Living Car Free - NYT: Men On Bicycles

I drive the speed limit or under when using a car... does that make me a bad person/driver?

Some people apparently think so. When I had a car a guy followed me home to lecture me on what a bad driver I am for doing 25mph in my neighborhood where the speed limit is 25mph. He was pretty irate. Since then the city has put bike lanes and speed humps on the main street he followed me on. Part of the bike lane discussions was that it would narrow the car lanes as a traffic calming measure. The city put gaps in the speed humps so bikes don't need to do the bumps. The people living on the street wanted the city to put in stop signs at every intersection to slow the cars to a safe speed but the city didn't want to go that far. Some of the people living on the street had the crazy idea that their kids should be able to walk to school safely.

You could just ride a bike and forget about the no-win driving games. With a bike you just ride, some speedster wants to pass you, he passes. With a car, you speed and you get shaken down by the cops, you do the speed limit and creeps follow you home to cuss you out. As I type this I see a guy parking illegally when there is a legal space one car length away- if he knows how to parallel park. He's got one of those illegal coverings on his license plate so the traffic enforcement cameras can't get his number. I wonder if he thinks you're a bad driver when you do the speed limit?

"Hogging the middle of the road?" Well that negates any credibility the author had right off the bat...

Really, what is the problem with sticking with the flow of traffic? How incredibly difficult of a concept is it?

You guys mean to tell me that you're going to drive and CREATE a 30-mph speed differential just so that you can feel better about yourselves?

Are you really that stupid? Honestly, do you expect that it makes sense?

Why should I bother saying anything at all...

Yes why indeed. Someone has to start slowing down the herd. I agree with wahoonc most drivers are just too damn fast and not very aware of basic safe driving. It's almost an unwritten rule here to have a designated tail-gater within 45 seconds. Although with traffic and the stop signs and lights I beat them downtown every time they still rage in their cage. I live carfreee and you are a cager on a bike.

Someone has to start slowing down the herd.

And you think that any one person can do that?

We don't have too many immigrant laborers here; most of our immigrants are medical professionals at the hospitals or engineers at the chemical companies. The sort of cyclists we are talking about here tend to be either African-Americans or Poor Mountain Whites, but they display the same behaviors you mention--riding on the left, wrong way on one-way streets, blowing through traffic lights, riding at night without lights, not signaling, and riding on the sidewalk (which is against the law in most WV cities.) And when they get creamed in traffic, people tisk-tisk about how dangerous cycling is.

NO IT ISN'T---not if you aren't an idiot about it and take some elementary precautions.

And you think that any one person can do that?

I was actually speaking in a general sense of the word meaning the group that already follows the law. I think there is ample proof that you save fuel by staying under 55MPH. Of course you could take mass transit and really save. Damn sunday bikers.:rolleyes:

So I'm a "Sunday biker" because I've driven my car maybe five times since December...

At least I haven't forgotten HOW to drive.

So I'm a "Sunday biker" because I've driven my car maybe five times since December...

At least I haven't forgotten HOW to drive.

Why is this topic (slow road users getting it the way of faster users) such a sore point for you? I've noticed that you put this idea in your sig and in a lot of your posts, and you become very impassioned when discussing it. You seem to feel that cyclists and other slower road users are like turds on the highway. I wonder if you had some experience that instilled this in you.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, and your opinion doesn't bother me. I'm not trying to antagonize you or anything like that. I'm just curious because this is an unusual attitude for a carfree person (or any cyclist for that matter) to have.

It's not just "slow road users getting into the way of faster users", it's road users going at a significantly different speed from the herd. Somebody trying to drive 80 mph when everyone else is going 50 is just as much of a self-absorbed jackass.

I'll pick out one incident in particular, and probably think of some more for another post --

Where I grew up, taking a ramp to merge onto an interstate highway meant getting up to speed before the end of the ramp -- usually about 70-75 mph. This meant that you could slip right into traffic without disturbing its flow. Do it just moderately well and other drivers won't even have to tap their brakes.

Several years ago, in Pennsylvania, I went to turn onto an interstate onramp. Also on the ramp, there was another car about 100-150 yards ahead of me, which appeared to be moving along normally. I got on the gas (as usual; my Civic wasn't exactly a rocketship), accelerated up the ramp, saw no brake lights from the other car, and turned my head to get an early glimpse of the traffic already on the interstate. Although it was fairly light, there were enough cars that I knew I needed to hustle.

I turned to the front, and the other car was coming to a dead stop. I mean stationary. And here I was, speedometer crossing 60 mph. I swerved onto the shoulder, flew past him, throwing gravel everywhere, and merged into traffic just as smoothly as I've done for years.

I kept checking my mirror to see what this person was doing, and for as long as I could see them, they didn't budge. They remained at a standstill at the top of the ramp. And, the traffic was just busy enough that they weren't getting a big enough gap to accelerate up to speed so they could merge safely.

I never saw this kind of behavior until I got out East, specifically in Pennsylvania. I saw it several other times, but sometimes it had some justification, like a very short merge area or a decreasing-radius onramp that forced drivers to slow down just as they should be speeding up.

