Gosh, almost as if cyclists need safe spaces to ride. How about we just drastically reduce the number of 2 ton deathmachines on the roads.
Why
Seriously, go look at a notjustbikes video
Can’t
I see you’re also very restricted in key presses, my condolences
Thank
angry boomer noises
My issue is if you want to bike in the streetlike a car, then you have to obey car rules. Like stopping at stop lights and stop signs. If you want to ride on the sidewalk then you have to obey pedestrian rules, like crossing at the correct times. Thr number of cyclists I’ve seen blow through stop signs and stop lights is staggering.
A significant portion of accidents involving cyclists is from others not paying enough attention to them - which can be mitigated by proper bike infrastructure.
Unfortunately we cannot mitigate the recklessness of cyclists this way, another big contributor to the accident statistics.
Man, it’s almost as if we need a third thing. A sort of, road for bicycles (or long, skinny concentration camp, if you prefer) which is suited to bicycling without getting in the way. Get those bloody cyclists off our roads and footpaths, those are for us!
Dutch people: “both of those are dumb and dangerous”
Some places you don’t have to. Here, a stop sign is a yield for bikes, and a red light is a stop sign, legally. It works really well imo.
to be fair, it’s not like fewer cyclists are following the rules than drivers
Yeah… I hate to say it but cyclists take to the sidewalks in my neighborhood even though we have bike lanes everywhere. Obviously they are trying to be safer from cars which I can’t fault them for, but they do become a danger to pedestrians. Basically pedestrians are in a lose lose situation. Unless we want to start counting the bugs they step on.
When I’m not biking I drive a delivery truck and make sure I stop for and/or let pass every cyclist in order to drive every other car brain on the road insane and it gives me great pleasure.
*Drivers: I have to be careful by not texting gibberish or not watching this entire 7 second TikTok clip
Today, while I had the green light, had another car blatantly run a red light and almost hit me. I turned left to catch up with him, pounded on his window and told him he was a jackass. When he rolled his window down I recognized him as a state assembly member. Hoping he doesn’t recognize me when he eventually calls the HR office because he’s at the dentists office and doesn’t have his insurance card because he’s a fucking spoiled man-child.
my mindset when biking now is mostly to inconvenience bad drivers as much as possible and ensure that if they hit me it results in as much damage to their car as I can without harming myself.
I will aggressively take my right of way. one of the most common places is a bike crossing nearby where drivers routinely blow the stop line on their red light - I start up quickly so that if they blow the stop and go into the crossing, I may not be able to stop before crashing into them (you often can’t see them approaching the stop line because they are behind traffic in the middle lane). I don’t mind my shitty bike taking some damage if it leaves them with a dented door panel. another common occurrence is roundabouts - drivers vastly underestimate the speed at which a bike can navigate a tight roundabout, and they routinely cut me off. unfortunately, I’ve avoided collisions every time that a driver has nearly hit me, because my reaction is to not get hurt. but god damn did I ever want to slam into some of those cars and leave a lasting impression
I feel you but you only have only one fragile body.
I spent months of horror and multiple hospitalisations because I braked too hard on my bike at low speed, didn’t fall but landed too hard on the saddle. My username comes from that horrendous experience.
Of course it was because a car ran a red light, that was hidden to the inattentive car driver by a truck parked like an asshole.
There’s a shitload of studies showing that cars break far more rules than bikes everywhere it has been measured. You don’t have to put your body in the line to make a point.
Please just be safe for your own sake. You certainly deserve it.
thankfully my reflexes still prioritize my own safety, and most times I leave a near collision pissed off at the shitty driver and regretful that I couldn’t leave them a lasting mark. but when I get to the chance to, say, let my cargo bike basket scrape a car that pushed me into the curb, I’m gonna try to take it.
and thankfully (?) my health issues are unrelated to biking injuries (at least, unrelated to sharing the road with drivers — I’ve got a completely self-inflicted road injury from long ago and injuries from mountain biking lol).
I’ve had two bicyclists run a red light right in front of me as I was pulling out on a green.
One was horrified and apologic.
The other yelled at me for almost hitting him.
I live! I die! I live again!
Cyclists: every pavement is a shared space if you’re going fast enough.
