This thread is doing a great job of explaining while tribalism around forms of transportation is not constructive.
Have you ever been cycling at 3-4 am? It’s amazing. The roads are so ridiculously spacious when there aren’t any cars around and there is nothing to slow you down on intersections and roundabouts. Can definitely recommend.
boomer ass take
Fucking cyclists causing all the traffic and pollution. Get a car you assholes!
Give cyclists lanes, so they wouldn’t have to stand in a half metre gap between an 18-wheeler and a traffic barrier covered in mix of 19th century soot and souls of the damned. Then they’ll follow the rules, case in point: entire Denmark.
Live in denmark, can confirm.
In UK cities where there is extensive cycling and infrastructure, cyclists still run red lights quite often. As a cyclist I don’t obey every traffic law either.
On my old way to work there was a traffic light controlling the entrance to a car park from the main road, but entering traffic was so infrequent that it was always very tempting to dart across. On the same route, a cut across pavement for 25 metres saved negotiating a large roundabout or dismounting.
Neither place could really have had better infrastructure: the junction had poor visibility so you couldn’t see if a car was coming if you did chance it. Backing up the main road wouldn’t have been sensible so both of these mean it couldn’t have been a simple give-way. The section of pavement is narrow and on a bend, so to cycle it safely you must go slow enough to stop. Putting a cycle lane in there would have invited people to go too fast.
In my state they changed the rules where a cyclist can treat a stop sign like a yeild sign, and a stop light like a stop sign.
the reasoning is this will encourage cyclists to ride through neighborhoods rather than on busier main streets. cyclists need to maintain momentum when riding, and stopping every couple blocks for a stop sign is a huge momentum killer.
obviously cyclists run a much higher risk of injury in a traffic accident than a driver. also cyclists dont really have blind spots the way cars do. so generally if a cyclist runs a stop, they have already checked for oncoming traffic. yes, there are idiots out there both driving and cycling, but typically if you saw a cyclist run a stop sign, he knows youre there and went when it was safe.
yesss, maintaining momentum is an overlooked part of cycling. obviously don’t just ignore traffic rules completely and blow through intersections, but losing all momentum especially before a big hill SUCKS
then you have to reaccelerate to speed match the cars around you, honestly it feels unsafe on the faster streets.
Sounds like a cool law but necessarily very safe.
That’s a great law. That’s basically how I use them (with lots of care, obviously).
Which state?
Idaho was the first to do this. Not sure which other states have followed suit, but i think i remember 1 or 2 doing so
Arkansas
I’ve been the car driver who nearly made jam out of the cyclist in the last panel. I’ve also been the cyclist hit by a car which was driving in the cycle lane.
Bad road users are everywhere and they use all sorts of transportation. Let’s stop with the division and generalisation.
one has a lot more power and uses a lot more space than the other
And we can still encourage both to obey the rules! Amazing!
Your anecdotal evidence is noted.
Car drivers love to criticize cyclists, but they don’t realize they’re the real aggressors in traffic. They both do most of the bad behaviors, and have the greater damage potential
All of my worst driving, walking and biking stories are vs a vehicle. I commute in various ways a lot, with tons more opportunities for walkers and other cyclists to be the problem. It is unquestionably drivers in 90% of cases. Most drivers don’t deserve to drive.
somebody recently posted a video on one of the fuckcars communities about how using boogle maps in Netherlands was impractical. In the same video they were explaining how they removed traffic lights from no car zones.
traffic lights are necessary because of motorized traffic. When you’re cycling you’re moving less than a hundred kg at about 15kmh, not +1000kg at 50kmh or more
NotJustBikes did a video on that. Really interesting
Who can forget the time a cyclist ran a red light and killed sixteen people?
Fair but think about hitting and killing a cyclist who had run a stop sign or light. That doesn’t just go away. The person has to live with the trauma of killing another person potentially at no fault of their own.
ahhh going to the absurd. that’ll work. fuck. cars. fuck bikes who don’t follow the rules, too.
The Telegraph and LBC are both right-wing propaganda mills.
Case in point:
In 2022, Hilda Griffiths, 81, died after Brian Fitzgerald, a Credit Suisse director and member of the Muswell Hill Peloton cycling club, collided with her while riding with other members at about 29mph in the 20mph zone.
Police could not prosecute Mr Fitzgerald because “there were no criminal Acts” which could be applied to cyclists who speed, the elderly lady’s inquest heard.
