I’m suggesting that working as a messenger is tough. You’re paid poorly and incentivised to ride fast and play loose with traffic laws. I don’t think that this man sets out to endanger anyone’s life (certainly no more than the average taxi driver) and I would imagine that he just wants to ride efficiently through the traffic. Perhaps if he’s releasing a video, he’s proud of the niche talent he has developed.
I used to ride like this once upon a time. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t clever, but I understand how being good at it feels pretty awesome. I think this post was about how sometimes, even though this man is clearly an asshole, he’s an asshole with skills…
What you’re seeing is that people–particularly pedestrians–resent entitled, poorly-behaved cyclists as much as they resent entitled, poorly-behaved drivers.
At this point in my life, I don’t drive if I can avoid it, and I walk as much as possible. I have a lot of sympathy for cyclists, but there is a significant minority who are a dangerous nuisance. I’ve seen cyclists literally yelling at a parent holding hands with a toddler in the cross walk with the light. I’ve nearly been hit by a cyclist while he was looking at his phone. I’ve nearly been hit more times than I can count on the sidewalk or crossing the street with the light.
Cyclists like this have become the thing they hate.
For good reason. I’ve been on two wheels for 30 years this coming January, and I’ve been hit twice. As my statistician brother might put it, it’s not a matter of IF, but of WHEN.
I mean, I was this guy at one point (also did it on a motorcycle) and either way there were things I did at speed that could have hurt or killed someone (though the person most likely to get hurt or die was definitely me.) This guy might never hit anyone… but he’ll still make old people and little kids afraid to walk in their own city. There’s tons of people now doing this right, not all of them follow all of the laws exactly, but they are able to keep others safe. This mode of getting through traffic is not going to be safe for others no matter how good he is. And this is not a pro-car comment, this is pro-pedestrians and other bikers who aren’t on a mission.
Too bad. “Pay attention and don’t run over little old ladies” is a pretty minimal bar for operating machinery in public that can harm others.
This is the same bar we demand for other potentially dangerous activities. If you’re not competent to safely ride in Manhattan, don’t ride in Manhattan.
To be clear, I’m not justifying a pedestrian being in the street. I’m pointing out how the driving laws make it clear that overabundance of caution is the responsibility of vehicles in the road regardless of who is at fault. Much like rain, snow, or fog conditions, when visibility is reduced for any reason, the expectation is for vehicles to exercise caution.
Yknow, I have admitted above to doing stupid and reckless things when I was a messenger, but actually this wasn’t one of them. This was the kind of thing that could easily have happened to me also when I was just commuting to an office job in Manhattan or going to school at City College. I wasn’t going faster than 25mph (but probably close to it) when she emerged from nowhere and put me in danger… (and I called her an old lady, but then I was 19 at the time, she was probably just the age I am now, say 50.) When you surprise people by popping into traffic in the middle of the block on a 4 or 5 lane one-way avenue you can get yourself killed no matter the skill of the other driver (in my case while I was trying to go around her surprise maneuver I was also slowing down as fast as I could.) See now, your comment is actually anti-bike.
I totally agree and in general now when biking in Manhattan (which actually I haven’t done in 10 years) I’d usually try to be further out from either side of an avenue because people are unpredictable. But of course, this is all post-Times Up, “bicycles are traffic” where in the late 80’s early 90’s cops would try to give you shit for being in the middle of the avenue because we obstructed the cars…
That’s the other angle of it that tends not to enter this discussion.
Other cyclists are put out and endangered by this sort of behavior as well. I know a lot of people who gave up cycling in cities or commuting by bike, almost all of whom cite feeling unsafe around or having issues with this certain clique of cyclists as a part of the problem, if not the determining factor.
I got rid of a bike shortly after moving to Brooklyn. It wasn’t a good bike, and this wasn’t the major thing. But it’s definitely a big part of why I was using the subway to get the bike to nearby parks for casual bike rides. And why those casual bike rides in parks were seldom as casual as I was shooting for.
Plus it was a really shitty bike and getting it up over the bridges was no fun.
I’m still having trouble dissecting why we should withhold judgement. People can be proud of how much of an asshole they are and still deserve every bit of criticism, judgement, and even punishment. (See also: Martin Shkreli).
Driving any vehicle involves learning to manage expectations of other people’s behavior. I’m near Philly, and if I had a nickel for every jaywalker encountered on the street, I’d be chilling in a Paris penthouse right now. What’s universal is that if a driver hits a pedestrian, most of the blame usually falls on the driver - even if the pedestrian comes out from between parked cars. The major exception is when it’s clear the driver couldn’t have seen the person until it was too late, so they had no way to avoid it or stop in time.
Which is what I have stipulated was the case here. And the point behind me saying it was that even if with the best rider in the world this type of riding has risks that are not controllable which he is responsible for.
Wait, what? If you’re doing something assholish, you’re an asshole. It doesn’t matter that a lot of other people are doing it too. Normalizing bad behavior doesn’t make it okay. The bike messenger who mowed me down while I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the crossing light was an asshole no matter how many others in the city got mowed down in that same moment a few years ago.
