S/D: bicyclists who impatiently wave you around them on narrow winding country roads

jealous of dudes riding pleasantly on narrow winding country roads.

As a pedestrian and bicyclist, I often get somewhat annoyed at drivers who will, say, pause a long time to let me cross an intersection when it would have been much faster for both of us if they had just gone when they were supposed to. I don't mean busy intersections where if a car won't stop I'll never cross; I mean residential intersections, where if the car just acted like cars normally do it would be across the intersection and gone before I even made it to the intersection.

I appreciate that you are happy to slow down or wait for the bicyclist, but it would make everyone's life easier if you were to make yourself no longer a threat to the bicyclist by just passing already.

(PS I do not drive)

also: why can't i hold onto trucks and trams? it's fun, and gets me to work/school faster!

xpost, but those are always bumpy and slow!

If you're biking to work, ok, you get a break even though it's a pain in everyone else's ass. If you're just taking a joyride or working off ass-fat, I hope a thousand pigeons crap on you.

In my books any person who chooses to ride a car even if she has a more sustainable alternative is more selfish than any biker, period.

OTMFM

GO TO HELL, HIPPIE

now, living somewhere where i drive for the first time in a million years, i just hate everyone. i've never seen so many bad drivers in my life. i don't know if it is just crazy island where Beth and I live, but I have NEVER EVER EVER seen so many people drive on the wrong side of the road. it's nuts. people drifting over the line left and right. there is nothing scarier than driving behind someone who keeps drifting over onto the other side of the road. maybe its the narrow roads here. maybe people are used to virtually no traffic in the winter and they get lazy? maybe everyone is drunk? this is my best guess.

as far as people waving you around them, this happens to me with mopeds all the time and i always wonder what they are thinking when they do this on a corner! when i can't actually see what is coming in the other direction. why would they want me to pass them when i can't see the truck coming that will kill us all?

Physical fitness is right-on, but come the FUCK ON, get one biking trail instead of putting everyone on the road in mortal danger when there’s so many blind curves and so much traffic

Because, yeah, a car hovering behind you is a bit like the fabled sword of that guy, you know, the one who was eating dinner?

"we have buildings that are OVER. ONE. HUNDRED. YEARS. OLD!"

1. driver pulling out of gas station parking lot, looked right but not left, hit me head on (somehow neither I nor my bike were hurt, I yelled at the dude who said "I'm sorry" in a way that made me think he might have been mentally handicapped, at which point I wondered how he got a drivers' license)

2. and 3. drivers midway through attempting to pass realized they needed to turn right, directly in front of me (one time I was thrown over the back of their car, the next time I somehow managed to come to a complete stop AND yell "motherfucker!" AND kick their car)

4. A car came flying (like, tires skidding, 35 mph) around a semi-blind corner, bumped my handlebars, I hit the curb and was flipped over said handlebars, slid along concrete, somehow still made it to class, bleeding profusely...my professor called me a "trooper".

Trayce OTM about cyclists running red lights. THEY ARE THERE FOR A REASON. If one tries it these days, I tend to try and look them in the eye and let them know they're evil/utterly stupid.

This is totally...besides being certifiably insane, have you never been to any major North Eastern city??? I've heard that people don't jaywalk in California but I find that a bit hard to believe. PEOPLE CROSS ALL THE TIME, EVERYWHERE. Pedestrians in NYC, in fact, appear as a body to believe they own THE WORLD.

if I want to, that is

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that (at least, in most US states), homeowners & renters' insurance policies have a personal liability coverage built in that actually DOES cover things like this.

Yes everyone should obey laws of traffic, even when it's inconvenient! Cyclists don't run through red lights! Drivers stay out of bikelanes and signal for fuck's sake.

But the laws of physics always makes me lean towards cyclists in any argument. A simple GIS for ghost bike... I mean seiously.

I've been hit by careless drivers repeatedly, while observing traffic laws to totally insane degrees. (I got run over once at a crosswalk where I hopped off my bike and walked it across the intersection WTF?) I've only hit a pedestrian once, when they decided to jaywalk directly into my bike lane.

Cyclists are not inherently assholes. They tend to get a little amped up when they are chased by the grim reaper EVERYDAY on their daily commute. FACT. Adrenaline will do that. And if there's a questionable incident, a cyclist can't really speed away with their anger.

That cyclist that's impatiently waving you through has no idea if you are a semi-sane driver or just like the asshole from five minutes ago going 55mph that clipped his handlebar. Sorry to inconvenience you. It's a life or death situation, really. The fact that you would slow down out of spite from feeling slighted by this gesture and risk others on the road... This is totally insane and DANGEROUS. It's not a funny thing to do.

this thread is beginning to remind me of that Are People Who Obey the Rules Suckers thread. that is, brits in being suckers shocker :D

not me. i've just come in from my third near-miss of the day involving a kamikaze cyclist, this one speeding the wrong way down the middle of fifth avenue.

