Go out
The Scaly Scales of Justice »
Sure, cyclists should ride intelligently, but having respect for the power of a car is the driver’s job. If they lack that respect then the car should be taken from them.
Being only as interested in the taxonomy of American cycling subcultures as I am in baseball statistics, I have never been a Bike Snob reader. (And sorry, mom in law, I haven’t read that book you gave me.) But as Brooklyn Spoke pointed out, this is a righteous post.
The “power” that Snob is talking about is at the crux of everything that happens on our streets, from the subculture of masochistic cycling to the grateful nod that pedestrians give to motorists for being allowed to enjoy their lawful right of way.
In our society’s submission to this power, we’ve even corrupted the principle of responsibility such that it is far more often critically applied to pedestrian and cyclist victims than the people controlling the powerful vehicles that killed them. In the not-so-old days this social norm meant the very opposite: an obligation of those with power to use it with honor, respect, and care.
But anti-collective, anti-social, mechanized America has almost privatized responsibility out of existence. That noble ideal was rebranded as “self-responsibility”, an obligation not to be maimed or killed (so that no one else has to endure the unpleasantness). But we already have a lower, truer apprecation of that in our bones: it’s called survival. Survival is what’s left, when laws and social conventions are brushed aside.
Is this how we want to live?
via n8han, whose posts are always insightful and well phrased. very often i find myself reblogging him because i agree with his analysis and he sums up nicely my thoughts on the matter. i reblog him often.
As a general rule, the propensity of non-bicyclists to give biking a try is inversely proportional to the average velocity of the bikers they see on the street. If you live in a city where women in wedge heels are steering their old steel bikes around their daily errand route, there’s really nothing intimidating or scary about the prospect of getting on a bike yourself. If it’s all hipsters on fixies, by contrast, that just makes biking feel all the more alien and stupid.”
— Reuters blogger Felix Salmon reflects on the Slow Bike movement
This battle is about so much more than a few city clerks on Bromptons — or whatever the stereotype of the London cyclist is this week — having to deal with more hostile traffic on the way to the office from Waterloo. Blackfriars represents a battle over the very basics of what sort of a place we want London (and Britain) to be. By driving these great roads and massive junctions through the centre of our cities we are not just sacrificing — sometimes literally — cyclists and mass cycling. We are destroying a chance to step towards a fairer, more pleasant and more liveable city. And with that we are falling behind the progress of the rest of the world and sacrificing London’s future as a competitive world city. And all to avoid inconveniencing the pampered powerful few, and to accommodate a bunch of wasteful business practices.”
Bicyclist harassment outlawed by Los Angeles City Council: A new law makes it a crime for drivers to threaten cyclists verbally or physically.
Photo: A bicyclist pedals through downtown Los Angeles after the City Council passed a pioneering law to protect cyclists from harassment by motorists that backers described as the toughest of its kind in the nation. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times
(Source: Los Angeles Times, via patrickedwardkiefer)
Jeff Word was crossing Valley St at the crosswalk from Terry Ave N into South Lake Union Park the evening of May 18 when a driver ran a red light and struck him and his bicycle. Word reacted quickly and was able to put his foot onto the car’s approaching hood and push off. The collision damaged his bike, but Word landed on his feet unharmed after being thrown across the crosswalk.
New York pedestrians completely ignore the traffic laws and would be outraged to hear that someone had gotten a ticket for anything they did in the street on foot, no matter how crazy or dangerous. If you haven’t ridden a bike in the city, you have no idea what it’s like. When you’re on a bike and have the right of way, at each intersection you have to figure out how to safely get around the hordes of idiots standing in the bike lane looking alternately at their iphone and for a break in between the cars to shoot out into. Often they think bikes don’t count, so will walk right in front of you (when the bike has the right of way). Also in no danger from the cops are people leaving their parked cars, who open their doors right in the paths of bikers, often killing them.
Many people bike safely in New York, by being very careful and attentive to both cars and pedestrians. Those who aren’t don’t last long before they end up in the ER. If an intersection is clear, whether or not it has a red light, it’s exactly as safe to bike through it at reasonable speed as to walk through it, except the bikers are paying a lot more attention to what they are doing.
Police have always been free to ticket dangerous bicycling and have always done so. What’s new now is a campaign to go after safe bicyclists, ticketing them for safely going through empty intersections or for pointless technical violations. Even bicycling in Central Park is a target, with people getting ticketed for going down a hill at 15mph. Not just regular traffic cops are being told to do this, the undercover force is out on the anti-bike campaign too. This is an organized campaign of harassment coming from the top levels of the NYPD. I’m interested to hear that delivery people are just given warnings, that’s good, but those like myself who use a bike to get to work or ride in the Park are being forced to stop doing this. That seems to be one goal of the campaign, with the NYPD police chief deciding to go after two things he hates: bicyclists and the Transportation commissioner. Bicycling in the city is going to be very effectively suppressed, with lots of shiny new bike lanes empty. Pedestrians may cheer this along, but just wait, you may be next…
— comment posted in response to Cops Also Ticketing Cyclists For Ignoring Stop Signs At Empty Intersections
