Yeah, but they don't make the news, really.

You miss the point. I did of course over react. Kick someone's car, be it a **** box or $45k BMW and that guy will probably over react too. Is breaking a windshield, keying a paint job, etc. going to make the driver realize that he wronged you and you retaliated so now the score is even and the situation over? Check your local yellow pages to see how many gun dealers there are within a 10 mile radius of your home then give it some thought.There are plenty of *******s in cars who DO think they own the roads. Throwing that spark plug taped to your Cinelli will not help change their mind and it might get you seriously hurt.
For my part, I do regret that I let a tossed beverage onto a new car piss me off to the degree that it did. I'm older and hopefully wiser now. I no longer own a gun but the guy I sold it to does in fact also drive a car.

Exactly, how many of these gun deaths are criminal/criminal compared to criminal/victim? Pure numbers don't tell the whole story.

I'm not sure if handguns are illegal here in the bay, but I know that FOR SURE I will get messed with if I visit certain areas.

For American cities, nearly all of them. The exceptions are domestic violence and a very small number of carjackings, robberies, etc.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/lirpa.html#bayonetz

Sheldon of course has taken care of this already

after reading thru the latest developments in this thread, i think i'm gonna go slap an NRA sticker on my big, oversized bike.

excellent facts on guns and protection can be found at https://www.jpfo.org
it's up to you whether you choose to own guns, and any reason to is legitimate under the law. that's what makes america beautiful. preserve liberty. if you don't like it, don't participate.

You know. I think the basis of a lot of your arguments against retaliating towards drivers is that "they have a right to the road too." And to that I say B*ll****. The auto industry is one of the most destructive forces in this country and has been for the last 150 years (give or take). I mean, read the last chapter or two of "the Immortal Class." cars made our nation super f*cked up and for that I feel that not only should drivers be harassed when they nearly hit me, but at any other time. I think we should deface their cars and spit in their faces for making this a system where if you don't have a 6 cylinder internal combustion engine under your ass then you're not important. I hate drivers and that's why I do the things I do. I appreciate the rest of you who don't do them and instead try to make bikers out of them, but I can't get past my hatred to do that. That is all.

uh-oh... dive for cover, Oni. incoming!

are you joking? at first i thought you might be, but i dont think you are!

guns make america beautiful!? what the hell, your crazy. i cant believe anyone could be pro gun and ride a fixie, its just not right.

no, i'm pro freedom. i don't like nitwits who take away my liberty. how would you feel if someone outlawed and confiscated your fixie becaues it has no brakes? sure, you think you are responsible, and can handle it just fine, and i'm sure you can. but there are those out there who do not share your belief, simply based on *superficial* facts. have you noticed that countries all over the world are gaining more and more rights every day, while we are getting more and more taken away? my beliefs on the matter are strictly libertarian, not redneck. do you feel me, or do you still think i am a LoOnY?

Really, can we just stop the gun debate? Has anyone reading this crap actually changed their mind even a little bit? Has anyone put forward any new arguments? Does this have JACK ALL to do with single-speed or fixed gear bicycles? No? Hm, I'm stumped then.

Really, if you're confused there are a million and one web pages and studies out there that will argue either side of the issue. There are mailing lists and forums much like this one where you can go to get a personal explanation. I keep opening this thread thinking there's something interesting here only to find more of this crap.

Now, on to the "drivers are evil and deserve our hatred." Bull-freaking-crap. The urban automobile sucks and is evil. Our national transportation policy is completely F'd. The automobile is destroying our environment and our society. Much of this is at the behest of the automobile industry (GM's Futurama, anyone?) which pushes a one-size-fits-all model. Is it a coincidence that one size happens to be the privately owned automobile? Nevertheless, the car has many uses: delivering big loads of food stuffs to your favorite restaurants, hauling lumber, interstate shipping, etc. Or maybe you'd like to trade all the evil automobiles for ye olde draft horse which made congestion just as bad, caused the street gutters to run green with muck on rainy days, and clouded the air with greeny brown dust on dry. Drivers are not evil, car culture is. Most drivers are just average people trying to go about their lives.

They Don't Get It.

