Seattle Bubble Forum Archive

I ride my bike to work and a lot of things that other bikers do really bugs me. The critical mass rides, conceptually, are one of them. It seems to be less about "sharing the road" and more about thumbing your noses at drivers.

The image certainly gives the impression that is the goal.

if bikes would just obey street signs (particularly 4-way stops) and would remember that they are vehicles and not pedestrians, i would have way fewer issues with them.

i'm pretty sure i'm going to kill someone crossing the burt gilman trail in a few spots where there are stop signs pointing at the bicyclists and there's no visibility due to foliage. they routinely come blowing across the crosswalk, ignoring the stop signs at 40 mph. nobody has reaction times that good, but we're in cars so we're evil and at fault...

I'll be honest: I roll through 4 way stops if there are no cars, and I use sidewalks and other "cheats" to minimize the times I have to stop. I still slow down, of course, and wait my turn when there are cars. I've seen plenty of bikers just go through 4 ways with no real consideration of order, so I understand your angst. I haven't ridden B-G in a while, and I only recall one or two times where the trail traffic has a stop - and the vast majority of bikers ignore it. And sadly, much like pedestrians who walk in front of you, the driver of the car will somehow be at fault.

A more significant thing is ignoring lights at the expense of traffic. Last week I saw a woman on a bike go through 2 red lights, the first causing a line of cars turning left onto Spokane to have to stop (they have a green left arrow and full right of way over all vehicles and pedestrians), then not more than 20 feet later cutting off a semi who had a green light and had to stop completely to avoid running this girl over. Riding in front of moving semis is just plain stupid, but her behavior was not all that different from a lot of other riders in Seattle.

And I won't even get into riders wearing iPods...

I live on the Burke Gillman, and in a car, I treat it as a stop-sign in the summer. The traffic is so much greater on the trail than on the roads, it should be a stop sign for cars in a perfect world.

Every morning when school's in, a school bus accelerates through the crossing near my house, honking the whole time (nice alarm clock, right)? What's he gonna say when he plows over some reckless kid? I honked?

Out of downtown, I obey traffic laws. In town, I just try not to get killed. The laws are about the 6th thing I think about.

Not sure if anyone saw this, it seemed relevant to the topic

http://gothamist.com/2008/07/28/cop_cau ... g_cycl.php

When I'm riding on a sidewalk (a rarity) I go down to pedestrian speeds. Any bike rider with a modicum of experience can easily gear down to pace pedestrians in a split-second.

Unless your bike is motorized, that is.

Maybe half the car drivers in this city are willing to hit the brakes when confronted with the choice of slowing down and waiting to pass a bike safely and just trying to slide by, hoping the bike doesn't hit a bump and careen into your right side-view mirror, or under your bumper.

I generally just don't take the chance. If I deem there isn't room to safely pass me, I position myself so that the car doesn't have the option. Either he hits his brakes or he runs me down. When given that option, so far 100% of drivers hit their brakes. Though this tends to piss people off, it generally just means they are inconvenienced 2 or 3 seconds, which they easily make up after they safely pass, and are back to tail-gating the car that was in front of them in no time.

The bicyclists who annoy me the most are the Lance Armstrong wannabee's - smug in their apparent belief that all traffic is being stopped for their Tour de Commute, they blow through lights, dodge around pedestrians, do anything but stop. If they do, they fall behind in the standings, see. And those pedestrians, the closer you zip by one, the more points you get.

In Fremont where I work, cyclists flipping off cars and yelling loud F-yous for some perceived grief is a frequent occurrence. What gives with those cyclists who swerve around loaded construction trucks? What are they trying to prove? That they can win in a collision? And whats with surrounding cars, stopping traffic, and screaming at "cagers" in these "Critical Mass" rides? This is how they try to win over people to biking?

For a few years, I commuted on a bike for part of the week on Eastlake and on the BG and never had any problems. I was defensive and carried over my lessons of riding motorcycles to riding bicycles on the road. Most drivers were courteous, some seemed to be inattentive but that's what you're supposed to watch out for, right?

I can't imagine how annoying it must be to have cars parked in the bike lane, but I see many cyclist effectively assuming the bike lane goes around the parked cars and weaving in and out of the "car lane" without even checking to see if there's a car coming behind them. I saw one almost get hit doing this just yesterday on 164th Ave. That is effecively chaning lanes, and any time you change lanes in any vehicle, you need to look behind you first for the safety of yourself and others.