Imagine if you will, cruising down the street in your car when you come upon several bicyclists heading the same direction that you are going. It\u2019s a busy street and they are riding two and maybe even three wide, and you\u2019re not able to get around them for quite some time. What do you do?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That does depend on local laws.\u00a0 Bikes are entitled to half a lane and three feet of clearance in Minnesota (assuming I have it correct).\u00a0 They’re also well-advised to clear out of the way of traffic, into the parking lane, if people are piling up behind them; tense drivers are dangerous drivers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You might decide to hit your horn to encourage them to move over a bit. You may shout at them, telling them to get off of the road, or, as you finally do pass them, you may extend a hand and a certain finger while yelling obscenities at them. Now I would never endorse nor do the two latter ones, there have been plenty of times when my horn was put into effect.
\nAs of this past Monday, all of those reactions could cost a heavy fine or even land you in jail for up to a year over in Columbia, Mo. The Columbia City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting such road rage geared towards bicyclists. Don\u2019t be surprised if that trend starts to take hold here in Kansas, especially over in Lawrence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Enh.\u00a0 Road rage should be illegal, no matter who the target is.\u00a0 Bikers are <\/em>more vulnerable, since we’re not wrapped in a ton of metal, but rage is rage.\u00a0<\/p>\nBut here’s where we get into preconceptions:<\/p>\n
I understand that road rage is high, especially against bike riders. The general knowledge, or I should say, what everyone thinks concerning bicyclists may be wrong. They do have a right to the road just as much as cars do. I don\u2019t have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is the fact that bicyclists are supposed to follow the same rules as cars do.<\/p>\n
Stopping at stop signs and red lights. Signaling when turning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Well, no kidding.\u00a0 I mean, bikes are vehicles<\/em>, and they should act like vehicles<\/em> – right?<\/p>\nI mean, just like the semis on Summit Avenue have to follow “turn on red” rules, and\u00a0dirt bikes on University Avenue have to mind the speed limit, and mopeds are allowed to use the shoulders on the freeway just like MTC buses, and bicycles have to maintain proper clearance on the freeways!<\/p>\n
Well, no – semis aren’t allowed on Summit, dirt bikes aren’t allowed on the street until you slap a\u00a0lights and signals on ’em, and mopeds aren’t allowed on the road at all (much less freeway shoulders), and bicycles aren’t allowed on the Interstate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vehicles are not <\/em>one size fits all, even in the eyes of the law.\u00a0 They have <\/em>different rules.\u00a0<\/p>\nI’m an advocate of the Boise Stop rule, in which bikes are allowed to treat stop signs as “Yield” signs, and stoplights as stop signs.\u00a0 It doesn’t change the rules of the road – just makes them safer.\u00a0 Intersections where cars and bikes aren’t mingling about as fake equals are just plain safer.\u00a0 Having bikes and cars trying to accelerate out of corners together is bad news – getting through or out of intersections is always good if you’re a biker – and that doesn’t even address the stress injuries caused by sitting too long at pointless lights, letting ones’ muscles get all cold, then heated up, then cold again.<\/p>\n
So yeah, bikers should follow the rules.\u00a0 But the rules should make sense, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Columbia, Missouri\u00a0– known as “The Berkeley of the Ozarks” – has passed a law against road-raging against bikers.\u00a0 My jury is still out on the law itself – stupid road rage is stupid road rage, no matter\u00a0who\u00a0it’s aimed at. But\u00a0this op-ed in the Wichita paper\u00a0touches on some preconceptions that need to get looked at: Imagine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}