Bikes belong

Sep 24, 2008 By Richard Masoner Posted in The Archives Tagged with Commute by Bike

In response to a letter to the editor claiming cyclists don’t belong on the road, Andrew Posner writes a rebuttal at Treehugger.com, specifically addressing these main points:

Bicycles are slow, hard to see and vulnerable.
Too many cyclists don’t know the rules of the road.
Unlike drivers, cyclists are not required to have insurance, and if a cyclist causes an accident he or she may be unable to pay for damage to the car or driver.

0 thoughts on “Bikes belong”

bryantp says:

September 24, 2008 at 9:39 am

Good to email the paper with a response. Then, the foolishness of this individual can be displayed.

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Tony Bullard says:

September 24, 2008 at 10:10 am

Wow, that Op-Ed piece is so one sided it proves itself wrong. His point is basically that roads are super dangerous, and no one likes to drive, so cyclists shouldn’t be on the road.

But I do like that he sees roads and bike paths as equal. Maybe we can use this to match funding between road work project and bike path projects. Dollar for dollar, since they’re the same, why not?

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Pierre Phaneuf says:

September 24, 2008 at 10:19 am

From what I can understand, in the Netherlands, the law is that in case of an incident between a car and a bicycle, the burden is automatically on the car’s insurance, no matter of responsibility. This forces drivers to be quite aware of bicycles, as any incident with them would impact their insurance premium.

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Tony Bullard says:

September 24, 2008 at 10:30 am

I’m not sure how effective treehuger’s response will be.
The thing I find funny is that all three problems listed above are created by cars.
“Bicycles are slow, hard to see and vulnerable.” Before cars, bikes were considered too fast. Bikes are only vulnerable because car companies have made a single passenger vehicle weigh tons and be huge.

“Too many cyclists don’t know the rules of the road.” The rules of the roads were created because it’s impossible for people to communicate from inside a steel box. Back when everyone was in the open air, you could communicate with other people, with eye contact, and even vocally.

“Unlike drivers, cyclists are not required to have insurance, and if a cyclist causes an accident he or she may be unable to pay for damage to the car or driver.” Again, before everyone decided to transport themselves in $20,000 vehicles, insurance wasn’t needed.

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John says:

September 24, 2008 at 11:43 am

Many drivers do not know the rules of the road, nor do they care. Lack of signaling, cutting off people, running stop signs (including California Rolls), entering exit-only driveways, cell phone use, and drunk driving are some of the behaviors commonly seen on a typical commute.

Secondly, the majority of adult cyclists in the U.S. have driver’s licenses and automobile insurance.

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Chris says:

November 17, 2008 at 8:47 pm

I think alot of motorists dont see bicycles being vehicles at all since we go 15mph and tend to ”block traffic”. We are indeed vehicles even if we only go 15 or 20mph. The road is for everyone to use..not just for 4,000 death boxes. People need to realize this before many more cyclists get hurt or killed..which we do not need.

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Bikes belong

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