Do that in Florida and we'd all end up dead. LOL

Oh, and I think the average bike rider in FL has lost his driver's license to DUI. :D

Yes, and that's how bike riders could help themselves. I'm sure many do, but very often I come up behind a fellow who is counting on me to see him. And as a MC rider, that's flirting with disaster. Riding on 2 wheels takes defensive driving to a whole new level; I call it combat riding--it's a fight to the death and I win by not letting them smear me across the tarmac.

It's my goal to avoid hitting any bicycle riders, but I agree with you, they should do their part to make it easier not to hit them.

I live in Florida in a rural county and as far I can recall over the past 10 or so years every fatal motor vehicle vs bike incident the cycle rider was found at fault almost every time they where intoxicated or under the influence of some drug.

One guy had actually been charged for a DUI(or what ever riding a bike while intoxicated is it is illegal) but what can they do beyond fine you take your bike away?Anyway this fellow actually had been hit more than once before as well obviously he survived the previous encounters at any rate every time the guy was drunk and all over the road and either suddenly rode into traffic (he always rode at night with no lights of any kind in dark clothing) or rode into the sides of vehicles.


I also have a friend that is a paramedic in volusia county(Daytona Beach) and he says that the overwhelming majority of motor vehicle vs bike accidents are the riders fault or both where at fault.

I am not being anti bike rider but they need to ride safely and extremely defensively like a good motorcyclist does they should assume that no one sees them and always be alert.

I didn't know Texas had those militant biker types, well, maybe in Austin. They're the ones in the video. Yo find them in Seattle, Portlandia, and San Fran:dead:.

On a side note Portlandia city council was pushing for some law, where bikers didn't need to stop for stop signs.:dead:

Is there statute for removing from office due lunacy? :nope:

Feee free to establish separate sidelanes for bikes, it is common over here anyway.

But where there are no such lanes, bicycles should be forbidden? Well, they are. On Autobahnen.

A sepaarted ölane for bikes, or allowing them to drive on buslanes, is desirable. we even have some streets over here that got turned from car-streets into bicycle streets (I remember the outcry of card drivers when they did that :D).

But in towns, ordinary streets that have no sidelanes, may bicycles be allowed to drive there? Yes, absolutely.

And driver attitude has all to do with it. Car drivers can anticipate situation in ntraffic they may be confronted with, or can be arorgant and ignore that, believing they own the road for themsaelves. Like bicycle riders. And like bike riders, card rivers can drive slow, careful and cautiously, or fast, aggressively, and not giving a dman for the other.

There are roads, though, where a bicycle rider may be well-advised to seek for an altenrtaive route. But after 30 years of expereince, I say this: the deciding factor is not so much the ammount of traffic, but the condition of the street surface and the width of the lanes. Of course I know streets where I would not drive althouigh I would be allowed to. But at last over here or even in Berlin, the majority of streets is such that bike-riding can be done easily. As logn as you do not meet Rambo on wheels, of course. But then the problem is not the bike, but Rambo, and he poses a thread not just to bikes, but tpo pedestrians and other cars as well. Again- the attitude is what decides it.

Well unless we adopt Vermonts old traffic law of requiring a flag man to walk 50ft out in front of every automobile to warn off other traffic, accidents will continue to happen no matter how careful car and truck drivers may be.

Bicycles are just too slow and small to share the road with motorized vehicles without incidents if the speed limit is more than 15mph and even then. All it takes is a moments distraction on either ones part and a collisions will happen, with almost all of the damage going to the bicyclist.

I'd like to see them reconfigure existing pedestrian sidewalks into allow dual use and build more Bike/pedestrian only pathways. They have one up this way in Rhode Island using an abandoned railroad bed that runs through a dozen communities. It'd be a beautiful way to get to work except in the winter and even then they are pretty good about keeping the pathway plowed out.

Exactly!

