Credit where it be due

[muckefuck]

Two astounding incidents involving cyclists today:

Incident #1
I'm crossing the street. A southbound cyclist blows through the red light behind me Like they always do, I think, as I spot a northbound cyclist coming up in front of me. But this guy actually stops for the red light and stays stopped until it turns green even though there are no cars coming. I wanted to walk up to him and give him a fucking medal.

Incident #2
The bus pulls around a cyclist so it can pull over at the next stop. I sit back watching the windows, waiting for the cyclist to come shooting by--either on the street side or the sidewalk, since there's not enough room between the bus and the kerb. Moments pass (the bus is stopped at a light) and there's no sign of him. Could he have turned off? Could he have crossed the street mid-block and continued on in the oncoming lane?

Finally, I see him walking up the sidewalk carrying his bike. Again, I wish I had an award to give him.

Tomorrow, I'll be back to bitching about rude cyclists, I'm sure, but for right now, I'll just glow with admiration for a pair of riders bucking the citywide trend.

Comments

Re: Credit where it be due

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I noticed this and did a personal survey, watching the bicyclists. It ended up that in Seattle, in the Ravenna district, cyclists followed traffic signs at about the 40% level...

[danthered.livejournal.com]

I'm astounded that you witnessed two incidents of proper cyclist behaviour in one day. As bad an idea as semi trucks and passenger cars sharing a common roadway is, passenger cars and bikes sharing a common roadway is a great deal worse, and that's without behavioural factors taken into account.

Obviously this is a generalisation, but in the relevant Usenet newsgroups (oxymoron?), the battle between cyclists and drivers is incessant. Bicyclists complain of motorists hellbent on denying bicyclists their right to use the roads. "Share the road" campaigns aren't sufficient to quiet this lot; they feel that such an imperative implies that motorists have priority on the roads and are only grudgingly deigning to cede a bit of the roadway to cyclists. They argue vociferously amongst themselves over the merits and drawbacks of dedicated bicycle lanes. They claim it's safer for them not to obey traffic laws, and smarmily assert that it's impossible for a cyclist to cause a crash; it's always the motorist's fault because the bicycle offers less protection than the car. The more ridiculous extension of this "argument" is that because bicycles emit no pollution, they are morally superior to cars and therefore needn't follow the rules. (Yes, I've actually heard this profferred in total seriousness!)

Motorists, for their part, complain of bicyclists' unpredictable and spastic behaviour on the roads, darting in and out, holding up traffic, failing to comply with traffic laws, failing to make themselves adequately visible (LIGHTS!), their "now I'm a motorist, now I'm a pedestrian, now I'm a motorist again" use of lanes and paths, and that there's no incentive for cyclists to behave properly since they're not required to hold a licence, registration or insurance.

Who's right? Both, to some degree, in that ensuring traffic safety is every road user's job. But before there can be any meaningful discussion of equitable roadsharing between these two very different modes of transportation, I have to say we need much better compliance from the cyclists. Without this, they have no leg to stand on complaining about unfair or improper rules. How the hell am I supposed to avoid a crash when a cyclist wearing black and riding an unlit, unreflectorised bike at night decides red lights are only for cars and blows through directly in front of me? Heads, I hit the cyclist. Tails, I get rear-ended.

Bottom line, while there are certainly plenty of badly-behaved motorists on the road, there's a well established system in place to see that not too many of them are not too badly-behaved not too often. It starts with a licence plate and driving licence, and ends with a driving record and insurance bill. Until there's some incentive for bicyclists to behave properly on the road, motorists are somewhat justified in regarding bicycles as toys that have no right to the road.