I don’t think bike lanes are a great idea…mostly. Don’t get me wrong: a smart, separate, and affordable way to share an interstate bridge in a town with commuting problems is one thing, but messing up the whole town with crazy little specialty lanes is a bad idea. Cruising around Memphis recently, I spent about ten miles on bike lanes and so many things came to mind:
1) The biggest problem is that when there are bike lanes around town, folks decide that’s where bikes belong. You’re not a reasonable vehicle any more the second you peddle outside the lines: you’re off the reservation. Most car drivers have this idea that they own the road, so this is already a problem if you are a pedaler or pedestrian or any of the other annoying variants getting in the way of the great automobile. I’m not looking to be, but I now am a problem if I need to leave the bike lane.
2) Bike lanes themselves make enemies: every guy who before was parking on the curb is mad, the commuter who has been funneled down to four lanes from six to make room for the bikes resents deeply, the shopkeeper whose clients must now mind a gap while parking and then dodge cyclists before they can even gain the sidewalk is incensed. Drivers generally hated bikes already; now they hate the lanes per se…and, by extension, they hate cyclists even more; that won’t help out in traffic land.
3) Bike lanes subvert basic traffic law and dumb down everyone. They’re mindless, like an interstate: we pedal onto one and turn off the brain; bike lanes appear around town, and drivers don’t need to worry about cyclists anymore so they get to think less because (see 1 above and repeat after me) that’s where bikes belong. I already compete as a cyclist for the attention of those with whom I share the road, with their texting, their spilling their coffee in their laps, their screaming spawn in the back seat, their hood ornament, and all the other things they focus on instead of looking down the road a furlong or so and figuring out what they might need to prepare to do in the next five or ten seconds with the two tons of steel they’re slinging around town. Right-of-way…what is this thing you speak of, mad man? My buddy reports this typical move today: car overtakes him and then suddenly turns right off the road immediately in front of him…while he’s pedaling over 20mph…because he’s a cyclist and is just in the way…because that driver has lost touch with all the simple right and wrongs he learned when he was 15 from the nice pamphlet that the governor printed for us all, which we all had to memorize before we could get the pretty wallet cards with our pictures on them. I guess if he drives over an old lady in a cross-walk, she had it coming for being so hopelessly out of date; get with the times, grandma; walking is lame!
4) Ye gods these damned bike lanes are dangerous…and ugly! They need not necessarily be, but they generally are. There’s all this extra paint that’s super slick in the rain. Bike lanes often come with tons of extra furniture: little stanchions that corral us off at intersections and such. But the biggest problem is maintenance: if there’s a bike lane, I belong in it, supposedly, and I shouldn’t opt out of the leaf piles, fallen limbs, broken glass, sand, gravel, wreckage (literally: headlamp lenses, grill shards, random sharp bits of injection-molded carnage), and any other flotsam that heavier traffic knocks out of the “real” lanes and into the little lane where the guys with the thin tires roll. For a few miles on one street in town, both east- and west-bound bike lanes are contiguous, both on the north side of the street: west-bound I’m pedaling against traffic; who’s going to look for me over there on the wrong side of the street when they cross my lane at an intersection…how is this stupidity improving cycling in particular or traffic in general?
5) No one knows what the lanes mean; the signage is random, inconsistent, and at least somewhat ambiguous. How do we merge so you can turn right and I can carry on straight? Does the bike lane trump other rules? Is that cyclist a criminal or a mere jerk for wheeling out of his bike lane to avoid a stretch of missing, broken, lumpy…whatever type of failed pavement?
We’re teaching ourselves not to think, exacerbating the tension between cars and bikes, and pitting ourselves against our neighbors with these lanes. There’s got to be a better way to design traffic to be bike-smart than what I’ve seen around Memphis.
Comments
153 responses to “Memphis Bike Lanes”
He who is Biggest wins! Fuck right of Way!
/I don’t agree, that’s just how it is……..
I’m one of those Weird people who actually Drive, and since Bicyclists don’t follow the Rules of the Road, i keep far away from them. I drive for a living and don’t need to be running over you guys
Some of us do follow the rules of the road. And I’ve learned that the semi drivers are generally the most aware of us, and will wave us through. Company vehicles are usually good too. Teenagers of all stripes are the cars to avoid like the plague, they really don’t pay attention in general, let alone to the old guy wearing bright colors.
