While I personally object to any arguments justifying using one or even most cyclists to generalize to all cyclists or giving someone an excuse to think of one cyclist as giving all cyclists or a specific group of cyclists a bad name, I can say I've seen many bicyclists who have a general disregard for the law. A couple of weeks ago, a young lady wearing a dress while riding a bicycle actually told me to "It's ok. Let's go", as she rode past me and ran a red light. She wanted me to run a red light. That really annoyed me. Not only was she breaking the law, but she was trying to get me to break the law with her. If you break the law, you're on your own. Don't try to tell others to break the law also. I break a few laws also, but I'm not going to encourage others to break any laws I break and I am prepared to face the consequences of any laws I break.

Generally, I have a live and let live attitude. I'm going to follow the traffic laws. If someone else wants to break the law, it is fine with me as long you aren't endangering me. However, while riding downtown yesterday, I had near misses twice with bicycle riders running red lights. I also had several pedestrians walk into crosswalks in front of me when I had a green light.

I think there may be some benefit to advoocacy groups trying to educate cyclist on following the rules. But that will be limited. I think the most effective way to get compliance would be enforcement of some strict penalties. On the other hand, I think people in cars are far more dangerous even if they run red lights at a far lower rate and are generally more predictable. Stricter enforcement of laws on cyclists with harsher penalties may improve compliance, but considering the greater danger from cars, I think more education and then stricter enforcement of traffic laws against car drivers should have a higher priority than enforcement against bicyclist. I'll live with the rogue bicyclist for a while.