Bikes a greater threat than cars, dammit
I just moved down to the DC area a month ago from an area without any dedicated bike paths, and am pretty impressed with all the bike paths and bike lanes around my new home. But as the weather improves, more and more novices and plain old knuckleheads are coming out to ride, and I'm seeing a down side to all this.
With a year of riding around my old home, where I rode with the traffic and followed all the traffic laws, and I never had a problem. But in the one month down here on these friggin' lawless bike paths, I've seen to many close calls and a few bike-on-bike accidents. People have no respect for how fast bikes travel!! It's driving me nuts.
Just yesterday, I turn onto a bikepath bridge wide enough for two bikes abreast, and some lady enters from the other end. It was a tight turn for me to get onto the bridge, so I was moving slowly, and she wasn't going that fast either. We we're about 10 yards apart, but she freaking panicked, turn into the side rail of the bridge, and no kindding she came VERY close to going head first right on over. WTF? She had no control, it's dangerous.
Then today, I actually got hit head-on but someone zooming down hill around a turn. I saw her coming along pretty fast, so I moved all the way over to the far right of my lane and I slowed down. As she came around the turn I could see her eyes get big (she was going too fast to make the turn in her own lane and I guess she realized that, but there was still enough room to get by me). Then I saw the rear tire skid a bit, but then she freaking let up off the brake and stopped even trying to turn!! She came right at me, I couldn't believe it. And I was moving too slow to scoot to the side. We both went down on the grass and no one was hurt luckily, but WTF, she had no control of her bike. It pisses me off. My front wheel needed to be replaced, and my rear derailler is bent all out of shape.
As the weather gets warmer I've been noticing more and more people who, frankly, can't control their bikes, and they're riding on these crowded multi-use paths. No one follows any traffic rules, it sucks. Last weekend I passed the immediate aftermath of a bike-on-bike accident, complete with a bloodynose and mucked up front wheel.
Am I being a jack@ss for trying to ride on these paths? I mean, do any of you high milers use these bike paths? Jeez, I just can't believe that other bikes are posing a greater danger than cars!! At least the cars have a degree of predictability about them, and follow the traffic laws!!! Arrg . . .