San Francisco City Hall hears horrifying tales of cops' hostility to cyclists

boing
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ftfy:

I’ve seen lots of pedestrians get hit. I’ve seen bikes have to slam on their breaks, swerve into other lanes. Mostly I just see motorists pretending they own the road. They just plough through and assume others will get out of their way. Stand on pretty much any corner on Valencia and watch how many pedestrians have to jump out of the way of motorists running lights or at least yield even though the cars don’t have the right of way. It’s called sharing the road and being considerate. Something few motorists are.

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How quaint, you think continuing to be purposefully obtuse even remotely helps your case. But, in reality (yes, reality) that just makes everyone hate you and nothing more.

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Hon, I’m not the one making a claim about the vast majority of cyclists, which means I am under no burden to prove any such claim. I am saying you cannot make that claim—and I am correct, because apparently you do not understand how data works. Lashing out at mathematical rigor is really not the way to win your argument.

You’ve also got an uphill battle convincing me that you would win if only you could show me “any red light” in “any major city,” because I live in a pretty major city, and I see bikes stopping for red lights all the time. I see bikes riding through them all the time, sure, but the stoppers are not “a tiny minority” (whatever you mean by that). I find myself in clumps of bikes stopped at red lights literally every day. See, that’s an argument that can be proven false with a single counterexample—not the kind of argument you want to be making!

And of course demographics matter. Younger riders tend to be more reckless, for instance—nothing against them, it’s just a statistical fact, and I reckon a pretty non-controversial one. Riders with kids tend to be less reckless, too. (I know, facts are scary. It’s okay. Breathe.)

And, y’know, the more bike-friendly a city is, the more cyclists there are on the streets, the better the average biker is at obeying the rules of the road—in part because the ratio of die-hard daredevils goes down as families and older folks feel safe taking to their bikes, and in part because respect leads to respect. And, hey wow, the drivers get better too, because they get used to having bikes around (and because the cyclists are acting better).

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Not generalities …
cyclist culture.

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As I stated above, I can prove my claim at any time, in any major city, at any red light, or downtown street. Without a pocket calculator.

If the issue is so vastly important to you, then DO IT. Start a comprehensive study and get it peer reviewed. Put up or shut up. Otherwise, you are expecting other people to accept your anecdotal drivel as fact by simply repeating yourself over and over again.

Prove once and for all that “cyclist culture” is out to get you.

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confirmed. this exact thing happened to me in Atlanta after I got hit by a cab. I watched the cop take statements from the two fares, which implicated the cabbie (he u-turned into me). I talked to a lawyer, he said to go to the records dept for a copy of the report. “if anything is wrong on the report, call the cop, his contact is on the report. get him to re-do it.”

on the report it said there was 1 occupant of the car, not 3 (the driver + 2 fares) and obviously no statements, plus the “for hire vehicle” box was left unchecked, no mention of it being a cab. called up the cop, he brushed me off, “I’ll see what I can do.” called the next day, a different cop said he’d been “transferred to undercover” and couldn’t be reached. “that’s funny, I spoke to him yesterday, he said to call back.” the cop gets really hostile and defensive, denies everything. call back to the switchboard, explain I’m trying to find this guy. “Payroll will tell you exactly where he is.” talked to payroll. He wasn’t transferred.

tl;dr the cop falsified the report and when I called him on it, he had his cop buddy cover for him. I had no case. I wonder how much the cabbie’s insurance company paid him.

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this times a million. a stopped car still revs. if cars had to kill their engine every time they came to a stop, none of them would do it either. and lest we forget, many motorists do rolling stops anyway.

I’m not even mad at anyone, bike or car, doing a rolling stop as long as they’re doing it because they’ve accurately scouted the intersection. but speaking as both a driver and a cyclist, it is harder to make that assessment in a car while it is trivially easy to make a good assessment on a bike. cars: you’re seated low, there’s pillars to the roof every few feet, possible glare off the glass; all of which limits your vision. engine noise/windows dampen or completely kill outside sound. bikes: you’re at standing height and you can see and hear everything. there’s absolutely no comparison.

it’s for these exact same reasons that pretty much everyone jaywalks if they can get away with it. but people don’t get nearly as upset with jaywalkers because all drivers are sometime pedestrians and they understand. most american cyclists also drive or have driven, so they understand what it’s like to be a motorist. cyclists get shit on because they are the only adults riding on streets, and we’re vastly outnumbered. That’s why you get this guy from the Netherlands, where most adults still cycle, scratching his head over the US driving and cycling habits when he visits:

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i love you

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My friend - a month ago I was commuting home on my motorbike, a fairly substantial Triumph, and waiting at a red at Hyde Park Corner in London, a pretty dangerous Wild West junction at the intersection of roughly Harrods, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and Mayfair.

