Cars vs. Bikes vs. Pedestrians
I’m not sure how many of my readers are DC-based, but every summer there’s an annual food fight between those who drive to work, those who bike to work, and those who walk to work. This year’s was sparked by the tragic deathof Alice Swanson, a biker run down by a garbage truck; over at DCist there are already more than 100 comments on the original post. People get really fired up by this sort of thing, and the arguments typically break down thusly:
- Car drivers hate bicyclists because they slow down the flow of traffic when they drive in the streets and have absolutely no regard for traffic laws; they also hate pedestrians because jaywalking is so rampant and peds often have the temerity to get upset when almost hit in a crosswalk
- Bicyclists hate car drivers because car drivers don’t understand that bikes have just as much right to be on the streets as cars; they also hate pedestrians because peds often have the temerity to complain about the fact that people doing 20+ mph on the sidewalk is probably unsafe
- Pedestrians hate car drivers (as well as Metrobuses), because the commuters/bus drivers in this city appear to try to hit them as they enter the crosswalk; they also hate bikers because of their haughty, uppity, ‘we-know-better-than-you’ attitude and their predilection for turning sidewalks into a BMX meet.
I think the proper response to every one of these arguments is: a pox on all your houses. Car drivers are almost certainly careless when it comes to bikes, which is bad, but they are such because bikes shouldn’t be on the road. There’s a very important truth about traffic, and it’s this: “Speed doesn’t kill–speed differential kills.” So, for example, when you have some idiot doing 50 in the left lane on a highway where the speed limit is 65 (and most everyone in the passing lane is doing 80), you’ve created a hazard; right or wrong, people will swerve around the blockage, and when people start cutting in and out of lanes you have problems. The same basic rule is at work with bikes: if you’re doing 15 mph and everyone else is doing 30 (cars on the streets), you’re causing problems; if you’re doing 15 mph and everyone else is doing 2 (pedestrians on the sidewalk), you’re causing problems. Combine that with the fact that I’ve never, ever, EVER seen a bike come to a complete stop at a red light or a stop/don’t walk sign, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Pedestrians: when a crosswalk sign is flashing the little red man, it means DON’T GET INTO OFF OF THE SIDEWALK. There are usually cars trying to make a right turn on green, and they use the little break in pedestrian traffic at the end of the cycle to do so. When you enter the sidewalk after the light starts flashing red, you’re causing gridlock. Get over yourselves and obey the traffic laws like drivers do.
Car drivers: your SUV can mow down anyone on a bike or on foot, we get it. Do us a favor, though, and look down from your mighty perch every once in a while (like, say, when you’re getting near a crosswalk), okay? That’d be great.
If everyone just obeyed the traffic laws, we’d all get along fine. They’re there for a reason.
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7 Comments - add your own
Noah — July 9, 2008 at 10:30 am
As an NYC resident I can say that the bikers are the more annoying breed. They run red lights going the wrong way on a one way street and then act like you did something wrong by being in their way.
Also, in NY the bikers have adopted this whole pseudo anarchist / communist look and attitude, which is particularly annoying. Not to mention the whole hipster custom bike clubs which ride around the village looking like a myspace page on wheels.
Bicycling for transportation is fine, but as a lifestyle it’s pathetic.
Sonny Bunch — July 9, 2008 at 10:41 am
Oh man, don’t get me started on “biking-as-lifestyle.” The bike messengers roaming DC’s streets are the most obvious example, appearance-wise, but the general attitude of bikers is so high-and-mighty that it makes me sick. Note to bikers: just because you pedal to work, it does not make you a good citizen. I’d rather you put the CO2 into the air by driving than condescendingly lecture to me about the rules of the road and how great biking is.
Jillian — July 11, 2008 at 11:19 am
I agree that full-time hipster bike weenies are annoying, but can you allow me the biking-as-lifestyle thing part-time? Biking to work in the morning makes me feel like a badass. I’m not actually a badass, of course (I dont even wear any hipster stuff…. just school logo bikewear and flowery pink spandex) but zooming through traffic and narrowly avoiding death IS a high, no matter how annoying it might be. I get there faster than you, I’m stronger than you, and I probably look hotter than you while doing it. And I’m the first to admit it - that added injection of cool is part of what gets me through my day.
I would, however, forgo some of that cool if I was fined. I mean, telling people to “obey the rules of the road” is a pretty crummy solution. No one is just going to do it because they’re nice. I want my cool and you want to get to work on time and drivers want to get in as much road rage as possible before they have to sit in a cube all day. You gotta sic more police on everyone….bikers, peds and drivers alike…. if you want the happy little world you talk about.
Sonny Bunch — July 11, 2008 at 11:38 am
I am all for getting the police more involved with traffic enforcement. I think the police should pull over every biker who runs a red light or a stop sign. I think the police should pull over every driver who makes an illegal turn or almost runs over a pedestrian. I think the police should hand out more jaywalking tickets. Maybe then people will start, y’know, obeying the law.
Taeyoung — July 15, 2008 at 3:02 pm
“Pedestrians: when a crosswalk sign is flashing the little red man, it means DON’T GET INTO OFF OF THE SIDEWALK. There are usually cars trying to make a right turn on green, and they use the little break in pedestrian traffic at the end of the cycle to do so. “
There is one intersection (K Street, right between Georgetown and Foggy Bottom), where, in the afternoons, the walk sign comes on at the exact same time the right-turn signal lights up, which sends cars turning right into the pedestrian traffic. Every single time I cross — every day — I get some driver who tries to race through before the pedestrians can get across.
Most of the time the pedestrians start walking well before the walk signal comes on, because otherwise you’ll get drivers trying to run you over. And if you let one car get through, the next will follow quick on its heels, and you’ll never get across the road. Because the drivers don’t care that the walk light is on. They’re just following their own signals.
I blame the government first, as usual, for failing to coordinate the signals properly. And then drivers, who ought to have the common sense to wait when they see 10 people starting out across the road.
Sonny Bunch — July 15, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Taeyoung: That is entirely the District’s fault. I don’t blame car drivers for making a right on a green arrow, and I don’t blame pedestrians for entering the crosswalk with a walk sign.
pst314 — July 16, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Aggressive and belligerent cyclists are a dime a dozen here in Chicago. A few years ago a bicycle messenger murdered a pedestrian for being in the way.