Cyclists and Anti-Cyclists

[firiki]

Athens, Greece, is not a city suitable for bicycles, because of ground morphology, the number of automobiles and motorcycles roaming the streets, the way these streets are interconnected and the lack of relevant infrastructure.

Despite all this, in the last 20 years more and more brave souls have been using a bicycle as a means of transport for long distances. I admire and respect that. At the same time, however, I cannot help noticing that most of these cyclists clearly consider themselves to be pedestrians when they obviously aren't. Pedestrians can do all sorts of weird, stupid *censored* ...things on your average day and the same goes for cyclists.

Most cyclists here will ignore traffic lights or road direction as they see fit, they'll be on the sidewalk, very rarely wearing a helmet or having lights/reflector thingies (ohh, and bells -I had an interesting altercation with a guy once about bells). I've had several cyclists (and skaters and motorcyclists) nearly hit me, on a sidewalk, over the years and I have this feeling that some day I'm going to deliberately cause one of these people to have a nasty fall 

I try to be a careful, unobstructing (is that a word?) driver and pedestrian and I abhor both road rage and absent-minded gaiety coming from any road user above the age of 12 (OK, 15).

[dks]

     http://video.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2017/05/11/3839959309226885360/640x360_MP4_3839959309226885360.mp4     

[ducttapetech]

Wow!

[Grant Lamontagne]

Def

[Etherealicer]

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Def

Only a car driver would think that he following the law while he is speeding and drunk texting his ex. Focusing on the road is for wussies...

[Aloha]

I was a cyclist, motorcyclist, and of course motorist.  What I can say is general lack of knowing the laws plus people with very little patience are the issues I experienced.

[Chako]

I have no issues with bicyclist in general. We do have a specific bicycle shop owner that is an extreme bicycle activist who successfully got in the face of the Mayor and Council. End result, a few years ago, one of the busiest roads got harder because instead of having it be a 4 lane, it now features 3 lanes with marked off bicycle pathways on either side...which incidentally, are never almost used. Hence I shake my head whenever I have to go down the street as we really needed that extra lane way. I get that riding a bicycle is dangerous. Heck I ride a motorcycle and that is also dangerous. I feel an almost kindred spirit for the bicycle rider.

No...I reserve my scorn for e-bike drivers. I have a theory. I believe that most e-bike riders are auto drivers with suspended licences based purely on the crap I have witnessed. New laws in Ontario stipulate you must give a bicycle or an e-bike 1 meter clearance. No issues with bicyclist because 9 times out of 10, they are not weaving all over the place. Most of the time, the cheerful e-bike rider is weaving and bobbing in and out of traffic simply because. This means I can't pass them without breaking the law. 

Ontario rules of the road for things...
https://www.ontario.ca/document/official-mto-drivers-handbook/sharing-road-other-road-users

[Don Pablo]

SNIP
No...I reserve my scorn for e-bike drivers. I have a theory. I believe that most e-bike riders are auto drivers with suspended licences based purely on the crap I have witnessed. New laws in Ontario stipulate you must give a bicycle or an e-bike 1 meter clearance. No issues with bicyclist because 9 times out of 10, they are not weaving all over the place. Most of the time, the cheerful e-bike rider is weaving and bobbing in and out of traffic simply because. This means I can't pass them without breaking the law. 

Ontario rules of the road for things...
https://www.ontario.ca/document/official-mto-drivers-handbook/sharing-road-other-road-users

Maybe those E-bike riders are weaving because they are not out of breath due to having to pedel less? 

[AlephZero]

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Def

So much BS, so I just give up...Just asking, how many cyclists are killed because of drivers and vice versa?

And this thread should be locked, it's way too political

[dks]

medical, not political

[ToolJoe]

I am a cyclist and see cyclists who act like smurfs and it makes me cringe. I will keep my rant to a minimum. My bigger problem is how many people don't wear a helmet while riding.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Bicycle helmets are required by law in Halifax, but not here in Ottawa.  I see a lot more people here without helmets than I did in Halifax, but still the vast majority of cyclists (myself included) still tend to wear them, which I think is good to see.

There are times I ride without it, but for the most part I wear it.  It's cheap insurance IMHO.  It was a different story when helmets were over $150, but nowadays they are under $20, and $30-50 will buy you a nice one.  Sure you can still buy ones that are $150, but they aren't really any safer, just a bit less bulk.

I highly support anyone that bikes wears a helmet.

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

Oh yes, and my first bike helmet was about $150 and I looked like one of these guys.



Only not nearly as cool.   

Def

[styx]

Considering that my mother an I were almost ran over by 9 cyclists yesterday, I believe my points were proven truthful. Not one was in the bicycle lane or even had a helmet.

[ironraven]

I was going to stay out of this, becuase I have a history of strong feelings on this issue, but after what I've seen recently... Have I seen a motorist killed by a bicyclist?

I find that a very timely question. And not rhetorical. There was a driver taken out by ambulance after an accident about a mile from here. A bicyclist ignored all traffic signals, bolted into traffic on a major road, and a car swerved to avoid them and was in a head on collision. If that person dies, who is to blame? Not the bicyclist who wasn't taken away in cuffs nor in the meat wagon? His happy hippy ass pedalled off. The law and insurance companies won't stomp on the bicyclist. Nope, that won't happen. Bicyclists can get away with things that would lead to criminal charges around here if you were in a car.