The red turned green, all clear, moved off from the front. Out of fucking nowhere comes a road bike at about 40 mph, vectoring in from my right. How he picked up that speed through the stopping / stopped traffic is only my fearful guess (actually, he was hauling ass, suicidally through stopped traffic), and he blew the red like he was doing some avant-garde version of The Guns of Navarone.

He figured he could lastminute.com the light, that he’d sweep in front of the vehicles moving off.

Me, and two other motorbikes, had to emergency evade in a dangerous circumstance - taxis and trucks zooming up our butts, only option was emergency stop / 90 degree turn, and massive throttle to get away from the assault looming behind.

I alternate motorbike / bicycle each day. I went after purple stripey lycra guy, but of course, he blew the next red on the junction and did precisely the same thing. He wasn’t fearless, he wasn’t high.

If I see this kind of thing once every three months, me, as one agent in a city, how many times does it happen?

He damn near caused three fatal incidents. In the most policed area of London.

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All black looks cool, right?

I’m like a floating flashing shiny Fukushima lemon on the road. 20 years riding in London, and I know to stand out like a stallion’s erect penis at the circus performance.

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I was walking home one day in Astoria, Queens. My wife had just had a D&C after our first child didn’t make it. I can’t even imagine how hard it was for her but I had to hold her back after all the protesters we had to walk through to the clinic asked us to consider our decision.

Anyway, when we got home, she asked me for coffee and I realized we were out. I could’ve gone to the bodega down the street but my wife used to work at Starbucks and still has a thing for their iced coffee so I went there to try and cheer her up.

On my way back, at the intersection of Hoyt and 21st street under the Tri-Borough bridge (the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge now), I got stopped by a cop directing traffic and I realized that the Five Borough Bike Tour (something I’ve always thought sounded fun) was going on the that day. I hadn’t noticed that there were thousands of bikers out because my head was miles away but I had to wait on the curb there a few moments while the cop stopped them all so that I could cross.

I’ll never forget, about half-way across the street, one of the bikers that was stopped yelled “why don’t you take your fucking Starbucks somewhere else, dickhead.” I didn’t even really hear what he said and thankfully didn’t realize it until he was long gone. I say thankfully because had I actually paid attention, looked up and understood what he was saying, I might have done something stupid and never made it home to my wife that morning.

It probably didn’t happen this way but I remember every single one of those stopped bikers (riding down my street, through my neighborhood) laughing at me when it happened.

I know it sounds ridiculous (and I love riding my bike) but every time I hear the words “bike culture,” that morning is what I think about.

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OK let me give you all a simple example of why the most important thing is to be a good ambassador for cycling.

London cab drivers - the proper black cabs that you all know - are famous for being mouthy. When they see any cyclist misdemeanour, they just mumble ***“what a bunch of cunts”***.

They use the word in it’s deep-meaninged 1970s English way. It means asshole, menace, dangerous, needs sorting in a dark alley by Big Fred, annoying, difficult to deal with, etc. It’s actually a pretty deep thing, and if a cabbie calls you a cunt, you know you have a problem.

Cabbies are a tight-knit bunch. They gather at bacon sandwich boxes (these hard to see green sheds hidden around London), and discuss, amongst other things, not the US government shutdown, but how cyclists are a bunch of cunts.

They then drive around the city, all day, making a living. The cultural prejudice against cyclists builds up, they go from being annoyed to incensed. They cut you up, they threaten you, they go ballistic, they drive like cunts.

It’s a self-reinforcing thing. The issue is, they drive tons of steel around, and I ride 25 pounds of steel. There is only one release valve, and that’s the cyclists.

