Originally Posted by
fly:yes/land:no
it is not grumpy for someone to tell you that this kind of behavior pisses off drivers:
maybe i should just roll my car through the middle of an intersection some time. if anyone gets mad, i will just label them as grumpy and say they don't have friends.
and btw, several group rides in orange county have been the targets of ticket operations at stop signs and red lights for similar offenses. but, i don't think those cops were enforcing the traffic laws. i think they were just being grumpy.
In Central Park in Manhattan, cops have been ticketing cyclists for various offenses (running red lights, speeding, not yielding to pedestrians) b/c some in the park for years have been treating the 6 mile loops as their personal race course. Again, if you've ridden in the park, you'll realize that they represent a very small minority, but everyone's being ticketed and inconvenienced (and made poorer) because of the commnunity backlash.
Just across the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, NJ where hundreds (if not thousands) of NYC cyclists go every weekend, the police there have also started a ticketing campaign apparently because somebody saw cyclists salmoning and doing other dangerous and inconsiderate things on their roads and it sparked complaints. Again, many innocent folks got ticketed.
Few who violate traffic laws and display other inconsiderate behavior toward motorists affect the rest of us who try to enjoy this sport as safely as possible.