I hate to judge or lump people into one group, in this case I'll make an exception.
I live in bicycle country, narrow rural roads in a mostly urban area, clubs truck their bikes out here to make mass rides. They close off roads, often mine, going around the block here is 10 minutes, with a bridge out it's over twenty in the other direction. Besides the a-holes who insist on riding two abreast, it's often impossible to safely pass a string of 30-50 bikes, a narrow road with turns and little bridges, you just can't spend that much time in the other lane. I don't get aggressive but I have had a few bikers get that way with me including one guy who started beating on my bed cover at a stop sign while I was going to church.. Long story, not my fault, he apologized!
Most are pretty good but that does not change the fact that they are a major annoyance and risk especially when you consider there are many long roads that have that third lane just for them and also some gigantic parks. My tax dollars have even taken an old rail line and turned it into a bike trail that goes across a couple counties...
So why are these bikes allowed on the road en-mass, they disrupt drivers, they are legally treated as pedestrians so if they fall off their bikes in front of you.. you're screwed...

Solution: If you are over 18, you need to have a bicycle license, register your bike and purchase liability insurance if you want to share the road with people who already have to do this. My taxes pay for these parks, road and gas taxes from my vehicles pay for those third lanes...How about we make it fair and let the Lance Armstrongs of this world pay their own way...

what say you?
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1: Preach it, Brother!

2: The haters are going to be all over this.

This webpage has a number of interesting legal revelations concerning your complaint.

https://iamtraffic.org/advocac...cycle-laws-by-state/

Bicyclers aren't too much of a problem around here, but similarly it's the walkers. Everybody and their brother out walking on the road, sometimes two, three, and four abreast., pushing baby carriages, unleashed dogs running around, you name it. 35MPH small rural road two car widths wide. Not only do we get to dodge the potholes, we get to dodge the people too.

I ride, run, and walk, and drive a lot on the roads. When running or walking, I pick low traffic rural routes, always face oncoming traffic, and get completely off the side of the road when possible if a car is coming. Most interactions with cars are good...I get off the road, they go to the other side, and we exchange a friendly wave. Most days I only encounter one or two vehicles on our three mile route...it's that low traffic.

Biking, I'd rather ride trails. It's more fun, and physics is not in your favor going up against a car, even if you're legally in the right. I ride alone or with one other person, and if there are two of us, we go single-file.

I hate all the organized events. It's a weekly thing here in the summer, and it's a PITA. I don't understand why people feel the need to pay money to run or ride in large groups on the road. I get all the same benefits doing it by myself alone, it costs me nothing, I can do it on my own schedule, and it doesn't inconvenience anybody else.

I get stuck working traffic for these events all the time, and get bitched at constantly by the inconvenienced public. I don't blame them because if you live in a certain area of town you have to deal with it every freaking weekend, but there's nothing I can do. I tell them to talk to their town councilman, but so far I don't think anybody has, or if they have at least nothing has changed.

Funny thing is, the assholes are assholes regardless if they're running, riding, or driving. We get people who finish the race really fast (usually the super intense spandex types) and then try to drive through the course to leave, disregarding officers, endangering runners, etc...other participants in the same event that they just finished. Nevermind that there are plenty of parking lots just a couple of hundred yards outside the race course, and you're about to run a 5k, so are a few extra steps really gonna kill ya? But instead you felt the need to get here early and park right at the starting line inside the race course when you had to know you were going to get done a lot quicker than most of the casual runners participating in the race, and then have to drive through the course to leave. Freaking morons.

Don’t ever go to the Alps!

It seems that everyone and their cousins get all dressed up in their spandex and ride en masse on these narrow, winding steep roads. It’s really bad when they are going downhill and use up the whole road trying to make a corner even if it’s a blind one!

Bike weenies are the worst! Freakin road nazis!

Most (not all) are smug, arrogant assholes.

quote:

Originally posted by 1860ARMY:
So why are these bikes allowed on the road en-mass, they disrupt drivers, they are legally treated as pedestrians so if they fall off their bikes in front of you.. you're screwed...

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In every state I've lived in bicycles are considered 'vehicles' when operated on roadways. As such, Bicyclists are required to observe traffic laws, such as stopping at Stop Signs and Traffic Lights, traveling in the same direction as other vehicle traffic, etc. I've never heard that Bicyclists are considered pedestrians (in the case of youth operators perhaps?), but there may be gray areas/situations where they are considered one or the other. Regardless, you can definitely get a ticket for DUI/DWI on a bicycle. Just sayin'...

quote:

In every state I've lived in bicycles are considered 'vehicles' when operated on roadways. As such, Bicyclists are required to observe traffic laws, such as stopping at Stop Signs and Traffic Lights, traveling in the same direction as other vehicle traffic, etc. I've never heard that Bicyclists are considered pedestrians (in the case of youth operators perhaps?), but there may be gray areas/situations where they are considered one or the other. Regardless, you can definitely get a ticket for DUI/DWI on a bicycle. Just sayin'...

Just hit one and see what happens and who wins, talk to any lawyer, I have, with todays moron jurys the vehicle driver/insurance will end up paying...which is why I said the bicyclist should be required to carry their own insurance...

