Watch this bike messenger break pretty much every traffic law

boing
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Is it okay to be a shitty person? No, obviously not. I didn’t see a TON of being shitty in the video, but that’s whatever. What I was trying to point out is that the RAGE!!! CYLCIST BAD!!! energy that pops up in the comments whenever people (who can reliably be categorized as “car drivers”) see cyclists doing anything other than cowering and yielding to cars at all times.

Just look at the comments in this thread, people are asking for summary execution if somebody hits them while riding a bicycle.

Maybe we should look at why this is igniting so much rage, and examine our own actions to see if there’s anything we should clean up before we condemn others for theirs.

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I operated a pedicab in Austin for a few years, and there was a strong mix of couriers who did it too. The “get away with what you can” mentality put a large target on our backs with the police, the danger to traffic notwithstanding. Our boss was NOT cool with it…but NOT only for business reasons. He made a strong effort to rid the industry of unsafe trailer-type pedicabs and unsafe riders.

Bicycle ballet or whatever, if you view your day as good because other people parted for you, you’re the asshole. Traffic laws exist for good reason.

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A lot of this evolved due to the adversarial attitude of NYC to cyclists. The city was extremely belligerent about cycle traffic until about 2005 and even now, they do absolutely nothing to protect the bike lanes. They are basically loading zones in most neighborhoods. In Northern Europe, you would be mowed down in a bike lane.

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I dunno, for pedestrians maybe it’s the physical injury and a possible medical bill. For cars maybe it’s the physical damage to their vehicle and a trip to the body shop, not to mention points on your insurance and higher premiums if the courier doesn’t stick around to get a citation. :man_shrugging:

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I prefer the original, where you can hear the Ferrari screaming…

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It’s not that this one guy in particular (not “cyclists” in general) isn’t yielding to cars at “all times”, it’s that he’s not yielding to anybody - cars or pedestrians (which you left out) when legally required, and the unpredictability of his riding is a hazard to everyone he encounters.

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Do you think there might be a sensible middle ground where bike riders aren’t expected to “cowering” to cars at all time, and brazenly disregarding all traffic laws and putting other people in jeopardy because fuck it you want to?

If you could link to one of those comments, that would be super helpful. Speaking for no one but myself, however, if a cyclist hits me in an accident where they were acting in good faith to be careful (even if they might not be following every traffic law to the letter, because none of us do) then that’s life. If, however, an asshole like this courier in the video hits me as I’m going across the crosswalk because I was going faster than they expected or they had to swerve away from something else, I think I’d have a right to be pretty pissed off, no?

I’ve commuted by bike in dense urban areas, and it sucks sometimes to be around aggressive drivers or clueless pedestrians who make it dangerous for you. And it’s tempting to say fuck it and run red lights or swerve around cars you think are going too slow. But it’s no different than any other area of life that requires us to consider other people’s safety and convenience at least as much as our own, and assholes like this rider who make the decision they make deserved the scorn.

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I don’t own a car. On a day-to-day basis, I walk basically everywhere I need to go, except when I sometimes need to take the Metro.

I hope that qualifies me to say that this guy and his cameraman are both a grade-A assholes that deserve every bit of vitriol coming their way.

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Yes! It is very good!

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Even more impressive than Cooper is the camera operator who keeps up while getting the shot.

My guess is he is being filmed by a drone with a “follow” mode and some pretty good collision sensors. Perhaps a DJI Mavic Pro or an Autel EVO (I’d guess the latter, as it has collision sensors on all six sides.

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Yeah I don’t quite get how bike messengers are an article of aspirational cool. It’s always been a low paid job relegated to particular neighborhoods in particular cities.

These days most of their utility has been replaced by email (and before that Fax). In any given city, unless it’s in neighborhood a foot courier using public transit will get it there faster. In cities with less public transit a car courier will go further faster.

They pretty much only run hard drives and legal documents around places like the financial district in NYC. I don’t see what’s badass about making a bit more than minimum wage to run contracts around for a bank.

