BIKE: Re: Breaking the law

[Michael Bluejay]

As usual this debate is like two ships passing in the night.  You're 
arguing that when cyclists break the law motorists look down on us.  I 
guess you don't realize that that's the exact same point that *I'm* 
making -- with the addition that such an assessment is unfair and 
hypocritical.  Motorists and policymakers are eager to deny cyclists 
rights and facilities if they see cyclists breaking the law, but when 
do they extend that same kind of repression to motorists for doing the 
same thing?

Spare me the lecture about how motorists don't break the law as badly 
as cyclists.  Despite the fact that that's irrelevant, since the STATED 
concern is that cyclists *break the law*, not *how* they break the law, 
the fact remains that motorists break the law in ways that are just as 
bad or worse as cyclists do and kill people, in large numbers.  How 
many tickets did APD issue to motorists last year for more than 
"running the orange"?  How many people died on Austin's roadways at the 
hands of motorists?

And when all this law-breaking occurred, did any single motorist 
anywhere say, "This law-breaking by motorists hurts my own credibility 
as a motorist."?  Right.

I'm the one who can't distinguish between shades of gray?  Hello, 
complaining about cyclists who "break the law" is *exactly* a failure 
to acknowledge shades of gray.  When the complaint is that cyclists 
"break the law" (rather than that they, say, break *more* laws, or 
break more *significant* laws), then no shades of gray have been 
suggested.  If the argument is NOT that cyclists break the law at all, 
then people should stop saying that that's what their complaint is.  
Don't say down when you mean up.  Don't say that a movie isn't 
non-violent when you really mean that the movie is indeed violent but 
it's still a good movie anyway.

-MBJ-

On Apr 30, 2005, at 2:03 PM, Mike Dahmus wrote wrote:

> Warning, reductio ad absurdium alert.
>
> Because it's not particularly useful to look at the world from the
> perspective that if you've ever exceeded the speed limit, you can't 
> yell
> at people who murder their neighbors.
>
> Reductio ab absurdium over.
>
> Now take that down several thousand notches and get pragmatic for a 
> bit.
> Politically, cyclists running stop signs just KILLS us with the 98% of
> people who don't ride for transportation. This is a fact - dispute
> gravity for all the better it'll do you at the same time. I get to hear
> it all the time from my suburban cow orkers and friends, and have
> documented cases where it resulted in changed votes at the UTC (or at
> least acceptable justification for negative votes). Whether this really
> hurts cyclists directly, or gives anti-cyclist voters a more palatable
> excuse for doing what they want to do anyways is irrelevant, since in
> the latter case, less palatable excuses for doing bad things to/for
> cyclists would in the end result in fewer actual bad things done to/for
> cyclists anyways.
>
> You can complain all you want that it's not FAIR, since motorists do
> rolling stops, run the orange, and speed all the time, but the fact is
> that many people here who both drive and bike are able to distinguish
> between shades of gray (speeding not as bad as running the middle of a
> red light, for instance), and more importantly, those same 98% of 
> people
> out there don't care whether or not the comparison is fair.
>
> So even if I agreed with you (I don't) that it's not 'fair' to expect
> cyclists to obey stop signs and red lights, it doesn't matter, since 
> you
> still have to convince the other 98%, and trust me, you'll never do 
> that.
>
> On the other hand, when I ride courteously and legally, I've had many
> instances where motorists have obviously appreciated it and indicated
> so. It couldn't possibly hurt to follow that example, could it?