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Pedaling Diego: San Diego's Growing Bicycle Mania
framous, the bicycle is a very practical means of travel. It's used by thousands of people in San Diego every single day. It's used by millions of people around the world every single day. For short trips it makes a lot of sense. I'm not defending bicyclists breaking the law. However, the notion that bicyclists break the law more than drivers is either a delusion or a lie. Most drivers speed most of the time that they can. Most drivers don't come to a complete stop at stop signs or right turn on red if there is no cross traffic. Most drivers don't signal most of the time. Indeed, signalling often results in another driver moving to block your signaled movement which discourages even drivers from signalling (BTW, I do signal on my bike). Most drivers will not yield right of way to a pedestrian at an uncontrolled intersection or even a cross walk if that cross walk does not also have a stop sign or red light to tell them to stop. I stopped in my car to let a pedestrian cross at a cross walk and was rewarded with some idiot leaning on his horn because I was complying with the law. I see tons of people driving with cell phones up to their ear every day. I see drivers running red lights every day. I see people tail gating every day. I often see drivers turn across multiple lanes. I see wrong way drivers at least a few times a month. We'd all be better off if everyone would obey the rules of the road, including drivers. Actually especially drivers, since they are orders of magnitude more dangerous than bicyclists. I find claims that drivers are endangered by bicycles to be laughable. In a collision between a bicycle vs. car, the driver and passengers almost never get hurt. People who complain about other people not having common sense often do not know what common sense is. This is especially true when it comes to bicycle safety which most people think they understand, but don't. The Traffic Skills 101 class from the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition will teach you things that surprise most people, even people that have ridden thousands of miles per year for decades.— December 30, 2010 11:32 p.m.
Pedaling Diego: San Diego's Growing Bicycle Mania
While I agree with SCMDave that CM doesn't seem to have much to do with improvements for bicycling infrastructure, Portland actually has had a fairly significant CM for years. Building better infrastructure requires direct work towards that goal and it started in Portland before they had a CM. For the story on the building of Portland bicycling infrastructure, read "Joyride" by Mia Birk. letsgorideabike.com/blog/2010/12/mia-birk-on-joyr… CM doesn't directly accomplish anything. It's supposed to raise awareness. I'm not sure how well it even does that. Copenhagen has had CM every day at rush hour for the last century or so because bicycling has always been extremely popular there and they have better education for both bicyclists and drivers. If I recall correctly, something near half of commuters within Copenhagen are bicyclists. They don't have any reason to have a special ride. Long Beach is calling themselves one of the most bicycle friendly cities but I think that's a bit premature. They've made huge progress that is very impressive but they still have a way to go.— December 30, 2010 4:16 p.m.
Pedaling Diego: San Diego's Growing Bicycle Mania
Bicycling in the road is not nearly as dangerous as many people think. I highly recommend taking the "Traffic Skills 101" course from the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition for anyone who rides in the road. See their web site for details. The book "Bicycling Street Smarts" is available free online and teaches mostly the same things. Once you learn how to integrate with traffic properly, you will feel a lot safer riding in the road. Bicycle safety is not intuitive. You need to study it in order to learn it. The California DMV has the California Vehicle Code online. Bicyclists mostly have to follow the same laws as motor vehicle operators but there are some differences which are mostly spelled out in C.V.C. Division 11, Chapter 1, Article 4. I'm kind of disappointed that so much emphasis in this article is on Critical Mass. I don't consider CM to be representative of me or of most bicyclists. I particularly disagree with the freeway, Coronado bridge and inside mall routes. The people leading the groups onto those routes are trying to turn CM from a celebration into a confrontation. I know that many CM riders disagree with those routes too and there has been some effort by some within CM to block the group from going on freeway on ramps. San Diego has a growing bicycle commuter community. San Diego bicycling not all racing bikes, fixies, mountain bikes and Critical Mass. It's not even close to that. Check out sdbikecommuter dot com, a forum where many avid San Diego bicycle commuters hang out.— December 29, 2010 8:43 p.m.