You’re welcome to speak your opinion. Not to speak mine though! Also, here, hold this mirror.
Sure they do. they are for the lapels of proud douchebags who decide where other peoples lines ought to be.
It’s the sort of thing honest people are proud about being, when they are.
or word games. Be good to get paid for the practice.
We noticed.
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Bicycle lanes are lanes too. They’re specifically “restricted lanes.” Many of them are narrow, but for the purposes of vehicle movements, proper driving procedure treats them as lanes like any other.
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Cool story, bro!
Now, does anyone know where I can get “I parked my bike in a car slot” stickers?
Humans are notoriously bad at evaluating risks especially when then just imagine-up their own statistics.
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In the UK, from 2010 to 2013, 14 pedestrians were killed in accidents involving cyclists, compared with 1661 killed in accidents involving motor vehicles- less than 1% of pedestrian fatalities.
445 cyclists were killed in road accidents in the same time period.
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Yawn.
Clearly you have no awareness of/interest in this topic. So why are you posting?
Go get almost killed on your bike then come on back and we’ll chat.
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Try the nearest laser printer.
Kids these days, if they can’t buy it they don’t have it…
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No idea about US law, but parking my bike in a car slot is what we’re supposed to do in Austria unless dedicated bike parking is available.
Most people prefer to clutter up the sidewalk with bikes instead, though.
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The most common crime related to “parking in a bike lane” that I regularily experience in Austria is actually short-term stopping for loading/unloading.
In low-traffic narrow side streets it is usually tolerated for cars to stop half on the street and half on the sidewalk to quickly load/unload stuff, to allow someone to get out, etc. Other cars will still be able to pass, so no harm done.
There are also many relatively narrow streets with one lane going one way and only a bike lane going the other way. In these streets, motorists will, for some inexplicable reason, cross to the other side of the street in order to block the oncoming bike lane instead of partially blocking their own lane.
Your equation leaves out how likely a cyclist is to be killed riding in the road with cars.
The best way to keep cyclists off the sidewalk just happens to be to keep the bike lanes clear…
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Slowly scrolling down the comments without noticing the total.
See this comment and realize that this is the moment the thread will instantly devolve into cars vs bikes argument.
Look down. Yup, 113 comments so far.
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My problem with cyclists who don’t follow the road rules isn’t concern for myself. I’m afraid I might hit them. I try really hard to be aware and careful of cyclists. I don’t pass a bike unless I have enough room to keep 3 feet between my car and the the bike. I prefer to just wait until the left lane clears and I can move lanes.
But when the cyclist doesn’t obey the rules, their behavior is hard to predict and a lot of time, impossible to see. Like a cyclist who decides to ride between lanes because traffic is dense, going much faster than the cars around them, only to nearly run into the side or back end of a car switching lanes. The driver couldn’t see them, they were going too fast and were too small. Or the people who bike on the road, then dart on the sidewalk, then back on the road.
So I want cyclists to obey the rules for the same reason I want drivers of cars to obey the rules. Because no matter how careful or aware I am, when someone does something unpredictable on the road, it’s hard to keep everyone safe.
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Yup! I came into this thread wondering “How long will it take before somebody brings in the ‘But what about cyclists who run stop signs?’ argument.” Came away satisfied that it didn’t take long at all. And every time I see that argument, just like every time I see the “everybody who drives a car is an asshole to cyclists” argument, the only thing I can think of to say is “Your confirmation bias is showing”.
As to the topic of the post - I would like a more generic “I parked like an asshole” sticker, customizable to the situation. Because cyclists aren’t the only ones that have to deal with asshole parkers. Other drivers do, too.
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A three tiered system would be great. If I KNEW the bike was going to go through an intersection b/c that’s the rule, and that the bike would stay put on the bike-red, I wouldn’t care if the bike got to go before I did or not have to stop at lights as much. It’s the unpredictability plus being so much smaller, and thus hard to see, that bugs me. I don’t want to hit anyone. Cyclists, for their own safety, need to assume the drivers don’t see them, even though drivers should. A cyclist is so vulnerable when on the road with a bunch of metal cages full of idiots.
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They might do that b/c if a bike hits their car, they get a few dents and a hurt bike rider. If a car hits their car, they get serious damage. So, they choose the less damage to themselves.
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I more-or-less corrected myself already. While things like public shaming are not strictly speaking “vigilantism” they do constitute taking the law into your own hands. In any case, the salient point is that sticking stuff on people’s cars might be great way to make yourself feel better, but it’s a shit way to actually get people to stop parking in bike lanes.
Sorry, but making assumptions about what your interlocutor is saying is an inevitable part of a discussion. Since we don’t have telepathy, I can’t instantly know what you actually believe (or even if you have a coherent opinion). Writing may approximate it, but some interpretation is always required. The problem occurs when you start assuming things about the person, rather than about their argument. I didn’t do that. You did.
I am under the impression that these are for sticking on other people’s cars. In any case, even if I were to make the assumption that everyone parking in a bike lane is a “proud douchebag”, I still see nothing constructive in making people scrape off annoying stickers. It’s pretty weak both as a punishment and as a way of raising awareness. In particular, I see no reason why it should change anyone’s mind.
EDIT:
The weird thing about all of this, is that my sympathies are entirely on the side of the bikers. I just think the stickers are a bad idea. It kind of feels weird committing so much time to arguing with people I generally support.
They are in my way when the road is clogged with automobile traffic, so they are essentially parked, and they choose to get in the bike lane a block before the right turn lane starts. Yes, there are people who think that driving in the bike lane is appropriate.
