I’ve cycled to work and back 59 times this year, and reported 36 drivers (with video evidence from my bike) to the police, with them taking “positive action” in 34 of those cases. But yeah, it’s the cyclists who are dangerous.
Yeah I think the main problem isn’t the cyclists themselves, it’s that cyclists don’t have a safe place ride without getting ran over. Cyclists shouldn’t be a problem to drivers in the first place if they had their own lane or space. I’m lucky to live somewhere that has bike lanes and sidewalks on most streets. America strangely lacks basic infrastructure in a vast majority of their country. It really sucks ass if you have a fear of driving :(
Cyclists aren’t a “problem” any more than traffic lights or stop signs are. Drivers should be able to deal with having to slow down a bit for a few seconds without getting upset about it. If you saw a driver shouting out of his window at a traffic light you’d think they were insane.
Only “vehicular” cyclists are an issue, but TBH even other cyclists hate them.
What’s a vehicular cyclist?
A vehicular cyclist is a cyclist riding as if they were a car, so in the middle of the lane etc. It’s the adviced way of cycling when there is no proper infrastructure, as sticking to the side makes you less visible and more likely to be dangerously overtaken. It depends on the context of the road whether it is the best way, but I would not call them the problem, just a bad solution to a problem that should be solved by infrastructure.
Yes, vehicular cycling is best as an emergency-only maneuver to make cars less likely to hit you, if you have to ride on a street with cars.
Real bike infrastructure is superior in every way.
There are some crazy grifters out there who don’t like bike lanes, and think that bicycles should always be mixing it up in traffic.
Yeah I think the main problem isn’t the cyclists themselves, it’s that cyclists don’t have a safe place ride without getting ran over.
Meaning that, as usual, cars are the problem.
As someone who doesn’t really ride bikes, I think it’s wild when car people are against bike lanes.
Back when I used to drive, it was so annoying to get stuck behind a cyclist. Their max speed is lower than the speed limit on most roads, passing them makes me nervous even on straight and flat roads, and if the road is hilly or curvy like most in my area, it’s downright dangerous.
I would love it if there were more bike lanes so that cyclists don’t get in my way. Why would anyone who drives a car be against that?
“They think they’re better than us” is the only reason i can imagine.
When they have their own lane and space cars still just use it. They park on the bike lanes, move into them if somebody’s passing on their left, or try and pass cars on their right if they find space during slow traffic.
Absolutely needed but people in cars will still cause issues and when they cause issues, it’s a multi ton vehical hitting some aluminium and flesh.
I bike or walk pretty much everywhere I go, so my take on roads and traffic is that they’re usually far too car-centric (Norway). Even when I drive, I’m so used to thinking like a cyclist that I become very aware of how poorly roads are often designed around biking.
With that said… The amount of cyclists with an apparent death wish is just staggering. Just two days ago I passed a cyclist in an 80 km/h zone. No issue there. Just around the next turn, I caught up to a second cyclist that I couldn’t immediately pass due to oncoming traffic. I’m behind this second cyclist, going downhill at maybe 50 km/h, with oncoming traffic on a relatively narrow road, when I notice that the first cyclist has caught up to us. Instead of placing himself behind me, he decided it was a brilliant idea to squeeze himself into the ≈ 1.5 m gap between me (a 6m long, 2-ton car going at 50 km/h) and the guard rail. At this point, I’m just sitting here terrified that I’ll end up accidentally squeezing him into the guard rail and killing him if I happen to move a couple centimeters too close to the edge of the road. I’m seriously afraid of breaking to let him in front of me, because I’m afraid he could hit my side-view mirror if I break unexpectedly (for him). There’s oncoming traffic, so I can’t move over to give him more space.
To be honest, even when I’m biking myself I far too often find other cyclists to be absolute assholes with no respect for traffic rules. Of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone (by a long shot), but man those people cause the rest of us a lot of stress by being a danger to themselves and others.
A lot of Cyclists seem to have car brain when biking, but don’t realize they are on a bike.