That’s pure horseshit.
I’m sure the parent whose kid or pet gets mowed down by a cyclist going full speed will appreciate that, hey at least it wasn’t more people who got hurt or killed!
Entitled assholes exist behind many modes of transportation. That cars can cause significantly more damage doesn’t make the others less dickish, like this guy:
(and yes, I drive AND cycle AND like to jog too, depending on what the task at- hand is).
That so many have come out screaming in the manner pretty much showcases the “rules for thee but not for me” attitude.
When did a car run a red light and kill sixteen people?
Ah yes because every driver obeys every law all the time. It’s only the cyclists that break laws! No driver would ever consider speeding, rolling through a stop sign, or being aggressive!
Won’t someone think of the poor drivers!!
Your point is well taken, but whataboutism aside, EVERYONE should be obeying ALL the traffic laws. I cycle on public roads myself and I do see other cyclists not stopping at red lights. A bicycle IS a vehicle - it doesn’t come with pedestrian rights.
Or we can just keep escalating finger pointing and law-breaking until the traffic laws are meaningless everyone is dead.
I live somewhere where half the traffic lights don’t have buttons and don’t respond to cyclists. So when there are no cars to trigger the light I just check if it’s safe and go. Meanwhile I have been nearly overrun by cars speeding through red because it was orange 3 seconds ago and see a car going >50kph in my 30kph street almost daily. A bicycle is not a vehicle (at least in france in collisions we are classified as pedestrians). We are way more vulnerable and less harmful and the roads are often not made for us, so we have to adapt our riding to be most safe. Sometimes that means taking a pedestrian green instead of a car green light because it is safer too.
I cycle thousands of miles each year, and I haven’t seen a cyclist run a red in years. Depends on where we’re riding, I guess.
So, why are you asking me to deescalate? Have you asked everyone else in this post and the author of the comic itself? Why pick me?
That’s fair… I didn’t mean to single you out. There were a LOT of posts, and I suppose the emphatic and sarcastic nature of yours drew my attention.
That said, I meant this as a general statement to all the commenters of this nature, and your comment is just where it happened to land. I don’t have any personal grudge.
Been in a college town recently? College kids are basically the cyclist in the comic.
They’re also the most dangerous drivers too…
Maybe we should just make everyone walk till the age of 25.
I haven’t noticed anything like that in college towns apart from late at night when it’s cold, there’s barely anyone around and the lights sometimes just don’t change for bicycles because they are too light. (The most common possibly illegal thing I’ve seen is bicycles overtaking cars stopped at lights to get to to the bike spots on a bicycle road where in some cases the cars aren’t even supposed to be.)
Meanwhile drivers almost all seem better but I am also aware that most
So, why are you asking me to deescalate? Have you asked everyone else in this post and the author of the comic itself? Why pick me?
can’t speak for the other commenter, but i will assume it was because of the whataboutism.
no one disputes that car drivers break a rules, but most of them at least know they are breaking the rules. cyclists really confidently act like the rules don’t exist (even that may depend on where you are).
few years back, some non-profit group advocating for bicycles in my city made a presentation for a media, where they showed a video how much faster a cyclist is going through some specific route during the working-day traffic jam than the car.
and then you saw the cyclist ignoring lights, driving on a sidewalk where he had no business to be and so on. he broke like a billion traffic rules during his 15 minute trip and they really acted like they didn’t even know that some rules applied to him.
Dude, come ride in my car sometime. Practically every driver out there thinks the rules don’t apply to them, either. I’d record them on a dash cam, but I don’t want to spend my life editing videos for YouTube. It’s a fucking jungle out there. As a practical matter, what’s the difference between not knowing the law (an assertion I reject) and ignoring it?
But car brains only get mad at cyclists for it. A car running a stop sign or rolling right on red is treated as business as usual. I see cops doing it.
I had to laugh at the links to deaths caused by cyclists. Two, world wide. Death from drivers doing stupid shit are so common, they don’t even bother writing articles about it. It’s not newsworthy. Cars do a lot more damage when they hit something.
And I say this as a cyclist that does follow the laws, aside from occasionally rolling a stop sign, when it’s safe (Idaho stop, but it’s not legal in my state).
But car brains only get mad at cyclists for it.
