Reuters:
Americans leery of bicycles despite gas price jump. “This is the U.S. and people will kill you out there riding your bike ... [snip] ... I would not take my life in my hands and ride a bike.” Sad, but this quote is quite representative of exactly why many won’t consider bicycling. Automobile drivers don’t consider bikes ‘vehicles’ and legitimate users of the roadways. When a bicyclist is picked off by an automobile, the legal ramifications are frankly astonishing. The driver can be completely at fault, taking a legal walk while the bicyclist resides in pieces in a tomb. Start at the Miller case, and read the next page or so. Bicyclists are widely considered to be ‘asking for it’, and it is an attitude that needs to be harshly reversed through Federal, State and local legislation.
Comments:
legistlation, mind-set, and through design .... go to any german city, the bike lanes are incredibly clear, different colored pavement or tiles, sometimes protected with curbing
yet another benefit that will arrive if gas can get to 10 bucks a gallon
pray for it
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“Bicyclists are widely considered to be ‘asking for it’, and it is an attitude that needs to be harshly reversed through Federal, State and local legislation.”
A recent study of fatal bicycle accidents in San Francisco concluded that fully two thirds of them were caused by risky or outright illegal maneuvers by the bicyclist. Also, as a resident of Berkeley it never ceases to amaze me how frequently pedestrians stride right into traffic at pedestrian crossings (almost every intersection in Berkeley that doesn’t have a traffic light) without even looking sideways or making eye contact with oncoming cars—like saying, “It’s my right of way, dead or alive.” So, I respectfully but completely disagree with you, or else the attitudes that need harsh treatments are not only with the car drivers.
Note that unlike New Mexico, California already deals very harshly with drunken drivers.
-Ray