The guy who beat on my truck had swerved to miss a pot hole and went right in front of me as I was all the way in the other lane passing him...It was sort of close, had I hit him he would own me...

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It's also very common for one or more of the lead bikes to stop in an intersection blocking traffic so that the long string of bikes can go through without stopping, seen it many times...

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quote:

I get stuck working traffic for these events all the time, and get bitched at constantly by the inconvenienced public. I don't blame them because if you live in a certain area of town you have to deal with it every freaking weekend, but there's nothing I can do. I tell them to talk to their town councilman, but so far I don't think anybody has, or if they have at least nothing has changed.

Funny thing is, the assholes are assholes regardless if they're running, riding, or driving.

I worked for our town, I was the CIO for technology and knew all the LEOs and Politicians. The cops did not have the time to go after bikers and when they were working the event it was an overtime thing where all they did was control vehicle traffic, not their fault. The politicians will not get involved because their main job is getting re-elected and pissing off any segment of the public in not in their best interest... And you are 100%correct about A-holes....

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I'm against bikes on roads with motorized vehicles.. especially roads with a speed limit above 35mph. Obviously, that's not what we have and drivers really need to practice some patience and grace with the guys on bikes.

They're terrible, even in small numbers. Just a few weeks ago I made a right turn onto a side road and came head on with a cyclist heading the wrong way in the middle of my lane. I had to swerve, she gave the "WTF?" hands before proceeding to blow the stop sign and keep going. I'm sure there are tons of good folks who ride but it's idiots like her that make me not care when I hear about one getting hit. 100% on board with charging some fee for adult riders and for police holding them accountable.

I like when they ride against traffic. I drove over a bridge last week that prevented seeing what was in the road on the other side of the bridge. When I crested the bridge, you guessed it, bicyclist coming at me head on. I just stop in these cases. I have a great dash cam and relish the thought of them explaining how them running into a parked vehicle is not their fault.

My ex neighbor was driving through our neighborhood on his way home from work and came up behind 3 ladies walking abreast taking up the entire right side of the street. He tapped his horn to get them to move and one of them just flipped him the bird over her shoulder, none of them even looked back.

So he flipped on his lights and chirped his siren. He got out and asked for IDs, they argued, he wrote all 3 of them a citation. Who knew, apparently we have a city ordinance that prohibits walking in the street if there is a sidewalk available.

I was laughing every time I saw him for weeks.

I think that, unless there is a shoulder of a specified width or a bike lane, no bikes allowed. If you want to ride on a highway, you have to get a license and pay a tax to fund installation of more shoulders or bike lanes. You ride in a motor vehicle lane, you get cited. You break other traffic rules (lights/ signs), same thing. Too many and your license is suspended.

I pay multiple taxes to drive on public highways with my truck. It annoys me when bikers think it’s their “right”. You have about as much if a “right” to drive your vehicle as I do. Both are a privilege.

We have excellent rail trail systems here in the Yoop and if I want to peddle my ass, I use them. Its amazing to me to see cyclists mixing it up with Yooper log trucks, mine trucks and tandem dumps. I will give them credit for not trying to peddle through one of our roundabouts!

I can’t stand them. I always cuss them out and talk shit. “Fucking Lance Armstrong wannabe MF’ers!” They use the street that attaches to my neighborhood. They’ll ride at rush hour and they’ll be 75 of them. You are just trying to get home and traffic will come to a halt. After 5 minutes of just sitting you get a few car lengths ahead and see nothing but bikes and why traffic isn’t moving. They all park at my local grocery store with their bike racks etc. I’ve never understood why you’d pull this shit at rush hour.

I’m a biker. More motorized than my MTB but I ride. I don’t understand these fucking people. You can get the same workout with a MTB, use sidewalks, grass, etc, and the only public road bs you’ll use is maybe crossing an intersection. My MTB is a hybrid. I have MTB wheels and road wheels. I’ll put the road wheels on it, ride at night, and take sidewalks to some industrial parking garages that have really smooth concrete. I still don’t share the road with cars and trucks. These people are absolute dipshits. What’s your $5000 wittle bicycle gonna do against a car that weighs 4000 pounds or a truck that weighs 5000 pounds? It’s just stupid. Our suburb is not the got damn Tour De France.

That sounds like a need for a regulation. Like cyclists can not cycle in groups larger than 5. There must be 2000 feet separation between groups aka groups can not be within sight of each other or within two city blocks of each other.

Stupid behaviors require stupid rules.

quote:

My ex neighbor was driving through our neighborhood on his way home from work and came up behind 3 ladies walking abreast taking up the entire right side of the street. He tapped his horn to get them to move and one of them just flipped him the bird over her shoulder, none of them even looked back.

So he flipped on his lights and chirped his siren. He got out and asked for IDs, they argued, he wrote all 3 of them a citation. Who knew, apparently we have a city ordinance that prohibits walking in the street if there is a sidewalk available.

I was laughing every time I saw him for weeks.

This is actually a Florida State Statute -
316.130(3)

The area I work has a huge problem with this and I have written a few.