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Unfortunately Steve, you and I live on different continents, however here in the UK we have something called the highway code. It is a set of instructions and guideline that ALL road users are required to read, yet only those of use who want a driving licence get tested on.

Rule 169:“Do not hold up a long queue of traffic, especially if you are driving a large or slow-moving vehicle.“Check your mirrors frequently, and if necessary, pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass.”

And yet cyclists do not adhere to this allowing long trails of frustrated traffic to build up and dangerous overtaking then ensues.

There is no justifiable reasons for the attitude toward cyclists, but there is an emotional one toward the sod you attitude of cyclists taking a selfish view of the road. For example refusing to allow safe overtaking by pulling to the verge, or cyclists riding abreast and blocking the road.

So sorry I have little patience for the hurt feelings of cyclists who think that the road belongs to them.

Cheers

Andrew

Ok, so taxes do pay for roads in the US. Well, get off your high horse as you attacked me telling me you paid for roads when I’m in the UK and that is not the case here. I didn’t say anything about the US in my original post. I’m in the UK and you came charging in having a go at me.

You can think what you like about who should be on the road, but ultimately the law is against you. Want to change that? Go ahead and try, but for now no matter how much you complain on a wargaming forum you are wrong. Cyclists have every right to be there. Drivers with your attitude are a menice and should not be on the road at all if you can’t manage to drive safely around other people using the road perfectly legally. Until you can change the law you should treat other road users with respect, or stop driving.

I love all this high horse jousting.

kek

 Desubot wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:
The worst IMO are the ones who change their set of rules from vehicle to pedestrian whenever it's convenient. Yes, you can cycle on public roads (if there's no cycle lane) and cars should keep some sort of safe distance passing you. What you can't do is cycle the wrong way on a one-way street or ignore "Give way" or "Stop" signs. A bike is a vehicle despite not having an engine and it does have to follow vehicle rules unless otherwise noted (they can cycle in pedestrian-only zones, for example. At least over here=.

They really should if they want to be considered vehicles. also odd though. would it be ok to let children on bikes bike on the roads?

i remember as a snotling id bike literally everywhere and id just bike on the sidewalk. never felt in danger or was a danger to other pedestrians. if there was a crowed id just get off the bike and walk it. i guess its really different now though i haven't biked in soo many years. (also was never confronted by cops about it ether so i dunno if its even a law to not be on side walks or if cops just didnt care)

Depends where you were. When I was a sprog out in the suburbs/countryside (it varied), sidewalks were fine for riding a bike on, there wasn't much foot traffic and it wasn't an issue.

In the cities I lived in as adult? No way. Not enough room and far too many people. Bikes are absolutely a danger to pedestrians. And to cars, and sometimes ground level streetcars.

 AndrewC wrote:
Unfortunately Steve, you and I live on different continents, however here in the UK we have something called the highway code. It is a set of instructions and guideline that ALL road users are required to read, yet only those of use who want a driving licence get tested on.

Rule 169:“Do not hold up a long queue of traffic, especially if you are driving a large or slow-moving vehicle.“Check your mirrors frequently, and if necessary, pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass.”

And yet cyclists do not adhere to this allowing long trails of frustrated traffic to build up and dangerous overtaking then ensues.

There is no justifiable reasons for the attitude toward cyclists, but there is an emotional one toward the sod you attitude of cyclists taking a selfish view of the road. For example refusing to allow safe overtaking by pulling to the verge, or cyclists riding abreast and blocking the road.

So sorry I have little patience for the hurt feelings of cyclists who think that the road belongs to them.

Cheers

Andrew

A driver talking about someone thinking the road belongs to them. Oh the irony...

I’m in the UK. That is more nonsense. How often do cyclists have long queues? I have NEVER seen one. I get stuck behind slow cars, tractors, buses and other road users all the time. Cyclists, never more than a few seconds. They are tiny and not very fast. That rule does not mean “pull over the second someone is behind you” like some drivers think. I bet you have never been stuck behind a cyclist for more than a minute. No car ever gets out of my way when I’m on my motorbike.

The Highway Code also says give cyclists as much room as cars, but very few drivers do that. If they all did cyclists would feel less need to take the lane.

Voss wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:
The worst IMO are the ones who change their set of rules from vehicle to pedestrian whenever it's convenient. Yes, you can cycle on public roads (if there's no cycle lane) and cars should keep some sort of safe distance passing you. What you can't do is cycle the wrong way on a one-way street or ignore "Give way" or "Stop" signs. A bike is a vehicle despite not having an engine and it does have to follow vehicle rules unless otherwise noted (they can cycle in pedestrian-only zones, for example. At least over here=.

