Friday, March 13, 2009
Taking it to the streets
A Milwaukee-area Fox News photographer and avid road cyclist apparently experienced one car-swipe too many and decided to start filming the SOBs. I say good on him.
I'm a strong advocate for bike rights and safety, and firmly believe that everyone needs to be better educated about the rules regarding how to share the road. I also believe that we need stricter punishment for those, both drivers and cyclists, who break the rules. It puts people's lives in danger, and that should simply be unacceptable.
H/T EcoVelo.
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7 comments:
This is an amazing video! thanks for posting it. i can't tell you how many times i've been commuting downtown by bike and had to ditch myself to avoid a person on their cell phone driving 1 ft from the curb on a road with a painted bike lane. what really bothers me is the police's lack of knowledge of bicycle laws in Wisconsin. Several of my Madison Cycling compatriots at Madisonbiking.com carry cycling statutes in their saddle bags so they have the law with them. giving credit to you Emily, i posted this at MadisonBiking.com hopefully fellow cyclers will watch this and brush up on knowledge of their own road rights.
You're quite welcome, and I'm glad it's of some use to folks.
The idea of keeping cycling statutes in your saddle bag is genius! I may have to start doing that as I attempt to commute by bike more often.
Thanks for cross-posting, too. I'm trying to do my best to bring up cycling-related topics as much as possible on this here blog.
This is very powerful stuff, I am surprised the TV news in Milwaukee spent 5 minutes on this story. This guy is awesome. It shows how not bike friendly so many streets are, especially in Milwaukee.
One of the points that was not made as clear as it needs to be is that if a driver of a car is behind a bike and they can't pass him safely they need to SLOW DOWN and may need to wait a while. All the cars in the video seem to feel they are entitled to keep up at full speed regardless of the bike. I bet most of the drivers would say, I was trying to pass the bike but there was on-coming traffic and I did not want to go into that lane. Of course cars should not move into dangerous on-coming traffic. Everyone is in such a g-d damn hurry they can't just slow down safely behind the bike for a few minutes, oh no.
I am going to put this on my blog too.
I hope he is also filming bikes who run red lights and stop signs. That happens all the time in Milwaukee.
How does that excuse motorists putting cyclist's lives in danger? It doesn't. Neither does this piece say that biker's are free from their own safety obligations.
The video of him biking in front of a plow throws that argument out the window. When cyclists follow the rules of the road then maybe drivers will treat them with respect.
John - I'll readily concede the point that riding your bike in the middle of a snow storm when the plows are out is a supremely poor choice.
However, you're still missing the larger, more important point here: Motorists can kill cyclists by not being attentive and respectful on the road (like they're beholden by both law and common decency to do). Cyclists, on the other hand, have very little chance of killing a motorist.
Should they also be attentive and respectful? Absolutely. But there's no excuse for either to put the other in danger.
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