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Re: Biker radicals
In article <191412Z16071995@anon.penet.fi> an276657@anon.penet.fi writes:
>I know when I was a kid the cops used to tell you to ride on the
>sidewalk and if you had to use the road to ride on the left side so that
>you could get off the road if you saw a car coming.
That explains a lot about American cyclists. In Britain the police
(and the Govt) were never so stupid: bikes have *always* been subject
to the same rules as other vehicular traffic, except where there was a
special bicycle rule (e.g. the hand signs indicating intention to be
given to police controlling traffic differ for cars and bikes).
>If there had been
>bike paths I know they would have told you to ride there. Now it seems
>that bikes don't have to ride on the sidewalk (they aren't even supposed
>to!) or the bike path and they are not even supposed to ride on the
>left.
In Britain (and the rest of Europe) cycling on sidewalks has always
been illegal, and it has always been *compulsory* to ride on the same
side of the road as cars.
>Hell, it even seems to be legal for them to make a left turn from
>the left lane (go figure)!
This has *always* been the law in Britain & the rest of Europe -- not
only is it legal, it is *compulsory* to make both left and right turns
out of the ipsilateral lanes.
>What's really wacky about this is that I know some real car hating
>eco-freaks and they agree with me about these guys, they're nuts.
What's wacky is that the US, unlike Europe (and proabably the rest of
the world) never developed a strong transportation bicycling culture,
including having plenty of *police* cyclists, and sensible laws about
how to integrate the various kinds of road vehicles. You guys started
off seeing bikes as toys and recreational devices, and lots of you,
having passed the age at which alcohol consumption renders the brain
incapable of further learning, can't get the nonsense you learned as
kids out of your heads.
>I mean what's the point to
>bike paths if they don't get bikes off the road?!
Exactly.
>I spent a week in Holland and I'll tell you they don't put up with any
>of that crap there. Bikes have their paths and the law says that they
>have to use them and you sure as hell don't see any bikes on the roads
>(at least the main ones).
What do you mean by main roads? Their cities are full of bikes, using
the same roads as the cars.
>If you could have American roads (Dutch ones
>are too crowded) and Dutch bike paths and Dutch bike laws it would be
>great.
Of course you mean to include the Dutch law which says that in any
coliision between a cyclist and a car the car is automatically at
fault?
>Of course you'll never see that here with the sort of egghead
>politicians we get and with every minority group whining about their
>rights.
Of course, you're quite right, American car drivers would never stand
for it. They never stop whining about being delayed precious seconds
by cyclists, they'd bust a blood vessel if they were automatically at
fault after running the bastard into the ditch.
--
Chris Malcolm cam@aifh.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK DoD #205
"The mind reigns, but does not govern" -- Paul Valery
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