This
I used to ride a bike quite often. But there are many bicyclists who do not follow the rules of the road. Depending on the local laws, a cyclist might always have the right of way like a pedestrian. But just because drivers have to stop, doesn’t make jaywalking legal.
We were taught to always follow the rules of the road…if we didn’t want our Dad to repossess our bikes. Those early habits stick with one.
Yesterday on the way home from work, there was a cyclist on the same road as me. He blew through the 4-way stop sign where there’s usually traffic in three of the directions at that time of day, and then started going the wrong way down the road at the next stop sign. Oh and he didn’t make any turn signal.
Today when I was going home from work the divided highway I normally take is down to one lane in each direction (they’ve been replacing a bridge for the past two months). There was a cyclist going the wrong way. One of these days these people are going to get hit.
We have a dedicated Bike trail with actual stop lights they can use to Cross the streets, maybe 50% use it, the other Bike people just blow through it, and ther a re plenty of Stop and Walk your Bike signs, Fuck them with Mr. Lizards Flying Crowbars….
Easy buddy, those things ain’t cheap
You Realize I am your Supplier on Earth? I have a Contract with YOUR overlords, I’m just promoting…….
This is probably the biggest problem – many (most?) cyclists are understandably irate when the rules are the bike lane are violated, then blithely ignore every other goddamn rule of the road as they see fit. There’s a certain amount of “I’m only going to kill myself”, which I support, but that’s not reality – a cyclist hitting a pedestrian can cause awful injuries, the car reacting to the cyclist can swerve into other lanes, etc.
And there’s the legal issues for the driver of the car.
Don, I liked the Rant, it is a problem that needs a real Solution, Bike people are fine, I admire the dedication, but the roads are a mess and there isn’t an easy way forward IMO
Ban cars, manage bicycles. What’s the problem?
/greenies
Mandate 😛
You know who rides bicycles? The fucking small-dicked Red Chinese, that’s who.
And very skinny, very White People
/also small Dicked……….
Cut Armstrong some slack. You get ball cancer and see how much of a “grower” or “shower” you are.
I have Neighbors that run a Bike shop, nice guys, but they are all skinnier than me Skinny ass, that’s sayin something
Not all of us are skinny.
/fat lives matter.
These guys?
Are you and Gilmore Related?
That video needed more fat bottomed girls.
How is that…some people…have fetishes for young, prepubescent-looking Asian women and the “thick”?
Too Easy, We Pervs!
/ Shout out to HM
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
—Walt Whitman (No homo.)
Well, super homo. But we get what you mean.
Freddie Mercury just isn’t the same without a mustache.
Speaking of stereotypes…
“I’m a size queen from the word go, if you know what I’m say’n”
(And it’s HM’s fault for leading me down the garden path of Ghost Stories)
ABQ has a really nice bike trail system.
Oh, now bike trails are a whole other thing; rail to trail conversions are awesome. You know you’ve done something right when property values go up because you’re adjacent to the trail.
I’ve been hoping to be able to schedule a ride of the GAP. The girlfriend won’t do it, she doesn’t like riding more then 10 miles at a time. My brother-in-law and my dad have both expressed interest, so hopefully in the next couple of years…
Damn, that looks awesome. I’ve got an 11-mile trail essentially outside my front door (22-mile loop for me), but that’s something else.
I’ve got a multi-use path I can hook up with two blocks from my house. That path goes into the Cleveland Metroparks, and with minimal street riding, you can do a full century. There’s quite a few spurs and options along the path as well.
The GAP looks fun. Missouri has the Katy rail to trail that almost crosses the state west to east. Out west check out how WA, ID and western MT have turned the former Milwaukee Road into a great system including canyon spanning bridges and multi-mile long tunnels. Huge fun and you can use services to take you and your bike to the mountain crests and ride downhill for miles.
There’s companies that provide travel services along the GAP, such as carting luggage for you, and arranging for a train ride one way or the other. My plan is to do a 9 day ride. 4 days out, 1 day rest (and laundry) at the end, then 4 days out. This would just be for the Pittsburgh to Cumberland ride, which would mean an average of 40 miles a day riding. There’s road towns along the way that have bed and breakfasts and bike shops for repairs. One of my friends rode it a couple years back, and several of the B&B’s greeted him with a beer as he walked in the door. Sounds like my kind of ride.