I have almost hit several cyclists that run red lights going 20+ MPH. Good thing I was paying attention…
When I lived in a walking friendly area, I used to keep a metal multitool in my hand to hit cars with when they tried to run me over.
I see a common denominator in your story
Yeah, I must be able to make them drive like arseholes bad enough that they get prosecuted. It’s magic or something. It can’t be that there’s a lot of people driving cars really badly, can it?
Very apt that an anagram of your name is “scapegoat”.
Narc ass snitch ass cop lover
When I’m not biking I drive a delivery truck and make sure I stop for and/or let pass every cyclist in order to drive every other car brain on the road insane and it gives me great pleasure.
Gosh, almost as if cyclists need safe spaces to ride. How about we just drastically reduce the number of 2 ton deathmachines on the roads.
Why
Loads of reasons really, but let’s start with reductions to rates and severity of asthma in children.
Nah
Seriously, go look at a notjustbikes video
Can’t
I see you’re also very restricted in key presses, my condolences
Thank
Today, while I had the green light, had another car blatantly run a red light and almost hit me. I turned left to catch up with him, pounded on his window and told him he was a jackass. When he rolled his window down I recognized him as a state assembly member. Hoping he doesn’t recognize me when he eventually calls the HR office because he’s at the dentists office and doesn’t have his insurance card because he’s a fucking spoiled man-child.
Living in a big Dutch city. Cyclists just be like: I have to be careful not to hit any more dumb suicidal tourists. For fuck sake, I have had to repair my bike twice this week already.
And in these modern times everyone needs to be careful of young kids on fat bikes.
Fuckin’ tourists. Get off the fietspad! And I wish they would just say no e-bikes for under-16.
Everyone warned me about the bikes in Amsterdam when I went to visit. When I got there and stepped outside for the first time, oh yeah the bike lane is painted a different colour to the pavement so I will walk on the pavement bit. Hang on, how the fuck do people struggle with this?
Yeah, plus no fat bikes at all!
Why no fat tires? I’m thinking about getting some just because they look easier to maintain
why would they be easier to maintain?
Because they should get fewer flats. Larger surface area and all that.
Larger surface area surely increases the risk as there is more area that could run over glass shards.
I have 700x35, or 38, can’t remember. Had 1 flat on the front wheel in the entire lifespan of the outer tread. Second outer tyre now and nothing so far.
i’ve got 20 and 24 inchers and i live in goats head country. i cannot keep them inflated for the life of me. I am this close to just putting solid rubber blocks on my wheels
I will never use painted bike lanes. They are only the illusion of safety. Either I’m going the speed limit and I ride on the road or I take the sidewalk if possible.
my mindset when biking now is mostly to inconvenience bad drivers as much as possible and ensure that if they hit me it results in as much damage to their car as I can without harming myself.
I will aggressively take my right of way. one of the most common places is a bike crossing nearby where drivers routinely blow the stop line on their red light - I start up quickly so that if they blow the stop and go into the crossing, I may not be able to stop before crashing into them (you often can’t see them approaching the stop line because they are behind traffic in the middle lane). I don’t mind my shitty bike taking some damage if it leaves them with a dented door panel. another common occurrence is roundabouts - drivers vastly underestimate the speed at which a bike can navigate a tight roundabout, and they routinely cut me off. unfortunately, I’ve avoided collisions every time that a driver has nearly hit me, because my reaction is to not get hurt. but god damn did I ever want to slam into some of those cars and leave a lasting impression
I feel you but you only have only one fragile body.
I spent months of horror and multiple hospitalisations because I braked too hard on my bike at low speed, didn’t fall but landed too hard on the saddle. My username comes from that horrendous experience.
Of course it was because a car ran a red light, that was hidden to the inattentive car driver by a truck parked like an asshole.
There’s a shitload of studies showing that cars break far more rules than bikes everywhere it has been measured. You don’t have to put your body in the line to make a point.