Example: To enter my subdivision on way home from work I have to make a left turn across two lanes of traffic. The posted speed limit is 70 km/hr. Most people are doing 80 or more. On more than one occasion I have been behind bikers trying to make this turn. Crazy! I just close my eyes and pray. And it's unnecessary. There's a side walk on the other side of the road.

Cyclists should not be competing for the same road space with cars. Period!

What many drivers seem to ignore when going on a crusade against cyclists is this:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_9F9_RUESS2E/S7...e-60people.jpg

I own one car and three bikes, and choose to ride a bike whenever I can. Not for environmental or ideological reasons, but because it's the fastest and most convenient means of transportation in my city and also provides plenty of "free" excercise in place of hours spent sitting in a car or a bus. My daily commute is normally 10-20 km each way. Whenever it isn't possible to use a bike, for example when I'm going to an important meeting at a place where it isn't possible to shower and change clothes, I use public transportation. The car is 2001 model and only used for occasional climbing trips and other road trips. Given how much I've been using it I'll most likely sell it during the summer. It's just easier and cheaper to rent or borrow one when I need it.

Finnish winter isn't a big problem when you use a fatbike as your main commuter. You just need to leave a bit earlier when there's lots of snow and put a little bit of thought on what you wear. The bikepaths and -lanes are maintained year around, and even after the worst snowshowers the most important transportation veins are cleared by early afternoon. Not that an uncleared one is a huge obstacle when riding a fatbike.

I mainly ride on the parts of the road network designed for bikes, but sometimes it just isn't possible or safe. I try to avoid riding among the cars as far as possible, mainly because of the already mentioned laws of physics and the "bigger size gives you the right of way"-attitude of some drivers. I just don't feel safe doing it when there's lots of traffic. At times you just don't have a real choice, for example when you ride in the city center with plenty of pedestrians all over the place, including the parts meant for cars and bikes. Winter maintenance is also sometimes an issue. Not the lack of it, but the way it's done: Snow is plowed off the main lanes and onto the bicycle lanes. Even a fatbike won't carry you over half a meter layer of soft sludge.

Would you prefer your daily commute to be this(pic not mine)?
http://www.vastavalo.fi/albums/userp...0_IMG_9609.jpg

or this(a real pic from my ride home)?
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c.../Photo0023.jpg

That's pretty much the reality. May as well argue that skateboarders and speedjoggers have a right to clog up the road.

Fincuan, I agree with you about cars clogging up the road, I agree 100%. As a motorcycle rider, I spend plenty of time waiting patiently for slow-witted drivers to get out of the way. But at least cars can make it up to 30mph (if you give them enough time), bicycles are very slow, and hard to see. It's not a crusade against bicycles, but be realistic--people are not going to switch in mass to pedaling along at 15mph when they have to transit 20 miles.

They aren't going to switch to motorcycles either, which would be the ideal situation ;)

Smart man, that's the way you should feel, cause it's true.

And bigger does = right of way, remember rule #2

That's a horrible idea. Bikes are so quiet that pedestrians don't know that they're there until they're right next to them (if they approach from behind).

If there are no bike paths, and the shoulder is occupied by parked cars (as it always is in a city), then biking will be impossible if you can't use the road. And given the typical underfunding of public transportation in the US, and the usual braindead anti-pedestrian planning, you'll be forced to buy a motor vehicle - and do your bit to contributing to traffic congestion, pollution, global warming and the overuse of fossil fuels.

As I said, build a parallel infrastructure for bicycles, okay. We did it over here. Seopaarte lanes on the road, additonal lanes that were build, combined pedestrian-bike-lanes with extra width, roads for bikes (cars banned if people do not live there). The network is over 500 km in total length, town and surrounding area.

Where ther eis no such bike-infrastructure, bikes use the road. Where there is no pedestrian lane, pedestrians use roads, the sidelines, though. It'S daily business all over in Germany, even on Landstrassen.

