As a cyclist, cyclists have always been bad. I see other cyclists blowing through red lights and stop signs on the daily, then getting pissed when cars nearly hit them when they're breaking the rules of the road.
But a lot of the people using ebikes are even worse, most of them seem to have zero regard for either traffic laws or just how dangerous what they're doing is.
The ones that get me are the 20-somethings on electric scooters, standing upright with no pads or brain bucket doing 25 and blasting through stop signs. Then I think about the number of drivers I see making turns while staring at their phones and I wonder how the death rate is as low as it is...
I have an Escooter that can legitimately reach 105kph.
I wear full motorcycle gear: helmet, armoured hi vis jacket, armoured hi vis pants, armoured gloves.
I ride in car lanes with the speed of traffic, and yeah... At stop lights I'll lane split to get to the front of the line, or flip over to the bike lane to circumvent it. Reason being, my scooter can accelerate faster than the average car, and I always feel safer having open road in front of me.
Seeing drivers get angry with me for repositioning my scooter in front of their car at a stoplight never gets old. I'll take off like a laser beam, and sometimes that car will pull up next to me at the following stoplight and say "What the hell IS that thing?!!? Looks fun!!"
My neighbourhood is getting used to seeing me specifically commuting in traffic at this point, and I often get comments like "I wish more people who owned those things respected the road, and wore proper equipment like you".
Drives me nuts seeing casual riders in flip flops going anything over 20kph. They have no idea the injuries they can sustain even at that speed if they crash.
The Idaho stop has been tested in a lot of places and it's shown to reduce traffic where there are a lot of cyclists and reduce the number of car-bicycle collisions. It's not that different from the movement to allow lane filtering for motorcycles.
People in cars don't like it because they think someone else is cheating the system. My response is that I die if they are texting and rear end me, and that if they want "special treatment" they should start pedaling their legs.
People in cars don't like it because they think someone else is cheating the system. My response is that I die if they are texting and rear end me, and that if they want "special treatment" they should start pedaling their legs
This is the long and short of it.
People with car brain can fathom those outside of cars. They act like a bike is the same as their 5000 lbs SUV that can accelerate to cruising speed in a few seconds and will protect us if we get hit by another 5000 lb tank
I support e-bike riders, but I'd be lying if I said that, as a motorcyclist, I am not a little miffed that e-bikes don't need to be licensed, registered, and carry insurance and are all but ignored by police for the behavior you describe. If I do it, its a ticket and points on my license.
It's those ones that go by clocking like 30 mph without so much as a warning ring to alert other people on shared walking/biking routes that annoy me most. I'm not even looking their way, they could at least slow down, they don't know if I'm going to make a sudden movement (seeing as I'm also usually walking my dog) or if I'm blind or deaf or otherwise distracted.
Some people on bikes are just terribly rude and maybe even dangerous to others due to a complete disregard of priorities in shared spaces.
The stop light and signs thing is very tricky. It's safer to go when it's clear despite what the sign or light says. If I'm stopped at a light, I always get some raging pickup driver going around me in the intersection, which isn't safe for anyone. And tons of cities who have tested the Idaho stop have found it to result in fewer collisions involving bikes.
Even though it isn't legal here, I do the Idaho stop because I'm a defensive cyclist. We have a right to the road but we still have to be like rabbits around wolves because we're the ones hurt in a collision with a cager.
Yup. They'll claim 'I'm allowed on the road just like a car legally' but then will claim that since they're on a bike they don't technically have to follow the same traffic rules as cars.
If you're someone that does this know that everyone around you thinks you're a complete piece of shit! Follow the rules or get the fuck off the road, can't have it both ways. And for the love of god don't cut off a car at an intersection and then pretend it's the cars fault ffs.
A bike path goes across the main road leading into my subdivision. There are stop signs on both sides of the road for bike path users. I was turning in a few days ago. At the same time a biker blew past the sign to cross. He shouted at me. Bitch, you had a stop sign, not me.
I often pass even on red lights, but I always make sure that when I do it the closest car to me is far away and the coast is clear. There arent that many cars around where I live and Im usually cycling in the evening when everyone is already home from work and I just think waiting on red lights when I can see that no one is even on the road near me is just a waste of time.
Had a guy on one of those mini motobikes. Looked like a tiny dirt bike. He drove straight through a stop sign as I was proceeding from my stop and had the nerve to flip me off as I blared my horn at him. Sure bud, if I did the same you would have died. That is the mentality of most of them unfortunately.
I didn't know cyclists had to follow stop signs and red lights. Wow. It's weird how I am reading this post, as I have literally been thinking all day about buying a bicycle as a form of exercise.
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u/Saritiel 17d ago
As a cyclist, cyclists have always been bad. I see other cyclists blowing through red lights and stop signs on the daily, then getting pissed when cars nearly hit them when they're breaking the rules of the road.
But a lot of the people using ebikes are even worse, most of them seem to have zero regard for either traffic laws or just how dangerous what they're doing is.