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1. I just wrote a blog post on the car vs. bike situation in Northern California. The bottom line is a place is either physically built for humans or it’s built for machines. You really do have to choose.

   http://granolashotgun.com/2015/09/03/bridge-and-tunnel/

2. Yes, there should be a place for bicyclists in our cities, but there should be a place for pedestrians too. I’ll be a lot more sympathetic to their demands to “share the road” when they stop harassing pedestrians in crosswalks.

   It would also help if bicyclists would obey traffic laws better. It’s pretty dumb to pass a car in the same lane and while traffic is coming the opposite direction. Some bikers seem to have a weird desire to be a biking fatality. I can’t figure out if it’s due to some kind of martyr complex, or if they have a victim mentality that makes them think they shouldn’t have to be responsible for their own safety. Everyone else should watch out for them, even when they’re being stupid! If everyone else doesn’t do that, it’s because those evil drivers/society/whoever is oppressing them! Get a brain.

   Personally, though, I’d like to ride a bike in our small town. The only way to do that safely here is to ride on the sidewalk, which is illegal. Our roads are way too narrow to accommodate cars and bikes safely. Sometimes it seems like the roads are too narrow for regular cars and pickup trucks to share safely. Especially when a large minority of pickup drivers here seem to think that being in the bigger vehicle gives them automatic right-of-way!

   There’s no way to widen most of the roads in my town without taking out a lot of older homes that were built back when front yards were much smaller. Legislation mandating that bicyclists have a legal right to share the road isn’t going to make doing so safer. The only thing that will change this is a cultural change. Americans are driving fewer miles per year now, so eventually my town may be safer for biking … probably when I’m too old and decrepit to want to do so! 🙂

3. Hmmmm. How much damage do the most reckless renegade cyclists do to pedestrians and motorists? Now compare that to the carnage that unfolds every day by aggressive drivers whizzing by at 60 MPH… You can focus on the 0.00001 incidents where a bike causes trouble. Or you can acknowledge the elephant in the room – which is shaped like millions of speeding cars. Which gets back to my point. Towns can either be built for cars or they can be built for humans. You have to choose. Most towns go with the cars. I just don’t want to live in one of those places.

4. Car drivers greatly outnumber bicyclists. If bicyclists want our laws and infrastructure to be changed to make it safer to ride a bike on the public roads, it would be wise to show the same consideration to others that they are demanding for themselves.

   Trying to excuse the rudeness and stupidity the rest of us have seen from too many bike enthusiasts by saying that they can’t do as much damage as a car doesn’t help your case. That argument just reminds the rest of us of some of the incredibly stupid things we’ve seen bicyclists do that could have seen them flattened by a car if the driver hadn’t been paying attention or had such good reflexes. Someone riding a bike shouldn’t act like they’re in a video game without real life consequences.

   Also, this affects normal everyday people who might want to ride a bike to work to get exercise and save gas. First, normal people don’t want to be associated with the crazies who act like they’re members of a bicycle cult that glorifies martyrdom by car/bike collision. Secondly, the level of safety for all bikers decreases when the Crazy Cultists’ behavior adds to the animosity between car drivers and bikers. Lastly, laws and infrastructure are unlikely to change enough to significantly increase bicyclists’ safety when a lot of other people see them as crazy nuts who are rude and stupid.

5. Johnny, Biker: I thank you for your passion, and you opinions matter– and both of you, I’m sure, have supporters among the people who are reading these comments. But I’m going to close this debate now, because it won’t lead anywhere, except to more bad feelings.

   This exact debate (selfish drivers vs. crazy cyclists) ignites every single time the topic of bike lanes comes up, both on the Internet and in real life. It’s like a script that gets read over and over again, leading nowhere. We really need a new script, and we need one soon.

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