Why cant Cyclist's follow the rules of the road?

I wonder why cars and cyclist but heads all the time on this topic? Each groups feels a sense of entitlement to the road. Why cant we share the road. The laws are setup to share the road, the car drivers don't agree and the cyclists are riding two abreast, each trying to claim there part of the pavement. The unfortunate part the cyclist will loose every single time.

 

Each needs to allow the other on the road, and make it safe for both. Bikers also need to stop for stop signs and lights. Cars need to look out for bikers on the road.

 

Even in motorcycle groups we have the similar things happening. One groups feeling thier sense of entitlement, ruining it for the rest of us.

 

We need to make our roads safer for our kids to ride on. What happen to curtosey?

Does one bad apple spoil the whole bunch?

 

Vehicle drivers need to stop being so aggressive in traffic!

 

Rene

Our Gang Bicycle Club

NE Illinois

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on May 16, 2011 at 12:31am

Because bikes and cars are fundamentally different in how they are powered and operated.  The "rules of the road" were designed for automobiles with hundreds of horsepower at hand that can accelerate from 0-30 in a blink of an eye.

 

 

Also, thing like one-way roads and other "rules of the road" that were intended to keep traffic off of and out of residential areas just don't work with bicycles since they don't need to be "kept out of" the residential streets.  Excessive stop signage at every abandoned residential intersection and one-way streets that lead into each other in an almost unnavigable maze that would take you 3x the distance to circumvent are there to keep cars out of neighborhoods but only serves to push bikes into main arterial roads where cars are going faster and there is less room for bikes.

 

Also, it is illegal for vehicles to over-take/pass on the right (even though it is not enforced.) We, as bikes, do this all the time.  Is that one more law you would like to see enforced for bikes too?

 

Cars != Bikes and we shouldn't have a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all "rules of the road" that make no sense for bikes.

Permalink Reply by Rene Lawell on May 16, 2011 at 4:58am


@James,

 

To some degree, yes, but if you take a look at the rules of the road for cyclists for Illinois.

http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/publications/pdf_publications/dsd...

 

This clearly states the Rules of the road for Bicyclists. They are not saying that you can't travel down one way roads, but to keep yourself safe you should not ride against traffic. You should not blow through atop signs and stop lights, You can overtake a car on the right becasue that is your bike lane. But a cars cannot overtake another car if there is no lane to do so.

 

Yes I agree cars and bikes are different. However, when you are the smaller than the car on the road you need to be more aware to keep yourself safe. the battle between car and bike, the bike will loose. Yes the cars should be more aware of cyclist, and motorcyclist for that matter. But the fact remains they are not. So we need to take action and make sure we keep ourselves safe.

 

Stop at the stop signs, stay off the highways, travel with traffic, use your hand signals, when traveling with a pack, talk to each other, ride two abreast when you can, not as a rule of thumb. And you should not over take a cyclist on the right or left with out letting them know your there. That is just rude.

 

If you do unexpected manuevers in traffic you will get yourself hit. Its that simple.

 

Rene

OGBC


James Baum said:

Because bikes and cars are fundamentally different in how they are powered and operated.  The "rules of the road" were designed for automobiles with hundreds of horsepower at hand that can accelerate from 0-30 in a blink of an eye.

 

 

Also, thing like one-way roads and other "rules of the road" that were intended to keep traffic off of and out of residential areas just don't work with bicycles since they don't need to be "kept out of" the residential streets.  Excessive stop signage at every abandoned residential intersection and one-way streets that lead into each other in an almost unnavigable maze that would take you 3x the distance to circumvent are there to keep cars out of neighborhoods but only serves to push bikes into main arterial roads where cars are going faster and there is less room for bikes.

 

Also, it is illegal for vehicles to over-take/pass on the right (even though it is not enforced.) We, as bikes, do this all the time.  Is that one more law you would like to see enforced for bikes too?

 

Cars != Bikes and we shouldn't have a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all "rules of the road" that make no sense for bikes.

Permalink Reply by David on May 16, 2011 at 6:15am

...or the rules of grammar.

 

I'm sorry, but for me the apostrophe thing is just like somebody sneaking up and slapping me in the back of the head.  I can even let the errors in the body of the post slide, but man, the title causes me physical pain.

 

 

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on May 16, 2011 at 6:27am
Some's rule's is's meant's to be'ing broken's.
Permalink Reply by Adam "Cezar" Jenkins on May 16, 2011 at 4:05pm

First.

 

http://washcycle.typepad.com/home/2008/07/the-myth-of-the.html

 

Second. Stop and watch cars, they break just as many rules of the road. These breakages are just accepted because that's how it's always been. 

 

What bothers me is the minority of cyclist that break the big ones. Busy street red lights being one.

Permalink Reply by Sarah Urbansky on May 16, 2011 at 5:00pm

Out of the aforementioned 'Rules of the road for cyclists for Illinois':

Parking:
• Bicycles may be parked on the road at
any angle to the curb or edge of the
roadway where parking is allowed.

 

What do you think guys? Maybe we should all just start parking our bikes on the streets, taking up all the parking spaces. Where would the cars go? It would be MaDNeSs!! I love it!

