i just dropped $60 grand and gave up a kidney for that brand new escalade or bmw with the spinning rims and 2 million watt sound system. i’m out driving it around, wanting to go full throttle, like i could on my playstation, but sadly can’t in real life because i was stupid enough to buy the thing in new york city, where the average driving speed on surface streets is, like 10mph. i pull up to the stoplight and wtf? some @ssh%le bicyclist is able to pass me and all the other cars, get to the crosswalk and maybe even make it through the light, while i’m stuck here breathing my own fumes.

this is what this person assumes: “i spent alot of money on this thing, i’m entitled to go faster than anybody else” and when they see me cruise by on my dinky folding bike that looks, to them, like i built it out of scrap, they get pissed.

i almost get run into/doored EVERY time i ride my bike, sometimes on purpose, while i am FULLY abiding by the traffic laws. i see cars run red lights every day — in fact, witnessed a car run over someone last weekend. the car drove through a crosswalk full of pedestrians, who had the right of way.

why is it my responsibility to make sure drivers are pleased as punch with me being on the road with them? i’m just concentrating on staying alive.

Let’s be friends and plan for a day when many streets are bike/ped only and the law won’t even be required to regulate our crossings.

Ironically, there are also a fair number of peds who will take the “go ahead hit me” approach of not yielding to a bicyclist that has the right of way and simply pretending not to notice there is a bicycle coming. Those folks deserve bells, horns, and choice words.

Here’s perhaps a better way to frame this discussion: What stage of the social movement development are we at currently?

See the Eight Stages of Successful Social Movements to see which you most agree with. I can see cases being made for many different ones.

This is important because if you think it’s stage 1-3, we should focus on pointing out all the injustices against cyclists as a way to gain sympathy. If you think it’s more stages 4-6, we should focus much more on the PR image of cyclists to win over the majority of people.

btw, in case it’s not clear, i totally agree the WTFFolks. argh – this ambassador/generalizing shit makes me so angry! for instance, i stop at lights when necessary (peds, cops, etc), but, hell, why is it that peds are so afraid to cross until i have come to a COMPLETE stop while i see plenty of folks rushing headlong into the street as a car heads for a red at 30-40 miles per hour! does every cyclist have to be associated with the “bad apples” or “kamikaze” cyclists? NO!!

To me, there are two interesting things here. First and most importantly, these guys could have been complaining about all the people parking or idling in the bus stop: wrecking the air and getting in the way of the bus itself. But somehow that didn’t bother them as much as slow, harmless, eco-friendly bicyclists.

How could this be?

Cyclists have so much to offer the city and the planet: By reducing traffic congestion, oil consumption and carbon emissions, in my world, people should automatically love cyclists and give them extra leeway on the street and even a “thank you” from time to time. But somehow all of these things are rendered moot by something as inconsequential as riding against traffic.

The automobile, meanwhile is responsible for so many problems (I’m not going to enumerate them yet again), and yet, the level of angst about them is just not commensurate with the problems they cause.

I once was giving a bus tour to a bunch of out of towners. We were stuck in traffic in the Financial District (again on Broadway), and a cyclist rides by the bus at a speed that was faster than all the stopped traffic, but not all that fast considering how fast cars can go. The people in this bus were so startled by one cyclist that a couple actually jerked away from the window. Then they had to get into a whole conversation about the propriety of cycling in the city. (Typically, they couldn’t believe anybody would want to do it.) It was hard pointing out that cyclists are actually not dangerous compared to cars, but they didn’t see it.

So my view after reflecting on this is that for better or for worse, people aren’t alarmed by cars they way they should be because wherever they’re from, they’re used to cars being ubiquitous. Most people are also probably sometime drivers, and can relate to a behind-the-windshield mentality. Ditto for pedestrians. Everyone’s a pedestrian sometime and so people are less liable to be upset with scofflaw walkers.

So until we get our numbers up, we should at least be aware that others are unduly and irrationally alarmed by behavior that we know is not dangerous. If you have this information and choose not to alter your cycling, that’s fine. The macro-level trends are in our favor anyway. I myself am not the most courteous cyclist in the world, although I am trying to abide by the rules these days more than I used to.

The other interesting thing about this conversation is that the bus driver assumed that of course, everyone wants to have a drivers license. There could be no other reason for not wanting one than that it was denied on account of one’s being a criminal. I guess it’s a pretty typical mindset beyond the city, and it even can be found here.

The inclusion of race was pretty much just to set the scene in a city where the speakers could have been of just about any social, economic or cultural background you could imagine.

I used to go through reds without giving much heed to pedestrians but I cleaned up my act after I started bicycling with my kids and thinking and dialoging more about “road equity.” There is definitely a cost in terms of speed and convenience. But bicyclists expect motorists to make a similar trade-off to enhance road safety. I’m not suggesting that bicyclists even at their most lawless pose anywhere near the danger that the typical speeding, non-yielding, crosswalk-blocking motorist does. But from the pedestrian perspective the bicyclist threat is magnified by unpredictability–you don’t often see motorists proceeding counter-flow or on the sidewalk.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003667576_peirce16.html

I think here lies the problem. Now that cyclists are on the verge of being mainstream, will their behaviors change along with their surroundings?

However, I also agree that “car-centered street design forces cyclists into dangerous situations on every block”.

Y’know, if people don’t like my transportation choice, @#$% them. These are not people that are going to be swayed by any kind of PR campaign.

That said, this commentary is just a couple of grouchy old white men with teeny brains that can’t grasp anything better or more intelligent to talk about.

I do think bike activists need to promote safe cycling, including common-sense things like staying off the sidewalk, never riding against traffic, wearing helmets, etc, and perhaps the spectre of “crazy bikers” turns some people off to cycling.

BUT — let’s be honest and keep our eyes on the prize here. Car-centered street design forces cyclists into dangerous situations on every block. The rules weren’t made for us. The real reason people are afraid of riding a bike is cars, not bikers.

So people have biases against an entire identifiable class of people based on extremes (much more so for the second and third class amongst us). You could find the same conversation about pedestrians, drivers, etc. The only thing this says to me is that there are people on the bus and in the NYPD that find cyclists unpleasant. That has been the case for decades. That will probably still be the case in NYC becomes a Copenhagen of bike infrastructure.

C’mon, it’s NYC, there are kamikaze jerks on every corner and in many cars. Buhfduh.

I guess it’s time to dust off the T.A. “Give Respect/Get Respect” handbills and start distributing as appropriate:

http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/bike/giveget_flyer2005.pdf