Originally Posted by kidcolin
i'm gonna sound like the goody-too-shoo (sp?) here.. but some of this is pretty absurd to me.
taking off cuz you bump a rear view is one thing.. but taking off when you know you did some serious damage is pretty whack. or when you purposely whack a car with your U lock. some drivers probably deserve it.. some of them though probably just made an honest mistake and now they've got damaged property because of some prick who thinks every car is the enemy.
if a bike ****ed your car up, you'd expect some compensation. and rightfully so. but the other way around doesn't seem to fly, cuz well.. they're cars. we either assume a car owner can afford the damage (which is dumb), or we justify it as another victory in the war against cars.
i'd love to see rollerbladers take a militant stance against bikes.. well not really.. i frickin' hate rollerblades. but i'd find it funny if one day everyone was posting about some rollerblader doing hit and runs on a bunch of bikers.
subcultures are so interesting.. yet so predictable.
I realized that typing what I typed without anyone here ever really meeting me in person, can make what I said sound pretty harsh. I ride everyday through the city, I live in the city, work in the city.... philadelphia is a fairly "bike filled" city... you will see a fair amount of bikes here... but not many bike lanes. 99.9% of the time everything is great, I do get into a few close calls with people not signaling and turning abruptly... but there are the few occasions where my bike is seen as the enemy, that is when I DO condone protecting yourself. I have had drivers try and rub my back tire (which is crazy because I think this person thought it would just simply "give me a bump" when in actuality if they made contact I probably would have been dragged under their car) I have had drivers throw things, I have had drivers purposely try and run me off the road and into parked cars.... this is mostly in Old City at night (when the bars let out and the club kids have to get back to jersey). I am not a lock weilding maniac, I am a professional, I ride in the mornings in my suit and tie, at night with my rolled up pants and tshirts and I never purposly see cars as the enemy. I guess I had to clear things up that I am not declaring War on cars or drivers... most bikers also own cars and drive them... I do feel that we need to share the road but unfortunatly there are a few drivers out there that dont understand that a collision between a car and a bike will never result in the driver getting hurt, its almost ALWAYs the biker.
man, I hate being serious about stuff.....