When I worked for a video streaming company in the financial district we actually didn’t hire bike messengers as a rule. We had to shift hard drives and physical collateral around the city on timelines where the post office didn’t make sense. The the bike courier fees were comparatively expensive, it was no faster. And it was a hell of a lot less reliable. The only hard drive we ever had arrive damaged arrived by bike messenger. Enclosure was totally smashed.

I did a little bit of courier work in Philly when I worked at one if the research hospitals down there. Again they generally refused to book bike messengers. The few that were around had GIANT chips on their shoulders.

Never got it. It’s like if film extras were the coolest shits that ever shit. Or house painters.

But the cyclists shouldn’t? The major thing coming up in terms of “rage” here is “I have been hit by one of these guys while walking”.

That probably means what should be re-examined here isn’t people’s opinions of bicycles.

Yes the large number of habitual pedestrians describing the daily risks of being a pedestrian in our major cities must be categorized as car drivers.

No discussion of cycling may be framed as anything but cars vs bikes.

Always.

To a certain extent this is a space problem, where do you put them and how do you avoid disrupting neccisary activities?

For the same reasons bike lanes in NYC are often also pedestrian foot ways. Which is bad juju.

It’s not unique to NYC. For my money the cyclists in Philadelphia are far and away worse. But there are fewer of them and the bike infrastructure in Philly is better in a lot places. So I have a lot fewer issues there the last decade.

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So it sounds like we’re all in agreement that

  • He’s reckless
  • His actions are illegal
  • He is endangering the lives of himself and others
  • He’s an asshole

So what “judgement” ought we withhold, exactly?

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Uh, nope. Nine seconds into the video, he’s clearly entering a bike lane past big red Wrong Way signs, and he proceeds for a distance riding the wrong way:

Those drivers don’t have to be angry or in motion, just distracted or not paying attention. My cousin had a good friend who was a casual cyclist. He was riding along past parked cars, and the driver of one didn’t see him before opening the door. His friend hit the door, flew over it, and landed on his head. The helmet wasn’t enough protection for an injury like that, and his friend died.

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They can’t catch him. When I was a messenger the only time the cops got me was when I thought I wasn’t really doing anything crossing Herald Sq… I was out of “the bike lane” (it was probably the only one in Manhattan in 1989). Anyway, the cop who got me had a half width kind of pickup/cart thing and did it by coming up fast and cutting me off up to the curb out of nowhere (so high odds I would have crashed into him). The judge I got thought that the idea of someone getting a moving violation for a bicycle not being in its lane was ludicrous and threw it out. Times have changed…

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This is a prime example of why everyone hates bike messengers.

I still vividly recall one running me over n the sidewalk, while I was on my way to a job interview in the 90s. Fucker ruined my only interview clothes at the time. He cursed at me for getting in his way.

If your self-image as a renegade, virile (they’re almost exclusively young d00ds) worldbeater is fucking over everyone around you to make a buck by running errands for your corporate master, I really wish you’d get a better fantasy life.

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It’s not cyclists that are the problem but people not following the rules that make us all safe in traffic. Whether they’re cyclists, car drivers, pedestrians or e-scooter users. I am pretty sure you would see equal outrage if this was a video of a car speeding along a cycle lane.

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Do you mean a Cushman? You got busted by a parking enforcement patrol?

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No problem.

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I ride a bike every day, year-round, in a large city, and I’ve been doing it since this boy was swimming around in his daddy’s nuts. I loathe people like this.

Unlike some of my friends, I do sometimes violate traffic laws. But I don’t break the rules of courtesy. In particular, I might treat a red light as a yield sign – but I respect that yield sign, and give the right of way to traffic that has it. And not in a grudging, confusing, fraction-of-an-inch way, like this clown, but clearly, at a full stop with my feet on the ground. (Or one foot, anyway. Or, anyway, a full stop, even if I’m track standing. And without entering the intersection, including the crosswalk.)

So yeah, as a number of people have said, fuck this guy.

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