liftandcut
Wannabe ProHi Mayor

Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Posts: 308
Location: 48 paces from Ripple.

Okay, so what’s the deal with you people? As a driver, day after day it amazes me how inept so many of you are at riding bikes in the streets of the city, particularly in this, and surrounding neighborhoods.

Here’s what I see: you don’t ride at the speed of traffic, preferring to leisurely pedal at 5 mph, without a care in the world. You often ride two, or even three abreast, in order to better facilitate conversation with your biking buddies as you make your way down streets. You even ride against traffic on narrow streets and get mad when honked at. You have been seen riding so far from the curb and parked cars that you end up in the path of moving cars. You don’t use headlights at night (illegal), hand signals, bells, and you almost never look over your shoulders.

To top it all off, most of you don’t even wear helmets, which baffles me.

As a former bike messenger, daily driver, and native New Yorker, the only thing that makes me curse out loud in my car is how so many of you bike like you’re on a sun-dappled, suburban sidewalk. It makes me furious, really.

I don’t know when this happened in New York. Used to be, bikers and drivers had an understanding, and a certain rhythm in the streets of this city. Sure, there have been accidents, and middle fingers flipped, and filthy words hurled, but jeez, at least traffic used to move.

Last thing I have to say to you “bikers” is: learn how to ride those super cool, retro metro, “I bought this $25 bike so I can sport a $100 Kryptonite chain,” bikes. It would make a lot of pedestrians, and drivers a lot happier.