Wrong way dude

Claire Petersky said:

... I guess if I
were not being Ms. Vehicular Cyclist, I would have pulled up to the
front of the line, to the right of this lead car. But I'm turning
left, and making a left from the right hand side makes no sense.

If it's a left turn /only/ lane, then it makes perfect sense. It's the best
way to clear out of harm's way and arrive where you want to be: in the bike
lane (or far right) of the new road you'll be riding.

If it's not a dedicated left turn lane, then the situation's dicier,
obviously.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Raoul Duke said:

"Kevan Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

If that means letting them place their lives and limbs in peril, I
disagree. Even if met with hostility, we need to inform people of safer
ways to ride. I can tolerate most sidewalk riders, but I _always_ make
it a point to stop and talk to wrong way cyclists on the road. I have
never gotten in a fight about it, but just laid out some facts in a calm
and rational manner then let them decide.

Nope....you should just mind your own business unless it affects you
personally. Would you yell at every person you see on the street smoking,
"Hey, cigarettes will kill you!" or everyone going into a McDonalds, "Hey
that [censored] will give you a heart attack!" ? No, you wouldn't. This way of
thinking is just so typical of the liberal "I know what's best for you"
mindset.

So, you should just ignore someone who is not only breaking the law but
is placing themselves in imminent danger of losing life or limb? Because
that is exactly what wrong way road cycling is. Maybe I should just call
a cop?

Sorry, you didn't think it out, and your answer is wrong.

--
fneep

In article <[email hidden]>,

Dane Buson said:

mrbubl said:

Kevan Smith said:

"Claire Petersky" <[email hidden]> wrote:

> I see him coming up the sidewalk, and I say, "Dude, wrong way."

Then, she urged shouting out when people break the rules. "Tell them to
stop at stop signs. Let them know they need to be considerate."

I wondered to myself, does she shout out to sidewalk cyclists and wrong
way wilburs? Does she tell gutter huggers to take the lane?

cycle rage...........the next big thing. I know i have it.......

Cast off your helmets, Oppressed Cyclists, and Arise! Take back your
freedom and your right to the road! You have nothing to lose now,
Riders of the World, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Holy mackerel, it's donquijote1954 all over again :-)

Quoted message said:

Errrr, wait a minute, that would be bad. You have nothing to lose but
your valve caps?

I possess a plethora of valve caps. I find 'em useful when [re]installing
inner tubes, 'cuz they keep the valve stem from receding back up through the
rim hole, and they make a good handle with which to pull the valve stem all
the way out, before inflating. I don't have a valve cap with a valve core
remover on it, though. Oh, wait a minute -- I do. It's in my desk drawer,
among a bunch of other junk and important stuff.

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

Or perhaps it was another one of The Lord's lengthy injunctions, taking
what should be simple, common sense concepts about riding in traffic
and attempting unsuccessfully to elevate them to Ph.D.-thesis material.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yeah, that's pretty much it, except maybe not Ph.D thesis material --
just essay stuff. In chance encounters with riders on the street who
are doin' it wrong, there's just no opportunity to diplomatically
explain to them all the whys 'n wherefors of riding "properly",
unless you actually stop them. Otherwise, there's only enough time
to yell some abbreviated message, which the recipient will take as
being yelled-at, bawled-out 'n criticised. Cycling education can't
be condensed into one sentence.

Quoted message said:

Forgive me, Lord John, for I have sinned!

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

Kevan Smith said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Raoul Duke said:

"Kevan Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

If that means letting them place their lives and limbs in peril, I
disagree. Even if met with hostility, we need to inform people of
safer ways to ride. I can tolerate most sidewalk riders, but I
_always_ make it a point to stop and talk to wrong way cyclists on
the road. I have never gotten in a fight about it, but just laid
out some facts in a calm and rational manner then let them decide.

Nope....you should just mind your own business unless it affects you
personally. Would you yell at every person you see on the street
smoking, "Hey, cigarettes will kill you!" or everyone going into a
McDonalds, "Hey that [censored] will give you a heart attack!" ? No, you
wouldn't. This way of thinking is just so typical of the liberal "I
know what's best for you" mindset.

So, you should just ignore someone who is not only breaking the law
but is placing themselves in imminent danger of losing life or limb?
Because that is exactly what wrong way road cycling is. Maybe I
should just call a cop?

