by Daniel J. McGraw
Most car drivers don’t like me. I’m one of those people who rides a bicycle in the street, and over the years I’ve had cars swerve toward me, throw garbage, honk, shout nasty crap, and give me the finger when they ride by. But this doesn’t bug me too much. I know that most automobile drivers hate everyone on the road, and they would prefer that there was no one else but them driving around.
[blocktext align=”left”]Just because I am riding a bike doesn’t mean I am nice.[/blocktext]The car drivers and I have that hatred in common. Just because I am riding a bike doesn’t mean I am nice. I wish I was the only one on the road too; no bikers primping in their skin-tight pants while they do their group rides and block the right lane, and none of those look-at-me bicycling parents with precious junior in that bike trailer they are dragging around. They bug me too, along with cars that buzz by me a foot from my elbow at 45 mph when no one else is on the road.
Now that we can agree that hatred of all things transportational is universal, I am going to give the bicycle-hating folks one more reason to hate me. I am one of those riders who sometimes runs red lights, and I go through stop signs without coming to a complete stop. I approach red lights and stop signs this way for two very good reasons: I am safer if I get through an intersection quickly, and I don’t block car traffic unnecessarily as well, if I move through in this manner.
Before you car drivers trot out the “I can’t do that, so you shouldn’t be able to either” argument, let me explain. Intersections are the most dangerous places for cars and bicycle riders. Cars can see you when you are in front of them and moving, but they seem to have a harder time when you are stopped next to them. When a car comes to an intersection and is turning right, they often don’t see me if I am stopped at the curb in the right lane.
Likewise, if an intersection has a right-turn lane, I am blocking that lane if I am going straight through and taking my place by the curb. If I get in the lane that is dedicated to thru traffic, I am going to be blocking that traffic as I get up and moving again through the intersection. It is a basic fact that my zero-to-15-mph time is not as good as a car’s.
Stop-sign intersections are similarly problematic. If I come to a complete stop, cars will be backed up behind me as I get moving. Better to approach these intersections as if there were a yield sign, slowing down as you approach, looking both ways, and getting out of the way as fast as possible.
I don’t approach every intersection the same way, nor do I ride through without slowing down and assessing traffic. At some big intersections — a six-lane road meeting up with a freeway interchange, for example — I stay back about six car lengths and let everyone get moving ahead of me before I get moving. But at less busy intersections, it is best for me to move through quickly.
These distinctions between bikes and cars in intersections — where cyclists approach red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yields — became law in Idaho in 1982. The story is some cycling advocates slipped it through in a bill, but over time residents found that the change improves safety a bit for cars and bicycle riders, and moves traffic better.
But no other states have followed suit in all those years, mainly because car drivers get very upset when they see bike riders on the road getting what drivers perceive as preferential treatment. But I look at it this way: Urban traffic laws and road design are based upon 4,000 pounds of metal and glass moving along at 35 mph, and not 35 pounds moving through at 10 mph. If you let me on the road with a two-wheeled, slower vehicle, it makes sense to tweak the road rules to make it safer and more efficient for cars and bicycles to share the road. We should have slightly different rules to follow because we are different types of vehicles.
For instance: In my neighborhood in Lakewood, Ohio, there are numerous intersections I ride through almost daily that have embedded sensors in the road that activate the traffic lights. I treat red lights at these intersections as stop signs, because I am not going to wait for a car to drive up to turn the light from red to green. Am I breaking the law by going through? Absolutely. But I think common sense here overrides a strict interpretation of the law.
That is what drivers have to get through their head when looking at cyclists on “their” roads. No cyclists blow through an intersection without assessing whether they can make it through or not safely, and if there was a such a problem of cyclists running red lights with disregard for all other traffic at the intersections, we would see a bunch of major accidents. Yet many drivers see the major issue with cyclists that they don’t follow the law. And it is all based on the “I can’t do that” argument.
But in admitting I don’t follow the law on all occasions, I am not disregarding the law so I can get to some place faster. I am doing it because I have been hit by cars making a right turn at intersections while I am waiting for the light to change, and because I’ve slowed traffic unnecessarily by coming to a complete stop at a stop sign. And there are times where I’ve pushed cars through an intersection in front of me because that is the safest way at that time and that place. That’s not following the literal interpretation of the law either.
[blocktext align=”right”]Now that we have that out of the way, we can go back to hating one another.[/blocktext]Now that we have that out of the way, we can go back to hating one another (and maybe more so). Next we can determine if I should need a license to ride my bicycle on the roads. I’m all for that. But because we base our licenses on weight (more weight causes more road damage, which is why trucks pay more), let’s set a fair market license-for-bikes fee. Based upon me and my bike weighing about 250 pounds total, and a 4,000 pound passenger car charged $34.50 in Ohio per year, I figure my cost should be about $2 a year.