They really should if they want to be considered vehicles. also odd though. would it be ok to let children on bikes bike on the roads?

i remember as a snotling id bike literally everywhere and id just bike on the sidewalk. never felt in danger or was a danger to other pedestrians. if there was a crowed id just get off the bike and walk it. i guess its really different now though i haven't biked in soo many years. (also was never confronted by cops about it ether so i dunno if its even a law to not be on side walks or if cops just didnt care)

Depends where you were. When I was a sprog out in the suburbs/countryside (it varied), sidewalks were fine for riding a bike on, there wasn't much foot traffic and it wasn't an issue.

In the cities I lived in as adult? No way. Not enough room and far too many people. Bikes are absolutely a danger to pedestrians. And to cars, and sometimes ground level streetcars.

Guess thats true. but the upside is that a bike can always be walked. i don't think you can reasonably put your car in neutral and walk it when there is too much congestion.

 Steve steveson wrote:

A driver talking about someone thinking the road belongs to them. Oh the irony...

It'd be even better if I ever said that.

I’m in the UK. That is more nonsense. How often do cyclists have long queues?

Where I am? Every morning.

I have NEVER seen one. I get stuck behind slow cars, tractors, buses and other road users all the time. Cyclists, never more than a few seconds. They are tiny and not very fast. That rule does not mean “pull over the second someone is behind you” like some drivers think. I bet you have never been stuck behind a cyclist for more than a minute. No car ever gets out of my way when I’m on my motorbike.

I do a lot of country road driving, and I see queues all the time. Some lasting for miles, all because (a) cyclist(s) decides that the Stirling straight is a good place for a day out or the A9, where its still single lane. So yes I have been stuck behind selfish cyclists for a hell of a lot longer that a minute. You know, the roads with the signs up saying "Frustration causes accidents. Allow overtaking"

The Highway Code also says give cyclists as much room as cars, but very few drivers do that. If they all did cyclists would feel less need to take the lane.

I agree, and do, but that isn't reciprocated. Once cyclists give respect then they'll get respect.

Cheers

Andrew

PS Do you know that your flag is showing as US? Which explains my response about the Highway Code.

There are berks on all sides. Drivers can be unsafe morons driving death machines or conscientious road users. Ditto cyclists, minus the death machine bit.

That every attempt at discussion falls into camps is pretty pathetic.

Still, one of those camps drives 2-tonne death machines, and regardless of their views of the other should be actively trying to not kill fellow road users. It’s pretty hard for a cyclist to kill a car driver. Not so difficult the other way around.

Treat everyone with respect, use the road safely, and don’t try and polarise discussions or lump others into cute categories. Just... be less of a berk, really.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
There are berks on all sides. Drivers can be unsafe morons driving death machines or conscientious road users. Ditto cyclists, minus the death machine bit.

That every attempt at discussion falls into camps is pretty pathetic.

Somewhat agreed.

Thing is if we brought lorry drivers into it I bet we'd get a slew of cyclists and car drivers allied against the evil lorry drivers; then we can throw horse riders in and even MORE evil people on both sides.

Suffice to say what vehicle you travel in isn't the issue - some people ARE just nasty.


Furthermore cycling/driving can be VERY stressful for many people. It's why road-rage is a thing. Many people are very stressed out when traversing the highway and thus bleeds right into their attitude and behaviour. They don't want to wait, they want to get going and finish and get out of the car even if they are not late. So this can make even very normal calm people, turn into road rage monsters. Anyone can turn into Mr Wheeler.





My view is better training and repeat training and refreshing that training helps a LOT in building and reinforcing confidence, that in turn also goes into helping improve best practice when using the highways.

Ultimately, if car drivers are mildly inconvenienced by cyclists by having to slow down, vs cyclists who are likely to be killed by poor driving, I know who needs to make more changes to their behaviour.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
That every attempt at discussion falls into camps is pretty pathetic.

Nah, it is really emblematic of Human nature. People divide into hostile camps pretty much automatically over pretty much everything (they did some fun sociological experiments where people ended up fighting each other over the colour of their shirt, up to the point they had to abort the experiment). We are just a very belligerent species. The funniest part about this discussion is that people are dividing into motorist vs bicyclist camps even though I am pretty sure that most people on here drive both a car and a bicycle on a regular basis. The attitude of some people in this thread is pretty astonishing to say the least.