One night, at a friend's party, I met a couple from PA. I must've been a bit buzzed by that point, because I asked them, do they teach drivers in Pennsylvania to stop before merging onto an interstate highway? He said, "Well, sometimes you have to stop to get a good look."

God damn. First, if you can't get a good look in your mirrors, you've got them set up wrong and don't know how to use them. The shoulder check should only need to be brief and not require you to molest the steering wheel so you can crane your neck out the window.

Second, if you're trying to merge from a dead stop, and you need to do it safely, you still need to get up to the same speed as everyone else. Even in my current car, which is only a bit quicker than average, it takes me at least 700 feet to get to freeway speeds -- and that's under ideal conditions at a dragstrip, with clear, tacky asphalt, grippy tires, and flooring the throttle with a good launch and fast shifting. That means that, if I were starting from rest and wanted to merge without creating much of a hassle for other drivers, I'd have to look for a gap in traffic that's at least two football fields long, hopefully even more. Unfortunately, there are plenty of times when there isn't even half of that much space, so I'd be forced out there at too slow of a speed, causing other drivers to jam their brakes (as long as they're not texting, of course).

Okay, so that story was about merging into traffic. What does it matter when someone's creating a large speed differential and they're already on the highway?

What happens is that everyone else is suddenly trying to change lanes to get around the slower driver. Say that there are three lanes of traffic, everyone's going about 75 mph, I'm in the center lane, and there's a 55-mph driver in the right lane a couple hundred yards ahead.

That slower car really doesn't affect me, of course. But, the other drivers to my right, who are also going about 70-75 mph, try looking for a way to move into my lane. If they merge ahead of me, I don't care; same if they merge behind me. When I get worried is when they're next to me -- maybe with their rear bumper next to my front fender -- and they start looking around, glancing in every direction like a nervous bird, hoping to move over in the next ten seconds. Meanwhile, I'm hoping that they see me, and I end up looking to my left just in case I have to move over to make room for them.

All of this doesn't take more than ten or fifteen seconds, but it's a crucial ten or fifteen seconds. If somebody screws up here, it could be one of those multi-car pileups, or just another fender-bender that's still going to tie up traffic for the next hour and a half while people call their ambulance chasers.. I mean, lawyers.

My point is, your influence on other road users extends far beyond your own two or four (or eighteen) wheels. Blinkered, self-inflicted ignorance won't help at all, and your own survival becomes dependent on other people paying good attention to what's going on. When you think about that, and think of how many idiots there are out there (we talk about them all the time on BF, right?), do you really want to put yourself in their hands?

My point is, your influence on other road users extends far beyond your own two or four (or eighteen) wheels. Blinkered, self-inflicted ignorance won't help at all, and your own survival becomes dependent on other people paying good attention to what's going on. When you think about that, and think of how many idiots there are out there (we talk about them all the time on BF, right?), do you really want to put yourself in their hands?

OK, these are examples of poor driving/cycling that involve speed differentials. But sometimes it's more the case that cyclists are riding skillfully and carefully, but they happen to be sharing a road with faster moving traffic. It's the nature of bikes that they're slower than cars in many (but not all) situations. IMO this can be a safe practice. Yes, we are always dependent on other road users, that can't be avoided. But if we ride alertly and defensively, we are not putting ourselves or others at an unreasonable risk.

BTW, referring to your post ahead of this one, there are (were?) a few states that required yielding rather than merging onto expressways. I don't know if PA is (was?) one of those yield states of not.

OK, these are examples of poor driving/cycling that involve speed differentials. But sometimes it's more the case that cyclists are riding skillfully and carefully, but they happen to be sharing a road with faster moving traffic. It's the nature of bikes that they're slower than cars in many (but not all) situations. IMO this can be a safe practice. Yes, we are always dependent on other road users, that can't be avoided. But if we ride alertly and defensively, we are not putting ourselves or others at an unreasonable risk.

Right, which, again, means not putting yourself in a position that requires someone else to not be an idiot. I've said elsewhere that it only takes a moment of stupidity on the part of another driver to turn you into a cripple.


BTW, referring to your post ahead of this one, there are (were?) a few states that required yielding rather than merging onto expressways. I don't know if PA is (was?) one of those yield states of not.

Most states, I'd figure, require -- or at least teach -- that the driver already on the highway should make room for merging traffic if at all possible.

But again, why force the issue? Should merging drivers wave a big sign that says, "YIELD TO ME BECAUSE THE LAW SAYS SO!" when they could simply merge safely and everyone continues on their merry way?

Right, which, again, means not putting yourself in a position that requires someone else to not be an idiot.

To some extent we put ourselves in this position every time we walk out the door. In fact, a guy was killed in his bed recently when a plane dropped out of the sky onto his house. But as cyclists, we are not deliberately putting ourselves in any dangerous postition when we ride out in the morning.

I take narrow outer lanes all the time, and drivers merge over to pass me without killing me, themselves, or you. They may be delayed in their travel by a few seconds but frankly, I don't care. If everybody left their house 5 minutes earlier, death rates on highways would go down by a factor of ten.

(BTW, could we please try to talk about cycling rather than driving? The car references on this forum are getting boring.)