SirEdward
Well-Known Member
I must agree with Brydie76, Ninjacoco, Prizrak and the general anti-bycicle movement. I have all sorts of problems with bycicles every day. They ususally don't stop at traffic lights, they cross the roads at insane speed, cyvling even where they should dismount, they often ride on the wrong side of the road, they are almost never using lights or reflective vests, they do pretty much whatever they want, and if you try to say something, it almost always ends with the cyclist abusing the car driver.
In the last year I was almost run over by a cyclist running a red light (and I was crossing at green pedestrian lights with a still broken foot), I was technically run over by a cyclist while crossing at a pedestrian crossing (technically because the impact was minimal - and at least the girl had the decency to apologize), I almost run over two different cyclists (one was running a red light, the other had just decided that he needed to get down from the kerb right in front of my apporaching car), and I've lost count of how many violations I've seen from them.
Sure, cycling is complicated, roundabouts are a recurring nightmare, many car drivers are a***oles and bicycle lanes are few, scattered and dangerous. But the main reason is the simple fact that cyclist don't think of themselves as road users or vehicle drivers, they think of themselves as pedestrians. Which they clearly aren't. A pedestrian is much slower, has more control over his/her own legs, doesn't normally fall over if he/she stops, has far better braking capabilities for the average speed, handles better and can strafe sideways.
Bycicles ARE vechicles, and they should behave like that. Being registered, having insurance, have a driving licence, have lights (proper lights, not graveyard's ones), have mirrors, being inspected (I am tired of seeing people trying to slow down with their feet because their rattling bycicles have no working brakes), follow a speed limit and drive according to the road code. This doesn't mean paying a car's insurance or getting a full driving licence to drive a bycicle, just like driving a car doesn't require a full truck driving licence, but a licence should be needed.
Also, some bycicle lover might think most of my problems lie in the country I live in; well, no. While I live in a place where rules are often forgone, I experienced problems with cyclists in the whole of the civil Europe: Germany, Denmark, the Nederlands, Belgium, Sweden (Swedes being the least problematic cyclists on the road, though), Austria, and, if the bycicles would be as used there as much as they are used in those other countries, France.
Bycicle lanes designed to put a speeding cyclist eactly in your blind spot and giving you the blame, zooming, swerving, unnerving bycicles on pedestrian area, THEIR unsofferable pretense to have always right of way (even when I'm a pedestrian), bycicles carelessly passing in front and behind a car reversing in a small street (to avoid entering a pedestrian area) with every sort of hazard and reversing lights on; bycicles parked randomly on the side of the road, many of them abandoned wrecks or skeletons. Stolen bycicles.
It's a question of culture. Bycicles are not going to save the world, bycicles are not going to do all that cars do, bycicles are not for everyone, too. But, most of all, bycicles are vehicles and riding green doesn't put you out of the need for rules and limitations. I hope car traffic and bycicle traffic will be more and more separated (with speed-limited bycicle lanes provided with pedestrian crossings), I hope to see cyclists riding safely as much as I hope car drivers doing that, but most of all I hope cyclist to look at themselves and say: "yes, we are not the unfallible messiahs of transportation, there are many of us who are idiots and we should campaigning to teach them to behave safely".
In the last year I was almost run over by a cyclist running a red light (and I was crossing at green pedestrian lights with a still broken foot), I was technically run over by a cyclist while crossing at a pedestrian crossing (technically because the impact was minimal - and at least the girl had the decency to apologize), I almost run over two different cyclists (one was running a red light, the other had just decided that he needed to get down from the kerb right in front of my apporaching car), and I've lost count of how many violations I've seen from them.
Sure, cycling is complicated, roundabouts are a recurring nightmare, many car drivers are a***oles and bicycle lanes are few, scattered and dangerous. But the main reason is the simple fact that cyclist don't think of themselves as road users or vehicle drivers, they think of themselves as pedestrians. Which they clearly aren't. A pedestrian is much slower, has more control over his/her own legs, doesn't normally fall over if he/she stops, has far better braking capabilities for the average speed, handles better and can strafe sideways.
Bycicles ARE vechicles, and they should behave like that. Being registered, having insurance, have a driving licence, have lights (proper lights, not graveyard's ones), have mirrors, being inspected (I am tired of seeing people trying to slow down with their feet because their rattling bycicles have no working brakes), follow a speed limit and drive according to the road code. This doesn't mean paying a car's insurance or getting a full driving licence to drive a bycicle, just like driving a car doesn't require a full truck driving licence, but a licence should be needed.
Also, some bycicle lover might think most of my problems lie in the country I live in; well, no. While I live in a place where rules are often forgone, I experienced problems with cyclists in the whole of the civil Europe: Germany, Denmark, the Nederlands, Belgium, Sweden (Swedes being the least problematic cyclists on the road, though), Austria, and, if the bycicles would be as used there as much as they are used in those other countries, France.
Bycicle lanes designed to put a speeding cyclist eactly in your blind spot and giving you the blame, zooming, swerving, unnerving bycicles on pedestrian area, THEIR unsofferable pretense to have always right of way (even when I'm a pedestrian), bycicles carelessly passing in front and behind a car reversing in a small street (to avoid entering a pedestrian area) with every sort of hazard and reversing lights on; bycicles parked randomly on the side of the road, many of them abandoned wrecks or skeletons. Stolen bycicles.
It's a question of culture. Bycicles are not going to save the world, bycicles are not going to do all that cars do, bycicles are not for everyone, too. But, most of all, bycicles are vehicles and riding green doesn't put you out of the need for rules and limitations. I hope car traffic and bycicle traffic will be more and more separated (with speed-limited bycicle lanes provided with pedestrian crossings), I hope to see cyclists riding safely as much as I hope car drivers doing that, but most of all I hope cyclist to look at themselves and say: "yes, we are not the unfallible messiahs of transportation, there are many of us who are idiots and we should campaigning to teach them to behave safely".
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