Maybe we can get these things moving along. I want to get through the intersections quicker and safer, I want to get out of the cars way when I can, and I will break down and pay a fee to do it. Two bucks is about right. Happy trails.
Daniel J. McGraw is Senior Writer at Belt.
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If you’re for licensing, insurance is next!
Well, based on the cost of the average amount of damage when a bicycle hits a car (rubber bike wheel hitting car bumper at 15 mph), basic liability insurance would also be in the $2 a year range. So, yes, I’ll do license and liability insurance for me riding a bike for $4 a year. Is that OK with everyone?
How about when a bike “yielding” at a stop sign knocks over a pedestrian resulting in broken bones or a head injury on the pavement?
Thanks for reading and commenting np. I take it your talking about insurance, and like a car, we should pay rates based on the the number of times that accidents and injuries happen, on avergae calculated by the actuary folks.. In your example, I’m sure there have been a few accidents where a cyclists has hit a pedestrian and cased severe injuries. I would contend those are very rare, and the injuries usually not severe. With cars, not so rare and the injuries more severe.. So let’s base the rates on those basic facts. If you want me to pay insurance as a cyclist, then my rates should be a tiny fraction of what a car driver pays based upon the frequency and severity of the accidents that a bicyclist would cause..
I already have personal liability insurance – you probably do too, if you have a renter’s, homeowner’s, or auto policy.
As a biker I understand your argument but I am completely opposed to it because a)it legitimates criticism of bikers as scofflaws who should not be on the roads and b)it creates a slippery slope whereby other bikers will also feel entitled to ignore laws for their own safety and they may do much dumber things than you are doing. Ultimately if bikers want respect we need to follow the same laws that drivers do (well, hopefully not including licensing and insurance).
I spent my twentys riding a bike daily in Seattle. I believe the only reason I am still alive to write this is because I too did not obey the laws intended for big boxes of metal. It seems a lack of common sense to say that the same rules that apply to a motorized vehicle should apply to a human powered vehicle. Take for example coming to a complete stop at a stop sign. Being lazy I do not want to give up the precious momentum I have at an empty residential 4 way stop. A person in a car doesn’t think of it in those terms. If the majority of road users felt the disappointment of having to come to a complete stop that I do on a bike they would be clamoring for all intersections to become roundabouts.
lp you wrote:
“other bikers will also feel entitled to ignore laws for their own safety”
Uh, seriously? You want me to be more concerned about the law than getting home to my wife and kid? I’m sorry, but safety first. Now, I also happen to believe that safety first means I’ll be obeying most of the rules of the road so that drivers can guess what I’ll be doing, but let’s not make arguments that place (the sometimes blatantly stupid) traffic laws above personal safety. Get a ticket? ehh, that’s the cost of business.
This is probably the best no nonsense article I have ever read about bicycling reality. The techniques described are common, sensible precautions used by serious cyclists to protect themselves and , oddly, motorists and pedestrians…Believe it or not motoring laws were not designed by Jesuits to help order the celestial sphere, but rather by people (well, state legislatures) to create order so as to minimize damage and injury (not eliminate as lawyers need money so their children can become engineers or learn other useful, harmless skills) . Common sense sometimes trumps ordinance. A bicyclist is upon a two wheel, noiseless, protectionless, light vehicle busily not poisoning the universe or checking Facebook.Different operating principals apply and need be recognized
Corny though it sounds bicyclists and motorists must” dialog”-God, I never thought I would ever use that word- to seek common ground so as to proceed further in accomodating one another . Perhaps the legislature should grant both criminal and civil immunity when either plough into one of those f..ing baby bicycle trailers-an invention that should never have been invented This would promote mutual understanding and comraderie as well as the commonwheel. It would be a great start
In full disclosure I am the author’s older,less agile cousin. sidelined from avid cycling by herniated discs galore . Also by dispensation of Archbishop(ad personam) Edward F Hoban his Godfather. Yes, I failed and yes “commonweal” is quite cleverly mispelled above. Probably other words as well, as my father declined me a Jesuit education as he feared for my immortal soul and was not a big fan of bus fare.
“I wish I was the only one on the road too; no bikers primping in their skin-tight pants while they do their group rides and block the right lane, and none of those look-at-me bicycling parents with precious junior in that bike trailer they are dragging around. ”
Should we leave “precious junior” at home while we ride? My wife and I love to ride (I ride 200 miles a week and around 30-40 with the family) and with three kids under age 7, that means rides to the park, or around town will include the trailer. I never thought anyone would hate me for riding with my family.
I feel bad for you.
Interesting article Dan. I do think that instead of an annual license, you mean an annual registration fee, which would of course be vastly different from state to state.
I think you and your vehicle weigh more than 35 pounds, so recalculate.