In my experience, bicyclists are as dangerous sober as they are drunk, and are a nearly as dangerous as any impaired driver- I say almost ONLY because of their lack of mass. Given the difference between the speed of a bicycle and a motor vehicle, if they do something dumb, they might as well be impaired. They cause accidents violating traffic laws with utter impunity. Bicycles should be registered, and a license required to ride one on major roads- by which I mean anything over 20mph. They must be held to ALL laws with maximum penalties equal to that of motor vehicle operators, including those for operating without safety equipment. If they should run down a pedestrian, no different than ped vs MV. And they should be fined for going too slow and obstructing traffic the same as any one else doing 10mph in a 30 much less a 50.

Either that or this delusion that they are vehicles needs to end, and they need to realize they are pedestrians. A bicycle is no more a motor vehicle than roller blades or skateboards. EVERY day from spring to fall, I see people doing things on bikes where if you did it on a horse, you would legally be liable. So screw the bicyclists.

[Etherealicer]

Bicycles should be registered, and a license required to ride one on major roads- by which I mean anything over 20mph. They must be held to ALL laws with maximum penalties equal to that of motor vehicle operators, including those for operating without safety equipment. If they should run down a pedestrian, no different than ped vs MV. And they should be fined for going too slow and obstructing traffic the same as any one else doing 10mph in a 30 much less a 50.

Of course that would also mean that the bicycles ride in the middle of the lane and can only be passed if there is NO oncoming traffic.
Or we simply say, all roads that are currently 50km/h or less belong only to slow traffic (bicycles) and everything that was up to today faster belongs to cars. Yeah, lets disconnect all the routes so no-one can travel anymore.

Here are some facts (From 2015 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts):
- 5,376 pedestrians and 818 bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles, so obviously the cyclists are the cause for those over 5000 pedestrian death.
- Pedestrians are over-represented in the crash data, accounting for 14 percent of all traffic fatalities but only 10.9 percent of trip.
- 35,092 total U.S. traffic fatalities that year (probably also all caused by cyclists)

The public health community recognizes that lack of physical activity, and a decline in bicycling and walking in particular, is a major contributor to the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by heart attacks and strokes

Here is my theory:
- People are more likely to commit a crime if they think they can get away with it (e.g. running a red-light while cycling or texting while hidden in your car)
- Difference in speed makes for more problems (obviously a cyclist will have less problems with other cyclists, cars are driving behind each other etc...).

[hiraethus]

Interesting study here which seems to have been carried out properly: http://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/217306/muarc322.pdf It's a bit long, so grab a cuppa. 

From the summary:

In total, 36 participants completed the study (25 males, 11 females). Collectively the participants recorded 466 hours and 20 minutes of video footage of their trips over a period of 8,986km ... No collision events were recorded. A total of 91 potentially unsafe cyclist-interactions were identified. In the majority of events (93.4%), the behaviour of the driver led to the event. The most common event type was left turn (37.3%) which involved a driver turning left across the path of the cyclist, drivers turning across cyclists’ path from the adjacent direction (32.9%). Unexpectedly opened vehicle doors accounted for 17.6% of cyclist-driver interactions. In the majority of all events, a crash was avoided due to the evasive actions taken by cyclists.

My bold.

To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem

This seems to be the main issue.  There are smurfs everywhere: in cars, on foot, on bikes.  On this forum, even.

[hiraethus]

And this thread should be locked, it's way too political

If this was about gun users, or muslims, or black people it would never have been started.  Cyclists are an acceptable minority to pick on.

[WoodsDuck]

And this thread should be locked, it's way too political

If this was about gun users, or muslims, or black people it would never have been started.  Cyclists are an acceptable minority to pick on.

Cyclists are people who buy bicycles and ride them. Where's the parallel with race or religion?

[dks]

PC society and politeness stops a lot of threads being started, even though some groups give us a lot of just reasons to blame them for bad things...

Cyclists are not generally one of those groups

[Top-Gear-24]

I've been following this topic for some time now, and I told myself to stay out of it since I felt like it had a bit of a negative vibe about it, something I'm not used to here at MTO ... So much for not posting in this topic ... ( myself)

The way I see it, there are A**holes in every group of people.

I use my car daily to get to work, I hate driving my car, but it's the only option sadly enough.
I'm a cyclist, but I only own mountainbikes, and hardly use them on the road, 99% of the time my bikes are used on gravel and dirt tracks.
I used to ride a motorcycle but at some point, it just wasn't fun anymore since the road seemed to be full of egocentric idiots, who couldn't care less if they put you in the hospital, just so they could cut 30 seconds of their daily commute.

And you find this type of people in every group, driving a car/bus/motorcycle/road bike/E-bike/mountainbike/... , and yes, also on foot  .

I've always thought that there was something wrong with me, since I tried my best to spend my free time at locations where there was only a slim chance of coming across another specimen of my species ...  Which is pretty hard to do in a country roughly the size of an average American back yard ...     My parents even call me asocial  .

So here's an example of one of my favorite places to go to:



Desolate ... just the way I like it  . 

All alone with my wife and kids ...    And if you do run into someone at these places, they are most likely there in search for the same thing as me, and after a friendly greet we'll both continue our way.

So in my opinion, it's not one group of road users that contains all the a**holes, they are spread out between all the groups ...

And finally ... a pic of another one of my favorite "avoid other people" spots, but this time there's a multitool in the pic, after all, this is a multitool forum, right ...  .



As always, this is just my own humble opinion  .