I’m going to assume that you’re so blinded by your prejudice against “carbrains” that you haven’t seen all the posts bemoaning speeding, passing in the wrong lane, riding people’s bumpers, “when a car swerves around you at mach 3 just to get stuck at the same light” to paraphrase a meme I saw on lemmy like last week, etc, and it’s everywhere not just lemmy.
You are probably just such a bikebrained chaincel that you haven’t noticed it, but it’s there.
As a practical matter, what’s the difference between not knowing the law (an assertion I reject) and ignoring it?
as a practical matter, there is no difference. but if one side is acting like a hypocrite pretending it is only the other party breaking the rules, it is worth pointing out.
But car brains only get mad at cyclists for it.
i am pretty sure people complain about other drivers all the time.
Death from drivers doing stupid shit are so common, they don’t even bother writing articles about it. It’s not newsworthy. Cars do a lot more damage when they hit something.
yes, this is true. but should that mean that cyclists should ignore the traffic rules, or what is the point?
but if one side is acting like a hypocrite pretending it is only the other party breaking the rules, it is worth pointing out.
On that I agree. Drivers regularly complain about cyclists as though they aren’t doing similar shit. Where are the comics about that?
But car brains only get mad at cyclists for it.
i am pretty sure people complain about other drivers all the time.
Show me the comics. Show me the online vitriol. Show me the death threats drivers get online every time a video is posted.
yes, this is true. but should that mean that cyclists should ignore the traffic rules, or what is the point?
The point is that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
They only get mad at cyclists because it’s an “other” group they can see.
sometimes one facepalm is just not enough.
Laws are a social agreement, not divine. Breaking stupid laws is not bad, and does not imply that all laws should be broken.
Stupid laws like “stop at a red light even if you’re wearing lycra in public.”
Whatabout, whatabout, whatabout.
The point is that while cyclists often get pissed off about the lack of safe driving by cars, there are many that similarly seem to ignore the rules of the road as applied to them. That may result in a collision with a vehicle whose driver is driving with proper care - with the cyclist tending to be on the losing end -but also other cyclists, pedestrians, etc.
Getting creamed by a cyclist (or scooter, or skateboarder) going at speed down the sidewalk - or one blowing through an intersection against the lights - is not going to be a minor injury, and I’ve narrowly avoided having myself, my kids, and once my dog get taken out in this manner.
Lately it’s been the battery-powered speakers scooters that are the worst culprits, but the cyclists who often bitch the most about cars are often the ones who seem to ride the least safely around here.
So yeah, not every driver obeys every lease every time, but similarly ignoring laws and being an assist is a good way to increase your own odds of having a bad encounter with one of those drivers, or one of the many others who share the streets and sidewalks.
A driver buzzed me and my dog a few days ago. In my own neighborhood, with snow and ice on the roads, and roads narrowed by snow on the sides (we don’t have sidewalks). Probably going 40 mph in a 25 zone. Less than three feet away from me. Idiocy.
Where are the comics about those drivers? Why are you so willing to accept drivers doing illegal things, while getting so bent out of shape about cyclists going illegal things?
Cars are way more dangerous than any cyclist will ever be. I know if I had to pick a vehicle to run into me, it’ll be the cyclist every time.
Safe driving != law abiding. There’s overlap, but they are not the same thing.
Anyone who runs a red light is a stupid cunt.
Anecdotally, in my lived experience, there are more stupid cunts on bicycles than in cars.
That is all.
LOL I see way more cars running red lights and stop signs that I ever see bicycles doing it. And cars do a fuckton more damage when they hit something.
When a cyclist runs over a driver I’ll give a shit about bicycles running stop signs.
I don’t understand. You’re saying bikes should be allowed to run the red lights because when cars inevitable t-bone them they’ll die?
That seems pretty sick.
Per capita? Really? Where do you live?
This sort of attitude by cyclists is why we lack bike infrastructure in the US. Back in the 70s one weird asshole insisted that bikes be treated like cars and fought against it.
A brief explanation of just how bad that one guy was for the country.
A brief explanation…links to a 95 minute video. I’m still gonna watch it but later.
95 minute video is brief… what? you consume instagram? lol (/jk don’t @ me)
It’s not like the cars in my neighborhood are obeying traffic signals or roadway laws in general.
OP & sympathizers not comprehending the auto industry lobby. 🤦♀️
Ahh yes, it’s always the cyclist fault for existing, and all cyclist is bad.
This comic is also sponsored by Jeremy Clarkson and Doug Ford.