Vehicle plus operator seems only fair, don’t you think? Unless you’re just talking about parking.
Sorry for the mixup Charlie Broiled. I was talking about how my bike weighs 35 pounds and a car would weigh 4,000 pounds. So let’s recalculate. Me and my bike weigh 265 pounds. Me and a car weigh about 4,230 pounds. I’m thinking the ideal weight for me and my bike is about 250 pounds, but I tend to eat too many donuts each day to get down to that number.
I think it’s worthwhile to point out that cars can treat stops as yields and red lights as stops. It’s obviously possible and not automatically wrong. It’s just that if a cop sees you do it, you’re much more likely to get a ticket than if you do it on a bike. I’d further argue that this difference in enforcement is a good thing, given that a car can be much more destructive than a bike (though ideally the laws would be different instead).
FWIW, I usually do the Idaho stop thing on my bike. Sometimes, I’ll even do it in my car, but much more rarely and judiciously. I never go through an intersection that isn’t clearly free of traffic.
I agree with you about the stop law, and the relative damage arguments.
I do want to quibble with one aspect: my 0-15 mph time is better than most cars as they are driven. I am often through an intersection after the green before the cars are, even after waiting. I still feel much safer being passed while I’m in the bike lane on the far side of the intersection, so I appreciate any head start I can get.
Not sure why you’re so against families or roadies. The cars buzzing me bother me way, way more than someone else using the bike lane, because those cars are incredibly dangerous to me. Drivers that buzz me don’t “bug me”, they scare the crap out of me, and fill me with rage against their sociopathy. Other cyclists, however annoying, are capable of much less harm, and are thus only annoying.
“When a car comes to an intersection and is turning right, they often don’t see me if I am stopped at the curb in the right lane….. ”
So man up, signal and move to to the center of the straight-thru lane. This also allows cars to turn right on red.
“Likewise, if an intersection has a right-turn lane, I am blocking that lane if I am going straight through and taking my place by the curb…”
Quite. You don’t have a place “by the curb”, unless you choose to stop there.
“If I get in the lane that is dedicated to thru traffic, I am going to be blocking that traffic as I get up and moving again through the intersection. It is a basic fact that my zero-to-15-mph time is not as good as a car’s….
This is not usually true — because of its low mass a bike can accelerate pretty quickly, assuming it’s not a 50 lb piece of crap… oh. wait: “…me and my bike weighing about 250 pounds total” — something’s gotta lighten up!
Move to the center of the thru lane, sprint like hell on green, and move gracefully to the right as you exit the intersection. The cars should give you time*.
“Urban traffic laws and road design are based upon 4,000 pounds of metal and glass moving along at 35 mph, and not 35 pounds moving through at 10 mph”
10 mph? Ah, there’s your problem: you really need to get faster. My advice: get a decent bike and ride more. I’m 54 and can make about 20 mph on the flat. Then choose your roads carefully: if you can do even 18 mph on a 25 mph limit road, things are a lot calmer (mostly). You may even need to get some nice comfortable and efficient skin-tight pants — oh, the horror!
*Then again, you are in Ohio: maybe just give up and move to New Jersey, where we all get along much better? Mostly.
Oh, wait:
“Belt Magazine publishes independent journalism about the Rust Belt.”
Would love to respond to all your points, meltyman, but I’m too old and too slow and too heavy and my bike is too crappy and I live in Ohio, so I am just going to continue not getting along with people and live my life wishing I was in NJ. Mostly.
Dude, your pic is on FB: no way are you older than me (54)!
Get a decent bike and kit, ride ride ride, develop your traffic skills, and enjoy. No excuses! Need some help? See here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ2CSAuC1s9aMNEN_Glnmyg and particularly http://youtu.be/W4ghpwIkzfw and also
http://youtu.be/7kIDeD0N3QY …and many other places.
If Jessica Mathews can do it in Columbus (http://youtu.be/TnDWtuiJRqI), so can you.
Rule #1 : BE SEEN!
meltyman, I have a decent bike. Speciliazed Tri-Cross. Decent urban hybrid. And yes, I am older than you. 10-31-59 (your fact assumption meter is way off on a lot of stuff). Oh, and by the way, meltyman, you are too old to use the word, “dude.” You’re too old for “bro” as well. Figure out something better.
Meltyman pretty much nails my main issues with your article,
You are SPOT ON! I’ve been advocating this for years. I am not, as a cyclist, going to do anything that is going to get me hit. I want to get through that intersection quickly! And doing so without impeding anyone else s right of way is the way.
I don’t know any bicyclists who obey all of the traffic laws. I know some bicyclists who obey some of the traffic laws. I know some who will run a stop sign but not a red light, for example. I understand, and appreciate personally, those who advocate for more bike safety and awareness. But those bike proponents should be more intellectually honest…bike riders will always disobey the traffic laws that are basically written and designed for cars.
