Yep. We've got them all over rural Florida as well!
You've clearly not been on one of the roads to which SkyBell or I am referring.
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Cops Bust Woman for Hitting Cyclist After She Brags on Twitter
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Yep. We've got them all over rural Florida as well!
You've clearly not been on one of the roads to which SkyBell or I am referring.
cyclists are also drivers too folks very few of us love car free.
In the summer of 08 I was back in the states working my commute to was 15 miles about 6 of it on one of those two lane 55mph roads when everything was right I'd ride on the left. When folks got silly I'd just take the lane. After about a month people generally stopped being silly. Fools abound neither side is innocent.
In the summer of 08 I was back in the states working my commute to was 15 miles about 6 of it on one of those two lane 55mph roads when everything was right I'd ride on the left. When folks got silly I'd just take the lane. After about a month people generally stopped being silly. Fools abound neither side is innocent.
My apologies. My post was rather overstated, but I stand by what said. If you read my post a bit more carefully it was directed at the sociopaths that actually harass cyclists by their dangerous driving around cyclists.
If you don't want to tarred with the same brush, you should stop propagating hateful attitudes and generalisations towards legitimate road users.
But they might have to wait for a whole 30 seconds for oncoming traffic to clear to be able to overtake the cyclist!
sorry but I know of those rural roads. 2 two-lanes 55 mph+ roads have PLENTY of room for 2 cars to pass each others. And those rural roads I have driven on them and quite a few of them in Texas.
Those roads are at least 20 ft wide with each lane being at least 10 ft wide and chances are they are more like 12 ft wide.
To give you a point of reference a semi truck is about 8' wide. So at 10 ft that gives them some room to play with.
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I have so I know what the example is BS.
Either that or I would really question why either one of you should even be allowed to drive if you think those roads are barely wide enough for 2 cars to pass each other.
Then it shouldn't be that hard for you to provide a specific example. Give us proof of your claim.
Alright, I'll choose not to believe you but rather I believe you are using hyperbole to overstate your case.
If you read my original post, without being instantly biased by my initial "hate" remark, you'd know that I'm not at all trying to propagate hateful attitudes towards cyclists. In fact, the purpose was to provide logical rationale that cyclists themselves often do not consider. It was to explain to bikers why many people get frustrated with them. It was NOT to explain to people why they SHOULD be frustrated with them. There is a difference. Let me paraphrase my original post so there is less room for interpretation:
1)Cyclists need to understand and obey the laws that govern their use of public roads, every bit as much as motorists need to respect their rights to use the roads.
2) Modern roads and traffic systems were designed with motor vehicle use at the forefront (at least 90% of them). When a cyclist uses a road for hobby, they need to respect the fact that they are privileged to be doing so.
3) MOST IMPORTANT - People get uncomfortable in situations that could easily result in death. No one wants to accidentally kill someone on their way home from work.
I will chalk it up to the fact that we are from very different parts of the world that you interpret what I said differently than how it was meant. Honestly, in all likelihood, my viewpoint and many others may be entirely meaningless to someone halfway around the world because there is no way the situations we encounter are the same.
You don't know of them. They're 9 feet wide. See here.
The semi trucks are 8.5 feet wide. See here.
A whole foot of space between two semis as they pass, and that's if they're both driving on the outside of they're lane.
The roads I'm talking about have literally 2 inches of shoulder, a.k.a. no shoulder from a realistic standpoint.
The cited semi trailer link lists 100" as inside width (8.33 ft). Outside width will be greater by at least the thickness of the trailer walls. More significant, the external rearview mirrors on the truck will extend even further, much more than 6". So if two such trucks meet on a road with 9' lanes, one or both will have to go onto the shoulder, otherwise mirrors or other equipment would collide. The math proves it.
The FHWA link proves nothing other than that there are roads somewhere with 9' lane width. There is no information on what the speed limit on such roads is. A limit of 65 mph, or even 50 mph, strikes me as ridiculously unsafe.
Based on what you've provided so far, I'm going with dejo's evaluation: hyperbole.
Absolutely. Cyclists have as much right to use the road as car drivers, and both should respect the rules of the road, laws of the land and other road users.
This is opinion, not a law anywhere I am aware of. As long as someone obeys the rules as point #1 they're still as entitled as cars or trucks. How many roads are clogged up with single occupant cars or people driving to short distances they could easily walk? If it was up to me I'd get those off the road before leisure cyclists [I'm not saying I'd be right to do so]. Once you start dictating what other people can do, largely for your convenience, it's not a great place to be in.