Goodness, yes. I miss living near the Bosque.
Well….now that you put it that way.
+1 Machine Gun Kelly
They are still making new Carmageddon games.
Has anyone ever heard of Hill Climb Girl, Idaten Jump, Nasu: Andalusia no Natsu, Over Drive, or fucking Yowamushi Pedal?
That’s right, no one has. You know why?
Eurobeat doesn’t go with cycling.
Game. Set. Match.
Before I clicked, I knew it was Initial D.
Now you go full speed and funky beat.
SEND YOUR BODY
INTO THE MOONLIGHT
I would have expected you to post this.
On random song video the top comment is from ” Styxhexenhammer666″
The world is truly Fortean.
COOL!
When he is leaving a comment on a video, I hear he wears a shirt!
So he is Razorfist, i knew it!
Styxhexenhammer666 with a shirt?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWbnGviamC8
There are two types of cyclists, in my experience. The asshole in the skin tight outfit who thinks he owns the road and will gladly take up an entire lane as a big fuck you to everyone who views him as the asshole that he is. And the drunken bum with a bag full of cans in his front basket and a backpack who doesn’t give a damn about the lines the government painted on the pavement telling them where they’re supposed to be and will just randomly cut across the road expecting you to slam on your breaks to avoid killing him (and sue you if you don’t and he happens to survive the hit).
Also, as dumb as Iraqis were, I never saw an accident the entire time I was there despite a complete lack of signs, lights, or anything painted on the ground telling them what to do.
Seriously. The guys in the suits who think they’re Lance Armstrong? Death camps.
fewer signals, fewer accidents. Self-organizing behavior FTW.
Cars brought freedom. Beautiful, beautiful freedom unknown in human history. Then governments got involved and they’ve made it into one of the more intrusive behaviors you can engage in. It’s the most direct action people have with government on a daily basis. Lines and signals telling you how to behave which we all go along with. Public roads increased the interactions people have with law enforcement exponentially. It’s led to the erosion of very freedoms and various bureaucracies unto itself. And then the demand to show your papers.
But guys like Alex Jones are bitching about fluoride in the water turning frogs gay.
Just you wait for the self-driving cars. While I love the idea of having the option to be spared the drudgery of driving through 395 in Connecticut, you just know that they’ll be pushing for “mandatory” all too soon. And we’ll be the crazy ones for fighting it – what possible objection could you have to not having ultimate control over where the car may or may not go? It’ll be for our own good…
I’m just a drunk who doesn’t want to risk the hell and petty bureaucracy of a DUI conviction. But, they will, as stated, fuck the beautiful simplicity of my dream all up.
Oh, hell yes – I live in the city and am rarely more than an inexpensive Uber ride from home. When I’m off in the burbs I suddenly have to monitor my consumption like a responsible adult, which is bullshit. I want another option.
That said, I wonder if I’ll actually use a self-driving feature all that much if I can’t have it go a solid 15 over the limit.
It’s worth noting that the 1949 Geneva Convention on Road Traffic is one of the few UN treaties that has almost universal ratification.
I am not at all surprised you know this. (Or made it convincing if false.)
Some countries are in technical compliance with certain aspects.
Oops. Road Signs and Signals are a separate convention and Japan did not sign either the the 1949 Geneva or 1968 Vienna conventions.
And no matter how much empirical data you collect, when you mention this fact most people throw up their hands and shout “No traffic signals?!? That’s crazy anarchist talk!”
Mutatis mutandis…everything else in the world.
I forgot the Scrappers, Driving around a Malaysian Shopkeeper isn’t part of the Bargain,
One problem you didn’t even touch on (which may not be a problem in your neck of the woods) is the random bike lanes that have been added for no reason. There’s a couple of places I know of in Cleveland that have bike lanes that are for a tenth of a mile, all of two blocks. Then the lane ends.
There’s also a reason I dislike the 3′ passing law that Ohio recently passed. Now you have some cyclists who hold their arm out every time a car passes to make a point. That’s not quite as terrible as the Critical Mass rides, but there’s no reason to antagonize the motorists for any reason.
As a sometimes rider in the city, fuck those guys sideways.
I’m half tempted to start driving the route with my bike attached to the carrier on the back of my car during those.
