Sure I want a full biking city and what not but the cyclists here are such a bad testimony to everyone else that it starts this strong negativity. Being jerks to the pedestrians and the drivers earns you few allies.
- Failure to use signals to merge lanes
- Speeding in excess of 80 mph
- Tailgating (because otherwise someone would cut in front of you and you'd never get where you're going)
- Left lane camping
- Aggressively punishment passing left lane campers
- Not stopping for right on reds
- Having 1000 yard stare to the left when turning right on red and being oblivious to pedestrians
- Failure to get up to speed on onramps
- Stopping in the middle of the freeway when missing an exit
- Multiple lane changes without looking to make an exit
- Backing up on the breakdown lane to make a missed exit
- Backing a semi down an exit lane to rejoin the freeway because it was the wrong exit
- Merging into the merge lane of an onramp to pass traffic
- Using the shoulder to pass traffic
- Distracted driving and blowing through red lights (with the resultant T-bone side impact collisions)
- Drunk driving
- Wrong way driving (drunk, elderly or suicidal)
- Lane cutting
- Failure to zipper merge properly
- Playing "follow the leader" through non-permissive left turns without looking for oncoming traffic
- Turning left immediately when the non-permissive light turns yellow without yielding for oncoming traffic
- Multiple cars turning left long after their permissive green arrow has changed to red
- Detroit/Massachusetts left turns
- The "right on red / illegal u-turn / right turn" trick (not an actual legal Michigan left / Mexican returno)
- Entering the oncoming traffic lane when their lane is blocked without checking for oncoming traffic
- Using honking as a means to "punish" other drivers
- Blocking other drivers and aggressive lane changes and road rage
Why do the cars get a pass for all bad stuff they cause?
Cyclists do not follow the rules of the road here. They simply don't. In particular, they go through red lights as if they don't exist. As a pedestrian crossing a crosswalk -- with the cross signal -- you still need to look left and right for bicycles. I don't see cars running red lights too often, but bicycles are a constant threat. And they are silent and sometimes hard to see.
To be fair, this report[1] from 2018 shows the disparity in injuries caused by bicycles (134) versus cars (2,272). With that in mind, it doesn't make sense for me to be complaining about the bicycles.
At the same time, there's a reason these statistics don't match my experience and the experience of many others. I dodge bicycles every day and don't get injured, probably because they're relatively easy to dodge most of the time. I've been hit by a bicycle twice but never reported it because I wasn't injured enough to seek medical care. I've never had to dodge a car.
If you stand on any corner in NYC, you will see cyclists running red lights several times within an hour. You won't see cars doing it as often.
So, I think this issue would be solved if the majority of cyclists followed the rules of the road like the majority of drivers do. Until then, people like me are going to keep complaining, despite the apparent damages not being as severe as what cars cause.
[1] https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/bicycle-crash-da...
Again there are lies. Majority of cyclists do follow the rules, no worse than drivers do. You're just blind on one eye. If you're not a cyclist, you're for instance probably ignoring the tens of cars illegally parked on bike lanes we see every trip.
And majority of issues where cyclists break the law would be solved if cyclists got proper infrastructure. If you want to make your city safer, vote for that, instead of letting your hate for cyclists blind you.
I'm not saying a free pass, I'm saying they act outside the flow of traffic so strongly and regularly compared to cars that people get angry with them.
I don't know why bikers are so un-self-aware that they blow red lights and stop signs as a matter of principle, bully pedestrians in my experience far more than cars, then act like the victim