Maybe the bikers are onto something
Last night: Elderly man drives car into Sound, killing passenger
Today: Hit-and-run accident involving 9 month old baby in Ballard (but baby is OK)
Related posts:
Terms of use | Privacy Policy | Content: Creative Commons | Site and Design © 2008 | Metroblogging ® and Metblogs ® are registered trademarks of Bode Media, Inc.
Please. Stop generalizing about bikers, and stop promoting the bike vs car battle.
I’ve been the victim of serious car on bike road rage twice now. Both times, I was simply riding in the bike lane, minding my own business, when someone who clearly had a stick up his/her ass about bikes decided to take out their grudge on me.
Just today on the east side a group of guys in a car driving in the oppposite lane yelled at my group to "get off the road!" There are plenty of drivers who seem to have an issue with bikes and feel entitled to harass them or even try to run them off the road. This kind of media only fans the flames. And people do get hurt as a result.
Wow, you missed the point. Badly.
"Hey look, here are drivers behaving badly in a 12 hour period."
"HOW DARE YOU PILE ON BIKERS!"
Ha! This made me laugh. Nothing better than throwing a bone out to have someone come back with a knee jerk response. I guess you can’t please some people no matter what.
I would also say that there needs to be a healthier discussion in Seattle about the biker vs. motorist debate (seandr, ignoring the problem doesn’t help the cyclists or the motorist). There’s obviously strong feelings on both sides since most of the posts about it seem to garner a huge amount of comments. Sounds like a problem that needs a-fixin’, and it isn’t going away anytime soon. Personally I don’t think much can progress until the city changes the way it creates spaces for cyclists and for motorists and cyclists both to obey the rules of the road as set out by the law. We can’t do much about the city right now, but both groups can at least do the latter.
I think more cyclists can only be a good thing, for the reasons Dylan points out and more. If there are more people on bikes there will be more pressure to make bike-friendly spaces and be aware of cyclists’ needs. (So, for instance, when there’s a car accident the city workers don’t just sweep the broken glass into the bike lane and call it good. Yeah. They do that.) Also, with more cyclists maybe it’ll cause some self-policing and get cyclists to follow the rules of the road. (You know who you are, all 75% of you. And I’m a cyclist too, so don’t jump on me for pointing out the truth.) Lastly (and most importantly), perhaps people can get over this irrational hatred of people on bikes. I know exactly what seandr is talking about, where I’ve had people shout at me simply for existing. What is it about cyclists that engenders the same sort of frothing-at-the-mouth response that Hillary and cats do?
(Not trying to derail the thread. Hope I didn’t.)