They don't realize or haven't internalized the impacts of the choices they make. They don't see how they are supposed to get from their home to work without using a car. They're scared of any other mode of transport. Walking, biking, and public transportation are all inconvenient and/or dangerous. See, the beauty of car culture and autocentric development is that once it takes hold, it's a positive feedback loop. Cars isolate us from our environment, so the environment is allowed to degrade and only the most hardy or the most vulnerable are left to fend for themselves. So more and more people adopt a car to get away from that. Cars need space, so we build on a spread out scale (sprawl) to accomodate them. Now you need a car to go places and do things. And so on. Most drivers are clueless.

Combating car culture requires getting the drivers of this nation (and the world) to recognize and understand the damage done by the automobile. Then it requires active efforts to roll it back. Those efforts will have to occur on every level from the very local to the national.

You spitting on and confronting drivers for no reason only makes them angry. They don't understand where your anger comes from and instead see some stupid-ass punk on a bike. Now all cyclists are stupid. Guilt by association.

This morning I found myself pounding on the hood of some dude's (or dudette's--didn't look) big green SUV. But that was because this person decided to merge into my left side. Either they didn't look for me or they figured they could force me from the lane (which incidentally would have been into the side of a bus). So I got angry because they were actively threatening me and I was making it clear that I would not be cowed and would retaliate if further provoked. That's the difference.

End rant.

guns make america have the highest murder rate per capita in the world. or maybe americans are just inherently violent. maybe if you take our guns away everyone would go around killing each other with sporks.

tim

Man, I hate guns to the point where I feel uncomfortable standing near a policeman visibly carrying one sometimes (This might stem from one bad experience...), but you actually raised a decent point there about liberties. And I fee ya onl the libertarian thing, I went out with a girl for a few years that was libertarian (along with most of her immediate family) so I got to know ALL about that... does't always make sense and gets a little... 'utopian' sometimes, but I can agree with a lot of those principles - I don't think the gov't should control nearly as many things as they do.

thanks, ryan. yes, it is utopian. but isn't a car-free society also such? car-free can be taken two ways. 1) free OF cars, or 2) free FROM cars (released from dependency). i'm for the latter. personally, i haven't operated a car for nearly four years, but have been fortunate to live in an area with decent resources at a reasonable proximity.

May I recommend this book. Its about society's dependence on labor saving devices and machines.... Its a fascinating book really.

What correlates fixie riding and anti-freedom? Does the choice of bicycle drive train make you liberal minded?

The looney anti-gun/anti-car/anti-intelligence in this forum is a bit perplexing but the thing that REALLy drives me insane is this:

All of you so called counter-culture fixie riders think that you're going against the grain and working to be non-comformists. In the end, you simply struggle to be like every other "fixie rider". You work to fit in a mold. You're not individuals, you're not unique or rebellious, you're just a cookie cutter liberal whose head has been filled with backward rhetoric by people who want to control your lives because you can't be bothered to actually study the issues and form an educated opinion of your own. Oh yeah, and you ride a bike with one speed...

What kind of a person would think that political opinions relate to bicycle drive trains? You either have a penchant for regurgitating senseless information or you are trying very hard to conform and give yourself some kind of identity.

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Boston Trev- I'm starting to agree with you and I feel I should make the distinction between harassing drivers at any time just for being drivers and harassing drivers for being belligerent and destructive. I wouldn't harass some conservative driving soccer mom in her Subaru who was driving 3 kids around all day; even though I think there are better ways she could get around. I would however harass ANY a**hole that tried to run me over, or cut me off, or turn across my bike lane, etc. etc. as well as any texan wannabe in their big old SUV all by themselves who's driving like they own the road and everyone else should get out of their way, even if it isn't affecting me. It's a matter of defending my environment as well as my immediate well being. I realize that the way I do it isn't the most effective way, and you've all convinced me to try and change, but I don't agree that these people don't deserve to be confronted.
~ONI

Well, at first i was pissed, until I realized he has a point.

Just because s/he has a point does not make the point relevant. Identifying one's self as a member of a sub-culture doesn’t mean that one sees her/his self as an individual. In fact it means the opposite. This is not news, nor is it interesting

BTW, I'm not a cookie cutter liberal. I'm godless commie scum.

sorry, so your a libetarian that is pro gun?
thats a contradiction in terms.

countries around the world gaining more rights? i dont think so. most countries are in abject poverty.
if you want rights, dont fight for gun rights because guns wont solve a thing. you should be against things like ID cards and such like...

Yeh, because who wants to ID a dead body?

so...who rides fixed gear?

Yeah, lets highjack this thread too.

I collect IDs from dead bodies. That's what I use my stash pocket for.