BIKE: Our Dreary Flame Wars (was: more songs about buildings andfood)

[m.lee]

I just wanted to thank Mike and a few others for writing posts to the list that
are civil and avoid cussing at other cyclists. I have to admit that even if
someone has something worthwhile to say, it is hard for me to want to listen to
them when they spend alot of time being angry and verbally abusive towards
others. As a matter of fact, I feel like doing the direct opposite of what an
angry and verbally abusive person says... But how one chooses to represent
oneself is definitely a personal choice as is how one bicycles or drives a car.
A general statement can rarely cover all the situations a car driver or
bicyclist will encounter. I have seen lots of cyclists in the past week break
alot of traffic laws, and I've also seen even more cars do the same, but I
suspect that has more to do with the ratio of bikes to cars. I and another
person on the list who I talk to regularly have been debating whether or not to
automatically delete certain people on this list without bothering to read
their posts. I can understand an occasional angry statement or flame, but when
someone's posts tend to be generally geared toward those kinds... Discussions
do not have to turn into arguements.

MLee

Quoting Mike Librik or Amy Babich <mlibrik>:

> maniac wrote:
> 
> > I haven't contributed on here in a long time mostly because I don't want
> > to get involved in silly arguments that get rehashed over and over, but
> > what the heck, might as well add some more granola to the fire...
> >
> > >I've nearly wrecked my car at an intersection near UT because some bozo
> > >on a bike ran the stop sign. If I were older (worse reflexes), I would
> > >have. So there you go.
> 
> Bravo to Stuart the Saniac.
> 
> The most frustrating thing about our periodic flame wars over cyclists'
> behavior at red lights is that
> there is never any interest in sorting out where and how the positions differ
> and determining what we
> agree upon. Experienced cyclists, as a group, exhibit plenty of
> idiosyncrasies in their traffic
> behavior. If we are to try to distill the collected wisdom of experienced
> cyclists in order to transmit
> it to beginners, there needs to be a more unified message.
> 
> Clearly, analyses of the wisdom of running red lights must be viewed in terms
> of the presence of cross
> traffic and the density and distance of the traffic if it is present. The
> presence of opposing traffic
> has plenty of relevance as well. Pursuing traffic stands in a different
> relation to the act, since it
> poses no direct threat of collision.
> 
> Beyond the simple concern of just avoiding collision, we move on to the more
> subtle matter of driving in
> a way that helps to keep the stress level of other drivers down. I believe
> that the true ace driver
> drives with this goal in mind as well as that of avoiding accidents. The
> assumption that stressing out
> drivers leads, a priori, to disrespect for cyclists is not valid, but this is
> of little concern because
> the need to avoid stressing out other drivers is a suitably important
> consideration in itself. (That is,
> we have failed to some degree just be stressing another person out, whether
> or not this stress results
> in lowered respect for cyclists in general).
> 
> This distinction between safe behavior as one level of skill and
> stress-reducing behavior as an advanced
> level was demonstrated in stark, spatial terms during a previous flame war
> about how thru cyclists
> should position themselves in a right lane while waiting for a red light. One
> writer stated his habit of
> holding the lane as opposed to positioning himself in the right hand gutter
> and letting cars turn past
> him on his left. This is basically a sensible and well supported tactic. The
> writer's attitude of "let
> them wait" may risk increasing the pursuing drivers' stress in being denied
> the right turn on red, but
> does so while increasing the cyclist's safety.
> 
> But then another writer (that fellow with the distracting peeve about the use
> of his last name) wrote an
> angry letter about how the first writer should have voluntarily moved
> *further left* in the lane to
> allow right turning traffic to go through. Here is an advanced level trick,
> and a dicey one at that,
> aimed at both improving the cyclist's safety and reducing overall stress. The
> problem is that the
> mid-level cyclist is being abused for essentially doing the correct thing
> (that is, not keeping too far
> right) and not attempting a more ambitious, if unproven technique.
> 
> Notably, the person dispensing this advanced advice seemed to assume that
> everyone rode the same style
> of bike he did, and had the ability to lift and drag the bike sideways while
> stopped. On the whole it
> was not bad advice, and good food for thought for the person looking to
> improve their driving skill, but
> it was not grounds for abusing someone who did not bike exactly as the pundit
> did.
> 
> Congratulations on making it to the end of my post. I know it would have been
> more interesting if I
> called somebody a Hippie Faggot, or held down the caps lock key, but my prose
> is, alas, too dry for
> that.
> 
> --
> Mike Librik
> Easy Street Recumbents
> 512-453-0438
> 45th and Red River St.
> Central Austin
> info
> www.easystreetrecumbents.com
> www.urbancycling.com
> 
> 
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