Mopping Up The Mess
When the "I'm a bicyclist too" type enters the chat.
Principled Bicycling too is largely about presenting uncomfortable truths.
Cycling Savvy, a legitimate (and largely principled) training organization does the same with common bicycling misconceptions as espoused from the point of view of non-bicyclists.
“I thought the law required bicyclists to keep all the way to the right.”
“Why weren’t you in the bike lane?”
“Wouldn’t you just be safer biking on the sidewalk?”
“You’re supposed to ride single-file.”
“Bicyclists don’t pay gas taxes, and shouldn’t be allowed on roads.”
“Bicyclists should be required to have driver’s licenses.”
“Too many bicyclists think the laws don’t apply to them.”
Those too, are likely a lot of uncomfortable truths.
Ironically many bicyclists do not even know or understand them either. Modern bicycling advocacy has largely been overtaken by rent-seekers who use bicycling as a tool for their other agendas and have successfully snuffed out sensible and principled bicyclists. (There is more than enough content to create an argument map to debunk their propaganda.) Wokism has parasitized the movement, too.
Then there’s a hybrid of sorts too between the ignorant anti-bicycling types and the Platitude-Driven Bicyclists, meet Jane Commenter:
As someone who like to ride bikes, I never understood the love for riding on the busiest streets. Ride a block over, in the residential zone, and it is much nicer! And, no matter the thin white line painted on the street for your protection (as that will save you) your chance of getting hurt is much lower.
Plus you don't mess up the road for people driving at the numbers it was designed for.
-Jane Commenter
Jane is not her real name, but she is a commenter. She posted said comment in a section behind a paywalled blog. She has the authoritarian tone and even the narcissism of a Cluster B(ike) Activist that aside, there’s a large lesson worth considering in trying to restrict one’s freedom of movement.
Dr.
digs freedom of movement in her piece, The Domestication of City Dwellers: Because It’s People’s Freedom of Movement That’s the Problem. There, she reveals the ugly side of the “15 Minute City”, which like gas stoves, have been “debunked” by the Corporate Press as “conspiracy theories.”Dr. Heying is a phenominal thinker though, she immediately saw past the cute packaging of the 15 Minute City and immediately dove into the ugly inside.
She reveals that conspiratards are indeed correct though: the proponents of these concepts are trying to control one’s freedom of movement via nice-sounding platitudes with a side of a surveillance state and overbearing planning of the lives of individuals with countless needs and desires. Those who are insisting otherwise are either not thinking the entire idea through or are playing a useful idiots type role. It’s a nearly identical trope to economic central planners in markets.
Towards the end of her piece, Heying sets some boundaries against these authoritarian types.
To those who would plan our lives for us: You will not domesticate me on your terms. You will not cage me with all the things that you think I should need and want, and tell me how glorious it is, how easy I have it, how lucky I should feel.
Below is a bit of back and forth to Jane. Her words are in bold.
Whether you’re a bicyclist or not, I’ll tell you the same thing I tell the anti-car authoritarians who seem obsessed with telling others what to do:
With all do respect, it’s not your business what road someone uses and what mode of transport they use so long as they’re obeying the rules of the the road, which are primarily for safety and conflict mitigation.
The people deputized to do even a fraction of what you tried to do here are law enforcement agents.
You likely know nothing of that person’s origin, destination, etc. The layout of a lot of cities give no choice for many but to eventually ride on a “busy road.”
With very few exceptions, all surface streets are open to travel by those using slow moving vehicles, which includes bicycles. While you may never see it, people are still permitted to ride animals, drive livestock, and drive animal-driven carriages on these roads. Bicycles are just another form of a slow moving vehicle. And in all 50 states bicyclists have the same rights to access and travel on the public right of way (and duties to obey traffic law) as drivers of motor vehicles. So long as someone is operating within these parameters, why is it your business to wonder let alone attempt to demand someone take a route you desire?
