Dreaded cyclists

prizrak;n3546143 said:
But that doesn't mean that bicycles are going to be treated as a convoy, since the law seems to be specific to motor vehicles. Granted I can't read the law, but unless it specifically mentions that all other types of vehicles are allowed to run in convoy however they want your argument is invalid. Also last I checked pedestrians moving in convoy would be a parade and they typically require a permit.

P.S. Neither horses, nor pedestrians are vehicles, they are animals and therefore are treated differently.

No, the law puts extra burdens on motor vehicle convoys. It doesn't limit what/who can form a convoy.
Pedestrians in a convoy needn't be a parade - for example a class of students on a field trip can move as a single unit, and keep crossing a red light if it turned red after the convoy has started crossing. Those are even explicitly mentioned, "Kinder- und Jugendgruppen zu Fuß" are groups of kids/youths on foot.
Bicycles are explicitly mentioned as well: "Mehr als 15 Rad Fahrende dürfen einen geschlossenen Verband bilden." - more than 15 bicycle riders may form a convoy.

Traffic laws apply to pedestrians - and horses too: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stvo_2013/__28.html
 
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Blind_Io;n3546139 said:
Isn't this mostly to do with oversized vehicles, over weight vehicles that require escort, and special events like road racing?

This whole thing seems like it doesn't apply to either side, so why are we talking about it?

Excessive road use as defined in https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stvo_2013/__29.html lists as examples motor vehicle racing, motor vehicle convoys, and oversized vehicles. No need to have oversized vehicles in your motor vehicle convoy to always require a permit, a convoy of 50 Polos would always need a permit - and so would a single car carrier truck with 50 polos on board because it'd be too heavy.

Anything could be classified as "excessive", it's one of a few "don't be a dick" rules that can cover lots of ground but are rarely applied far beyond the examples listed. §1 is even more broad, "participate in traffic in a way that nobody else is damaged, endangered, or more impeded or disturbed than reasonably avoidable"... in other words, "don't be a dick". For most scenarios there are more specific rules, these are catch-all options to not have to spell out every single detail.
 
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Priz, Narf is diluting the conversation into pointlessness through the addition of overcomplicated but useless minutiae.

He is trying to derail the conversation from "accountability of cyclists" to "excessive road use". But nobody here is really interested in excessive road use, at the moment. When someone will, the thread "dreaded excessive road use" will surely be created.

Don't let yourself be dragged into legal code linguistic analysis.
 
narf;n3546149 said:
No, the law puts extra burdens on motor vehicle convoys. It doesn't limit what/who can form a convoy.
Pedestrians in a convoy needn't be a parade - for example a class of students on a field trip can move as a single unit, and keep crossing a red light if it turned red after the convoy has started crossing. Those are even explicitly mentioned, "Kinder- und Jugendgruppen zu Fuß" are groups of kids/youths on foot.
Bicycles are explicitly mentioned as well: "Mehr als 15 Rad Fahrende dürfen einen geschlossenen Verband bilden." - more than 15 bicycle riders may form a convoy.

Traffic laws apply to pedestrians - and horses too: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stvo_2013/__28.html

Then you should've posted the translation from all the relevant parts not just the motor vehicle part. While traffic laws do apply to both pedestrians and horses (FYI posting a link to something in German is as useful to me as me posting to you something in Ukranian) you are still glossing over the fact that animals are not treated the same as vehicles, no one expects a license plate on a horse's ass. I would however expect to see one on a horse drawn carriage and IIRC at least London cabs back in the day when they were horse drawn did have identifying numbers.
 
SirEdward;n3546155 said:
Priz, Narf is diluting the conversation into pointlessness through the addition of overcomplicated but useless minutiae.

He is trying to derail the conversation from "accountability of cyclists" to "excessive road use". But nobody here is really interested in excessive road use, at the moment. When someone will, the thread "dreaded excessive road use" will surely be created.

Don't let yourself be dragged into legal code linguistic analysis.

Of course because narf has absolutely no legitimate argument to support his opinion, all he can do is get bogged down in stupid German laws (and any law that allows a spontaneous convoy is fucking retarded) and try to derail the discussion. It's a pretty transparent losing tactic, ignore the issue at hand and try to throw words on it until the original point is no longer discernible. Then again Germans are quite good at rhetoric if history teaches us anything ;)
 
prizrak;n3546156 said:
Then you should've posted the translation from all the relevant parts not just the motor vehicle part. While traffic laws do apply to both pedestrians and horses (FYI posting a link to something in German is as useful to me as me posting to you something in Ukranian) you are still glossing over the fact that animals are not treated the same as vehicles, no one expects a license plate on a horse's ass. I would however expect to see one on a horse drawn carriage and IIRC at least London cabs back in the day when they were horse drawn did have identifying numbers.

