Some Bicyclists Make All Bicyclists Look Bad

[ml85]

I’ve been a bike commuter for about 8 months now, and if I decide to stop biking to work it will be because of other bicyclists. I just can’t believe there are so many disrespectful, arrogant, and dangerous bicyclists out there (there are obviously good ones, but it’s the bad ones who stand out). A few examples that have frustrated me:

1. Bikers blowing through red lights without looking: At a minimum I stop at red lights to make sure there are no cars coming, but multiple times bicyclists have blown past me without looking, causing drivers to slam on the brakes. I don’t care if a bicyclist gets run over going through a red light, but if a driver is going to swerve to avoid them, then I’m in danger and I don’t appreciate that.

2. Bikers not yielding to pedestrians: I saw a biker go through a red light on the Custis Trail near Rosslyn and yell at a pedestrian who was crossing onto the sidewalk with the crosswalk signal. He screamed at her and intentionally stuck his elbow out to hit her as he blew past other bicyclists and pedestrians waiting patiently. Another time I stopped for children crossing the MVT at Gravelly Point when 3 bicyclists blew past me and knocked over a small child. The bikers of course screamed at everyone who was in their way.

3. Bikers not yielding to cars: I saw a biker start to cross Lynn St. in Rosslyn while there was a red light for cars and pedestrians (so again running red lights). A car stopped then started to turn at the same time the biker started crossing (the car had 100% right-of-way), but the bicyclist screamed and berated her for even thinking about turning.

4. Bikers not respecting other bikers: A bicyclist dangerously cut me off to pass me without warning right before getting on to the 14th St. Bridge, then proceeded to go just slowly enough that I couldn’t pass. At the end of the bridge there was a line of bicyclists behind him, and he spit off to the side of the trail. Of course this huge cloud of spittle ended up on my face. And I’m constantly passed by bicyclists who don’t give any warning, or who specifically start to silently pass me as I’m trying to pass someone else.

Besides using this forum to vent about stupid bicyclists, how can I handle these situations in the future? These problems occur more frequently than runners in bike lanes or drivers being oblivious to me. I fear that drivers and runners will see these examples of fools on bicycles and treat me like one of them, putting me in danger. And I really don’t want to go back to taking Metro to work…

[GuyContinental]

Wow… ELITEs out en mass

http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?2684-Dear-ELITE-biker

[mstone]

presumably these are the same guys who run reds, intrude on crosswalks, and otherwise act like jerks when they’re in cars. what do you do when you see a car acting that way? do the same for the bike.

[Tim Kelley]

The problem is that people make people look bad, regardless of the mode. Bad drivers behind the steering wheel are probably bad riders behind the handlebars.

Everyone has the responsibility to equally respect everyone else on the road. Come on, be a PAL!!

There needs to be a larger change in society that makes it more taboo to ride recklessly on a bicycle. Take drunk driving for example.

Lead by example! I give a sheepish shrug of the shoulders to the motorist next to me when we’re waiting at a red light and another cyclist blows through.

[TwoWheelsDC]

Replace “biker/bicyclist/cyclist” in your post with “driver” and you’ll see why I don’t get too worked up over other cyclists’ behavior. Sure it’s fun to share some memorable idiot moments on the forum, but overall I don’t give it much thought. I mean, why are cyclists expected to act as this monolithic bloc, where the actions of some reflect on us all, and this somehow means that because some d-bag on a bike almost got run over, now some car is going to run over me in retaliation? Drivers and pedestrians certainly aren’t held to this standard. People can be dumb…sometimes people are dumb on bikes, sometimes on foot, and sometimes behind the wheel of a car. My goal is to be not dumb in all three situations.

