My morning commutes are usually without incident. Routine would be an understatement.

This morning, however, I was near Jefferson Highschool on this road.

The road is very narrow. There is barely enough room to pull off and let others pass. Perhaps 12" between mirrors. Oh and there are NO PARKING signs on the road as well because it is so narrow. People still do not observe them as they drop the kids off even though the next block over allows for stopped parking.

Admittedly I was late out the door, but not for work. This street is very dangerous around 8 am because people are parking on the side, stopping in mid traffic, cutting others off pulling out in front of cars and pedestrians. So when I see a hole shot I take it. This morning my hole shot came and as I took the shot I came up the grade and passed two people to my right in a cross walk and another that was just starting across. I had to swerve and miss another that was not crossing in the cross walk.

Bad choice, maybe, but I figured I was safer moving that standing still.

So then as I pass the cross walk a car comes up behind me and starts yelling about cross walks etc... I slide over to the right to let him pass. I rarely take the lane in downtown I usually stay to the right and let cars pass. He does not pass instead he lays on his horn for 3 city blocks. I slowed way down and moved farther to the right but not in the bus lane and still his horn sounded and he followed.

I thinking at this point that someone is about to have a bad morning. Either he is just going to ram me or I am going to run into a bus and be forced to take the lane and risk irking him more.

He passed me between the 3rd and 4th block yelling something obscene and I replied with a have a good morning.

I am a big boy. If my behavior was out of line I can take it.

When people are in the crosswalk they have the right of way, we all know that. Either way it's inconsiderate to ride (especially quickly) through the crosswalk and have to dodge people.

Maybe the guy in the car had a bad experience with a bike before and was taking it out on you. Still, show pedestrians the same courtesy you expect from cars.

You could have just stopped, both at the crosswalk and with the driver.

I agree the cross walk was a bad choice, but I felt at the time that my safest option was to keep moving. Now would I have stopped if the people were smack in the middle of my lane in the cross walk. YES I WOULD!

However the people were almost to the sidewalk, approximately one car width from the sidewalk.

I am not defending my behavior nor am I trying to justify it. I am just trying to stay safe out there and dodging cars and people well sometimes you gotta make a decision in the moment.

I wish I could stalk and berate every motor vehicle I saw breaking the law.

Unfortunately being the slower moving vehicle drivers can follow and honk and scream all they want, whether youre right or wrong.

I was riding in the bus lane on fifth ave (manhattan) this morning and a yellow cab was honking behind me because he wanted to pass. As far as I know I have as much of a right to that lane as he does when he is trying to turn, and have more of a right when traveling straight (which cabs are not supposed to do ever). I gave the slow down/stop signal with my middle finger extended, this only produced more honking. Sometimes I need to tell people "where to go", most times I let it slide.

In your case after the first block, I might have just done what someone else suggested and dismounted and got off the road.

I've made bad judgement calls and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Sometimes there are people who want to let you know about it. This guy was a lot more persistent than necessary but I understand where he's coming from. Ignoring crosswalks is a pet peeve of mine. I witnessed the aftermath of a cyclist/car collision in a bike/ped crossing. The driver wasn't paying attention.

It's quite possible in your case though that the driver just had some sort of axe to grind. Learn from it and move on. If you feel it's too dangerous to obey traffic laws in that area you might need to change routes or leave alot earlier to avoid some of the chaos.

Your earlier post seemed to indicate that you had to swerve because of people in the crosswalk.

It is no more right for you to exercise your "safest option" by imperiling pedestrians than it is for a car to swerve into the the bike lane you're riding in because that's his or her "safest action" (other than stopping).

Why would stopping and allowing the pedestrians to cross have been unsafe?

Hey, at least it didn't end up in a convenience store parking lot with you two about to throw down.

People honk all the time. You just have to sort of deal with it. Don't take the bait and get into a mud slinging contest.

The guy is just full of poo.....

I'm a little confused about the relative position between your path and the path of the pedestrians. If you passed behind them, I have no trouble with that even though I understand it's technically illegal. Around here, motorists are constantly bullying their way through crowds of pedestrians and nobody seems to follow them with their horns blaring. Although I understand the cops do enforce those laws here.

You were probably wrong. But I will admit that non-signalized crosswalks can be a tough one for me; I definitely do my best to give pedestrians right of way, but if there's a pedestrian at one side, and I have plenty of clearance, I see no reason for me to stop. However, if I am going to give a pedestrian a good reason to be nervous, or cause them to alter their stride, I definitely think I need to stop. I've occasionally misjudged, such as when there was shadow or some other issue with visibility, so I've made some poor judgement mistakes. Further, there are places where the cross walk will get such frequent use that one will never get across if one waits for all pedestrians to clear completely. Here I am willing to cross slowly through the pedestrian traffic (often with my feet on the ground, so I think I ~am~ a pedestrian at that point).

It is interesting that this guy felt compelled to be so aggressive with you, given that it is fairly likely that in the space of that minute or two, it is extremely likely that some car also crossed that crosswalk and interfered with pedestrian right of way, which is certainly even more dangerous.