I'd just throw the Ukranian text into Google Translate :dunno:

I don't see a license plate here :dunno:
1280px-Traditional_Amish_buggy.jpg


Same reasoning as you put up for cyclists: If the cyclist hits someone and buggers off, a license plate is supposed to help with identification. If a horse hits someone and buggers off, having a plate screwed to its arse would help with identification too.
 
Our argument isn't that there is a license plate, it's that there should be a license plate.
 
narf;n3546159 said:
I'd just throw the Ukranian text into Google Translate :dunno:

I don't see a license plate here :dunno:
[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/4\/43\/Traditional_Amish_buggy.jpg\/1280px-Traditional_Amish_buggy.jpg"}[/IMG2]

Same reasoning as you put up for cyclists: If the cyclist hits someone and buggers off, a license plate is supposed to help with identification. If a horse hits someone and buggers off, having a plate screwed to its arse would help with identification too.

Many states *do* require carriages (which are vehicles) to have license plates. Horses are not vehicles (not being inanimate mechanical objects) and don't need plates.

[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"http:\/\/c8.alamy.com\/comp\/DEG0X4\/license-plate-for-horse-drawn-carriage-new-york-city-new-york-united-DEG0X4.jpg"}[/IMG2]

[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/i.ebayimg.com\/images\/g\/engAAOSwYVlaQvDJ\/s-l1600.jpg"}[/IMG2]

Are you now going to claim that a bicycle is not a vehicle?
 
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BTW, Italy requires registration and plates for carriages, physical an psychological fitness and at least 14 years of age for the driver. And an authorization to transport people.

Yet hit and runs by carriages are very rare.

Why cyclists should be exempt from even the most basic forms of accountability and safety, when they are a visible, non disregardable and growing part of road traffic? Either they are vehicles, and they should be treated as such, or they are toys, and they should stay off the road.
 
Also on the subject of regulations, at least in NY bicycles are not required to have rear view mirrors
 
The cyclist things is getting out of hand.

Two cyclists (men and woman) crossed the street in front of me with a red light (or orange) for them, without looking. My speed was low, but I had to brake, and I honked. The woman yelled some "heey!", so I answered with "heey!". She then stopped and yelled "are you crazy?", and I answered "It's red!".

Unfortunately I was parking at a little distance, so they followed me and waited for me.

The woman was so angry that she literally jumped off the bike to confront me, saying that I was crazy, and that I was lucky that she didn't send her husband (the man) to deal with me, at which point he intervened, got a few inches from my face, grinned and said something like "it's better you shut up, otherwise..."

I tried to talk reasonably, but I still turned on the camera from my phone.

The man then kept calmer, with a final "you go away, boy, or else bad things will happen...", while the woman got extremely irritated by the fact that I was recording. So she decided she would take my licence plate number.

I asked her why, and she aswered me "because you scared me". "You were crossing at a red light!", I replied. "I was with the pedestrians!", "the pedestrians have red light too!". She then proceeded to take the numbers of my licence plate.

The man was still unsettled by the registration, and he tried the "you can't record because of the privacy!", I explained why he was wrong.

She then walked towards the bike saying "good day", to which I answered "It won't be, you ruined it", at which point the aggressive husband tried the degrading way, telling me that I was too small and fragile and nervous (I still can't understand why people get into this thing of trying to dominate you by belittleing your physical aspect (also, It's easy with me, I'm the opposite of a bulky, menacing guy). I answered that I saw more problems in his lying than in my being nervous.

Then, they went away, at last.

EDIT To stress it out loud: I never insulted them, I was never aggressive, I was never physically threatening or getting near of my own will, I never tried to stop, they never mentioned the colour of the traffic light (I did), I never laughed at them, I tried to talk with them. It is all recorded (unfortunately, because of italian law, I cannot publish the video).EDIT

Three considerations.

First, the aggressiveness of the couple, particularly the woman: way to go for the lie of the poor meek cyclists.

Second, how unfair is that the woman could take my licence plate and try to intimidate me by threatening consequences with the police (or not, for what I know. You can expect everything from aggressive people), while I cannot know anything of her? Particularly in a world where, for some idiotic reason, someone is trying to teach that the word of a cyclist is worth more than the word of a driver.