You want someone to call a cop every time YOU speed or make an /illegal/ (or
stupid) move?

Quoted message said:

Sorry, you didn't think it out, and your answer is wrong.

In your opinion. Others agree with it.

"Claire Petersky" wrote: (clip) Probably a third of the time that the light
is green the driver of lead car spent thinking, "Oh! The light is green!
What do I do now! Oh! I must remove my foot from the brake! Oh! I must put
my foot on the gas!" I think bikes have the ability to be pretty fast in
the initial acceleration at an intersection. By the time the lead car
started moving, I would have been at least halfway across the street. (clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Claire, interestingly, shortly after I read this, I found myself waiting at
a signal behind some cars and a bicycle. So I had a chance to observe the
effect you are describing. The cyclist was in bright, tight clothes, and
riding a road bike, so I would not expect him to be a slow starter. And he
wasn't.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Sorni said:

Quoted message said:

So, you should just ignore someone who is not only breaking the law
but is placing themselves in imminent danger of losing life or limb?
Because that is exactly what wrong way road cycling is. Maybe I
should just call a cop?

You want someone to call a cop every time YOU speed or make an /illegal/ (or
stupid) move

So, you approve of wrong way cycling?

If you don't, what do you do to prevent it?

--
fneep

Michael said:

Claire Petersky said:

So, I'm sitting at a light on one of the streets in Chinatown at Dearborn.
It's one of these long, long, lights, the sort that take 90 million years to
turn green. I'm not joking, we could shed our physical forms and evolve into
pure energy beings in the time it takes the light to turn green, and since
there were so many cars ahead of me, I missed the light, so I have to sit
through the whole light cycle.

Some guy is riding the wrong way up the sidewalk. I understand the
temptation -- the light takes forever, so you turn left up the sidewalk (or
bike lane, Dearborn has bike lanes on both sides), and then when the traffic
clears, you cross over the 5 or 6 empty lanes and get on the bike lane on
the proper side. But Dearborn, in my experience, is a dangerous street when
it comes to turning cars. I'm a relatively good girl, and still, I have had
several close encounters with turning autos on Dearborn, plus the one time
I've actually been hit was someone turning into Chinatown while I was riding
on Dearborn.

I see him coming up the sidewalk, and I say, "Dude, wrong way." He takes
this badly, makes an obscene gesture and calls me a dumb [censored]. No sooner
does he completes his invective, but he then nearly gets creamed by a
right-turning car. Rather than taking this as a sign that perhaps riding the
wrong way is dangerous; or even considering that the driver should have
looked for a pedestrian (which he could have been, I suppose) and should be
the target of his wrath; he instead sees me as the one to blame for this
near-miss, and calls me further names. I said, "hey, it's just, if you ride
the wrong way, you're more likely to get hit -- it's your choice!" Well, he
rode off, yelling one more thing my way after riding another block -- I
guess it took him that long to think of it.

Eventually, the light did turn green, and I made my left on to Dearborn.
From the viewpoint of getting from point a to b as fast as possible, he
certainly had the advantage over me, as he was so far ahead, he was a tiny
dot down the road.

--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
http://www.bicyclemeditations.org/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

Heh! I was on the receiving end in a similar encounter last Friday. I've said
here before that I stick to sidewalks for the most part. There are exceptions,
but one street in particular I have never biked in the quarter century I've
lived here: it's a major commuting route between two towns that straddle the
Susquehanna River.

Route 30?

Quoted message said:

It is big-time dangerous, even for cages. So I'm spinning
along the sidewalk, approaching, and then cruising beside, a line of cages that
were stopped at a light. Suddenly a cyclist who was stopped near the head of
the snarl swiveled toward me and sang out, "Ride in the street!". The light had
turned green in the mean time and the car ahead of her had already bolted. The
impatient trucker sitting directly behind the bike added a comment by tuning up
his air horns. It came from behind me, stopped my heart, and just about tore
the hair off my legs. Looking back I saw the cyclist staggering to balance on
one leg, twisted around and looking behind her, bike splayed at a 45.

--
Michael

"Kevan Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

So, you should just ignore someone who is not only breaking the law but
is placing themselves in imminent danger of losing life or limb? Because
that is exactly what wrong way road cycling is. Maybe I should just call
a cop?