I give motorcycles a huge lead in highway driving for this same reason; it just seems like a good thing to do.

WHERE ARE OUR HOVERBAORDS?

Do you cyclists also think cars should be able to run red lights if their driver finds themself at such an intersection? I sort of agree with grimly in that the only way to be totally safe is to follow the lights (though I think he's overstating the need for it somewhat), but, yeah, there are plenty places where you can know that there are no vehicles in any direction and you want to go but you're bound into being stationary until the lights change because them's the rules. I still don't see why cyclists get out of this.

(OK, when I was a cyclist, I used to get off my bike and push it across the pedestrian crossing then get back on and pedal off again, mostly because it was quicker without breaking the law)

The amount of nonsympathy for cyclists on this thread kind of amazes me.

i have tremendous sympathy for law-abiding cyclists, as i said above. it's when they start risking life and limb (and not just their own) that i start to lose it.

laurel: i'm not saying pedestrians don't zoom across the road like knobs. but they rarely do it at major junctions. i mean, i don't often see people trying to walk across a bloody great crossroads against the lights, whereas a frightening number of cyclists seem to.

SUCKER.

Just so you know, cyclists DON'T get out of this. As I said before, I've been pulled over for running red lights, as have other ILXors. You are totally free to run a red light in your car in the middle of the night, when no one's around -- just be prepared for the consequences if/when you get caught. If a cop pulls me over on my bike for breaking the law, I know I don't have a leg to stand on. It's just that cops are too busy with REAL CRIMES to chastise cyclists for crossing intersections against the signals (except in NYC and Bozeman, MT). OH WELL.

Honestly, most of the moaning about cyclists safely denting the law just sounds like sour grapes. Yeah, so we don't get busted like you drivers. Fucking deal with it.

yes, but doing so would make me a dick because if i hit something - a cyclist, for instance - it would fucking hurt.

okay, a bike isn't likely to kill a pedestrian. but, as ally has pointed out, being hit by them is a fucking pain in the ass.

dude, it's not sour grapes! it's just ... i dunno. i don't see why we can't all live together in peace and harmony, just ALL STOPPING AT THE FUCKING RED LIGHTS TOO, OKAY?

:)

for the record i don't think i've ever waved a car past me. i've often gestured a hovering pedestrian across a zebra crossing. they always look a bit bewildered and distrustful like "why are you stopping for me? is it a trick?". if it's the middle of the night and there's no one around - no pedestrians, no cars, nothing - sure i'll go through a red light. i use the same routes a lot so i know the traffic patterns the lights etc send everyone in. i hate those 4-way intersections where *everything else* stops when it's the pedestrians' turn to cross. wtf, open 2 corners at a time for each group. that one just south of soutwark bridge is a mess. i have had 3 vehicles try to squish me into the pavement this week argh.

I might take my camera out on my next cycle and take photos of the road ahead of what I consider to be acceptable red lights to go through. Or, better, videos so you'll be able to hear the situation too.

i blithely ran through every single stop sign because, dudes, they're all in quiet residential neighborhoods, ffs.

I'm scared of this thread so I don't want to join it properly -- I've never been pissed off by a cyclist (while driving) and I don't think I've ever pissed one off -- but that quote needs a double WTF. "I was hungry, so I stopped in the middle of the road and fucked around opening my sandwiches. Fuck you, I was HUNGRY". Jesus!

I just read somewhere (where? OH HOW I WISH I COULD REMEMBER) that a recent study of jaywalking in NYC found that judicious use of illegal crossings actually facilitated an even rate of pedestrian traffic and kept crowds from building up. Which is also good for drivers because if you need to TURN at an intersection you don't want to spend the whole green light waiting for a huge glob of walkers to clear the street you're turning onto. So you see, if all works out! Also, and you may or may not like this part because I can see how it would be annoying, the study decided that jaywalking keeps DRIVERS on their toes because they can't blithely assume that there won't be anyone in the vicinity so they have to look more carefully. YMMV!

AHAHAH XP TO BETH.

oh, damn. time for driver retraining, i think.

same with crossing roads. leaning against the traffic light pole and waiting for the light gives one a bit of time out to do precisely nothing.

y'all should slow down a little. whats the fucking hurry anyways?

So I just finished a song about recumbent bikes that was kind of inspired by this thread. It's called "King of the Road" and you can hear it at www.myspace.com/thenewdebris