking at nothing, but I have a 2 ton car to stop. It has wonderful brakes but even I can't stop on a dime! I was lucky the oncoming traffic was far enough away that I could pull around the mess.

Run in 2 is more recent and more annoying then anything. Same road as above cuts through the town I live in and drops to 40. An older gentleman with no safety gear on another ten speed (seriously people buy a mountain bike if you live in the country) is costing along slowing in the middle of 5:00pm traffic. I know he has every right to be there but there's a COMPLETELY EMPTY SIDEWALK right by us. There are also no laws and no signs against bikes on said sidewalk since it's big enough that you can have 4 people walking down it side by side. I'm pretty sure the city built it like that to accommodate the masses of college students nearby, even though they prefer to drive down the road going 75mph no matter how heavy the traffic.

I don't mind people biking places, I really don't. For the love of the Maker though please rub 2 brain cells together long enough to not scar someone for live by becoming a blood stain on their fender.

[DesignyMia]

Sidewalks for me...

First post here! Please be nice

The drivers in my city are so dangerous that I wouldn't DARE ride on the roads. Last summer I used my bike to get to and from work. During that journey I had to use a service road for a stretch. I always stayed on the shoulder of my side of the road. And by 'shoulder' I mean my tire was an inch from the rather steep ditch.

Anyways, I was biking along on my little piece of shoulder on this service road when another car comes from the opposite direction. The moment he saw me, he began screaming in his car (his windows were down, so I could hear of his great and colourful hatred of cyclists). He then accelerates and swerves the car directly into the opposite lane, his tires two inches from the ditch on my side of the road.

Needless to say, I directed my bike into the ditch at full speed and dove a further three feet in terror. As he revs away, I hear more swearing and laughter coming from his vehicle.

I will never ride on the road again. It's suicide.

(And for the record, I am extremely courteous to pedestrians. I hop off my bike and jog it past on the grass beside them when I share the pavement)

[Broomjockey]

First post here! Please be nice

The drivers in my city are so dangerous that I wouldn't DARE ride on the roads.

Welcome to CS!

And yeah, I know what you mean. There's a crossing near the campus where my classes were, and in 3 years I was almost hit by cars probably 8 or 9 times. Being a pedestrian's dangerous business whether it's cyclists or cars, but cyclists just get the hate from everyone.