I mean, you could also point out how the local idiot prog in Everytown, USA wants their own fucking bike lane. Because the sorts of people who like bike lanes? They aren’t particularly intelligent or self-aware. They’re people who read Vox and think they’re informed. I mean, who cares if it restricts traffic for thousands of people if a handful of assholes will use it and feel their righteous smugness raging through their veins?
Hey now. If there’s a bike lane, and it’s clean, I’ll use it. I enjoy riding on some of them, but I don’t push for their expansion or for government funds to be used for them. There’s even a couple of roads where the bike lanes made traffic better. Those roads were 1.5 lanes in each direction, with no turning lane, and then street parking. Putting in the bike lane made it a 1 lane road in each direction, so you didn’t have as many people trying to squeeze through in half a lane and sideswiping a car that was parked on the street. On the bad side, us cyclists just need to keep an eye out for getting doored as we go past a parked car.
Agreed, the not-quite-two-lane roads are better off with a bike lane delimiting things, but that’s a corner case. The road at the end of my cul-de-sac is one of those and would be better off if was more clearly just one lane. So many near misses with people thinking the other guy should move over…
Situational Awareness, doesn’t anyone Play Aces High any more? ALWAYS know where you are and what you’re doing
http://hitechcreations.com
I just try to get inside the other driver’s OODA loop and
destroypass them first.Excepting my Kia, I have always Driven Trucks, Vans and SUVs, my issue is SIZE MATTERS!, If I’m in my van and a Semi is drifting into my lane I’m getting the Fuck out of the way, He’s going to win. If I’m in my van with limited visibility, stay away from me! if I can’t see you, YOU are dead, not me, and I get a ticket, maybe. When I sailed Catamarans, we usually had the Right of way, tell that to a Super tanker Underway,
My interaction with semis while I’m driving the little Fit is to get past them as quickly as possible. It’d take nothing at all for minor drift to crush me, never mind a good blow-out.
The Blowouts, they Kill, i stay away in my Van, it’s big but Semis will still fuck me up. Idiots in tiny cars who pull in front of me and Brake freak me out too, do you even see this big ass Van bearing down on you? are you sure i can stop in time? I’m not……..
Bikes are for children and men who look like this. If you’re not one of those things you don’t belong on a bike.
I thought is was going to be the Obama picture..
Not everything has to be political. Jeez.
I thought it was just funny, He is 1 year older than me, and looks like a whipped Pansie, that is funny….
I’m sorry, I had to shave my head, so muttonchops are right out.
c’mon, this could be your look!
He wants to get laid again sometime in his life.
Nope. I’ve got the shaved head, and the mustache linked into a goatee which is slowly growing back to its full length after trimming it for a new job.
SP, I do willingly wear the lycra jersey and shorts in public. So that ship would have already sailed if I didn’t have a girlfriend. 🙂
the mustache linked into a goatee
That’s a Van Dyke, no?
I used to think that until I looked it up. A Van Dyke is just the mustache and goatee, no linkage. And that’s just too damned much work, and looks too silly.
Mustache stays trimmed, beard grows out.
I’ve only driven in one city with bike lanes (Boulder), and having never seen them before the markings were incomprehensible. Particularly considering its within a city and so there are already 50 other signs I’m trying to look at at the same time.
Thankfully, I was able to avoid obliterating anyone during the time it took to get from one side of town to the other.
Considering right of way for pedestrians/bikes, I think I would defer to what they teach in an MSF class. Act as though every car is trying to kill you.
I vote for no signals/lanes/special privileges of any kind. Let’s just all take our chances.
Just tonight on my way home some lycra-clad fucko was riding in the street, even though there was a bike path not ten feet away.
We have spent gagillions on bike paths in Minnesota and the dipshits still won’t use them.
A town near me just added bike lanes. In my entire life I do not remember ever seeing anyone there riding a bike, not even children.
My complaint about cyclists: despite their demands to share the road, they are unwilling to share bike paths, that joggers and walkers also want to use. They come close to running people down, and generally claim that the paths are for bikes, and everyone else needs to get out of the way.
Yep. The paths near my house are multi-use, but you wouldn’t know it from the dickhead cyclists. One of them was freaking out at me the other day because he came flying around a blind corner and my dog was too close to the center line. Douchebag.