And while you're at it, you should also chase down and lecture every driver
who makes a rolling stop, changes lanes without signalling or drives five
miles per hour over the limit.

C'mon, riding on the wrong side of the street may not be wise for a number
of reasons but it is hardly placing yourself "in imminent danger of losing
life or limb".

"Leo Lichtman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Claire Petersky" wrote: (clip) Probably a third of the time that the
light is green the driver of lead car spent thinking, "Oh! The light is
green! What do I do now! Oh! I must remove my foot from the brake! Oh! I
must put my foot on the gas!" I think bikes have the ability to be pretty
fast in the initial acceleration at an intersection. By the time the lead
car started moving, I would have been at least halfway across the street.
(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Claire, interestingly, shortly after I read this, I found myself waiting
at a signal behind some cars and a bicycle. So I had a chance to observe
the effect you are describing. The cyclist was in bright, tight clothes,
and riding a road bike, so I would not expect him to be a slow starter.
And he wasn't.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Somehow, when I edited the above post, I truncated the second paragraph,
which contained my main point. The driver and the cyclist were both
obviously prepared for the light change. The driver began to inch forward
during the yellow for cross traffic. The cyclist pedalled hard, got maybe
one length ahead, but fell behind by the time they were reaching the middle
of the cross street. In my experience, this is more typical than the
sleepy, sluggish driver you described.

Leo Lichtman said:

"Leo Lichtman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Claire Petersky" wrote: (clip) Probably a third of the time that the
light is green the driver of lead car spent thinking, "Oh! The light is
green! What do I do now! Oh! I must remove my foot from the brake! Oh! I
must put my foot on the gas!" I think bikes have the ability to be pretty
fast in the initial acceleration at an intersection. By the time the lead
car started moving, I would have been at least halfway across the street.
(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Claire, interestingly, shortly after I read this, I found myself waiting
at a signal behind some cars and a bicycle. So I had a chance to observe
the effect you are describing. The cyclist was in bright, tight clothes,
and riding a road bike, so I would not expect him to be a slow starter.
And he wasn't.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Somehow, when I edited the above post, I truncated the second paragraph,
which contained my main point. The driver and the cyclist were both
obviously prepared for the light change. The driver began to inch forward
during the yellow for cross traffic. The cyclist pedalled hard, got maybe
one length ahead, but fell behind by the time they were reaching the middle
of the cross street. In my experience, this is more typical than the
sleepy, sluggish driver you described.

I have to wonder what 'typical' is. When I am at a light in the left
turn lane I stay to the right of the lead car and pedal full bore to get
across the street and to the far side bike lane. So far I have beat
traffic in all cases, since at least in my small towns the roads are
only 2 lanes in each direction and the drivers do not seem interested in
racing a bicycle. Big city drivers may be different or maybe the local
drivers are aware of the higher number of police in town. On the few
times I have found myself on the wrong side, usually leaving a store, I
get off and play pedestrian in the crosswalk.
So far so good.
Bill Baka

In article <[email hidden]>, "Raoul Duke" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

C'mon, riding on the wrong side of the street may not be wise for a number
of reasons but it is hardly placing yourself "in imminent danger of losing
life or limb".

I disagree. I think it's the single most dangerous thing you can do on a
bike, excluding stunts.

--
fneep

"Kevan Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I disagree. I think it's the single most dangerous thing you can do on a
bike, excluding stunts.

Well then, do you also lecture people about doing stunts?

Claire Petersky said:

there were so many cars ahead of me, I missed the light, so I have to sit

i do quite the contrary. If there are few cars, i behave like a car and
wait behind those few cars and then take the turn like a car. But when
there are 5+ cars, then i go past them to the front - provided it is
safe to do so. Lane-splitting is legal in Calif., not sure about your
state.. The idea being it increases visibility and awareness of your
presence.

Quoted message said:

Some guy is riding the wrong way up the sidewalk. I understand the

Wrong way on the sidewalk ? In Calif., we have even more serious problem
of people riding wrong way *IN* the bike lane. Although the bike lane
signs indicate the direction, also there are boards indicating "wrong
way"... I have tried the "Wrong Way", "Please ride on the other side",
and all sorts of variations, most common response i got was just
silence. They just ignore me... But few times, i was lucky enough to get
a response - but it was not pleasant... When there are bike lanes, if
someone still rides on the sidewalk, then that person needs more
knowledge than one could impart in that short duration, so i just ignore it.