Here is the thing. Most countries already have suitable infrastructure in place and in almost all cases roadways cannot simply be "expanded". If you want to see the effects of pro-bicycle policy making and how that effects real world conditions look no further than Red Deer, Alberta. That city went full bore with making every street bike friendly, painting lanes and rewriting bylaws. Within a year motorists were petitioning the city to rescind the laws because cyclists had caused such glaring issues and the number of bicycle-vehicle accidents nearly doubled. I lived there for a number of years before the change and after. Cyclists became THE bane of road users. And this is a city with an extensive park trail system where you could access virtually any part of the city on foot, skateboard or bicycle. But granola crunching idiots lobbied the municipal government until they had their way. And who paid for it? Licensed and insured drivers. Those bike lanes didn't magically appear. It cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and the people it benefited had absolutely no respect for the effort. On any given day you can go there and see cyclists blowing though stop signs and failing to signal.

As for licensing being redundant, walking licenses and legal enforcement. Give your head a shake. Tell me, what are the benefits of allowing unlicensed and uninsured people to use public roads?

Why on earth would anyone even want to ride a bike on the road without insurance? Remember the Death Machines?

Really any opposition to cyclists needing a license, registration and insurance comes from cyclists who want to continue to use the roadways in their current unregulated glory. After all, any idiot can jump on a bike, push their way into traffic and demand consideration. Why would idiots want that to change? Why this farce of a situation has been allowed to exist for so long is totally beyond me.

I am in the process of writing my MP and I encourage everyone else to do so as well. If you live in a different country, write whomever it is you need to. We have allowed the unsafe use of roadways for too long! How many other drivers must be victimised by lack of legislation before we clue in and take steps to protect not only ourselves but the granola crunching idiots as well?

I know I sound harsh when I say I don't care about the lives of cyclists, but really, let's think about this for a moment.

Suppose you've run over a cyclist and killed them. They're dead, so it doesn't much matter to them now. But what about their friends and family? Maybe that quinoa boiling gakker you just pasted had a kid? Now that kid grows up sans a parent. That's on you. Doesn't even matter who was in the wrong. You were directly responsible for be death of another human being. Ask yourself right now how you would handle that. Can you? And why, because he didn't hand signal, or you didn't see him, or both? Or for whatever silly reason. The point is we both have to share the road. All of us, doesn't matter where you live or what you do, you must share the road with all road users. Therefore it only follows that all road users must be completely and totally bound by the same set of rules and subject to the same requirements.

I ask the cyclists here; wouldn't you feel safer having a license and insurance? Would that participation in the system not justify your use of the road? Would you not like to see those who give you a bad name punished and removed from the road?

The law exists in a state of limbo and protects no one. Let's fix it.

 darkcloak wrote:

I ask the cyclists here; wouldn't you feel safer having a license and insurance?

No, I would not. Motorcycles have both and still suffer from many car-related accidents, even with motorcycle riders doing everything right.

I would like to see requirements for cyclists to have a rear view mirror, front and rear lights (my bike has these things) and brake lights and turn signals are probably a good idea.
Hand signals are sub-optimal as bikes are less stable at slow speeds, far better for them to keep both hands on the bars. I hand signal on approach, or standing at an intersection, but it's hard to signal to stop while braking because of the way bikes work - in an unexpected stop I need my hands to brake!

Would that participation in the system not justify your use of the road?

I'm already justified in the use of the road. I pay property, provincial, federal and HST taxation. Most roads are paid for by Municipalities (via Developers, thus included in the price of housing) in Canada. Gas taxes account for 1/6th of road funding https://businessgazette.ca/who-pays-for-roads/. Given that cyclists don't use the Highways, you have your bike-free zones already if you feel your gas taxes entitle you to bike free roads.

And never mind all the car drivers who also use bikes are paying those gas taxes as well.

Would you not like to see those who give you a bad name punished and removed from the road?

That's what traffic laws are for - cyclists are obliged to follow them. The problem is enforcement.

I still want to know what the deal is with those cyclists who ignore the perfectly good cycle lanes and instead ride out in the middle of the road anyway. Not at the edge were cars can get past. I mean close to the middle lines. There’s absolutely no need for it, and the only reason I can think of why they do it is “because I’m entitled to”. What complete donkey-caves.

Take those death machines off of roads that were laid for pedestrians and equestrians!

nareik wrote:
Take those death machines off of roads that were laid for pedestrians and equestrians!

Indeed! And introduce fines for those gas guzzling maniacs who run over horse patties and thereby spray innocent road users with feces! Horse pattie splatterers should be held accountable for their actions!

I would be much more upset about cyclists if I didn't ride a motorcycle, making them pretty easy to pass. My route to work also has a fairly large bike lane running nearly the entire way. Also, cyclists who don't observe things like stop signs do so at their own risk, which is fine by me.