As for your thin line comment, have you taken any cycling safety course? One worth its salt teaches bicyclists of the most common hazards while riding on the road, their relative risks, and different strategies to mitigate those risks.
And to finish up with your comment about “messing up the road.”
Do you consider the freeway (where bicycles are seldom allowed) “messed up” when it’s saturated with motor traffic? Or when it’s in any other condition not considered desirable?
What roads are “designated for” relies on “worst case” scenario whether thats forecasts traffic or structural loads. The rules of movement for operating on such roads rely first on safety, then speed.
Here are some other resources:
I am well aware of current traffic laws, thank you. I know that they have the right to use the streets as a proper measure. But, and it is a big but, we have sidewalks for a reason, and that is to keep a designated area safe for pedestrians. We have lanes to help traffic move. We have speed limits to keep people safe. We have all of these laws, and more, to keep traffic moving for the greatest benefit for all.
A bicycle is a slow moving, physically unprotected method of transport. A method that doesn't work for most people. Should we have laws that provide for only the least common denominator? No. We have, in this case, laws to provide for the greatest common good. The greatest common safety. Nothing in your comment addresses this. You are assuming that a minority view must prevail, perversely causing danger and inconvenience to the greatest numbers, while there are plenty of alternatives that help both communities.
Did you remember that people have a right to travel by bicycles on public right of way before or after my previous reply?
SideWALKS, as you indicated, for pedestrian use. Bicycles are vehicles that do not have the operating characteristics of vehicles. Is there a particular reason you've brought them up? It doesn't seem as if we were in ever in disagreement of such?
The idea of separating vehicles from non-vehicles came largely from William Phillips Eno, who codified the first "rules of the road" back in the late 19th Century. https://cyclingsavvy.org/2018/02/william-phelps-eno/
Travel lanes have several different purposes. "To help traffic move" is a very reduced version of that but okay, fair enough. As indicated above, that traffic also includes slow moving vehicles. That's all a bicycle is.
Speed limits are indeed for safety - they are the upper limit of how fast traffic can legally move on a given stretch of road provided there are no other factors that prohibit operating safely at those speeds. If you want to argue that road users not traveling at the speed limit are somehow a hazard - it's almost always wrong - especially on surface streets.
As for these laws being for the greatest benefit of all? That's far from the truth.
Many traffic laws indeed have that effect - especially the ones Eno developed - whether that was the intent or not, but there are plenty of traffic laws that don't do that. Many over the years have targeted particular road users or have been put in place to generate revenue for the State.
Here's a long history of that in the bicycling domain alone, and ironically, most of the major bicycle advocacy organizations actually double down on similar laws not understanding the downstream effects.
https://iamtraffic.org/equality/the-marginalization-of-bicyclists/
Laws, in general, don't promote the greatest benefit for the greatest amount of people either. That's a much larger philosophical topic and I don't want to wander off too much into the weeds.
I'm unclear exactly what you don't think I addressed. In the previous post, I spent a great deal of time deriving traffic law basics. You indicated in the original post that you were a bicyclist and in the previous post that you are well aware of current traffic laws. So spilling all this text is about as useful as deriving π or explaining basic algebra to a mathematician.
My argument is for reasonable accommodation of slow moving vehicle operators on the public right of way where their operation is permitted. While it's been chipped away and misunderstood over the years, much of those foundations are still there.
If you really want to get into "minority views", be my guest. "Minority views" often get protected by law precisely to protect them from people with views such as yours.
But if you're really arguing that bicycling is somehow "perversely causing danger and inconvenience to the greatest numbers," then I'm curious as to where you're getting this? The majority of deaths, injuries, and the billions in property damage done on the public right of way each year comes from those operating motor vehicles. That's why they're far more regulated, require a license to operate, and insurance.
There are a lot of inconveniences in life that are reasonably accommodated for too Being delayed for a short moment behind a slow moving vehicle operator is far from one of those.