If we were in a bike-only world, there would be very few traffic lights, a handful of stop signs and there would be a Yield sign at most intersections.
, but those who do that with the belief that bicyclists will do their part (obey ALL of the traffic laws) if motorists will play nice are
Daniel,
Thank the Cycling Gods for giving a voice to reason!
Having cycled for 25 plus years in the greater Seattle area, I’ve felt a lone wolf among the social cycling elitists in this area who’ve destroyed any remnant of common sense. I learned in my youth that simply observing basic traffic rules, common courtesy and situation awareness has always been far safer and more effective when riding amongst traffic. Motorist become more tolerable (if not basically aware) if we are routinely “IN’ the road.
That’s why Bike Lanes are such a misguided and dangerous step backwards for bike safety. It regulates, in the Motorist mind, that the only place for a Cyclist is in designated bike lane – “Out of sight, Out of mind”. This is, “My territory, not yours!”, leads to agitation then confrontation followed by aggressive life threats on all cyclist.
I’ll be forwarding your article to anyone I can reach Thank-You
I guess I just don’t get it. I ride a motorcycle the better part of nine months out of the year and I could make the same arguments that I shouldn’t have to follow traffic laws either. I should be able to go through stop signs and traffic lights without stopping as well. I mean, the traffic laws were written for 4,000 pounds of metal and glass, not for me and 300 pound motorcycle, right? I’ll try to use that excuse the next time I get pulled over by an officer.
I guess what I don’t understand is the unwritten and unspoken principle that a bicyclist’s safety is somehow a collective responsibility. Don’t get me wrong, no one should want to see other people on the road hurt, whether they are in a car, motorcycle or bicycle. But, the fact of the matter, your safety is ultimately your responsibility. If you ever take a motorcycle course, this principle is drilled into your head over and over and over. You can be completely legally right and still end up dead. No one else is going to watch out for your safety, you have to do it yourself.
Which really leads me to my major point, I find it amazing (perhaps appalling) that anyone can go down to the local big box store, plop down $150, purchase a bicycle and then be allowed to use that on a street or road. It is as if by just getting on a bicycle the rules of the road are automatically gained by osmosis through the seat, or something of the sort. As much as we want to say that “roads are for all of us”, I don’t believe it. Look at the road, everyone on a public road, should at least have an operator’s license and demonstrated some knowledge of traffic laws; yet, bicycles are exempt from this.
Trust me, I am not anti-bicyclists. I am really not. If people want to use a bicycle, by all means, go and do it. But, please don’t tell me how bicyclists are somehow treated as second class and more amenities are needed when the author of this article freely admitted that they don’t follow rules of the road and you don’t need to demonstrate any knowledge or mastery of rules of the road to use your bicycle on the road.
I still don’t understand the hate for the child trailer. Is it better to put them above my wheel? I have three kids of ages 6 and under, how should I take them across town by bike? I have a car too, but on nice days, shorter trips, or events like fireworks or baseball games when there is a boat load of traffic, I’d much rather not deal with parking or sitting in a long line of cars.
Thanks for reading and commenting PGJoe. I think your everything-is-about-me meter needs to be recalibrated. I don’t hate the child trailer exclusively. I’m the same as car drivers. I don’t like anyone on the road. Because they get in my way when I am trying to go places. Also, read up on how writers try to be clever sometimes by using symbolic examples that are not meant to be serious.
So you feel roads are for cars exclusively even though roads preexisted cars? I’m sorry that your time is so valuable that families doing things together are such a major inconvenience. I’ll alert the Trailer Posse (That’s what we call ourselves) that we need to give way to you every time you are out driving. I’ll tell them you have a very important appointment with your proctologist to have your head removed from your ass.
Thanks PBJoe, for reminding me of that doctor’s appt.
replying to Dan McGraw, September 18, 2014 (“meltyman, I have a decent bike. Speciliazed Tri-Cross. Decent urban hybrid. And yes, I am older than you… and by the way you are too old to….”).
You are just a few months older than me, look to be in decent-ish shape, and say you have a half-decent bike — and yet you can only make 10 mph? Or were you perhaps exaggerating just a tiny, tiny bit?
p.s. I will decide when I am too old to use “dude”, or ride my bike: you don’t get to decide for me, thanks all the same. “Dude is an old term, recognized by multiple generations although potentially with slightly different meanings.[2] From the 1870s to the 1960s…” — Wikipedia is your friend.
btw, my original, half-tongue-in-cheek post of September 15 was meant to be helpful. Really. Did you glance at either of these: http://youtu.be/W4ghpwIkzfw and http://youtu.be/7kIDeD0N3QY ?
tiny, tiny bit, dude