[eminva]

I don’t really have an answer to your question — after eight years of bicycle commuting I’m still mystified by some of the crazy I see from all walks of life — but I am curious to know what other observations you have on your eight months of bicycle commuting. You must have started in the winter, so kudos to you for keeping at it through three seasons. I hope it has been a good experience otherwise. You will find here that we vent about other cyclists, drivers, runners, etc. but we also carry on at length about a beautiful day, running into a cycling buddy on the way to work, finding a new place to ride, and so on. I won’t speak for others, but for me the joys of bicycle commuting far outweigh the frustrations.

Take care.

Liz

[dasgeh]

@ml85 26945 wrote:

how can I handle these situations in the future? These problems occur more frequently than runners in bike lanes or drivers being oblivious to me. I fear that drivers and runners will see these examples of fools on bicycles and treat me like one of them, putting me in danger. And I really don’t want to go back to taking Metro to work…

Honestly, I find that if I’m disarming to pedestrians and drivers when another cyclist is a jerk, it defuses the situation. It’s easier with pedestrians — you can slow down, apologize, and even say that not all cyclists are bad road/MUP users. With drivers, you can shrug, wave, or say something if they have their window open.

I do think that, while the super-jerks may be the most visible, they are in the minority of cyclists. But as a cyclist, I feel way more vulnerable than I do in a car or if as a ped (because I’m on my own feet, have better balance, don’t have as far to fall if something happens, am not moving very fast). So near misses go from “eh, that was annoying” to “OMG THAT GUY ALMOST KILLED ME”. Once I realized that was going on, I was able to relax a bit and differentiate better between jerkiness that really doesn’t affect me (near misses that aren’t so near, others putting themselves in danger that have a very low probability of putting me in harm’s way), and the stuff that does.

Finally, if you don’t see more of this behavior from drivers, is it because you’re riding in places where you don’t interact with drivers nearly as much? My commute is 5 miles. About 3 miles of it is on trails with no road crossings. A mile or so is on trails with road crossings, and a mile or so is on roads. Despite the fact that I interact with cars for a lot less distance than I interact with pedestrians and other cyclists, the drivers are a lot worse — both the percentage of cars I see breaking the law is far higher than the percentage of bikes/peds (though a lot of it doesn’t actually affect me), and of all the people I interact with who break the law in ways that affect me, the majority are drivers.

[dasgeh]

@ml85 26945 wrote:

3. Bikers not yielding to cars: I saw a biker start to cross Lynn St. in Rosslyn while there was a red light for cars and pedestrians (so again running red lights). A car stopped then started to turn at the same time the biker started crossing (the car had 100% right-of-way), but the bicyclist screamed and berated her for even thinking about turning.

I’ve actually been meaning to write in about this: this is a VERY dangerous design feature of the current light timing of the Lee/Lynn intersection. I believe that our friends in Arlington County have said that light timing is something they can actually fix.

The issue I see is that there is a period of time after the drivers headed northbound on Lynn have gone from yellow to red, and before the drivers headed westbound off the ramp onto Lee (along with peds/cyclists on the Custis trail) get green, where every direction has red. During this time, the crosswalk has “red” (the steady hand). The problem is that during this period, it is legal for drivers to turn right from the ramp/Lee onto Lynn, but not legal for cyclists/peds to cross the intersection heading west. Once one driver makes the right turn, the line of waiting cars often keeps turning without stopping at the red, and without looking for pedestrians/cyclists. So when the light does turn green for the ramp/Lee and the crosswalk gets the white walking guy, cars are making the right turn and cutting off peds/cyclists. It takes some brave souls nudging out in front of moving cars to assert our right of way.

Good road design would actually give the peds/cyclists the walk signal before the ramp/Lee drivers got a green light. If the green light and white walk signal have to come on at the same time, it would be safer for all if the delay between when Lynn drivers got red and when ramp/Lee got green & crosswalk got white could be shortened.

I hope that makes sense, and I hope someone can alert the right person at Arlington County. Most (75%) of the close calls I’ve seen in the past 2 months would have been prevented by fixing this problem.
Thanks.