Just ordering bikes onto the pedestrian's sidepath, does not work for an additional reason: at every corner there would be the need to stop and get off, due to the heigth of the curbstones. You would need to have construction work getting done again. And if you do that, then you can go one step further and also invest into building a whole bicycle lane.

Point is: you weant bikes off main traffic streets - then you have to offer reasonable alternatives. I am not eager to get stuck in the smog and jams on a main traffic street at rush hour, I happily use an alternative lane. But if there is none, then I am not shy to jump right into the middle of the hotcooking traffic. But I be predictable, defensively, and careful, and I establish eye contact with drivers whereever possible. I hardly, if ever, get an angry look. Truth is: problems are set up by - other aggressive bicycle drivers, almost never by car drivers.

In places where there are no bicycle lanes, car drivers must be prepared to interct with bicycle on the road. Idf theyx cannot be that or do not want to be like that, then they should give back their driving licences, for by character they probably are not suited to command a rolling potential wepaon. :arrgh!: To some degree, driving styles of car drivers reflect their personality and emtional status. And that of bicycle riders as well.

Accidents will happen, but if bikes therefore must be banned, then much faster moving motorbikes must be banned as well by your logic, and small cars, since a truck or a SUV will just smash and crush them, too. All rolling traffic should be done in huge trucks or APC only, then. And even then a crash will hurt and kill people.

Ah, so bicycle riders cannot take care not to hit slower moving traffic? ;)

A couple things with that though.

First what may work in Finland isn't necessarily possible here. I live 20 miles away from my job and my our standards that's a fairly short commute, most of it on 40 and 50mph roads that hardly has a shoulder let alone a bike lane. At age 52 I am not doing a 40 mile a day bike trip to get to work.

Second I don't want to be packed in like canned herring with a bunch of smelly strangers. Look at the street where those pictures were taken. People living cheek to jowl with not a single tree in sight or blade of grass in sight. There is no amount of money in the world that would make me give up my back yard for the concrete jungle.

Iowa has quite a few similar bike trails that link a whole bunch of communities together. A lot of them follow old rail lines.

http://www.bikeiowa.com/asp/trails/trails.asp


When the weather warms up I might take my bike down a few of those. :up:

You folks don't have wheelchair accessible sidewalks? Over here nearly every corner and crosswalk has a ramp that is easily negotiated by a bicycle.

But if a person walking out in the open can't detect the approach of a bicycle then how can we expect the driver inside a car to do any better?

I do however have a solution that might work with pedestrians though.

Two words: Baseball cards. :yep:

Yep, clothespin a few of your doubles into the tire spokes of a bike and a pedestrian would have to be deaf not to hear it coming! I advocate a similar solution for those quiet hybrid and electric cars which have been sneaking up on walkers lately.

You, my friend, should be a lawyer.



Oh wait, I was planning to ban you for that Suzuki crack.... :doh:

But i've owned two Zukes so I get to badmouth them and got the broken bones and road rash to illustrate it! :DL

But if you want real insults let me tell you my Saab Story some time. A 1974 99EMS is not a car built for long distances. :x

Electric pedelecs, as they are called, and electric choppers (Vespa style, not helicopters). Scooters they are getting called also, could that be? For urban traffic, the daily pendling in town, these are great things. Batteries need to become a bit more potent though. The big metropoles will see more traffic in the future, and more people moving there, so solutions and concepts to get rid of the ridiculously high car drensity are in urgent need. Small vehicles that are a hybrid between bicycles, tribikes and a small car like the Smart, could be a solution, maybe.

Kettweasels with battery, so to speak. I wonder if Kettweasel maybe already has developed one.

In Germany, pedelecs limited to a top speed with motor assistance of 25 km/h, are free and are treated as normal bicycles, beyond that speed (motor assistance even beyoind 25 km/h) they need a tax plate, and helm, and must use the road, since they are treated as choppers/scooters then. A license then also is obligatory (normally included in the normal car license).