First off, this post has been brewing in my head for a while, so it’s the culmination of a lot of frustration and anger built up over a long time. Not to mention the combination of lots of not totally related bicycle themed anger. And it’s long. Just warning you.
Second, let me tell you about the particular incident that happened today (one of several today in fact), that caused me to finally snap and get around to writing this rant.
On my way home from work, I was driving down 26th St. If you’re not familiar with Minneapolis, 26th and 28th St are both one ways (going opposite directions) that are 2-3 lanes wide (varies as they go across town) that run from one side of Minneapolis to the other, and are accordingly the fastest way across town most of the time, and generally very busy. They have stop lights about every 5 block on average, and a speed limit of 30, so most people go 35. Scene set.
So, driving along 26th, with the 35 mph flow of traffic during rush hour, I notice a girl (okay, woman, probably 20′s-30′s) on her bike coming from my right down one of the side streets that crosses 26th. There’s a stop sign on the cross street, and 26th doesn’t have a stop. As this is just a couple blocks past a stop light, there’s a pretty large clump of cars coming down 26th, and I’m the second one back in the right lane. The bicyclist doesn’t seem to be slowing much, even though she’s approaching a stop sign at a busy street. I slow down a bit (to probably 30) because I’m an exceedingly cautious driver (not trying to paint myself in a glowing light here, just noting I regularly get made fun of for driving like a grandma). I assume she’ll either stop somewhat quickly, or just turn and ride on the sidewalk, which I see bikers do all the time along 26th / 28th, because with all the traffic and the speed of traffic, biking on them is kind of nuts.
She does the biker not stop or turn on to the sidewalk, she doesn’t even slow down or look before blowing straight through the stop sign into traffic and half way across the lane in front of me. Not even a glance. I slam on the brakes HARD, and swerve into the other lane to avoid killing this girl, without being able to check if there is a car in the other lane first. I still only manage to miss her by maybe a foot as I go careening, skittering what’s left of the loose gravel into the other lane. Not only did I come incredibly close to ending up with this girl under my car, I also came within inches (like I’m not totally sure if my rear view mirror of my car touch their trunk lid or not) of clipping the car in the other lane just in front of me. And when I say brake HARD, I mean pulling up the seal-coating hard.
A good half an hour later now my pulse is starting to approach a normal rate again.
The point I would really like to stress in all of that is that not only did I almost accidentally kill this girl due to her flagrant disregard of her own safety and traffic laws, she didn’t even glance to see if there were cars coming.
Not just that she didn’t slow down and turn her head a little.
No.
She didn’t even look in the general direction of oncoming traffic. If she had been a half second later, or if I hadn’t slowed down just a little when I noticed her, she would have driven directly into the side of my car without even having seen me coming. Even with the sound of cars screeching and swerving around her, she never glanced back that the pile up she almost caused.
So, let me now get to the main point of my post: Bikers, I’m trying to not kill you. Please stop making this such a difficult task.
Now, I realize, like with all things, there may be 1,000 sane, respectful, safe bikers out there for every idiotic jack-ass like this one. But this is still by no means an isolated incident of idiotic suicidal jack-assery. I quite frequently see bikes fly through stop signs and cars having to slam on their brakes to not hit them. Or bikes weaving on and off of the sidewalk to pass people or get around one-ways. Or just flat out go the wrong way down one-ways.
Just TODAY, prior to this near homicidal experience, not 5 blocks before it in fact, there was a biker going the wrong way down the same one way street. About two weeks ago I saw someone biking not only the wrong way down that same street, but he was going the wrong way while riding squarely DOWN THE CENTER STRIPE of the one way into a ton of traffic. Every car slowed down and moved over so the biker could continue going the wrong way down the center of the one way safely (well, as safely as one can do that).
Here’s another one that wouldn’t usually be notable, as it falls more into the rude rather than suicidal category, except that it also happened TODAY. I was going the other way, down 28th, on the way to work this morning. There was a biker in front of me going 12mph. Exactly 12 mph. In a 30. Okay, it’s a bike, I try to be nice. Again, I drive like a grandma, minus the perpetual left hand turn signal. So, I go 11.5 mph for about 3 blocks until there is space to get in the other lane and pass him. I go around him and pull back into the right lane because I have to turn right in a few more blocks. About a block after I pass him, we reach a stop light that’s red. There’s five or six cars ahead of me already stopped. The biker then cuts over into the gutter of the street, and passes all of us, on the right, while we’re stopped at the light. He then pauses (not stops) at the light and goes through the red light, and pulls back out to take up the whole lane on the other side of the intersection. So, several cars that were pretty courteous in giving him enough space have to go 12mph for another 5 blocks until they can pass safely again. But why bother, because he’s just going to do it again at the next light, and every one after that, all the way across town.
Again, not something I would usually blog about, but rude, and something I see a lot. Beyond that, it was on 28th. Which is LESS THAN ONE BLOCK from the Midtown Greenway, which parallels 28th. If you’re not familiar with the Greenway, it’s a dedicated commuter bike path. It goes all the way across Minneapolis, one side to the other, and then lots more. It’s bikes and pedestrians only. It used to be rail road tracks, so it’s dead flat, and almost all the streets it crosses have bridges over it, so you don’t even have to cross streets as you bike. It’s a bicycle highway. It even has exit ramps. Seriously. Exit ramps. It is, in short, the perfect place to bike. Even more so if you’re trying to get across town. Like you would on 26th / 28th if you were driving. Which again, is the scene of all of the above. Which just compounds the stupidity / rudeness of it all.