I’m seasoned, aware, alert, I ride like my life depends on it (it does, right), but a lot of cyclists aren’t. And I see these taxis, delivery vans, dump trucks, all treating cyclists like shit. Wobbly Mary the student from the Outer Hebrides gets no more mercy than Sir Wiggo (who himself was knocked off his bike by a car exiting a gas station).

They wouldn’t do it if they respected cyclists a little more. But they’re not going to, because they’re am intransigent bunch, and they have the common unity of sitting behind a wheel all day watching 10% of cyclists be dicks - which, when you simplify the equation, makes 100% of cyclists cunts.

Because the 10% get pumped on adrenaline, and are utterly unaware of the influence the carry, we all get it in the neck.

The key, the vital key, to this all is not necessarily tight adherence to the law - but etiquette, respectful riding, “strong riding” (like a motorbike, there are many circumstances when a cyclist should simply take all the space of a car in his/her lane), diplomatic apologies when needed, gracious thanks when due, and be an ambassador courting goodwill.

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it’s not a real city either but Orlando is just spectacular, even by FL standards. As a pedestrian you have to make choices like “take a two mile detour or run across a six-lane highway.”

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Bummer. Same thing happened to me in London in July. Private car though. I was kind of a mess, but got my smartphone out and started snapping pics, license plates and all, and recorded a witness stepping forward to declare that the guy “cut me up” - proper witness statement. Noted down the 900 video cameras watching it all.

No cops, but it all went down sweet after that. Although I was a concussed mess.

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No, it is productive.

It demonstrates a level of universal intransigence that leads to people being squashed on the roads.

If can’t here, in BoingBoingLand, discuss this, what fucking hope is there out in the real world?

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Step 1: Register unmarkedcopcarsinbikelanes.com.
Step 2: Sell memberships to drug dealers, highway speeders, etc, etc.
Step 3: Profit!

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On any given day in San Francisco, I witness THE WORST behavior from cyclists, pedestrians, motorists, taxicabs, Lyft drivers, skateboarders, folks in wheelchairs & walkers, etc. They ALL be cray-cray! A modicum of courtesy & kindness could alleviate all this road rage & madness — if only people gave a fuck.

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A rosary hanging from a rear view mirror is not a sign of christian piety. Praying with a rosary is.

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By this logic, cab-forward trucks (and VW buses) should be able to treat stop signs as yield signs as well.

I’m not buying it. For a 4-way stop to work, you have to be able to predict the actions of others. Cyclists deciding that stop signs don’t apply to them makes a hash of that.

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Sit at a cafe with a decent view, or find a good sightline view any way you like - maybe a slight hill to increase visibility. Now: Watch. See. Count. How many cyclists run the light? … It’s not going to go in your favor. I wish it would, but it’s not. Tiny minority.

Okey doke! I do like data. Instead of sitting in one spot, I kept my eyes open as I rode to and from Davis Square for Honk!fest — about 45 minutes on the road in all. It’s not a great day for cyclists (chilly and drizzly), so I only saw three other cyclists interacting with red lights and stop signs. (I saw more going through green lights, or riding not near an intersection, but I’m not counting them.) Not a good data set, I confess, but here are my results:

Cyclist 1: Stopped at stop sign before turning left onto Concord Ave.
Cyclist 2: Stopped at red light, waited for green before crossing Mass Ave.
Cyclist 3: Rode through stop sign across deserted dead-end street.

I include #3 out of an excess of fairness — that bike crossing is literally twenty feet from an overgrown chain-link fence that ends the street, with good visibility the other direction. I’ve never seen a car there. But, hey, let’s include it: 2 out of 3 cyclists, not counting myself, obeyed the traffic laws. Is 67% the “tiny minority” you were looking for?

As I say, this is a terrible sample size, and I’m sure I could get different results at different intersections — in front of BU, where it’s a ridiculous free-for-all of bikes and cars and pedestrians, I’d probably get 80% of cyclists blowing through the lights. There are other places where the ratio would be more in my favor. But my experiment jibes with my experience — somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of cyclists stop for lights in the parts of Boston I frequent.

The kind of exaggerated misbehavior you describe? Well, I’m sorry you have to live in Austin, if that’s what biking culture is like there. I do see that sort of thing from time to time up here, but it’s the exception. But I’m sure you’re more familiar with the streets of Boston than I am.

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