I’m on your side on this. I hate the assholes who try to sweep past with no notice and no warning.. I always give notice when passing, and will repeat it several times if they’re wearing headphones. I also only take my hybrid on the multi-use trails (it rolls slower), if I’m on my road bike, I’m in the street.
“On your left” is a near-constant refrain when I’m on the path (also on a hybrid).
Look at Captain America here.
Yes, like that but with a better build.
I don’t mind sharing trails that aren’t explicitly bike paths, but yield when I call out and don’t walk abreast.
The bosque trail, right? There’s a paved lane maybe eight feet across, and then several yards of crusher fine trail right next to it. So what do pedestrians do? String out on the paved path, of course, despite cyclists and skaters zipping along.
wait…you’re on a bike, why do you need the pavement? I get the skaters, but why complain about having to ride a bike off pavement?
Skinny road tires go pfut at the least provocation. I wouldn’t ride mine on even the cool crushed chert: sooner or later one of those itty bitty bits is going to drive itself through. The occasional dive onto turf is fine, but the rocky stuff is asking for problems.
My sisters road those sissy 80s 10 speeds with the skinny tires and could ride rough gravel roads. I’d say you’ve got some shoddy equipment.
I’m not cycling on gravel like some pedestrian plebe.
A girl on the Katy Trail in Dallas was killed recently. Lost in her earbuds, she mindlessly spun around and into a cyclist and was killed.
I think of share trails (though I almost never use them) as interval training: you poke along silly slow when you’re anywhere near pedestrians, and, once clear, you sprint back up to speed. It’s just like charging hills and coasting down: good cardio.
Oh. My. God. Yes.
Fucking. Tourists.
Fun reminiscence: https://imgur.com/a/jU05z0l
You can see my approach in pic 1 – I was aiming to stay up on the “sidewalk”.
I didn’t get my back wheel over enough, so ate shit when my front pedal hit the curb, bouncing off the green steel triangle in pic 2. I missed smashing my face on that by inches, absorbing the force with my shoulder and upper arm.
Pic 3 is a lovely pic of the aftermath, a day later or so.
Ouch!
Glad you weren’t more seriously injured.
It haunted me for a bit, just how close I came to that being my face. A couple of inches to the right and I would have needed my jaw rebuild, I suspect. Possible the whole right side of my face. Steel is unforgiving.
YIKES. How did anyone think that design would be a good idea?
They’ve since re-done it a bit:
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3621834,-71.0783982,3a,75y,6.73h,80.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sccMASCb-HuP9zbdIIJ-ydw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
(my pics are about 10 years old).
I don’t think you could reproduce that accident now. Not without a lot of effort.
I wonder whether I blew up that bridge or Mass Ave in FO4…
Never played it, but it’s a tiny little bridge, albeit with that huge counterbalance that’d make it fun to blow up. More likely the Mass Ave bridge, or the Longfellow, right there.
Note to Homeland: when I wrote it’d be “fun to blow up”, I meant that purely in the virtual sense, as a fan of physics in the abstract. Neither I nor any other Glib would contemplate such an act in real life.
No woodchippers were harmed in the making of this comment.
Don’t worry, they’re all busy digging in to find out who Trump called a skank 20yrs ago, it will be the thing that brings him down!
Boise took traffic lanes and converted them to bike lanes. Yeah, nobody uses them. Just like nobody uses the bus system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDvcAYE-fwA
Bikes vs cars
Physics sucks
Fuck yes!
They are on the Wrong side of the Road!
Got here late.
FWIW, it’s not an article, it’s a rant, so anyone with something meaningful to say needs to get a note to SP ASAP. I thought about framing it out properly: government sucks, here’s what they do with your tax dollars, muh roads, etc.
But I just threw this out there mostly because it’s complete sentences.
Looks good to me my glibba! Thanks for the content!
What he said, nice work Don!
I called it a rant and applaud you for it, Just sayin, ^
“I vote for no signals/lanes/special privileges of any kind.”
Tundra speaks for me; indeed, this is my general notion: I like markets and gambits and contests, I like them free and transparent, and, obviously, and I therefore despise specialty contrivances like crop subsidies, bike lanes, and NASCAR.
Thing is, it’s been done successfully. When there are no signs, people pull their heads out of their asses and pay attention.
And they’re even polite!
Great article/rant, Don!