But sometimes, even as a pedestrian bystander, it is pretty painful to watch a couple of cyclists hold up a line of traffic by slowly meandering through the center of a lane. I will also NEVER understand people who dress up in spandex and ride racing bicycles around city streets recreationally. If your bike cost upwards of $2000 I'm assuming you have a car to drive it to a nice mountain road somewhere instead of trying to be a stop-and-go Lance Armstrong. Unfortunately, those people would be able to afford licensing and insurance easily, so it won't solve THEM. If anything, there should be an income check in the other direction; if commuting on a bike is a reasonable means of transportation for you to get to work or around town and that's it, you're good. If your bike cost more than my motorcycle and you only ride it along with other members of your tiered-marketing cult whilst casually yelling to each other about how fabulous brunch was, you are relegated to a preserve somewhere.

This thread is the very paragon of the saying "gak rolls down hill."

I've been a driver for over 20 years, and was also a regular cyclist for around 10.

For almost every instance of a cyclist being a gakker when I've been driving, I've probably got one of a pedestrian acting like a spanker when I was on the bike.

Now, I'm a smidge under 2m tall and was probably somewhere around 150kg when I was riding regularly. Put that on top of a bike and you've got every bit as much a potential death machine to pedestrians as I would be to cyclists in a car, and I'd be more than capable of doing hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of damage to a vehicle if I hit it, regardless of if the driver of the vehicle held any responsibility for the collision.

The difference is that while the potential for damage in a vehicle might be higher, I'm legally obliged to be covered to provide recompense for any damage or injury I might inflict, up to and including death. I could have easily caused damage or injury far in excess of what I could afford to personally pay while cycling and I have zero obligation to have any cover in place should that happen.

In almost every case a person indulges in a public activity that may potentially result in the injury of others there is some sort of obligation to have liability cover, that road cycling doesn't is an oversight IMO.

 Desubot wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:
The worst IMO are the ones who change their set of rules from vehicle to pedestrian whenever it's convenient. Yes, you can cycle on public roads (if there's no cycle lane) and cars should keep some sort of safe distance passing you. What you can't do is cycle the wrong way on a one-way street or ignore "Give way" or "Stop" signs. A bike is a vehicle despite not having an engine and it does have to follow vehicle rules unless otherwise noted (they can cycle in pedestrian-only zones, for example. At least over here=.

They really should if they want to be considered vehicles. also odd though. would it be ok to let children on bikes bike on the roads?

i remember as a snotling id bike literally everywhere and id just bike on the sidewalk. never felt in danger or was a danger to other pedestrians. if there was a crowed id just get off the bike and walk it. i guess its really different now though i haven't biked in soo many years. (also was never confronted by cops about it ether so i dunno if its even a law to not be on side walks or if cops just didnt care)

Depends where you were. When I was a sprog out in the suburbs/countryside (it varied), sidewalks were fine for riding a bike on, there wasn't much foot traffic and it wasn't an issue.

In the cities I lived in as adult? No way. Not enough room and far too many people. Bikes are absolutely a danger to pedestrians. And to cars, and sometimes ground level streetcars.

Guess thats true. but the upside is that a bike can always be walked. i don't think you can reasonably put your car in neutral and walk it when there is too much congestion.

In areas I've lived where congestion has been that much of a problem, I've done the truly sensible thing and walked/ took metro trains in the first place.
And gotten irritated when cyclists have tried to drag their junkheaps onto crowded trains...

 darkcloak wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 darkcloak wrote:
I've decided to start a petition to require cyclists to hold a license and posses insurance and to be more strictly bound by the rules of the road. It only makes sense. All other vehicles using public roads must be insured and driven by licensed drivers. Why do cyclists get a free pass?

Because they are not driving a death machine that can kill on a catastrophic level in the right situation.

This is a pretty bad idea and it wont go anywhere.

I found the cyclist!

It's sheer idiocy to allow people unregulated use of a public road. Why would anyone want to ride alongside "death machines" without proper training and insurance?

Actually, I am a pedestrian on my own time and a delivery driver for work. So, swing and a miss!

It is sheer idiocy to think people using a public road are completely unregulated. The problem is not with the policies, the problem is that your Police are unwilling to do their jobs.

 darkcloak wrote:

I ask the cyclists here; wouldn't you feel safer having a license and insurance?

I have a license and insurance. I also pay car registration and taxes.

What would make me feel safer is if motorists stopped referring to cyclists by derogatory names and insisting that the problems with sharing the road are all the cyclists fault, ignoring statistics that show that the vast majority of car/bicycle accidents are caused by cars, and started taking responsibility for their own actions.


There is far too much hyperbole and far too much aggression in this thread for it to serve any useful purpose. I recommend stepping away from your computer and taking a few deep breaths. Maybe try some granola.

Moving on.