Please just be safe for your own sake. You certainly deserve it.
thankfully my reflexes still prioritize my own safety, and most times I leave a near collision pissed off at the shitty driver and regretful that I couldn’t leave them a lasting mark. but when I get to the chance to, say, let my cargo bike basket scrape a car that pushed me into the curb, I’m gonna try to take it.
and thankfully (?) my health issues are unrelated to biking injuries (at least, unrelated to sharing the road with drivers — I’ve got a completely self-inflicted road injury from long ago and injuries from mountain biking lol).
Obligatory fuck cars
Yeah… I hate to say it but cyclists take to the sidewalks in my neighborhood even though we have bike lanes everywhere. Obviously they are trying to be safer from cars which I can’t fault them for, but they do become a danger to pedestrians. Basically pedestrians are in a lose lose situation. Unless we want to start counting the bugs they step on.
I don’t care how many “bike lanes” an area has. A stripe of paint on a road will never be acceptable. Unless there is a physical barrier, I’ll be taking sidewalks when possible.
Think about it like this: Bike crashes with car = broken bones and probably death. Bike crashes with person = bruises and scrapes, maybe broken bones.
It’s clear to me.
My issue is if you want to bike in the streetlike a car, then you have to obey car rules. Like stopping at stop lights and stop signs. If you want to ride on the sidewalk then you have to obey pedestrian rules, like crossing at the correct times. Thr number of cyclists I’ve seen blow through stop signs and stop lights is staggering.
You say that, but drivers would lose their minds bicyclists followed the same rules. Example: Taking the whole lane.
It’s called vehicular cycling and it’s a safer way to cycle.
Also often called “taking the primary position”. It’s often done to prevent close passes by forcing drivers who want to overtake to wait for a gap in the next lane
That or if you are in a group you cycle next to each other, so you are together taking up a comparable width of a car.
That is the one which angers carbrains the most. Yet it is the safer way to ride.
I first found John Forester’s book in the library in the 90s, and it felt like a tome of secret, special knowledge. Then, I read more of it, and it did not match my experiences.
Jason Slaughter has now done a very extensive takedown video on his Not Just Bikes channel, which is far more congruent with what I have seen. Taking the lane is effective when there’s no other choice, when it’s too narrow for cars to pass, but drivers will try anyway.
Otherwise, there’s very little that’s safe about it.
Thanks for shouting it out! I’ve been putting off watching that video for weeks but I’ll give it a go based on the recommendation here.
Man, it’s almost as if we need a third thing. A sort of, road for bicycles (or long, skinny concentration camp, if you prefer) which is suited to bicycling without getting in the way. Get those bloody cyclists off our roads and footpaths, those are for us!
Even when bikes have to ride on the roads, it would be crazy to make them behave exactly like cars, because they’re not.
Cars have to stop at stop signs because a driver’s visibility is quite poor, they have obstacles due to the A-pillar, etc,. and it is unsafe if they don’t stop and look out for other traffic.
Bicyclists have much better visibility, and a slower travel speed, so usually don’t need the extra time to be aware of other bike/car traffic. They are also incentivized to maintain momentum and move past a dangerous intersection in a visible, efficient way.
Which is why the Idaho stop is getting more and more accepted. Crashes at intersections go down 23% when implemented.
How would you implement this? Are they going to have bridges over every traffic light?
The Netherlands would like a word.
Granted. But they were originally built with cyclists in mind. I would love their infrastructure!
But they were originally built with cyclists in mind
No it wasn’t
The Netherlands was as car-brained as most other countries. Then, they changed course after the Stop de Kindermoord (Stop Murdering Children) protests, and started to build for people outside of cars. The process of rebuilding is still underway, now, in 2026.
The difference is not that the Netherlands was originally built for bicycles. It was not. The difference is that Americans don’t give two shits about the lives of children.
I live in a city in the US that has “bike lights” at the intersections. These give bicyclists the right of way without “letting” cars go as well.
Little longer of a traffic light, but makes biking waaaaay more approachable for newbie bicyclists (like me!)
Unfortunately, this is the only place I’ve ever seen them implemented.
Toronto has a pretty sweet setup with bike lanes that have their own bike street lamps. Seems to work very well for a city of millions.
