Subject: Re: Biker radicals

From: [email-masked] (Slackerjj)
Date: 17 Jul 1995 22:57:19 -0400

Sorry, I couldn't help responding to an idiot.

>I've been reading a bit in the rec.bicycles.soc group for a bit now and
>you won't believe what some of those guys (and it's all guys, women have
>too much common sense) seem to believe.  Look I love bikes, I support
>bike paths, and I sometimes go out biking.  When I ride I use a bike
>path or the sidewalk when ever I can and when I do use the road I know
>well enough that I should stay out of the way of cars.  I mean it's just
>common sense and, I thought, the law (the cops never hassle me about
>it).
>
>Anyway, these guys in rec.bicycles.soc seem to think that they should be
>treated just like a car and boy do they get pissed-off when you point
>out the obvious fact that they aren't.  Unfortunately, it seems that
>these radical bikers have got the law changed from what it used to be.
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah, I don't know why bikers would want to ride from A to B without
slamming into half of the people on the sidewalk (I'm sure "RADICAL"
bikers
would rather slam into people.  Being how RADICAL they are.)

>I know when I was a kid the cops used to tell you to ride on the
>sidewalk and if you had to use the road to ride on the left side so that
>you could get off the road if you saw a car coming.  

You might spent some time considering some other factors in the change in
laws.  Kids are being taught the ("NEW RADICAL WAY OF") riding with
traffic
instead of against not only because it is safer, but...  Have you heard of
a moped.  A 15 year old kid can ride one of those.  Can you imagine if
they
were to go against traffic?  A closing speed of 70+ mph!  It would
splatter
the kid pretty well.

>If there had been
>bike paths I know they would have told you to ride there.  Now it seems
>that bikes don't have to ride on the sidewalk (they aren't even supposed
>to!) or the bike path and they are not even supposed to ride on the
>left.  Hell, it even seems to be legal for them to make a left turn from
>the left lane (go figure)!

Now here I might agree with you.  I mean who are cyclists to think of
their
own safty above a 3 second delay of a motorist god?  Look at the previous 
posts on left turns.  We do it, because it is the safest thing to do.

>What's really wacky about this is that I know some real car hating
>eco-freaks and they agree with me about these guys, they're nuts.  They
>know that cars and bikes don't mix and that's why they're big on bike
>paths.  These radical bikers seem to hate bike paths and say that they
>are more dangerous than mixing it with cars (well I guess they might be
>more dangerous if you're going to wear those stirrup things and ride
>like Greg LaMode).  What's a real hoot is that these radical bikers get
>as pissed-off with the car hating eco-freaks as they do with drivers.
>When I ask my car hating eco-freak friends why should the government
>spend my tax money on bike paths if bikers don't even have to use them,
>all they can do is shrug their shoulders.  I mean what's the point to
>bike paths if they don't get bikes off the road?!

This is a world with a great deal of problems.  Grow up, SHUT UP, and
take it.  WOULD YOU LIKE A TISSUE?

>I spent a week in Holland and I'll tell you they don't put up with any
>of that crap there.  Bikes have their paths and the law says that they
>have to use them and you sure as hell don't see any bikes on the roads
>(at least the main ones).  If you could have American roads (Dutch ones
>are too crowded) and Dutch bike paths and Dutch bike laws it would be
>great.  Of course you'll never see that here with the sort of egghead
>politicians we get and with every minority group whining about their
>rights.

That would be nice if our "bike" paths (assuming wrongly that these bike
paths
are made for bikes only) actually got us to where we wanted to go (at a
reasonable amount of speed).

>So what do we do about it?  Well if they want to be treated like drivers
>then we treat them like drivers, by