[creadinger]

And there aren’t any D-bags on metro? Half the station employees are angry jerks. My wife used to have to fight with moronic Virginians just to get off the bloody train at Foggy Bottom in the afternoon. They would all crowd by the door and stand there rudely like statues. Not to mention the jerks who play crap music loudly, the self-centered idiots who refuse to slide in when an empty seat is next to them or get up when an old person or pregnant lady may need a seat. There seems to be a lot of news lately about pervs purposefully rubbing up against women on the train these days too. What’s up with that? The things you can do to be a jerk on metro are endless. Don’t even get me started on the escalators!

If you quit bike commuting because of some jerks on bikes that’s on you. The world is full of idiots, but you have the chance to actually own your commute. You can be one of the 1-2% of Americans who actually enjoys your commute and you can get a good workout too! VERY few people ever get a chance to do what you do (bike to work), and even fewer are daring enough to try it.

[OneEighth]

Does anyone else find the original post a bit suspicious?

[TwoWheelsDC]

@OneEighth 26987 wrote:

Does anyone else find the original post a bit suspicious?

Indeed, but I figured that since I didn’t really have much to do at the time, I’d reply. Wasn’t quite enough for me to break out the various responses I have in my troll rolodex, but it was close.

[DismalScientist]

@dasgeh 26974 wrote:

Finally, if you don’t see more of this behavior from drivers, is it because you’re riding in places where you don’t interact with drivers nearly as much? My commute is 5 miles. About 3 miles of it is on trails with no road crossings. A mile or so is on trails with road crossings, and a mile or so is on roads. Despite the fact that I interact with cars for a lot less distance than I interact with pedestrians and other cyclists, the drivers are a lot worse — both the percentage of cars I see breaking the law is far higher than the percentage of bikes/peds (though a lot of it doesn’t actually affect me), and of all the people I interact with who break the law in ways that affect me, the majority are drivers.

I hate to be disagreeable…Well, actually I love to be disagreeable. I ride mostly in the streets and I have to say that the percentage of cyclists that violate traffic laws (mostly salmoning and running red lights) is much higher than drivers (generally failing to yield the right of way). In terms of absolute numbers, this may not be true, but that is only because there are so many more drivers than cyclists. These cyclists are not good for the cause. Defending this behavior as not dangerous and therefore OK makes cyclists look arrogant and above the law.

Look at the status quo on the trail crossing on the W&OD through Falls Church. The de facto standard is that drivers yield to cyclists although the signs say the exact opposite. This is dangerous as drivers unfamiliar with the de facto standard may proceed according to the signs. The standard likely changed because cyclists just ignored the stop signs placed on the trail, which says something regarding the likelihood of drivers versus cyclists obeying traffic laws.

(That said, I advocate that the signs be reversed as the trail gets a lot more traffic than many of the cross streets in Falls Church and thus it would be best for street traffic to yield the right of way to trail traffic.)

(

[RESTONTODC]

@OneEighth 26987 wrote:

Does anyone else find the original post a bit suspicious?

Yes and you can figure out by the username.

[jrenaut]

We all know that idiocy is multimodal.

[krazygl00]

@ml85 26945 wrote:

Another time I stopped for children crossing the MVT at Gravelly Point when 3 bicyclists blew past me and knocked over a small child. The bikers of course screamed at everyone who was in their way.

Oh this is quite alright, and you’ve actually made a misinterpretation common among those new to cycling.

This is a tradition among cyclists, going back to at least the 1830 Tour De France, in which riders each day would give a swift kick to the groin of the local idiot du village for good luck. As the tradition became more established, riders would simply flail out with a free leg at children who would giddily crowd the sides of the roads hoping to be struck by one of the mighty men, thereby sharing in the riders’ glory.

Although not as common, the tradition lives on to this day. It doesn’t get a lot of press, but many races begin with a ceremonial “knocking over of a small child.” The kid you saw knocked over at Gravelly Point was probably the son or daughter of one of the riders, who had been chosen for this honor. Later there was probably a traditional celebration meal of donuts and whisky.

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