Dum Commuter
 

I was going in early yesterday to catch up on some extra work that had came in. At the edge of the Business park (Where the office is at.) I saw another commuter coming at me in the dark! No lights on, no reflecting gear...nothing. The only way I saw him was by the light of his cig. Has anyone else seen (Or done.) Dum stuff on the road?

Lots. Pedestrians too.

Was driving the car back from the grocery, the other morning, along a narrow two-lane road. A few cars parked along the edge of the road. Sun wasn't yet up, and it was foggy. And there was this guy cycling along in dark clothing, on a dark-colored bike, with no reflectors and without a clue, salmoning wrong-way right up the lane. (I was lucky to have seen him, just barely.) Road has some curves and elevation changes. He was playing with "fire," there. Altogether likely to get run down, before someone could see him properly.

Closer to town, a good ~dozen times a month I see people in the wee hours cycling as though there wasn't anything to worry about, going the wrong direction, failing to take any measures to be seen, crossing multiple lanes blindly without first looking, etc.

Plenty of people get run over, run into, cause crashes of others, and the cyclist-involved traffic stats show it. Pitiful, the portion that is entirely avoidable and caused by such mindless behavior.

every single day I see people do stupid stuff. heck people out at night, no lights, dressed in dark clothing and smoking probably up to no good.....

Almost every morning on my way to town in the dark, I see a female jogger dressed in black clothing on the rural 55 mph road. I don't understand.

Judgemental much?

Smoking? OMG!!

Stealth commuters.

We have a very large immigrant population in my neck of the woods, hard working people, many have to be at work very early, so they are often riding when it's dark out, many bike commute as cars are expensive to purchase and insure. Typically cycling with no lights, usually dark clothing, only occasionally a safety vest, they ride everywhere - sidewalks, wrong way in traffic, back and forth. No real skills or thought as to riding safely. They also get hit and killed on a steady basis. Sad, an effort could and should be made by local governments to get these guys things like safety lights, visible clothing, and some basic education on riding safely.

Four or five years ago during a cross country trailer trip, we stopped at the Las Vegas KOA for an overnight. It was November. We saw a ton of people on bikes of all kinds, with lights, doing neighborhood things. It surprised me. The Vegas suburbs were not a place I expected to see people on bikes after dark at all, much less being good with it

I used to volunteer at a bike Co op, and we had a lights and helmets program funded by the local hospital. After a while i concluded giving bike lights to someone who couldn't afford them was not effective. They generally had much bigger problems; dealing with batteries, charging, and theft was not something they needed to add to their already stressed lives. They faced much bigger threats than being hit by a car.

damn rights I am judgmental, I just judged you on your spelling of judgmental.....but then again one can never judge another's sarcasm as it comes off a keyboard...are you judging me for being judgmental that is the real question at hand...oh I spell lots of words wrong too..:)

I remember many years ago, some commuter decided to take the four lane Interstate into Denver rather then ride the Bike path near it. Did I mention it was Dark? Yep, you guessed it, he got ran over and killed. (No lights or anything.) Yes the bikeway was a little longer but it beats getting squished! Now that Dum!!!!

Proud of being judgmental too, eh?

Not only do you not know that there is more than one way to correctly spell the word that both you and I agree describes your attitude towards strangers, you misspell the idiom emphasizing your pride in your attitude - damn rights.:rolleyes:

BTW what is your excuse for failure to follow proper capitalization rules when giving gratuitous grammar lessons? :)

This thread is evidence that there are various forms of dumb and judgmental attitudes towards cyclists and other people who don't fit the profile of allegedly smart commuters who are perfect in every way.

How about the people employing them get them things like this or pay them a wage that can?

In a perfect world that would happen. Lots of these guys work low wage jobs whose managers/owners complain when the minimum wage goes up and are unlikely to be buying bike lights and safety vests for the employees

Joggers in the dark.

dumb

Shh ... I badly want to believe it is an honest typo.

One of my unfavorites is people fishing sitting in the middle of the pathway, fishing line strung across to the canal in the dark on the MUP. You just gotta ride careful in the dark.

I see a few folks early in the morning riding on the road without any lights and dressed in darker clothing. I shake my head, cuz I have trouble seeing them. But then again, I see motorists driving around at around the same time without their full lights on. This morning at a stop light I shone my light at one such motorist to get his attention to tell him that his tail lights were not on. He didn't bother to roll down window to hear what I was saying. My guess is he probably knew his tail light was out.

So, yeah, lots of dum dums out there. Some on two wheels, some on four, and some on no wheels.

I thought it was about riding in really steamy weather.

I have had several people going the wrong way down the bike lane with clear demarcations pointing in the direction of travel. One guy kept charging towards me going the correct way and then had the gall to be angry at me for riding in the correct direction with proper lighting.

He's challenging your honor. You approach him with all your finery but where is your lance? Coward!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jousting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_(game)

Off topic, but cars without lights on is an increasing problem. I believe part of the issue is on many modern cars, the dashboard and center cluster all light up when you start the car. Many vehicles as well can be switched to an auto mode where the headlights and running lights will light up via a day/night sensor. Unfortunately many do not activate auto mode and the lights never come on. Compounded by daytime running lights that are perceived as the real headlights, but are not. Thus they drive around with no lights. My '20 Frontier is really old school and does not have its dash or center cluster light up unless you turn on the headlights, and there is no auto headlight system, so you know when no lights are on as the dash is completely dark.