NYC was surprisingly bike friendly with good bike trails. I commuted by bike each day from Manhattan to Staten and back. Ride-ferry-ride was very relaxing. Around Manhattan was easy, ID the main thoroughfares and ride parallel to them one or two blocks away. Then the road stripers went crazy and added bike lanes to roads they should never have because of traffic density. You could ride around Manhattan easily enough (for the most part) and crossing the GW and riding 9W in NJ/NY to Bear Mountain is a long day traet.
Small town and rural west locales. Out-fucking-standing. Bozeman was bike until the snow fell and then XC skiing. Riding the backroads of AZ, WY, MT is great fun, even parts of rural Cali can be nice.
Oahu sucks for riding. There are a few routes which are fairly safe, as long as you go in the proper direction and early enough in the day. Honolulu is a death trap with bike lanes starting and stopping at random and full of incredible amounts of road debris. Too many tourists driving rental cars they don’t know the size of. Do yourself a favor and leave bicycling off your Hawaii vacation- maybe rent a Harley though.
A bit about how I ride, where, and when (hmmm…maybe I should have done the submittal, outline, draft thing after all?).
I wear good equipment. A mechanical engineer by degree (hi, Nye), I’m still a minimalist…not at all a gadget guy. I don’t wear the shorts because I love being lumped into some collective that Tom or Dick despise; I wear them because fat seams wear through my celtic (that’s an actual collective: moles don’t lie) ass after 40 or 50 miles. I want everyone to ride by the same basic rules of the road. Indeed, whether driving a semi, bicycle, bulldozer, or Camry, I practice a recht fahren that is so severe it would unnerve a German driving instructor. I’m not your problem, ever, in any vehicle or situation, unless you’re lollygagging if the left-hand land. If you hate tight shorts, I can’t do anything about that.
My only ride since deep in the Reagan administration has been a Trek Elance 330 thus: https://www.thechainlink.org/forum/topics/restore-to-former-beauty-or?page=2&commentId=2211490%3AComment%3A164222&x=1#2211490Comment164222
Mine’s blacked out, and I finally had to have new rims last year, but it’s mostly original, sweet sweet steel that rolls like glass.
I rode rallies some out west, and I have this index (complex, but not contrived) weighting I like to keep in my head:
index = your_age * bike_age * your_weight * bike_weight / bike_price
For me that comes to around 23,000. For my index, I win pretty much every rally I ride: there’s no-one with a higher index and a better time than mine.
And (finally?) as for rallies, this is the one I obsessed over: the Hotter-N-Hell 100 hh100.org
On the hottest day of the year, eight or ten thousand folk attempt to ride 100 miles of west Texas hell. I’ve started it eight times (38 at my youngest) and finished five. It takes me a good six hours, so I’m no badass; I’m not even toned; grandparents and amputees finish ahead of me.
But I finish. I adore the planning, making sure my machine is ready, perfecting my regimens of hydration and nutrition before and during the event. There are these little bastard burrs out there, so I roll either Armadillos or the heaviest tires Continental makes; regardless, flats are changed in a flash and in good spirit; you’ve got to rest and chew sometime, so a flat is as good as any.
I’m bizarrely proud of those finishes. It’s mostly mental (my strength), but folks think it’s a physical achievement. I keep the finisher pins with the pen knife my father carried in the case my Eagle Scout medal came in (speaking of endurance).
And I hate bike lanes.
i like the Cut of your Jib, Good Sir!
Yo, Don, I believe the HnH 100 is near Vernon, where I grew up.
I’ve always thought most traffic laws were stupid and admire the cyclists’ total disregard for them. If I can breeze through an intersection without getting clipped why should I have to come to a complete stop and wait, I became a true libertarian the first time I ran a red light and three A.M. , I was actually sitting there waiting for the light to change when I realized there wasn’t anybody within miles of me, why the fuck am I letting some inanimate colored flashy thing rule over me? Fuck you traffic light, and fuck you whoever taught us kids the red light/ green light game, nice indoctrination slaver.
Maybe it’s a rural thing, but we were taught to always walk or ride a bike against traffic when not on a sidewalk, not with it.
My worst nightmare is seeing You coming at me in the opposite lane, it’s fucking dangerous, and you make me Yield to you, I sure hope i see you, and so should you,
/Rural BS
yeild? just make sure you don’t clip me same as if I were walking down the right side of the road and you were passing me, only I can see you coming.
