Frustrated With Bicycle Riders!!!!

Cyclists that ride on sidewalks are my biggest rant!! i have been HIT by more of them than I care to count. We have bike lanes, but the idiots still insist on riding on the sidewalks. I hate standing at the bus stop, only to have a herd of them come barreling down the sidewalk at me.

I was driving home today and was behind a bike going probabaly 8 miles an hour in a 35 zone. I was frustrated, but thought "it's his road too, although I wish he would bike on the side of the street so I can go around" After about 10 minutes behind this guy we get to a stoplight and he just biked right through it....SO irritated when i got home.

I have noticed more bikers out here too

We have a group of about thirty that go through our neighborhood. My husband calls them the "Tour de Freaks".

lol! raven, i just happened to glance down in my thread and saw "tour de freaks" and had a little giggle...

emily, you are right, bike riders should follow the rules of the road... just like we ALL do!

yeah I know what you are talking about! It is so annoying!

We have lots of bikers out here but not many local riders. Most are on long-distant rides. Many are on the first leg of cross-country trips. They are all very respectful of traffic because if they are not they will get hit, and once is forever at the speeds cars travel this far out of town.

I'm all for biking when they also respect the people driving. It just seems like this year I've run into so many people who are not taking into account there are drivers using the same road.

In most states where the lane width is insufficient for a car and a bicycle to share the lane (generally under 14 feet wide), the bicyclist is allowed (again, in most states) to take the lane, meaning claim the lane by riding so that cars must defer to passing until there is a passing zone. This means cars must legally wait to pass.

On bicyclists blowing red lights, yes, they are breaking the law. Just as cars who roll stops and blow red lights are breaking the law.

Jessica, not ALL people obey the law, in fact, more cars run stops & red lights than bicyclists, with much more dire consequences. I am not justifying bicyclists disobeying the law, just think before you make a statement such as "like we ALL do". That statement is clearly false. Just as a lot of motorists disobey laws, so do lots of bicyclists. The common problem is lack of education or intentional disregard of the law.

Ruth, bicyclists are traffic, too. Most states classify a bicycle as a "vehicle" for the purposes of the law, meaning they have full rights and responsibilities of the road.

As an avid bicyclist who mostly abides laws, all I ask is that you give folks the benefit of the doubt that they are not acting maliciously, but are merely uneducated. Forget the fact that it's a motorist or bicyclist and remember, we're all humans and we all deserve to be shown a basic level of respect for life regardless of our behavior (within reason). Don't let the fact you're losing a few precious minutes or becoming frustrated cause you to act irrationally and injure or kill someone.