Once, i was battling a stiff headwind and i came up on a guy riding in
the same lane but in the opposite direction! he had one hand on the
bike and holding a book he was reading and had earphones too. I wanted
to stop and tell, but there is are some people who are willing to
listen... and this person wasn't one.

bottomline, be happy that no-one's riding wrong way in the bike lane and
try to see if your words would have effect before you dish it out. But
if you do see some one in your lane, do protest...

+ravi

Ravi said:

Once, i was battling a stiff headwind and i came up on a guy riding in
the same lane but in the opposite direction! he had one hand on the
bike and holding a *book* he was *reading* and had earphones too. I
wanted to stop and tell, but there is are some people who are willing
to listen... and this person wasn't one.

Oh my. Reading and cycling wouldn't seem to mix well IMO.

--
Dane Buson - [email hidden]
Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh
autonomous region, rioted over much needed spelling reform in the Soviet Union.
-- P.J. O'Rourke

Ravi said:

Claire Petersky said:

there were so many cars ahead of me, I missed the light, so I have to sit

i do quite the contrary. If there are few cars, i behave like a car and
wait behind those few cars and then take the turn like a car. But when
there are 5+ cars, then i go past them to the front - provided it is
safe to do so. Lane-splitting is legal in Calif., not sure about your
state.. The idea being it increases visibility and awareness of your
presence.

Quoted message said:

Some guy is riding the wrong way up the sidewalk. I understand the

Wrong way on the sidewalk ? In Calif., we have even more serious problem
of people riding wrong way *IN* the bike lane. Although the bike lane
signs indicate the direction, also there are boards indicating "wrong
way"... I have tried the "Wrong Way", "Please ride on the other side",
and all sorts of variations, most common response i got was just
silence. They just ignore me... But few times, i was lucky enough to get
a response - but it was not pleasant... When there are bike lanes, if
someone still rides on the sidewalk, then that person needs more
knowledge than one could impart in that short duration, so i just ignore it.

Some people think it's safer to ride facing traffic, so they can see the
cars coming. They've been told it's safer to walk this way, so they
project this to riding a bike.

The problem, as you say, is knowledge. When we were kids in the 70s we
had lots of bike safety education in school, because over 80% of us rode
to school. As bike use has dwindled, the safety education went away with
it.

Hopefully programs like Safe Routes to School will bring it back.

Matt O.

Ravi said:

Claire Petersky said:

there were so many cars ahead of me, I missed the light, so I have to sit

i do quite the contrary. If there are few cars, i behave like a car and
wait behind those few cars and then take the turn like a car. But when
there are 5+ cars, then i go past them to the front - provided it is
safe to do so. Lane-splitting is legal in Calif., not sure about your
state.. The idea being it increases visibility and awareness of your
presence.

That's the way I generally handle it too. The only two problems that
I see arising are when the turning car to your left wants to enter a
driveway immediately after rounding the corner. (they tend to cut
diagonally across the intersection) Or when there's a right turning
vehicle in the opposing lanes. (that driver may be focused on the
other left-turning cars and totally oblivious to your presence)
--
zk

"Claire Petersky" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

So, I'm sitting at a light on one of the streets in Chinatown at Dearborn.
It's one of these long, long, lights, the sort that take 90 million years
to turn green. I'm not joking, we could shed our physical forms and evolve
into pure energy beings in the time it takes the light to turn green, and
since there were so many cars ahead of me, I missed the light, so I have
to sit through the whole light cycle.

Some guy is riding the wrong way up the sidewalk. I understand the
temptation -- the light takes forever, so you turn left up the sidewalk
(or bike lane, Dearborn has bike lanes on both sides), and then when the
traffic clears, you cross over the 5 or 6 empty lanes and get on the bike
lane on the proper side. But Dearborn, in my experience, is a dangerous
street when it comes to turning cars. I'm a relatively good girl, and
still, I have had several close encounters with turning autos on Dearborn,
plus the one time I've actually been hit was someone turning into
Chinatown while I was riding on Dearborn.

