closetbiker

So, last Wednesday, I flip through the morning paper and see a previously provocative columnist was at it again.

He had offered up his opinions that cyclists don't pay for the roads they ride on and that cyclists and motorists can never get along while using the same streets, but this time, he's going on about how cyclists get away with breaking laws.

City's empowered cyclists roll past rules

Of course this may be his opinion, but it's not true. Cyclists are ticketed for violations, and it's also not like motorists don't get away with a few violations of their own.

So I did what I always do and send in a rebuttal that was printed a couple of days later

I hate to burst Jon Ferry's bubble but police do treat cyclists as they do motorists and that's a shame, really, because police should ticket motorists far more often than they do.

After all, don't motor vehicles produce the most damage, and isn't it the job of police to protect the public as best they can?

This morning, I was flipping through the paper and saw a letter that was in direct response to mine

the reason motor vehicles do the most damage is because pedestrians and cyclists do not obey the rules of the road. You would not believe the stupid things these people do.

I guess it is all our fault after all.

ItsJustMe

Be sure to send another letter indicating that in fact, cyclists pay MORE than car users do given the demands that they make on the roads. Cars pay less than their fair share, cyclists pay more than their fair share. It may be true that cyclists pay less than car drivers do, but it's a lot less than people think, and their demands on the infrastructure are a tiny fraction of the demands and damage that cars make.

As far as gas tax and licensing goes, almost all of that goes towards interstates which bikes can't use, so it doesn't enter into the equation.

closetbiker

Yeah, that column generated a lot of response. He knows, as well as al of the readers know what the story truly is, that is, if they want to learn something.

I swear, there are those who refuse to learn, even when it's a simple matter.

As for the response to my letter (and I suppose to the original column that spawned it) you just have to laugh, or you'll cry at someone who cannot see anything of what they may be doing wrong, and blame others for their own problems.

Case in point. I was riding home from work the other day when I was coming up to a corner where I had to turn right. The road I was turning on had a bike lane and It's always an easy turn into it but sometimes, like this time, there is a MV waiting to turn right onto the same road on the same road I'm approaching the intersection from.

I come up on the right from behind while the MV is waiting to make its turn. I make the turn nice and easy just when the MV gets a break in traffic and makes its way onto the same road next to the bike lane I just turned onto. Except what happens is, the MV drives into the bike lane where I am, and not the road lane where it belongs.

The driver is shocked to see me there and becomes enraged, pulling up next to me to give me a good yelling at because I "cut him off" and was going to "kill myself" you "*&%#! bikers!!!!"

The driver had no idea the MV was in the bike lane and was in the wrong. It was all my fault.

Pedaleur

A while back -- a long while back -- there was a road rage incident between a driver and some cyclists that landed one of the latter in the ditch and later in the hospital. In the ensuing s***storm, a woman wrote a letter to the editor decrying dangerous cyclists on a particularly popular road for cycling (Earlysville Road near Charlottesville, VA, for those who know it). Anyway, the woman related an incident where she was once travelling around a curve and came upon a cyclist, who was riding on the right. The cyclist surprised her, and there was oncoming traffic, but because the car behind her was tailgaiting, she couldn't brake and was forced to 'shoot the gap'. All this, and it was *still* the cyclist who was the danger.

SBRDude

Behold the power of unreasonableness.

AlmostTrick

I've had coworkers tell me they were afraid of being rear ended if they slowed down behind me.

One coworker literally yelled at me one morning because she "was going 45 mph one senond and the next had to jam on the brakes down to 5 mph". She said she was several cars behind me. I asked her if she was tailgating or paying proper attention because I'm usually traveling over 20 mph where this happened. After discussing the legality of bikes being on this particular section of road for a few minutes, (her assertation was that they weren't allowed) she still insisted that I almost caused an accident.

Pedaleur

Then there was the acquaintance who complained about encountering an oncoming cyclist at a blind hill because "the cyclist was practically out to where the yellow line would be if there were one."

I could go on all day, but it's bedtime...