this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
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ESH IMO, the "Not gonna let them pass me crowd" is almost as dangerous as the wreckless driver crowd. Just let them pass, if you feel they are breaking the law then report them accordingly.
Stop taking the law into your own hands, it's dangerous.
It's a one lane one way street, there's nothing to let them pass though. They were just driving responsibly from the sounds of it.
The description is weird, but it sounds to me like there's 1 lane for cars and 2 (narrow) bike lanes on either side and the biker was in the middle to prevent him from passing
That may be so, but pulling to the side to let an aggressive driver pass you is the smarter choice. Especially on a bike. Bike vs Car faceoffs usually don't end well for the biker.
You may have missed the part where the driver of the BMW “hopped the curb” “at 70”. I have some doubts about the speed, but if you’re going over a curb at speed to try to pass someone, you’re in the wrong.
I think that description is a little suspect. If you hop a curb at 70, your car is getting jacked up.
It's 70kph, not mph. As a delivery driver I take curbs at 70kph every day, modern suspensions can take that without issues
Im pretty sure you don't know what a curb is.
Taking a curb at 43 mph doesn't sound right unless the curbs where you live are tiny
German curbs, they are about 10cm high. Don't know how that compares to other countries curbs
Ooh you're right I misread. Still probably not great for a BMW, but doable.
Never said he wasn't, but the biker was also putting his and his kids life at risk just to make a statement. The same type of aggressive driver who will "hop the curb at 70" are also the same who are unpredictable and could lose it and run you over.
Is taking the law into your own hands just to make a statement really worth your or your children's lives? When you could have just avoided the entire situation by pulling to the side and letting the aggressive driver pass while you noted down the license plate?
Sorry, that wasn’t my point. If the driver had to hop a curb to threaten the cyclist, how would the cyclist have been able to simply “pulled to the side” to let him past when there’s a curb between them.
Ah gotcha, yea the OOP post isn't particularly clear, but from my understanding there was a time before the driver got fully enraged where the biker could have pulled off onto the curb themselves
It does seem like there’s something “off” about that description. Itd be interesting to know where this all happened.
I can imagine a driver raging at a cyclist and then later chasing them and hopping a curb to threaten. Or hopping the curb onto a sidewalk to pass them and swerving back onto the road in a threatening manner. Both strike me as very much dangerous and disproportionate reactions to having to go a bit slow for 30 seconds.
The swerving at them was when coming back off the curb into the road, I think. If there was a curb between them, there's no way the cyclist was preventing him from passing.
Edit: crappy drawing
Most likely one contraflow bike lane, plus one car lane with sharrow, like this.
Also, bike needs to be in the center of the lane to avoid the door-zone.
No, the group of people who don’t kill any people with their vehicles is not “just as dangerous” as the group who kills 25,000+ people/year
I like biking but don't do much of it anymore because of crazy drivers.
I'm sure plenty of pedestrians have been killed by cyclists. I've almost been run over multiple times by spandex warriors running red lights. I'm not convinced if you looked at percentages and not raw numbers you wouldn't find just as many irresponsible cyclists as you do drivers. I see multiple drivers doing something stupid every day and I see a cyclist every week or two doing something stupid. Difference is I see 200 cars a day and 4 cyclists.
The best thing for your safety on a bike is to let the aggressive driver go, not to police them. Antagonizing an irate driver is a recipe for disaster no matter if you are in a car, on a bike or a pedestrian.
I did some quick searching and found 2019 data from Europe. In all of the EU that year, bicycles killed 19 pedestrians while cars killed 3200 pedestrians. Over 168 pedestrians killed by a car for each killed by a bicycle. I know there are plenty of irresponsible cyclists, and yet they are still a tiny fraction as dangerous as a driver.
The "Not gonna let them pass me crowd" includes both drivers and bikers.
Take the Lane
Taking the lane shouldn't be necessary if there are actual bike lanes and you don't need to turn. This sounds like deliberately blocking traffic.
You may be correct, but if I'm not fully convinced there are proper bike lanes both ways in OOP's post.
If the cyclist provision is a "sharrow" then the bike should be in the centre of the lane. If the cyclist is turning left without proper turning infrastructure they can be in the centre of the lane. If it's a divided lane then they should be on the side.
Really depends on conditions. Many “bike lanes” have unsafe road hazards, glass, are immediately in the door zone of parked cars, etc. Getting doored is one of the most common causes of cyclists being sent to the hospital with major injuries.
A well laid out, well maintained bike lane is a better alternative to taking the lane. However, in the cases where the bike lane is hazardous it’s always better to take the lane than to risk getting injured in an unsafe bike lane.
Agreed, but "I wouldn't let him past" sounds a lot like deliberate blocking.
Hey it's an entitled little man in the flesh. As a lifelong biker fuck you. My taxes pay for the roads too. Cars are traffic so it makes no sense for them to get impatient and risk the lives of others. The car is the one not obeying the laws.