Now again, let me point out again, I have nothing against bicycling or bicyclist in general. Overall I’d say it’s a great form of transportation / exercise / recreation. It’s much better for the environment and communities in general than driving (less parking = less sprawl = less need for cars = less parking …. = more active and personable neighborhoods). I’ve actually just been learning to bike (though that’s a post for another day). And I’m fascinated by all the variations of bikes out there and all the modifications and so on.
But, it just seems like bikes bring out the self-righteous jack-ass in so many people.
Another bike related rant/story, while we’re on it. Once, at a party, I was talking to a guy who is what I would deem a bicycle zealot. We were discussing commuting to work and I mentioned that I couldn’t ride a bike (hadn’t learned yet), so I took the bus to work. His response was, and I quote, “you actually ride in those fossil fuel burning behemoths?” That’s right, I was taking mass transit rather than driving alone, and I was riding in “those fossil fuel burning behemoths.” He then worked the phase “fossil fuel burning behemoths,” that exact phrasing, into the conversation 6 more times in about 3-4 minutes. He may have said it more, but after the 6th time in a row with the same phasing and disdainful tone, I had to go refill my beer and remove my teeth from the tight clamp they had formed around my tongue.
Perhaps part of my anger on the subject of bicyclist and their interactions with cars comes from the status of bikes. As any biking zealot will tell you, bikes aren’t in the way of traffic, they are traffic. And I couldn’t agree more. I’m not sure if it was my parents, or my driver’s ed teacher, or just the laws in Iowa, but I always learned that as far as traffic laws go, bikes are cars. Period. A car has to signal when it turns. So does a bike. When you want to pass a car, you can only do so when there’s a striped center line, and you have to give the other car the whole lane as you pass it. Same with bikes. You have to stop at a stop light that’s red, and stay stopped until it turns green, even if there’s no traffic. Same with bikes. You can’t drive your car on the sidewalk. Same with bikes. You should follow at a distance far enough back so that no matter what stupid thing the person in front of you does, you can stop without hitting them. Same when following bikes (bearing in mind they can come to a complete stop immediately if they fall over). You can’t pass on the right, or in intersections. Same for bikes. You have to stop at stop signs and wait there if the cross traffic doesn’t have a stop. Especially if you don’t want to be nearly run over. With out looking.
This brings me to my secondary point / plea for bicyclists. If you want to be treated like traffic, act like traffic. Just like if you want to be treated like an adult, act like an adult.
If you keep jumping from the sidewalk to the street and back as is convenient to you, chances are good people won’t give you much space as they pass. If you pass people on the right at stop lights, chances are pretty good that people won’t think twice of blowing right past you on the next block and will barely move out of their lane to do so. And if you act responsibly, you’ll (probably) be treated with more respect.
This is also why I profoundly hate Critical Mass. The “logic” for which seems to go something along the lines of: “We are traffic, so to prove it, we’ll ride around and violate every traffic law we can think of. Not to mention we’ll purposely try to piss off the car drivers we would supposedly so like to have share the road with us.” I also hate that they do this at 5pm, on Fridays, down town. So, not only are they making drivers hate and loath bikes while reinforcing that bikes have no concern for their own safety and are self-righteous jack-asses, they’re doing it to people who are down town at 5pm on Fridays. You know who is driving down town at 5pm on Fridays? People whose live already suck. They work in cubicals down town for massive faceless corporations, and not only that, they have already had the only great part of the work week (leaving an hour or even a half hour early on Friday) violated because their boss has decided that whatever deadline they were working on was more important than the weekend, happiness, or a social life. You want to know when they should have Critical Mass? At 2pm on Tuesdays. Why? Because if you’re out driving around at 2pm on a Tuesday your life is awesome already and could use a little evening out. Plus, you’d probably be more sympathetic to the cause than overworked, burnt out, end of the week corporate slaves. But I digress.
Not to say for a moment that every car driver is a saint or respectful either. After all, there are plenty of BMW’s and Volkswagen Jettas on the road to attest to car driver jack-assery as well. This isn’t meant to be a one sided argument. We’re all on the road together here. (For Red Green fans, I’m pulling for you.) And until there are a whole, whole lot more bike lanes than there are now, it’s going to stay that way.
I”m just saying that the more often that people see bikes do stupid, dangerous things when driving near cars, the more likely cars will be to do stupid, dangerous things when driving near bikes. After all, if bikes (as a generalized whole concept in people’s minds) feel safe passing me one foot away, then they must feel safe if I do the same. Right? Again, the give and take of both sides figuring out what’s socially acceptable.
I’m still sticking to my bikes are cars view though.
And again bikers, I’m trying not to kill you. I nearly wrecked my car today trying not to kill you. Now would you please stop making it so damn hard?
Bonus side note: Number of times jack-ass or some derivative was used in this post: 5. Though counting this note, it’s 6, you fossil fuel burning behemoths.