Lately a lot of what has been posted in the Advocacy & Safety Forum is a lot of negative threads. Threads that express people's opinions on bad driver, hit & run accidents, etc, etc. While this is not a problem & I am not complaining about it as this is an appropriate method to express your opinions & grief towards the challenges that cyclists must face I have a question for you. What are you doing about it?

By this I mean what are you doing about the ******* drivers in your community? What are you doing about the cyclists in your community that give the rest of os a bad name with unsafe & illegal riding styles? What are you doing about the fact that the public transportation will not accomodate cyclists that like to use buses, etc? I could go on but you get the general idea on what I'm asking all of you.

These are not rhetorical questions. I would like some answers to these. I ask because all I have seen is nothing but a lot of complaining & moaning about all the problems you face but don't see anything to state what you are doing about it. So pony up folks, let's hear it.

I do not think that giving the answer "I'm riding my bike in a safe, legal, predictable & non-confrontational manner & doing so I'm leading by example." won't cut it this time. That is the same as saying I'm doing anything at all right now.

If you don't know what to do about the problems you face in your community while riding that's fine. But instead of complaining about it ask what you can to solve the problems. This forum of people who have really good advice to give. All you've got to do is ask.

In my community I have helped form a trails advocacy organization to benefit the rec. trails & bike route system. For bike safety I am the RIDE RIGHT Coordinator in my area. A long time ago I stopped complaining about things & decided to do something to help fix it. In other words I decided to "crap then got off the pot". Maybe some of you should do the same.

So ask away as to what you can do I'll help you as much as I can & if I can't then I'm sure someone else will.

I haven't complained about it here in advocacy and safety, or anywhere else on this forum for that matter. But near my school people always speed, cut each other off and generally drive recklessly.

My friends and I got a petition going and presented it to the local police. Now we have two officers sitting near our school, one near a freeway off ramp which is(was) notorious for people cutting each other off and the other directly in front of our school where people used to routinely run red lights. The police officers issue tickets as fast as they can write them.

Not much to do with cycling since no one rides over there but we did make it safer for the peds and drivers.

I do something about it every day. Lead by example, I ride around the city for 5-6 hours a day properly and properly equipped. I also try to look good doing it although it's harder in the winter with snow on the ground and such.

I am involved in the Ohio CIty Bike Co-op.
We teach kids and adults road safety and bike maintanance.
While we are not an advocacy group we support commumity bike initiatives and encourage everyone to ride bikes as much as possible.
Only by being a cyclist can you understand the complexities of the relationship between bikes and motorized vehicles.
Enjoy

Well personally since I am in a community close to where Forester lives (and advocates "no bike lanes") I have been battling the anti bike lane foes...

Now I do not insist that all roads have bike lanes, but I do strongly believe that roads over 45 MPH should have bike lanes, especially in our area where there are many hills over 10% grade that a cyclist would otherwise have to take a lane on, and be grinding up hill in front of irrate motorists. This does absolutely nothing to foster a good "share the road" feeling between motorists and cyclists.

Further I want to see signs that tell motorists that cyclists may take the lane.

Now to me this whole anti bike lane / pro bike lane thing is a huge problem for traffic engineers... as long as there is disagreement they do not know whether to sh!t or get off the pot and they receive no good guidance, and therefore design bike lanes based on the best use of the road for motorists.

I also believe that there should be traffic improvement for cyclists... some areas are just plain bad. Again, this requires a collective voice from all cyclists.

I have been pushing the authorities in the UK to enforce speed limits more effectively.

I am also trying to get lower speed limits enforced in villages and built up areas 20/30mph.

I ride conspicuously all over the place. I'm on a local council bike provision forum. I keep tabs on (and write to) various transport bodies. And I'm setting up a BUG at work.

But to be honest, you just need to ride. The more regular people ride, the more conditions suit us. Get your mates to give it a go.

I don't do anything but complain here.

I don't do anything but complain here.

Lmao.

I'm a member of the local advocacy organization. And I plan to continue my membership despite the fact that I am not an advocate of bike lanes and a large part of this organizations advocacy is for bike lanes and trails. I first voted during the last election. One thing I was looking for in each local candidate was their record on bicycling, walking and transit. Otherwise, I'm not doing much.

I went to one of the Bicycle Advisory Council's meetings a couple of years ago, but haven't done well enough with personal scheduling to attend one since then. I plan to volunteer a bit more in the future. For example the past three years I always signed up to ride in the annual Bike DC. This year, I'll probably volunteer. One of the purposes of the event is to promote bicycling. I no longer need any convincing. Maybe I can help someone else.

I've been thinking of sending some money to our local bicycle coalition. I had belonged to their message board before, but it wasn't very cheery. They work a lot with Traffic Solutions to try to promote alternative transporation.

Other than that, the other day I went on a group ride and rode in the manner that I think is correct, i.e. using the left turn lane to turn left etc.

I keep tabs on (and write to) various transport bodies.

I'd love to hear more specifics on this from anyone that does it.