Dutch people: “both of those are dumb and dangerous”
When cycling like a pedestrian here, such as on a shared bike/footpath, you do follow pedestrian rules at crossings. So lights are only advisory and you may cross at any time if you want to.
As much as I am all for the de-car-ification of my country, cyclist really aren’t doing themselves any favors.
Bullshit. Cyclists obey the rules of the road at greater rates than drivers. It’s just that you expect drivers to behave like entitled dipshits, so their lawbreaking is less visible.
Cyclists: every pavement is a shared space if you’re going fast enough.
For some reason there’s always a guy doing this when there’s a perfectly good cycle lane on the road next to them. Best thing as a pedestrian is to show no fear.
is it a “perfectly good cycle lane” tho? cyclists are just stupid for no reason? or maybe there is a good reason (or maybe even multiple reasons!) they go where they go
let’s try to extend some grace to a person who risks their life so that they pollute lessYeah, it’s really good cycle lane, I’ve used it many times because I’m not some entitled nobhead.
When cyclists have to share space with pedestrians, it can be really scary when a fast bike passes you as a pedestrian. But the changes of actually being hit and hurt are really low, though it does happen anecdotally.
It’s almost as if faster vehicles need to be kept away from vulnerable travellers… Hmmm…
I don’t think it’s that important to keep biikes away from pedestrians. They can usually coexist fine and fear doesn’t actually hurt anyone.
It’s way more important to keep cars far away from humans of all types.
As long as the path is suitable for it I would agree. Also depends on how many people use it.
One other big difference is that bicyclists can become pedestrians temporarily (by walking their bike) and then go back to being different. Cars cannot do this.
This is built into a lot of the designs i see, where there might be a wide road/path which accommodates both pedestrians and cyclists, but then to cross a preexisting narrow bridge, a pedestrian access only gate can ask cyclists to dismount and walk across.
It can ask, but then don’t be surprised when many people don’t do that or some take the road instead.
The footbridge is the only way across.
You are correct that it cannot force people to take the bridge; they could turn around and go back the way they came, although it does usually force bicyclists to dismount if they want to get across the river.
I’ve personally tried to “trials ride” through them, when no one else is around, but it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make such tight short turns.
There is nothing preventing a bicyclist from hopping back on their bike on the bridge, once they’re through the gate, and then hopping off again to pass the gate at the other side. But since they had to dismount, that removes most of the dangerous momentum and starts pedestrians and bicyclists off on equal footing as they cross the bridge, instead of leaving it 100% up to the bicyclist for deciding when to slow down and become a pedestrian.
I’m not sure what you mean by “take the road instead” – everybody is in the road, until it gets to the bridge, which the road doesn’t cross.
If its so difficult you can’t cycle through it, could you even get a wheelchair through it?
Although sounds like this is more a one off single bridge rather than a general thing.
Anyone driving a car has already made the decision that their minor convenience is worth the possible death of someone they don’t know and also worth the definite degradation of the shared environment everyone needs to live.
Expecting such a person to give any more of a fuck about the people around them than is necessary to avoid the “hassle” of hitting a pedestrian or cyclistsl is a laughable concept.
Good people don’t drive cars as personal transportation.
Get off the internet.
Get a bus pass
No, get off the internet and learn empathy. People exist outside of your pre-constructed idea of how the world should work. Get off the internet and go talk to people. Stop posting in that stupid brainwash cult.
Translation: it really hurts my feelings when you point out all the factual reasons relying on a pollution powered people crusher for my personal transportation is bad for society and the environment, please stop!!
Edit: no empathy for ecocidal narcissists. Learn some basic human decency before you go asking for empathy from others.
You’re either a troll or just a chronically online teenager because you don’t have any world experience if you’re spouting nonsensical buzzwords together to make yourself feel better about some half-cobbled together idea based on a world that exists only in your mind.
I’m not engaging with you any further. Grow up.
Translation: I still can’t rebut anything you actually said, but I hate how it made me feel, so I’m going to dismiss it and stick my head back in the sand now.
