I touched briefly in my post yesterday about the sanctimonious, arrogant and hypocritical behavior of many bicyclists around town. It was a bit of an abstract concept and really hard to prove in any sort of way but I wanted to suggest that the bicyclists themselves often put themselves in as much danger as careless drivers do.
Fortunately, I did a short search on the Internet and found a number of videos that depict this notion much more accurately than I ever could.
The person responsible for the videos routinely bikes through the Quarter, often down Decatur St, running red lights, crossing the double yellow line and narrowly avoiding pedestrians in crosswalks, including, yes, our little snowflakes, the children.
WARNING! WARNING! BEFORE WATCHING THIS FIRST VIDEO PLEASE TURN DOWN YOUR SPEAKERS AS IT HAS A SOUNDTRACK BY LIMP BIZKET!
Points of interest in this first video are:
At:45 Cyclist does not yield to pedestrians in crosswalk
At 1:06 cyclist runs red light and misses pedestrians in a crosswalk at an intersection he states in another video is the busiest in town for pedestrian traffic (St. Ann at Decatur in front of Cafe du Monde)
At 1:20 Cyclist runs red light
At 2:21 Cyclist runs red light
At 2:30 Cyclist runs red light
At 3:18 Cyclist runs red light
Pay close attention to the boondoggle at Canal and Claiborne…
New Orleans Bicycle Commute 07-16-2008 from Joey Brooks on Vimeo.
After counting the moving violations in this video I came upon another video where its creator went ahead and did it for me, seemingly boasting of his violating of the road rules or, in his own words “easily count how many stop signs and red lights I blew.”
You can watch the whole thing or I can save you the trouble and say that at the end of it he does some simple math and estimates to have blown 4500 stop signs and red lights in a year’s time.
NOLA MVC (Moving Violation Count) from Joey Brooks on Vimeo.
Here he visits French Quarter Fest and can’t figure out why anyone would be in a car in the Quarter during the event. I am guessing he doesn’t see that a festival like that requires some degree of traffic to facilitate the people who work there and the transportation of sausage, equipment, performers, ice, police, art, clothes and everything else.
French Quarter Fest Mayhem from Joey Brooks on Vimeo.
So what I’m asking is, would bike lanes really matter to this gentleman or anyone like him? Would they use them at all? I’m not against bike lanes at all. But I am for bicyclists realizing they share the road with cars and especially pedestrians.
I know there are many safety-minded cyclists out there who may not want to be lumped into a category. To them I say, make sure your fellow bikers follow the simple laws of the road and you wont be.
I don’t mind sharing the road with bicyclists, it’s the sidewalks that I have a problem with.
I bike every day to work from LGD to the ferry and back. On the way home I typically ride down neutral ground to Magazine and then home. It just feels safer to take the center with the volume of traffic. Magazine from downtown to the LGD is wide enough and okay. It always amazes me though how many people just blow through the stop lights as I’m sitting there on the right with a line of cars. My take is pretty similar to yours. Cars can hurt you. respect them. Sometimes it’s best to let the wookie win.
I’ve experienced a few cars that are either deliberately ignoring me or the driver is on the phone (more typical). By and large though, it works pretty well and people don’t have to swing wildly away from me to pass. I’ve even gotten an apology when someone cut the bike line on Mag forcing me stop and cut around. If you ride with some basic sense and respect and communicate clearly most people in cars seem to respect that just fine in this city.
Umm…why don’t car drivers make sure that other car drivers are following the rules too?
Your point is well made and well taken right up to that bit at the end. What exactly does that mean?