Article: 9 Things Drivers Need to Stop Saying in the Bikes vs. Cars Debate

[dkel]

There’s a bike lane by my house that suddenly ends for no reason, dropping me in a lane filled with fast-moving cars. How would drivers feel if their lane came to a stop and deposited them on a railroad track?

Love it!

[KLizotte]

I think I’m going to cut and paste this paragraph into every ArlNow discussion about the “war on cars.”

“The truth is that we’re just not that great at not breaking the law. Cyclists neglect to follow some rules, mostly rolling though stop signs and going through red lights if there’s no cross traffic. Drivers tend to forget the following things are illegal (at least in California): Speeding, tailgating, not signaling, not stopping before a right turn, getting behind the wheel while drunk, texting or using a cell phone without the hands-free option, double parking, throwing trash (including cigarette butts) out the window, failing to stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk, making a U-turn when there’s a ‘No U-turn’ sign, honking your horn just because you’re angry, and yes, running red lights and rolling through stop signs.”

[jrenaut]

Let’s just stop saying “bikes vs cars” – it’s bikes and cars and pedestrians and transit and unicycles and Segways and horses and roller skates and hovercrafts and magic pixie dust. I’m not trying to get rid of cars, I’m just trying to keep them out of infrastructure dedicated to other modes of transportation and to keep them from killing me.

[Orestes Munn]

Of course, the thesis is correct. However, if the kind of thinking it targets were not fundamentally immune to facts or standards of fairness, it would have disappeared long ere now. I think the roots of opinion on this and many other current political issues are very deep and lie in primitive concepts self-interest and identity, deep and primitive enough to be largely inaccessible to rational argument. They are easy to take advantage of, and very hard to change.

[ShawnoftheDread]

@Orestes Munn 99502 wrote:

Of course, the thesis is correct. However, if the kind of thinking it targets were not fundamentally immune to facts or standards of fairness, it would have disappeared long ere now. I think the roots of opinion on this and many other current political issues are very deep and lie in primitive concepts self-interest and identity, deep and primitive enough to be largely inaccessible to rational argument. They are easy to take advantage of, and very hard to change.

“You cannot reason a man out of an opinion he didn’t reason himself into.”

[TwoWheelsDC]

@jrenaut 99497 wrote:

Let’s just stop saying “bikes vs cars” – it’s bikes and cars and pedestrians and transit and unicycles and Segways and horses and roller skates and hovercrafts and magic pixie dust. I’m not trying to get rid of cars, I’m just trying to keep them out of infrastructure dedicated to other modes of transportation and to keep them from killing me.

[jrenaut]

@TwoWheelsDC 99509 wrote:

picture

This is 2014. We don’t keep score and everyone gets a trophy.

[PotomacCyclist]

Actually, a lot of people do seem to be keeping score. They think it’s a zero sum game or death match.

[culimerc]

and #10 should be joking about bumping cyclists who are “in the way” just is never funny, no matter how many times the “joke” is made.

[ShawnoftheDread]

@culimerc 99521 wrote:

and #10 should be joking about bumping cyclists who are “in the way” just is never funny, no matter how many times the “joke” is made.

What, you don’t make “jokes” about how you could just shoot drivers who don’t give you enough space? That’s odd.

[PotomacCyclist]

I’ve read far worse than that. One example is a Colorado UPS driver who was ranting about seeing a group ride and later posting that she sees cyclists as bowling pins to be knocked down.

Of course there’s Courtland Milloy. And Natalie O’Neill of the NY Post or Daily News who joked about wiping out all of those “annoying” Citi Bike riders.

[bobco85]

Funny. I had a conversation with a family friend about biking in Arlington, and she (driver-only) brought up #1-4 in addition to arguing about mandatory licensing for cyclists (right now I’m picturing a family taking their 5-year-old kid to the DB “Department of Bicycles” for a cycling license).

It started off as one of those “I just want to vent about how horrible cyclists act while ignoring what I and other drivers do,” discussions with her on offense and me on defense for all of cyclingdom. Through our discussion I was able to give her a better understanding of the reasons 1) cyclists take the lane versus hugging the curb, 2) some cyclists practice the Idaho stop (I do it sometimes, especially when no one else is around), 3) cyclists leave the bike lane, and 4) drivers (including herself) are not so perfect a.k.a. we’re all law-breakers to some degree.

@culimerc 99521 wrote:

and #10 should be joking about bumping cyclists who are “in the way” just is never funny, no matter how many times the “joke” is made.

^^ Agree +1000 ^^

I heard this from a coworker a couple of years ago. The scary thing is that some people have actually done this: http://www.streetsblog.org/2014/10/22/da-cy-vance-250-fine-for-motorist-accused-of-deliberately-striking-cyclist/

[sjclaeys]

@PotomacCyclist 99532 wrote:

I’ve read far worse than that. One example is a Colorado UPS driver who was ranting about seeing a group ride and later posting that she sees cyclists as bowling pins to be knocked down.

Of course there’s Courtland Milloy. And Natalie O’Neill of the NY Post or Daily News who joked about wiping out all of those “annoying” Citi Bike riders.

Don’t forget Tony Kornheiser, but he actually recanted after Lance Armstrong called him on it.

[baiskeli]

And don’t forget pedestrians, who routinely violate all manner of laws and endanger themselves in the process. Yet nobody goes around hating on them or calling them scofflaws.

[mstone]

@baiskeli 99594 wrote:

And don’t forget pedestrians, who routinely violate all manner of laws and endanger themselves in the process. Yet nobody goes around hating on them or calling them scofflaws.

Actually they do. The same people who complain about bikes are also likely to say that jaywalking pedestrians are what makes the roads unsafe. There’s a little less hatred as are somewhat more comfortable with the idea of walking, but they’re consistently against anything that they perceive as slowing them down. (And consistently unable to recognize any problems with cars.)

[Author]

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