Third, I really want to buy a dashcam, to protect me in these situations. If I hadn't the recording, where they clearly state that I didn't do anything wrong, I could really fear for them messing around and complicating my life. I really don't want that to happen, considering the nutcases running free in the streets.

prizrak;n3553389 said:
Mustang hits cyclist, as always cyclist is in the wrong. Can't embed video https://g.redditmedia.com/1GwPYYq5nW...6de6ce8d509184

Fantastic. You really had me with the "Mustang" in the description.
 
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SirEdward;n3553410 said:
The cyclist things is getting out of hand.

[...]
First: I believe your story and those two were assholes, full stop. I don't want to defend or play this kind of behaviour down.



Second: People are people, some are aggressive, others are calm and there can be everything inbetween. This isn't limited to a particular group of people using transport mode X. They could have been on foot or in a car as well and their behaviour would have been exactly the same.

SirEdward;n3553410 said:
First, the aggressiveness of the couple, particularly the woman: way to go for the lie of the poor meek cyclists.
As I wrote: people are people, there is no uniform group "cyclists". Everyone gets around differently, some are considerate, but you don't remember those, others are assholes like these two which you do remember. Please don't lump every cyclist together with that couple since there are billions of cyclists in the world. If every cyclist would be like that you wouldn't leave your house anymore. ;)

SirEdward;n3553410 said:
Second, how unfair is that the woman could take my licence plate and try to intimidate me by threatening consequences with the police (or not, for what I know. You can expect everything from aggressive people), while I cannot know anything of her? Particularly in a world where, for some idiotic reason, someone is trying to teach that the word of a cyclist is worth more than the word of a driver.
Once someone is so confident of her/him being right, she/he doesn't think rational. Of course you are allowed to know their details since they did something wrong, I don't think there is any part of the world where this differs.

SirEdward;n3553410 said:
Third, I really want to buy a dashcam, to protect me in these situations. If I hadn't the recording, where they clearly state that I didn't do anything wrong, I could really fear for them messing around and complicating my life. I really don't want that to happen, considering the nutcases running free in the streets.
Yeah, there are nutcases on the streets, and yes, of course there are nutcases on bicycles on the streets, but as I stated above this isn't limited to cyclists.
 
Eye-Q;n3553424 said:
People are people, some are aggressive, others are calm and there can be everything inbetween. This isn't limited to a particular group of people using transport mode X. They could have been on foot or in a car as well and their behaviour would have been exactly the same.

Exactly.

The problem, to me, isn't that people ride bicycles, but how this is perceived on a social level:

I (and everyone else) am constantly being told that cyclists are "the good guys" who save the world, and the cars are evil people to harass and bash as much as possible. This has gone on so much that people has started to believe that.

For this reason, many cyclists got bolder and bolder and now ask for a better treatment. The two a**holes I found on my way were doing exactly that. They believed they were better than the rest and that they deserved to cross on a red light, without a care. Unfortunately I broke their wet dream and they got furious, because I tried to smash their delusion.

A delusion fed by infinite amounts of constant public reinforcement of the thing.

I know very well that not all cyclists are like them, but I also know very well that an idiot will be an idiot no matter what he drives or rides, so to legitimize their behaviour is foolish.

For the same reason, it is not fair that, of two vehicles sharing the road, one of them can identify the other while not being identifiable. This is wrong.

Once someone is so confident of her/him being right, she/he doesn't think rational. Of course you are allowed to know their details since they did something wrong, I don't think there is any part of the world where this differs.

Unless she reports me to the police (and while I can -prove- that I didn't do anything, thanks to the recording, I still hope she won't do it, since it would be unpleasant), she knows who I am and where I live, while I have no way of identifying her. And yet... we should share the same road... This is -very- unfair.

Yeah, there are nutcases on the streets, and yes, of course there are nutcases on bicycles on the streets, but as I stated above this isn't limited to cyclists.

Of course it isn't, but since people are the same, we should, as a society, stop treating them as if they were different.
 
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A strange one, cyclist killed by guided bus in Cambridge:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-45514309

This is the approximate location, a guided busway with a pavement/cycle track beside it. Crucially there's no fence to stop pedestrians or cyclist crossing over into the bus lanes.
https://goo.gl/maps/fqAKtSwfLct

I'll be interested to hear what happened if we ever do, I assume some kind of medical condition. There's no reason to cross but as I said no barrier.
 
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