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Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on October 29, 2014 at 7:10am

LIB never misses a chance to hoist their inane "follow the rules of the road" jihad. Let's imagine that you are approaching an stop sign on your bike. There are no other humans for miles around. No one could possibly come to harm if you road carefully through this intersection without stopping. Furthermore, there is no way this act could possibly generate "negative feelings from other traffic" because their isn't any other traffic.

I used to be happy to support the LIB financially, but until they start working for the interests of cyclists by working to make sensible changes to legislation instead of trumpeting this "same road same rules" nonsense I'll be donating funds elsewhere,

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Permalink Reply by Tania Sebastian on October 31, 2014 at 6:18am

Tony,

While we are sorry to hear that you don’t approve of our efforts to promote bicycle and motorist safety education, we feel strongly that safety education outreach is an important factor in making Illinois a better, more enjoyable place to ride. We would also like to clear up any misunderstandings you may have of the League of Illinois Bicyclists’ mission. LIB is fully dedicated to advocating for all Illinois cyclists and regularly engages with local, state, and federal officials to:

• Advocate for bike-friendly road designs and policies
• Promote trail development and funding at the local, state, and federal levels
• Educate officials on why and how their towns can be bicycle-friendly
• Serve on transportation policy-making committees
• Propose legislation and other programs protecting cyclists’ rights on the roads

To give you a more detailed sense of the advocacy work we’ve accomplished in the last year:

• LIB played an extensive role in the development of IDOT’s State Bike Transportation Plan that was unveiled at this year’s Illinois Bike Summit. The plan plots a course for a more bicycle-friendly Illinois and presents an ambitious slate of action items and performance measures for IDOT, while offering recommendations for other state departments and local agencies.
• LIB worked with dozens of towns around the state – including Bloomington, Kankakee, Rochelle, Effingham, Springfield, Buffalo Grove, and Batavia -- to help them create their new local bike plans.
• LIB organizes the Illinois Bike Summit and attends the National Bike Summit every year and engages with legislators and planners on the local, state, and federal level.
• To go back further, in 2007, LIB was the organization that proposed and lobbied for the 3 foot passing law in Illinois.

LIB considers bicyclist and motorist safety education to play an integral role in ALL of the advocacy work it does. We would also like to point out that our “same rules” emphasis is not your hypothetical situation with nobody else nearby. Rather, it is when cyclists blatantly take someone else’s turn at an intersection. Doing so endangers the cyclist and often forces evasive measures by motorists, pedestrians, or other cyclists. This negatively impacts bicycling as a whole – and makes it tougher to win infrastructure and education improvements for all cyclists. While we recognize your disagreement with some element of the quiz, we appreciate that you took the time to take the quiz and learn about the rules of the road.

Thanks,

Tania Sebastian

Marketing Director

League of Illinois Bicyclists

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