This is from a regularly scheduled Everglades Bike Club weekend ride in Key Biscayne, USA, on a 10km stretch of road, and all the drivers know to expect it will be there in the mornings.
This is from a regularly scheduled Everglades Bike Club weekend ride in Key Biscayne, USA, on a 10km stretch of road, and all the drivers know to expect it will be there in the mornings.
Personally speaking because I am both. Cyclists don’t obey the rules of the road to the same rigor as a car. Both parties are open to hate.
Now that said, only one of them is in a 2 tonne death machine.
Most cars don’t obey the rules of the road for shit. Case in point above
Even in the post, one driver freaks out and does this unhinged maneuver, all the others stay behind the bikes. So fuck off with “most cars”.
Yeah and case in point a cyclist is rarely going to kill someone in a head on collision but a car will.
Indeed, why should they? The rules of the road where made expressly for cars, not bikes, and there are several states which sensibly make carve outs for bicycles and motorcycles.
But, as you point out, the risk for breaking the rules–real or perceived–fall entirely on the cyclist, so I absolutely see no equivalence.
Ya don’t break a rule; the car runs you over because distracted driver.
Ya break a rule to avoid distracted driver; you get ran over because your rule breaking in your tiny and light bicycle triggered the road rage of someone in a SUV whose control was entirely based on spite and the fact everyone else should follow rules without exception (that the state legislature carved for cyclists to try to minimize their deaths).
Being a cyclist commuter is fun, much recommended.
The problem with cars is that they immediately make every other form of transportation incredibly shitty.
Pedestrians and cyclists get killed. Buses get stuck in traffic.
I hate cars, but what am I supposed to do? Getting out of my car is just an invitation to get killed by one. And if I wanted to live entirely without a car, I’d have to move to a city, where I would never be more than 12-feet away from cars and have to cross a road every block, risking my life because of shitty fucking cars.
When we say, “We’re not saying get rid of cars, we’re just saying we need options”, to not scare the carbrains, well, the only way to have real options (ie safe roads) is to have roads entirely without cars.
I would love for my city center to become car free. There is like a square mile that would make so much sense.
Bullshit
Spend a few years downtown in any metropolitan area and see if you change your tune. The amount of cyclists (myself included) who drive through lights or advances, don’t indicate directions, wrong way on a one way street, cutting through parking lots or alleys the list goes on and on.
No, it’s objectively bullshit. It’s been studied many times and the result always proves that carbrained nonsense to be bullshit.
Drivers break the law all the time. They run blatant reds. They fail to stop when safe to do so at a yellow. They speed. They ignore stop signs. They fail to give way to pedestrians. The pass cyclists too close. They fail to indicate correctly at roundabouts more often than they do it correctly.
The only difference is people are too carbrained to even notice these. Oh, and the reasons for it (cyclists tend to break the law for their own safety unlike car drivers who do it for convenience) and the consequences when they do (cyclists endanger nobody except occasionally themselves, drivers endanger everyone around them).
maybe its my metro area but I feel motorists are more likely to not follow the rules. There is cyclists but its a pretty low percentage. The ones that do though really do and make themselves a nuisance. There was a guy that would just ignore the red light on a major intersection. like two four lanes. during rush hour because I guess he felt since everything is slowed up he can just fuck right through.
Nah, you’re correct. Any time a study is done on this it finds that either drivers and cyclists break the law at similar rates, or drivers break it more.
There’s also the difference in why they do it. Drivers break the law out of convenience. Because it’s easier to do, or because it gets them where they’re going faster. Cyclists sometimes do that, but far more than drivers, they’re likely to do it because it’s safer. Because laws are often made for car drivers in ways that aren’t appropriate to cyclists, and so breaking the law is often safer. The classic example is treating stop signs as give way signs in places that haven’t implemented an Idaho Stop rule.
Sources:
Depending on your local that could be perfectly legal. It’s called an Idaho Stop. You can treat stop signs as yields and red light like a stop sign. You’re not supposed to treat a red light as a yield so if he’s doing that it’s illegal everywhere as far as I know.
there are cars in the intersection which you can’t do with a stop so its not treating the red light like a stop.
My 2 cents is the closer to a downtown you get the better the drivers are because of proximity however the cyclists are shit at obeying rules. Outside downtown cars are horrible in respecting cyclists who usually end up better at obeying laws because of the speeds.
You’re actually right and it goes down to how drivers respond to their surroundings. Areas with narrower streets, more traffic, and more pedestrians encourage drivers to be more observant passively.
When you have a wide, clear, straight road people pay less attention.
It’s a psychology thing and some people are trying to design roads around the concept
“Cyclists don’t obey the rules of the road to the same rigor as a car.”
Because you don’t need a license for a bike, the rules are there because cars and motorbikes are incredibly dangerous compared to walking or biking (for everyone involved). A large part of people who bike don’t know the rules because they don’t need to, just the basic stuff and having situational awareness is enough. The issue is that many in all above mentioned kinds don’t have that, they’re either too dumb, thinking about something else or using their phones etc. But it’s way more important for the people who are in control of the most dangerous vehicles to be the ones who know and follow the rules.