Permalink Reply by Doug Haynes on May 17, 2011 at 2:13am

Two important points:

 

Motorists break tons of rules many of them, and a frightful number of police, do not even know exist.  I will start to follow all the rules when I see cars not running reds, doing rolling stops, entering intersections they cannot clear and many of the other things they do illegal every single day.  I am also going to continue to ride in a common sense manner until I see the police start to ticket and enforce important truck safety laws regarding vehicle condition, properly rated tires, functioning lights, over gross weight and unsecured loads to keep horribly unsafe and over loaded scrap trucks off the street.  I am not going to start following the letter of the law until everyone else does; maybe if people want me to stop rolling stop signs by shadowing the car who has the right of way thus not impeding traffic or risking my safety (unless somebody wants to ram the car I'm next to in order to hit me) when people stop passing me with 2" to spare.

 

There is also the issue of bikes being a completely different animal than cars.  Riding a bike and driving a car are completely different things and the safest and most efficient manner of navigating city traffic for one vs. the other is not the same.  If we want people to be able to share the road and be safe we need to have separate laws that govern how bicycles are ridden on the street.  I am not following laws on my 40 pound bike powered by me and never going about 13MPH that are made for 4000 pound cars that are going 45 MPH; how does it make sense?

Permalink Reply by Sue Clark on May 17, 2011 at 2:56am

I'm always wondering why individuals impute one bicyclist's bad acts to all bicyclists but the bad acts of one car driver are viewed as that one individual acting badly.

 

(A thought that is similar to Adam's article, yet much shorter.)

Permalink Reply by Rene Lawell on May 17, 2011 at 4:58am


The point I am making, is not do what thars do, do what is safe for you.

Yes I agree that cars break lots of rules, I see the number of bikes and motorcyclists getting hit and killed by cars, and the cars get away with it ro get a slap on the wrist. The point is you are not bigger than the bear, so you have to be smarter. RIDE SMARTER, RIDE SAFER! BE AWARE!

 

Rene'


Adam "Cezar" Jenkins said:

First.

 

http://washcycle.typepad.com/home/2008/07/the-myth-of-the.html

 

Second. Stop and watch cars, they break just as many rules of the road. These breakages are just accepted because that's how it's always been. 

 

What bothers me is the minority of cyclist that break the big ones. Busy street red lights being one.

Permalink Reply by Rene Lawell on May 17, 2011 at 5:01am
@Sue: I am sure in some towns this is needed, stupid yes! I say lets do it and see what happens.

Sarah Urbansky said:

Out of the aforementioned 'Rules of the road for cyclists for Illinois':

Parking:
• Bicycles may be parked on the road at
any angle to the curb or edge of the
roadway where parking is allowed.

 

What do you think guys? Maybe we should all just start parking our bikes on the streets, taking up all the parking spaces. Where would the cars go? It would be MaDNeSs!! I love it!

Permalink Reply by Rene Lawell on May 17, 2011 at 5:07am

@ notoriousDUG:

 

I agree with you, but at the same time, in a fight with bully are you better off not fighting or getting yoruself killed. In this case I will take the passive approach, keep myself safe. You can always report a car get there liscence and file a poice report. Maybe if there were more popo on the road, cars would ne get away with such shit!

 

The one thing that separates cyclist from car drivers, is the bicyclest does not need a licsence to operate the vehicle. And there are many bicycle operator out there riding against traffic, cutting betwwen cars, ridng on sidewalks. We are held just as accountable if we hit a pedestrain. as a car is if they hit us.

 

I am just sayin' We need to ride smarter.

notoriousDUG said:

Two important points:

 

Motorists break tons of rules many of them, and a frightful number of police, do not even know exist.  I will start to follow all the rules when I see cars not running reds, doing rolling stops, entering intersections they cannot clear and many of the other things they do illegal every single day.  I am also going to continue to ride in a common sense manner until I see the police start to ticket and enforce important truck safety laws regarding vehicle condition, properly rated tires, functioning lights, over gross weight and unsecured loads to keep horribly unsafe and over loaded scrap trucks off the street.  I am not going to start following the letter of the law until everyone else does; maybe if people want me to stop rolling stop signs by shadowing the car who has the right of way thus not impeding traffic or risking my safety (unless somebody wants to ram the car I'm next to in order to hit me) when people stop passing me with 2" to spare.

 

There is also the issue of bikes being a completely different animal than cars.  Riding a bike and driving a car are completely different things and the safest and most efficient manner of navigating city traffic for one vs. the other is not the same.  If we want people to be able to share the road and be safe we need to have separate laws that govern how bicycles are ridden on the street.  I am not following laws on my 40 pound bike powered by me and never going about 13MPH that are made for 4000 pound cars that are going 45 MPH; how does it make sense?

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on May 17, 2011 at 5:24am

Over the course of my life I've noticed that when it comes to rules there are two kinds of behavior towards them.  

 

  1. Rules that people don't pay attention to and will break whenever there isn't someone in authority actually WATCHING them to FORCE them to comply with them.
  2. Rules that people will follow and never break whether it is the codified law or not.

 

This tends to vary from rule to rule and from person to person but tends to be true for any particular rule/law for any particular person.

 

For the most part "rules" and "laws" are pretty much useless.  Either a particular person is going to follow the principle behind the law in the first place regardless -or ignore it if they can get away with it. 

 

And for the most part criminals don't follow laws -it's pretty much the definition of criminal...

 

 

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