pedestrians?!?!Yeah. I know this would get me stoned in New York, but things would work a lot better if people waited at intersections for the walk sign rather than jaywalking. There. I said it.
If you're on the sidewalk shouting this, you're already an asshole and warning someone isn't going to redeem you. If you're on a bike path, we know that there are bikes going by, you don't need to make an enormous production out of it every time.I commute on a multi-use path. If pedestrians realize that there are bike riders on the path, then they would really make my life easier if they'd acknowledge that by staying to the right. I have to shout out something, because I can't pass the people who are sauntering in the middle of the path. Extra bonus points if they'd keep their iPods at a volume where they could hear me when I asked them to move.
I've got an alternative. In a city designed around the use of cars, with streets laid out to be used by cars, and without designated bike paths specifically to accommodate the use of bikes? Understand that as the person bringing a bike into this scenario, the onus is and should be on you to not fuck everything up.I don't think that New York is a "city designed around the use of cars, with streets laid out to be used by cars." The street plan of Manhattan was adopted by the New York state legislature in 1811. Is your argument that they psychically anticipated the invention of the car?
Or you can slow down, approach at a safe speed, and ask them to move over or pass slowly when traffic permits.That's what I do. But asking them to move means yelling, because people can't hear me over the din of their iPods. And therefore, I have little sympathy when people complain that cyclists don't need to call out to pedestrians. It's not a silly affectation.
By 1899, only a few score automobiles had been built, horses and carriages were expensive to maintain in crowded cities, and urban public transportation was, with few exceptions, slow and frequently inadequate. The bicycle met the need for inexpensive individual transportation—much as the automobile has in recent times—for going to and from business, for business deliveries, for recreational riding, and for sport.....posted by craichead at 4:05 PM on June 7, 2011 [2 favorites]
Directly and indirectly, the bicycle had a decided influence on the introduction of the automobile. In addition to introducing thousands of persons to individual and independent mechanical transportation, the bicycle proved the value of many materials and parts that were subsequently taken over by the automobile designers.
The word 'car' does come from the word 'carriage', which also shares it's roots from 'chariot', which came from the latin word carrus, usually being a four wheeled vehicle. It's use dates back a couple thousand years. The fact that the power source has changed is irrelevantThat's a silly argument. New York streets were not designed for the exclusive use of carriages, and horse-drawn carriages are not the same as motorized vehicles. You're grasping at straws. New York streets weren't laid out for modern vehicles, and bicycles were a major mode of transit in New York decades before private cars were.
Actually -- some people have called for licensing cyclists, or adding it to your driver's license, and putting a plate on your bike. I also agree with this. (Mainly because I really do obey all traffic laws, so what have I got to worry about?)Well, for one thing, a large and usually totally-unacknowledged portion of American cyclists are poor people, and for them this could be a total disaster. They can't necessarily afford the cost of a license. They don't necessarily have transportation to get to licensing facilities. Some of them ride bikes because they aren't eligible for licenses, often because they're not in the country legally.
....I'm kind of an anomaly anyway, though, because I've always tended to be a bit timid on a bike (I didn't learn how to ride until I was about nine, and then I took a REALLY nasty spill that first month with a first bike, so I've always been slow and cautious), so I would be slowing down for pedestrians and stopping at red lights and waving cars to go ahead of me because "eep big cars around me let them get past me so they won't hit me okay road's clear phew now I can go".You really, really should read the stuff about women cyclists in London, who die in cycling accidents in massively higher rates than men. This behavior is very likely to get you killed.
The study was blunt in its conclusions: "Women may be over-represented in (collisions with goods vehicles) because they are less likely than men to disobey red lights."posted by craichead at 5:40 AM on June 8, 2011 [4 favorites]
Don't run red lights.When you break these laws people notice and it makes you look like a dick who thinks the rules don't apply to them. When initiatives come up to promote bicycling, I am never in favor of them, and it's because NYC bicyclers are dicks. If a candidate wants to promote bicycling in this city then I'm going to think long an hard about actually supporting or voting for them since I think NYC bicyclers are dicks.
Don't run stop signs.
Don't go the wrong way on the street.
Don't ride on the sidewalk (unless it's legal).
If you're passing a pedestrian they have the right of way.
Yield to pedestrians.
If you're going too fast to stop then you're going too fast.
"Violation of biological command has been the failure of social man. Vertebrates though we may be, we have ignored the law of equal opportunity since civilization's earliest hours. Sexually reproducing beings though we are, we pretend today that the law of inequality does not exist. And enlightened though we may be, while we pursue the unattainable we make impossible the realizable."The Social Contract: A Personal Inquiry into the Evolutionary Sources of Order and Disorder by Robert Ardrey
Bonus: If bikes moved like cars, they might not seem as addling to some drivers, leaving those drivers more amenable to spending tax dollars on things like building separated bike lanes.My experience, fwiw, is that exactly the opposite is true. When I stop at stoplights in the right hand lane, I often prevent drivers from turning right on red, and it annoys the hell out of them.
I have a question for my fellow bikers -- exactly what reason can you give for why one would want to run a red light?Being stopped at a red light is very dangerous for a cyclist. Check out collision #5, the "red light of death", on this website. As soon as the light turns green, you're in the path of turning vehicles, and it's tough to stay out of their blind spots. Depending on the intersection, it can actually be safer to run the light, assuming you can slow down and make sure there's nothing coming in the other direction.
(I thought there was some state that allowed bikers to treat red lights like stop signs ... I'll look and post if I find it ...)It's Idaho. The "Idaho stop" is to treat stop signs like yield signs (which I would submit pretty much all cyclists do, including the cycle cops around here) and to treat red lights like stop signs. That is to say: stop, make sure it's safe to go, and then go.
1. to get where I'm going sooner, 2. to get where I'm going with less effort, 3. to avoid having to cleat out of and back in to my pedals, and 4. to retain control of my bicycle. That's right: a bicycle is under control when moving, and out of control when stopped.Although I ride with toe clips, I'd give the same basic list. Especially the point about not stopping -- that's when I feel most vulnerable on a bicycle, when I'm stopped with one foot down and the only way I can move at all is to hop around and try not to fall over. I think I've fallen more times while stopped than while moving!
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posted by elizardbits at 1:45 PM on June 7, 2011 [5 favorites]