BIKE: How to break the law?

[Patrick Goetz]

Mike Dahmus wrote:
> 
> Oh, I forgot one more: credibility is earned through a combination of 
> pragmatism and idealism - not all one or the other. Patrick, how many 
> things have you accomplished at the UTC with your brand of firebreathing 
> radicalism?
>

Wow, if only every Monday morning started with this kind of shameless 
flattery.  In response to the message this quote is extracted from, I'd 
like to repost a rather funny message which was on the Monorail Society 
discussion list this morning, with my comment to follow.

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Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 20:37:48 -0000
From: "fairmanimation" <fairmanimation>
Subject: My safety rant

Your car doesn't need air bags. It also doesn't need seat belts,
crumple zones, side impact door beams, breakaway pedals, or head
restraints. Instead of all that safety gear all we need is for
everyone to simply obey all the traffic laws. If everyone obeys all
the traffic laws all the time, then their will never be any car
accidents. Hooray! I'm a genius! I will accept my Nobel Prize now.

I have to confess that I didn't come up with this glorious piece of
logic all by my self. I developed my theory of Don't Crash You Stupid
Moron (DCYSM) after reading the Houston Chronicle. It seems the
people of Huston are a tad concerned about all the people and cars
their new light rail system keeps running over. So the officials went
to work looking at all the factors contributing to the carnage. (If
they were geniuses like me, they simply would have asked all the
other cities around the county with the same problem, but they're
clearly not geniuses.) They discovered that the accidents are not a
fault of the light rail vehicles, but rather stupid morons not
following all the traffic laws, and thereby getting in the way of the
perfectly safe 100,000 lb. rail cars swooshing down the streets. The
lesson learned: as long as Houston drivers don't have accidents, then
the light rail system will be safe.

It wasn't too much of a stretch of my considerable mental powers to
apply this concept to all traffic accidents. All we need to do NOT
HAVE ACCIDENTS. With my revolutionary DCYSM theory we can now see
that the safety advantages of monorail would be wasted. After all,
why (except for higher speed by not having to go through traffic)
build an elevated system if stupid morons don't cause accidents on
the ground. Now if we can just apply this concept to the aviation and
nuclear power industries…

Rob Fairman
Orlando Monorail
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The main point that Michael Bluejay and I are making is that people, 
motorists and bicyclists, will break traffic laws; if not overtly then 
certainly inadvertantly: because they're not paying attention, they 
can't see, they're in a blind rage, or what have you.  Your primary 
safety responsibility as a bicyclist is to make sure that you're covered 
even if someone runs a red light, makes an unsignaled left turn right in 
front of you, or whatever.  This kind of  mindfulness is considerably 
more important than following traffic laws religiously.  This kind of 
mindfulness can be encapsulated in the Golden Rule of Bicycle Safety, 
namely, never do anything that requires a motorist (or any user of the 
roadway, for that matter) to use his or her brakes.  Following this rule 
means that, even if you do decide to run red lights or roll through stop 
signs, you A) won't ever inconvience a driver (inconvience = stepping on 
brakes) and B) will be as safe as can reasonably expected while riding 
your bike (if no one is in a position to have to brake, then there's no 
potential for collision by definition).

This is basically all we're saying.  If you'd like to disagree with this 
statement (that mindfulness is more important than following traffic 
laws religiously), then do so, but please don't set up straw men (blind 
bicyclists blasting through red lights at the speed of sound!), claim 
that this is what we're advocating, and then formulate arguments against 
your own claims.

And yes, there are folks who overestimate their own abilities and are 
consequently unsafe to themselves and others on the roadway.  Are these 
people going to stand around and listen to someone lecture them about 
obeying traffic rules?  Hardly.  Don't you hope, however, that these 
folks are riding a bicycle and/or taking public transportation rather 
than riding around in a gigantic SUV?