Upthread, I made it Known i pay attention, I wish no harm on anyone, but If I fuck up, you Die, not me
I grew up rural, but it’s been walk left and peddle right coast to coast since at least Watergate.
Kindergarteners peddling a quarter mile to class are basically walking….I could see them on the left since everyone’s on high alert in school zones anyway.
What the hell is up with you guys thinking it’s any different. If you’re on a bike riding down your left side of the road, and I’m in a car driving on my right side of the road it’s the same damn thing only the slower vehicle can see the oncoming traffic. The bike takes up the same amount of space on either side of the road.
I really don’t want to start anything, but it’s very different.
If I ride against traffic, I compete for space for the sole purpose of seeing/being seen: kindergarten.
If I ride with traffic, I am traffic; it’s my space, same as any other vehicle; that can only be not true if roads belong solely to cars.
Like I said before, I’m a recht fahren guy: I’m out of the way with zero attitude or agenda. I’m usually not even on a road where there could be a hint of a problem. I’m sure you’ve had problems; I wasn’t that guy.
I haven’t had any problems. I’ve got no issue with bike riders.
I just don’t get this logic. I’m not trying to start anything either, but I just don’t see the logic. The road isn’t only for cars, but if your vehicle can’t keep up with the speed of traffic and doesn’t have proper mirrors or signaling devices that is a danger to all involved. It is safer for all concerned if vehicles as such, that don’t take up much space, to go in a direction they can see traffic.
Now being a rural folk I do have a problem with tractors and combines driving down the road at 25mph in a 55 and taking up 1 1/2 lanes and not having proper mirrors and signals. I almost crashed into a combine once because the moment I decided to pass him was when he decided he was going to turn.
To go self-agrandizingly off topic, there was a new Hat and Hair cartoon last night if anyone missed it.
I wouldn’t say we “missed” it.
Bob.
Kidding aside, nice job with these. As a dabbler in animation I know it’s tough to get “the look” that one is going for, but you seem to be making progress with each new video. Looking forward to the next episode.
i loved it! Rodman and all! I’m not going back to the next post, Fuckin gross with no Context, WTF Overlords?
Was it not advertised as by HM? I do not click his links nor do I click into his posts, thereby saving myself a nightmare or fifty.
(Pro tip: if it’s a “late night” post ALWAYS go back to the front page before moving to the next post!)
Words of wisdom. That front-page text… that was a warning, right there.
Smart advice I’ll heed in the future.
I watched it today and still love the Hat best.
Nice job.
2.5hours on topic is amazing restraint: slow night or everyone’s being patient with the new guy.
Thanks for H&H; the reactions you elicit are gold.
Loved both the H and H and your piece, too. Two thumbs up to both of you.
But it’s personal this time! You’re affecting real lives and therefore your politics are what you are and all that you are. Cunts, the lot of them. They take away your rights to self defense, spy on every single thing you do online, tax the fuck out you to pay for bullshit wars, lock you in a cage for having the wrong spice in your spice rack, force you to use their currency after they’ve inflated the fuck out of it, fund their own propaganda wars with money they take from you at gun point, make you die without trying some drug that may save you etc…
Yet, even after all that bullshit, I would never scream at you slavers in front of your kids while you were eating at a restaurant. They’ll scream bloody murder to get the mob riled up and then say, “Oh, well, I didn’t directly tell the mob to beat the hell out of people. I just said they were supporters of genocide.” And after all this fucking absurdity, I’m the one who is being uncivil.
/Rant off.
“I didn’t insight anyone, I just implied he was a murderous child rapist! That mob that killed him had nothing to do with me!”
All this bike talk has me thinking of my friend Tom who was run over and killed by a drink Episcopal bishop in Baltimore. I worked in a bike shop for years and can certainly agree with all the hideous stereotypes dbag bikers can earn. Just don’t drive drunk and run them over.
Sorry to hear that. *Shoves topnochtoledo in front of cameras* “This man lost a good friend to an Episcopal bishop, this is why we need common sense church control! For the children!”
That’s awful. What happened to the bishop?
My position is very simple – a conveyance that cannot reliably reach the posted limit for a road does not belong on that road. If you can pedal 20mph, you can be traffic in the residential developments. If you can’t stay at 40-45mph going uphill, stay off the arterial.