Signs of the times
Mood:  caffeinated
It is amazing what goes through your head when you are looking to punch out. On my commute a car was turning, traffic backed up. As it was a main road and I normally ride to the side, I began passing the cars -- until I got to this one prick who had pulled all the way up to the curb. Unclipping the foot I normally don't use, I stopped and barely missed gettin' squashed. Naturally in the second before I hit the brakes, my mind wandered...

Thinking of that incident in Oregon where a cyclist who looked like ZZ Top ran a stop sign and hit a woman crossing in an "unmarked crosswalk", I couldn't help but notice on my way to work that there's this one stopsign I sometimes go through. Mind you, I slow first, but if no one is driving on the shoulder I'll go.

I thought about why this is . After all, I stop for red lights and signal when turning left or right. If riding with others I point out potholes, etc. So why do I sometimes go through the stopsign?

The answer is as obvious as it is a no-brainer; I'm riding on the shoulder, not in the middle of the lane. Ergo, even if there is a car coming, I am riding parallel to him, not in line with him, so it endangers neither him nor me to turn, provided he's not driving on the shoulder or the curb.

This is one of the paradoxes of cycling. Though bicycles are the only vehicles with a legal right to "share the road" aside from consenting motorbikers, the convention is for cyclists to keep to the side on main roads, if they are going slower than traffic -- the exception to be when coming up to a red light you go into the right lane, or when turning left you go in the left lane.

This occurs to me as I ponder the response of angry motorists who often shout at me to "get over" and stop "taking up space" - or the prick who nearly turned me into a chef salad:
First, if cyclists have to obey traffic laws -- and we do -- should we not be entitled to road space as much as cars?
Secondly, if cycling Americans are going to ride off the side to make way for faster moving cars -- i.e., not be entitled to "equal" road space -- than why should they then stop for cars that are no longer in their line of travel? If the cars want you to ride on the shoulder, then why should you wait for traffic backed up in the main lane if the shoulder is clear? The fact is this paradox is impossible to now resolve; the same people who demand you "keep right" as far as possible, will -- during a traffic jam -- block the "right" so you cannot go past. Ride in line with the cars, get b!tched at and maybe hit; ride on the shoulder, get squished or blocked in.

If cyclists ride erratically, it leads to condemnation of "dangerous" bikers. If cars drive erratically, the bicyclists are expected to accommodate them. That the cyclists may only be riding in this manner to avoid erratic drivers almost never occurs to the bike bashers who would like to yank us off the roads and confine us to useless bike paths in lifeless parks.

Look mack, either I ride in lane -- or not. And if you want me on the shoulder, don't f#$%ing block it.

Perhaps if the drivers were consistent this would not be a problem, but until they can learn to stick with one line of thought, it means cyclists will have to be vigilant.

But it wouldn't hurt for drivers to stop being erratic, either.

-- Elvis