I see him coming up the sidewalk, and I say, "Dude, wrong way." He takes
this badly, makes an obscene gesture and calls me a dumb [censored]. No sooner
does he completes his invective, but he then nearly gets creamed by a
right-turning car. Rather than taking this as a sign that perhaps riding
the wrong way is dangerous; or even considering that the driver should
have looked for a pedestrian (which he could have been, I suppose) and
should be the target of his wrath; he instead sees me as the one to blame
for this near-miss, and calls me further names. I said, "hey, it's just,
if you ride the wrong way, you're more likely to get hit -- it's your
choice!" Well, he rode off, yelling one more thing my way after riding
another block -- I guess it took him that long to think of it.

Eventually, the light did turn green, and I made my left on to Dearborn.
From the viewpoint of getting from point a to b as fast as possible, he
certainly had the advantage over me, as he was so far ahead, he was a tiny
dot down the road.

--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
http://www.bicyclemeditations.org/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

Well I tend to let them do their own thing. If they aren't good at it then
they get removed from the gene pool.
No since bothering with it.
Heck it is best to try to be nice to everyone if possible, you never know if
that other person might be your boss one day or you might be trying to get
them to buy something, or you get hurt somehow or breakdown and they come to
your aid, and so on.
Heck even I am not above riding on the sidewalks when it is to my advantage
to do so. There are certain roads at certain times of the day, that I am not
riding a bicycle on at all. I don't even want to drive a car on a couple of
these roads sometimes. But as soon as you go for the sidewalk, you are now a
pedestrian and all the motorists, well you know.

Ravi said:

Claire Petersky said:

there were so many cars ahead of me, I missed the light, so I have
to sit

i do quite the contrary. If there are few cars, i behave like a car
and wait behind those few cars and then take the turn like a car. But
when there are 5+ cars, then i go past them to the front - provided
it is safe to do so. Lane-splitting is legal in Calif., not sure about
your
state.. The idea being it increases visibility and awareness of your
presence.

Quoted message said:

Some guy is riding the wrong way up the sidewalk. I understand the

Wrong way on the sidewalk ? In Calif., we have even more serious
problem of people riding wrong way *IN* the bike lane. Although the bike
lane
signs indicate the direction, also there are boards indicating "wrong
way"... I have tried the "Wrong Way", "Please ride on the other side",
and all sorts of variations, most common response i got was just
silence. They just ignore me... But few times, i was lucky enough to
get a response - but it was not pleasant... When there are bike lanes, if
someone still rides on the sidewalk, then that person needs more
knowledge than one could impart in that short duration, so i just
ignore it.
Once, i was battling a stiff headwind and i came up on a guy riding in
the same lane but in the opposite direction! he had one hand on the
bike and holding a book he was reading and had earphones too. I wanted
to stop and tell, but there is are some people who are willing to
listen... and this person wasn't one.

bottomline, be happy that no-one's riding wrong way in the bike lane
and try to see if your words would have effect before you dish it
out. But if you do see some one in your lane, do protest...

I agree with every word of that post, Ravi. (pause) So what's wrong with
it?!? LOL

Zoot Katz said:

Ravi said:

Claire Petersky said:

there were so many cars ahead of me, I missed the light, so I have
to sit

i do quite the contrary. If there are few cars, i behave like a car
and wait behind those few cars and then take the turn like a car.
But when there are 5+ cars, then i go past them to the front -
provided it is safe to do so. Lane-splitting is legal in Calif., not
sure about your state.. The idea being it increases visibility and
awareness of your presence.

That's the way I generally handle it too. The only two problems that
I see arising are when the turning car to your left wants to enter a
driveway immediately after rounding the corner. (they tend to cut
diagonally across the intersection)

Happened to me once (and only once!) with a friggin' (oops, sorry --
freakin'😉 CITY BUS! Making matters worse, it was actually pulling into a
little "easement" or whatever where the stop was located, so its angle to
the right after making the left was even more acute than if just drifing or
even turning.

I came real close to being either driven into the curb and possibly run
over, or just flat out hit (and then who knows).

Got my attention, that's for sure...

Quoted message said:

Or when there's a right turning
vehicle in the opposing lanes. (that driver may be focused on the
other left-turning cars and totally oblivious to your presence)

I have one like that right off the bat from my house. Used to be two
simultaneous "opposing" left turn lanes (since changed to time stagger); now
the biggest danger is a right turner going other way -- but they usually see
that the light has changed and "we" have the green arrow.

Bill "assertiveness training wheels?" S.