Here’s one more reason cyclists get made out to be arrogant douchebags

OK, in the interest of full disclosure I’m going to put this out there.  Listen up:

• I am a cyclist, and I have been since I was 16 years old
• In season I will ride anywhere from 30 to 40 miles per day.  I mind the traffic laws and I’m conscious of pedestrians, cars, and buses
• I have an armband for my phone and yes, I listen to music while I roll.  It’s not full blast when I’m pumping away so I can easily hear everything around me.
• I actually carry insurance for when I’m out cycling, full coverage for 20 bucks a month in season.  Property and personal damage.  Just putting it out there; I take my cycling seriously.

I take cycling safety pretty seriously.  I don’t roll like I’m the only one on the street; I know you’re behind me.  I keep to one side of the road and 99% of the time I obey traffic laws.  I’m not going to lie; if I have a serious push going on, I’m not about to stop for the light if there’s absolutely no cars or pedestrians around.  Unfortunately more often than not these days, there are far too many cars and pedestrians who will go out of their way to get into mine.  As a couple of examples:

• A bus and I were playing slingshot down 15 miles of Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio.  As he got tired of passing me ( I was in the far right), he eventually called RTA police who stopped me claiming that they had the bus driver’s complaint.  He was tired of having to ride around me, worried about hitting me.  I got ticketed, and I fought it with the statements of four people on the bus that I was not impeding his way, antagonizing him or other cars and I was minding traffic laws.  The ticket was thrown out, and RTA was reprimanded for frivolously citing me.
• A Chicago car driver and his passenger decided that they were tired of cyclists in the city (his statement).  At three subsequent stop lights, the passenger would open his door in an attempt to clothesline me, missing me each time.  He was unaware that my “iPod” was my phone and I called CPD to complain about these attempted assaults.  The cops caught him doing it two more times and arrested them for attempted assault.
• Riding a cyclist only path, I came up over the crest of a hill to find a rather large woman and her dog on that path and fully blocking me.  As I was cruising at about 20mph, I had to make a quick choice: hit her and possibly kill the dog, or ditch and take my chances because having to go from 20 to zero meant that I was easily going ass over tea kettle.  I chose the latter and earned a trip to the ER for the roadrash and concussion.  She attempted to call the park ranger out for my recklessness, while she was standing in front of a sign that said “no foot traffic on this path”.

I believe that the majority of cyclists will attempt to do the right thing when they’re on the road, and I’m sure others can relate their stories of being antagonized as being some sort of societal pariah for riding on two wheels instead of four.

And then you have stories like this:

As soon as I put my foot into the road, I was hit with amazing force by a bicycle which, I was later told, was travelling at between 20mph and 30mph. I fell to the ground, smashing my head on the tarmac.

 

As I lay there, stunned, I heard a youthful voice say: ‘Are you OK?’ I just managed to reply, ‘I think so’ before the cyclist vanished at great speed. I vaguely remember seeing a helmet and he seemed to be listening to music on headphones.

 

Of course, I didn’t hear him approaching – bicycles are silent. And I have never seen him again to this day.

 

I was helped to my feet and into a nearby office block by a passer-by. The receptionist seemed shocked by my appearance and immediately telephoned for an ambulance. I must have called my wife to tell her what had happened but I don’t really have any recollection of doing so.

A bit further down:

Not long afterwards, I received a reply from the police which, among other things, said: ‘I have considered the circumstances of your collision and I have concluded that no further police involvement is required, as the details you have given to the police at this time do not amount to a reportable collision under the Road Traffic Act.’

 

I realised then that cyclists are effectively immune from legal action. And that is why I support the Private Members’ Bill by Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom to introduce a new traffic offence of causing death by dangerous cycling. A teenager in Mrs Leadsom’s constituency died after being hit by a cyclist.

 

As it stands, cyclists seem to be able to get away with almost anything. Unlike car drivers, cyclists can ride while talking on their mobile phones, while over the drink-drive limit and ignore the speed limit. These laws apply only to the drivers of motor vehicles. Cyclists can’t be charged with causing death by careless or dangerous driving.

 

Those laws, too, don’t apply to them the only law that seems to apply to dangerous cycling is Section 35 of the Offences Against The Person Act 1861, legislation drafted (24 years before the modern bicycle was invented) to tackle injury caused by ‘wanton or furious driving or racing’ of horse-drawn carriages. It is hardly surprising that this law has been used only a handful of times in the past decade.

Things like this get my bike shorts in a twist, because a/the cyclist should have stopped and done more than just ride away after a cursory check, and b/you only have one person telling their side of the story here.  Bikes aren’t silent first of all and secondly if the author was indeed hit as soon as hit foot went into the road that tells me he wasn’t looking for anything other than motor traffic. Did the bike just drop out of the sky?  Hardly, especially if he was going 20 to 30mph as the author claims.  Even if you split the difference and he was going 25mph and came around a corner, he’d have needed the full width of the road to make the turn at those speeds to keep from being pitched.

I call bullshit.  I think the author is stretching the truth on this one to sell his point, the cyclists side of the story is nowhere to be heard, and the rest of the cyclists continue to get a bad rap for this.

I’ll admit it.  There are some cyclists who right and truly are douchebags.  To wit:

• The cyclists who suck up an entire lane of the two lane street thru the park because they prefer it over the $4million dollar bike path (thereby snarling every bit of traffic behind them -nobody can pass them).  Yeah, you’re a douche bag.  You don’t own the road any more than the cars behind you do.
• There was a bizarre trend in the park where I’d actually see a cyclist who’d ride no-handed and be pissing into an empty water bottle because he didn’t want to stop.  He did this while riding, and then would proceed to throw it out behind him and keep on peddling.  Truly, I don’t know if I saw more than one guy, or I was unfortunate enough to see the same guy repeatedly.  You, sir – are a nasty douche bag and you’re not riding in the Tour de France.  Stop at any one of the 100 restrooms in the park and do your thing, you narcissistic doofus.
• To any of the cyclists who ride on the all traffic path and don’t yell “passing” to the pedestrians you’re about to whiz by – douche bags.  Every one of you.  Roll on the “no foot traffic” path or try and get it thru your three remaining brain cells that you have no more right to be on the path than any one else.

People who ride like the world needs to kiss their spandex-covered ass are making it bad for the rest of us who actually do know how to play nice with others.  And my closing message to the people who aren’t on two wheels?  We’re not all demons, and we have just as much right to be out riding as you do walking, driving or any other method you see fit.

Can’t we all just get along??

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