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Old 04-28-2009, 12:30 PM   #63 (permalink)
Jinn
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Location: Seattle, WA
For what it's worth, I believe we recognize the same problem, in that bicycles and cars ought to have safe ways to travel, with as little interaction between the two as possible.

That said, the majority of the posts (and the OP itself) are entirely focused on the 'rights' of bicyclists and the fact that car drivers are not respecting those rights. While you could argue that I place "too high a value on driving,' you're in the same breath ignoring the flip side of that coin, in that many place 'too high a value on bicycling'.

In every major city I've been in, roads are DESIGNED for motor vehicle traffic; streets and signs are marked for visibility to car drivers. Lane widths and traffic engineering occurs for cars. Light timing and stopping distance, dotted lines vs solid lines, these are all designed with MOTOR VEHICLES in mind. There are very few dedicated 'bike lanes,' and in the case that they do exist they are very poorly designed.

The United States is not like Holland, is not like France, is not like Columbia, is not like India where bicycle traffic is the norm or even the majority of traffic. Bicycles are by far the minority of traffic (even to pedestrians) and as such shouldn't expect conventional roadways are designed or are even safe for them, even if the laws allow it. I view a meandering bicyclist going down a lane in a 45 mph road with as much derision as a person walking down that same lane. They're a slowly moving BARRICADE and present a danger to the MAJORITY of traffic on that road, which is motor vehicles.

The solution is something like this:



Ultimately the question shouldn't be why drivers are not respecting the 'rights' of bicyclists, but why bicyclists are trying to operate en-masse on roadways NOT DESIGNED FOR THEIR SAFETY where they present a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER to other vehicles going MUCH faster than they are.
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