Thursday, June 16, 2011

Get off the road???

Yes, they are your roads, both here and in Texas. 
Please respect them when you ride.
Photo hoisted from Steve A, DFW Point to Point
Albert Hsu and I ran into each other this morning in the Western Areas while biking to work. We rode out of the Western Area via West Road. We caught up with another local cyclist, one I recognized from a past League of American Bicyclists course Neale or I taught, while crossing the Omega Bridge.

That third cyclist got to the southbound crosswalk at the Diamond and W. Jemez intersection, looked both ways, and then blatantly ran the red light to cross W. Jemez. Did this in front of a lot of motorists.

After the light changed, Albert and I crossed and were riding south on Diamond. At the first signalized intersection (Embudo, by Building 1498), yet another cyclist ran a red light to cross Diamond in the ped crosswalk.

So of the four cyclists an observer might have seen at that time, roughly 0800, two were blatantly disobeying traffic law. 50%. Small wonder we get the "get off the road" treatment.

Maybe some of you should consider getting off the road. At least until you start being better ambassadors for cycling. Albert and I get a little tired hearing about it.

Just sayin'...

3 comments:

albert said...

Unfortunate the people you pointed out in your post:

1) Probably don't read this blog

2) Could care less about being good cycling ambassadors.

Khal said...

Yeah. Preaching to the converted, undoubtedly.

bikeolounger said...

I'm almost to the point of giving up on asking other bicycle users to obey road laws (students in my TS101 classes notwithstanding). With motor vehicle operator stop sign compliance at less than 30% nationally (and with some intersections seeing compliance in the low-single-digit range), according to the last couple of studies I've seen, motorists don't have any room to talk.

Of course, there will always be motorists who insist that I get off the (attempting to sexually reproduce) road. How they know the road is attempting to reproduce, I have no idea. It is also a source of confusion that if >I< should get off that road, should not they, also get off that road if it's trying to sexually reproduce? Why should I get on a sidewalk that IS trying to sexually reproduce? I'm guessing that the anti-cyclist who is telling me this is more confused than I.