Absolutely, it's most 'uncomfortable' for the person facing this death. In a car vs cyclist situation this is almost always the cyclist. Cyclists feel this. The cyclists I see also know when they are holding people up, and they know it irritates people (to an irrational extent) and the poor driving that results (sometimes) is often very intimidating because of the social pressure and risk of death.
However you cut it 'hate' is a strong word. I wouldn't have thought you'd see one cyclist on the road for long enough to manage to get emotionally attached enough to them to 'hate' them, so I guess you're hating the 'most cyclists' group, which means what... You're taking a snap decision to hate a cyclist or not? It's just a fairly blunt use of language.
I suspect that most car drivers aren't really irritated by what they claim is cyclists' poor adherence to the laws of the road, rather they are irritated by being held up. Cyclists are a convenient group to loathe and blame for things, for they are 'not me': they are different to the driver of the car.
Around here there are a lot more cars than cyclists. Therefore, regardless of the relative proportions of cyclists and motorists that break the rules, I see far more bad driving than bad cycling. I suspect this is the same across much of the developed world. Logically, bad driving should weigh more heavily on our minds, particularly given that it causes more deaths. But it doesn't - it's those pesky cyclists, they're just so slow and they don't have to pay road tax or have number plates etc, etc.
I posit that people should chill out, reflect and respect their fellow humans.
I don't agree. Given the massive amount of motorists I see running red lights, speeding, street racing, drink driving, talking or texting on a mobile phone while driving (illegal here), illegal right turns, illegal parking in school zones, etc. See far more of them breaking the law than bicycle riders who are a tiny minority. Even broken up into proportions, it still means that the motorists take the win for being greatest law-breakers.
Anyhow, people who take some apparent pleasure in the deaths of others are no better than those who took pleasure in seeing the deaths of those poor people killed in the WTC attacks in 2001.
And it's no different to terrorists using some sort of supposed injustice to justify a terror attack. Some people are saying "oh, a cyclist broke the law, so they deserve to be mowed down", but those people use weasel words so they have a nice easy escape clause.
Because using a car to deliberately mow down a bicycle rider or a pedestrian for that matter is a form of terror attack.
As for me, I do ride a bicycle occasionally. But it's nearly always on closed courses with no cars around.
I live in a city full of drivers so dangerous and lacking in driving skills that I prefer to avoid even driving in a car if I can, let alone being on a bicycle. So I take a train or walk. On the rear occasions I am on the road among traffic, I follow the laws to the letter. And I ride assertively so my intentions cannot be confused by motorists and they are unable to claim the SMIDSY farce. I also do my best to avoid holding up car drivers. Which on the roads here, it's very easy to ride fast enough to keep up with the usual 50km/h speed limits and/or slower traffic.
I also have cameras, so that law-breaking motorists can have their expert driving seen by the most appropriate audience, the Police. That's for my own protection - because the motorists here are appallingly bad. It's not just for bicycle riding either. You need a camera now for when you are driving a car too.
Motorists also need to learn that the roads (at least here) were never designed for them. The majority of the roads were designed for bicycles, horses and horse-drawn carriages. They were never intended for the cars of millions of people to jam the roads as they are today.
It's the reason a journey of about 30km takes 90 minutes by car. Because the roads are jammed with these greedy people who could take a train to work sitting one person in one car, jamming up the roads because they are too selfish to take public transport. Many of them work in locations where a train is a perfectly good way to travel, and it would be faster too and cheaper.
Congestion charges are the only way to solve the issue. Charge people to drive into the central business district on week days, excepting of course tradespeople or delivery truck drivers, or public transport vehicles such as taxis or buses.
That will at least make the roads less jammed for those who do genuinely need to use the car to get around. I was unlucky enough to be in that situation earlier this year, my leg was seriously injured and left me having to travel by car because I couldn't manage walking even short distances.
When you live in a city that is very old, dating from before the time of the motor vehicle, you cannot have an attitude of "building more roads and motorways", it doesn't work. It's just building very expensive parking lots that achieve nothing. People have to be forced to stop using their cars for journeys unless it is absolutely necessary. Building more roads and tunnels is a waste of money.
But then again, if motorists want cyclists off the road, which they always do - let them have that. More bicycle riders will use their cars instead, and the traffic will be even slower and the traffic jams even worse.
But of course, it won't be the bicycle riders slowing you down, it'll be your friendly fellow motorist who is holding you up. And then you'll next turn your anger to motorbike riders. And then once they are eliminated, it'll be the car drivers left over. And faced with nobody else to prey on, the motorists will attack each other.
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