Yes and I said:
You're putting your own life in danger when you do crap like that, all it'll take is one aggressive driver having a particularly bad day to run you over. Sure, they'll probably get arrested and face consequences for that, but it won't really matter all that much to you when you're dead.
It's like debating with the "fuck seatbelts" people stg.
Nah, let em kill me. Fuck it.
It isn't about stubbornly not letting people past it is called riding defensively. People pass far too fucking close in their cars and usually at too high a speed. If you place yourself in a position where they can't pass you until there is enough room to do so safely then it protects yourself more from these idiotic cunts. I couldn't care less if I am pissing you off if it means you aren't going to put my life at risk trying to squeeze past me.
Bikes have as much right to be on the road as cars and if you wanted to could ride right in the middle of the lane and that is still completely within the law if that is what you are so concerned about. In fact being the smaller and more vulnerable of the road users the bike has the right of way in the eyes of the law so the driver, by law, should be giving way to the cyclist. They should also be giving 1.5m of space when they do pass the cyclist which 75% of people don't do.
Most drivers don't know the rules and laws of the road and just make up their own like you are now pretending people are "taking the law into their own hands" because you car brained fucks want to get to where you are going 30 seconds faster.
Clearly, you didn't understand my original comment or read anything else in the thread, here's another comment I wrote earlier:
With that attitude, you'll likely end up as a statistic. You're just as bad as the entitled "car brains", except things go badly in Car vs Bike scenarios for the biker.
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about or how to ride defensively when you are a cyclist on the road.
"Almost ironically, the way to make yourself safer while cycling on the road is by being in the way. ‘Defensive cycling’ helps you do that by preventing other road users from taking advantage of your relatively small size and slow speed."
https://www.edinburghbicycle.com/blog/what-is-defensive-cycling
Many cyclists try to be courteous to motor vehicles by sticking as close to the side of the road as possible. Even though that does give drivers more room to pass, it also makes you harder to spot. Try to be at least three or four feet (one metre) away from the edge of the road. If you’re not blending in with the curb or the sidewalk, it will be easier for turning motor vehicles to spot you."
https://pedalstreet.com/defensive-cycling/#Do_not_hug_the_curb
"Don’t ride near the curbs.
Give yourself 2-3 feet of space to bail out in case a vehicle comes too close."
https://www.thegeekycyclist.com/tips/bicycle-safety-tips/
I one of your responses you say they should just hop up on to the curb, no, never! The footpath is for pedestrians, people walking, not for riding bikes on. Then you are putting pedestrians at risk.
And constantly saying you should "take down their VRM and report them to someone" as if that will do any good at all, the police couldn't care less about that kind of stuff and achieves absolutely nothing. Jog on mate.
That's all for normal traffic/day to day
I'm talking about after someone has clearly started on a path of aggression and road rage as described by OOP. People have been shot or run over or run into (if in a car, I'm not even talking about just bikers) over slights like cutting someone off.
Once someone has demonstrated severe aggression like described, it's time to get out of the way, not amplify it
Reckless drivers would be quite wreckful.
Into a red light though? Sounds like there's more to the story
As a car-owner and someone who’s glad to now live in an area with phblic transportation I can confidently say that people are just astoundingly stupid, short-sighted, and impatient. Also blind, apparently, because they will ride my ass, cut someone off beside me to rip by, only to jump in front of me and slam the brakes because I’m not going slower than the people in front of me just because I’m leaving space. They’re in an SUV and my BRZ is barely over 4’ tall so they should be able to see just fine. If I’m really lucky I get to watch them pull into slower traffic beside me just because there’s some space for half a second and then have to wait for me to pass them after they got stuck behind the large truck that was always there but they somehow missed. And since it’ll need being said my top speed on the highway is plenty fast so if I’m not doing it it’s because there’s traffic and we all can’t go any faster.
People fucking suck and are stupid as hell, and rich or pseudo-rich Torontonians try really hard to be the best at being the worst, especially when they get the pleasure of endangering a person on a bicycle. I’m not the least bit surprised by any of this.
It's been a good three years since I had to gaze upon any traffic situations on Turtle Island. I don't miss it
I think Canada should be ashamed of the 401. Widest Highway in North America, and the competition is fierce. Good on you for distancing yourself from this.
Lots of drivers pass too close and too fast, and the majority of the time they want to zoom past me only to roll stop through the next stop sign or wait for me to arrive at the crosswalk and press the light. They'll also stop if a car is parking, or another car coming in the opposite. Nah, they can wait for me on my bike or they can use another any of the 100 roads specifically designated for them.
Though, not all the time. If I'm taking the lane it's for a reason. It doesn't help when drivers then use that moment to ride up right behind me. Car drivers treat bikers like shit and expect to be treated like royalty.