Also in bikes, I read this NPR article about bike trains in LA. Basically they use this website to organize group commutes to work for safety and encouragement. It's an awesome idea that makes me wonder if Buffalo is big enough for something like that. It's definitely easier to commit to riding knowing other people are counting on you. The thing that really stood out to me was the quote from this sociopath, Jackie Burke.
"It's like they enjoy taking up the lanes," says Jackie Burke, who has lived in Los Angeles her whole life. She says bicyclists drive her crazy when she's in a car and has to slow down for them.
"It's very frustrating, to the point where I just want to run them off the road," Burke says. "I've actually done one of those drive-really-close-to-them kind of things to kind of scare them, to try to intimidate them to get out of my way."
Is she freaking serious? How is menacing and assault a reasonable response to being slowed down for at most thirty seconds? Not to stoop to her level but I hope next time she does that someone u-locks the shit out of her car because that's not even the least of what she deserves. If she ever hits someone I hope the prosecuter finds this quote and throws the book at her. Maybe after she gets out of jail they can suspend her license and she can spend the rest of her life on a bike.
Yeah I definitely know what you're talking about Dave. Drivers don't seem to know about signals and some can't seem to wait two seconds to yield or slow for a bike when they would do the exact same thing for a car.
I also agree with you (e:metalpeter) about both being in the wrong sometimes - but in so many situations it seems like drivers don't even consider or even exploit the fact that they are 2 ton vehicles against 150 lb cyclists.
Being able to operate something that big and lethal definitely puts the onus on you to be safe about it, which is why I'm all about strict liability laws for driver-bike/ped collisions (see the Netherlands :::link::: ). As opposed to the US where most drivers don't even get charged even in negligence (see :::link::: Corisanti for examples).
The Problem is that a lot of cars and Bikes are in the wrong... If you ride in the street you have to go the speed of traffic ... I've all most been ran over by people on bikes who think they don't have to stop at red lights and people cut across lanes to other side of the street and all kinds of stuff....... As an example I bet many drivers don't get the hand single thing like how the roll through stop signs don't get that Yield means the people in circle have the right away and things like that .......
That woman reminds me of a recent event I experienced. I was riding down Richmond and needed to make a left so I got as close to the yellow line as possible and signaled with my hand that I was turning and some guy in a truck stopped to yell "Get out of the f'ing road you idiot!" I was so confused because he easily could go around me without slowing down, not really sure why just being on the road enrages people so much. I wonder if the bike lanes confuse some people and makes it look like we are doing the wrong thing if we are not in them when we need to make a turn?