Also: How do folks feel about pedestrians crossing against the light? They sometimes seem to think they're entitled to right of way as if they were in a non-signalized crosswalk, or crossing with the light...

I try to cut as close as I can in front of them. Never behind because a lot of people's first reaction is to stop, or step backwards.

Should you be expected to make excellent judgement calls when riding?

Should drivers be expected to make excellent judgement calls when driving?

Hey! We're all human!

We prove it everday, on the road...

Sleep well my friend

- Slim

I, too, sometimes ride like a jerk when I'm late. I admit this not to excuse you, but to condemn us both as human and prone to error. Lucky, being human also makes us capable of learning from our errors. So try not to be late, and when you are, don't take it out on peds.

The honker behind you was actually doing you a service, I think. If no one called you out for cutting through the 'walk, you might've felt that you'd gotten away with it, which might positively reinforce the behavior of violating someone else's right of way for your own selfish desire to get to work on time. Publicly shaming you will hopefully have the opposite effect.

Pacing you for three blocks is a bit excessive, though. Perhaps he felt that you didn't get the message and thought that his horn, if sounded for long enough, would develop from a monotone bleat into a nuanced denunciation of your inconsiderate behavior? If only there were someway to let the honker know that you understand, you're sorry, and now you both may get on with your lives without further confrontation.

Or maybe the honker, while right to chastise, is just a sanctimonious jerk who really enjoys pointing out the wrongs of others and so revels in the righteous anger of shaming wrongdoers that he cannot stop even after the shaming has accomplished what it needed to. In which case, **** him for being an error prone human.

Mmmm, delicious circularity.

To clarify. When I came up the grade I had a line of cars to my left, a line of illegally parked and wanting to get moving cars to my right and a cross walk in front of me. I had two peds one car width from the school sidewalk (to my right) and one ped just entering the cross walk from the opposite side of the street (to my left). The ped I had to swerve was the one that was let off in the middle of on coming traffic (to my left) and darted into the road without a crosswalk.

Not proud of what I did, but I also did not want to get creamed. I am looking for a different route to take if I run afoul of the clock again. I do not remember the school being this bad last year.

Not only should we, but we actually are expected to make excellent judgement calls to use your term... At least in terms of following the rules (LAWS) of the road... And illegal behavior by one party is not justification for illegal behavior by a second party... one's parents should have explained that early on...

You're from Portland, OR. You must be that guy.

How old was the pedestrian you "had to" swerve around instead of stopping? Are we talking children?

Only you can really judge the situation. I personally don't see a problem with going through a crosswalk when there's a pedestrian crossing at one side of the road or the other and plenty of room to get by -- as long as you neither inconvenience nor endanger anyone, where's the harm?

When it comes to jaywalkers, I have no sympathy -- and I say this as someone who jaywalks routinely. If they're not in a crosswalk they need to look out for themselves, so as long as you don't actually hit them, then no harm no foul.

Kirkland that is sorta Seattle. I'll give you a pass on that.

14 - 18 years old.

So far the consensus is that I am that guy.

I'll do better next time. I found a better route so I'll start that tomorrow.

The problem is perpetuating an environment that treats the right of the ped to cross the street with contempt. I don't know about Boston, but my town is pretty pedestrian hostile; when crossing at marked crosswalks with the light I get cut off as often as not, and even when I'm not cut off I'm given about two feet of clearance before someone creeps behind me. Sometimes, it feels like they're about to pull the heel of my shoe off with their tire. I've been both honked at and yelled at to "go faster" while legally crossing the road, which is total bs.

Uncontrolled crosswalks are the worst, you never know if someone is going to stop or not. If you wait on the sidewalk then traffic might never stop, but if you step out they still might not stop. You have to put a foot out and be ready to jump back, which I imagine must really suck for anyone too old or infirm to jump. Riding through occupied crosswalks like the OP certainly isn't helping. Do you ever see people running across crosswalks when they have the light? This is why, this pervasive contempt and disregard for peds that permeates our society.

As to sneaking through just because you can fit, I can do the same thing with my car when the spacing between peds is right. My car is only about 7 feet wide and the road is often +20 feet wide, so there are times when I could gun it through without forcing anyone to break stride. Just because you can safely do a thing doesn't mean that it isn't a monumentally rude thing to do. I think that violating someone's right of way just because you're larger and/or faster is pretty rude. It's wrong in a car, in a bike, and on foot. You can't whine about jaywalkers if you cut off legit peds. Well, I guess you can, but it's pretty hypocritical.

the person he had to swerve to avoid hitting was not in the cross walk. he shouldn't have blasted the cross walk even if it wasn't signed. the jaywalker shouldn't have jaywalked, and the guy honking for three blocks is an obnoxious jerk. there are nicer ways of pointing errors out and it sounds like the car was going slow enough that he could have yelled something out without using obscenity or harassing a biker.

I see illegal driving maneuvers all the time and just think, "man, if I was a cop, I'd...."
but no, I'm on a bike going a 1/4 the speed cars are going...if they are following the speed limit. Don't sweat it, OP. Live and learn.