Our Hobbesian streets
By adamg - Thu, 07/31/2008 - 11:48am.
Latest news from the front comes from Stacie, who describes how a jaywalker reacted to her nerve in attempting to make a right from the bike lane.
- Add new comment |
| 
| 
Recent comments
Boston Blogs Network
- My Top 10 Twitter @ Reply People
- The Martini Workout: Oxymoron or No? You Decide
- Holiday at the Gardner: Doors Open to All
- Ho Ho Ho! Keith and the Pops Return to Salute the Season
- Flea Market: Funky Stuff for Your Xmas List
- Christmas in 1959: Jump on the Nostalgia Train in Taunton
- Someone You Shuld Know: 1LT Travis Manion
- You Think Better Of Me Than This, Right?
- Improving The Greenways Meeting
- The Economy Changes Its Facebook Status to 'In a Recession'
Sponsors
Boston Condos
Boston Luxury Condos
Waterfront Midtown
Condos
Consumer United For FREE!
Sign up for our eNews updates and use the promo code "SAVENOWBLOG" for one-year free membership with Consumer United.
Squirt Gun
I'm imagining the possibilities - particularly since I could easily mount one to my bike and conceal it, too!
Excellent...
The floodgates of the biker vs. pedestrian vs. automobile has been opened once again.
Let the bloodbath begin!
such vitriol, indeed!
sigh...
If bicyclists are gonna
If bicyclists are gonna start packing water guns, Im walking around with a stick, and some thumb tacks.
We already carry bike locks
They defend the bike, they defend the rider. nuff said.
You are talking weapons over a little water here ... do you attack vehicles that drive through puddles near your water-damaged candy body?
I carry a rather large
I carry a rather large umbrella when it rains, and generally dont hit cars if they accidentally spash me, but I did strike a car with my umbrella once when he ran a red light , splashed me and came a little too close to my feet.
People on bikes shouldnt be squirting people. What is it about bike people that make them think they are some how above the law and can act like maniacs?
(rolls eyes)
Putting up with massholes threatening us, that's what.
What is it about pedestrians and motorists around here who think their shit doesn't stink? Who jaywalk and violate the road laws all over the goddamn place and expect a medal for it or say/think that following the rules is for little kids and being scofflaws makes them a grownup somehow - or expect cyclists to do better or bear actual rule enforcement? Most Mass drivers and pedestrians wouldn't make it twenty minutes in a Northwest or Western Canadian city without a ticket. Look at Manny!
Water is a rather civilized response to people who are verbally abusive and threatening when they are clearly the source of hazard.
Squirting someone with a
Squirting someone with a watergun and riding off can be considered assault so I would advise against it unless you want that purdy bike impounded so you can pay your legal bills.
(eyes spin)
You funny.
Oh, but a cyclist = evil, so that must be more important than, say, Anonymous getting held up with a gun or Eeka getting smashed by someone who shouldn't be driving.
Well, I'll just have to file assault charges the next time I see a motorist flick a soda cup or a ciggy out the window in front of me - dangerous to me, can cause a fire, etc. (and be advised - do that out west and you will likely get fined $1000s).
Not to get into semantics
Not to get into semantics here but I think this all started when you said it was a good idea to shoot people with a watergun from your bike. Joke or not there was a responce about it and now your saying it wouldnt be any worse than someone else throwing a ciggy out a window or holding people up at gun point! Sure when you put a relative spin on it, anything can seem ok.
Im sorry I just knocked you off your bike, set the bike on fire, and then proceeded to squirt you with a squirt gun but guess what its ok because its not as bad as that guy who shot that other guy ysterday so its all good.
Most people in Massachusetts
...know their fellow drivers are jerks. And they know that Boston pedestrians are, to put it charitably, unpredictable. We've had our whole lives to get used to this.
What they haven't yet gotten used to is the fact that the number of people on bikes has seeming quadrupled in the last three months, and most of these people (as pierce pointed out) don't really know what they're doing, don't really seem to care, and many feel that the simple act of riding a bike provides them with a halo and Cloak of Immunity to Criticism.
Either there will be untold carnage on the street, or the masses will come to an understanding that there's yet another class of overentitled out there on the roads and will turn their overt rage into the seething unspoken rage that we live with every day. And then it will snow, and the dilettantes will get back in their cars, and the cycle (no pun intended) will begin anew.
Overentitled?
When there is a call to enforce laws on everybody equally - just like they do in other cities - we'll talk about cyclists being overentitled.
When it is just about "gotta crack down on cyclists" then it is nothing but bullshit.
olive branch of sorts
http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/npo/777669782.html
Consider it an olive branch of sorts.
Wow.
It was getting ugly there for a while (as I had predicted). But Shady, but that "olive branch" was pretty cool, and much needed.
Its just funny because it
Its just funny because it came up in my job search that I do everyday (looking for a new gig, it takes a little too long to get to work now.) It doesnt pay what I need, doesnt have the hours, and I dont bike but it matched quite a few of my other keywords. For what it is its a cool job for a bike person looking to work 20 hours a week.
Fair Enough
I'll only call them "overentitled" when I see them riding on sidewalks when it suits them, zipping across crosswalks with a "walk" sign, cutting across two lanes of cars stopped at a red light to make a left turn, and squirting water guns at people who say a discouraging word. Only when I see things like that will I think of them as "overentitled". In fact, I probably won't see any of those things on my way home tonight.
If it's any consolation, when I see a car running a red light or screwing with a pedestrian, the word in my head is a lot saltier than "overentitled".
Overentitled? Some are.
Like the pair of guys on bikes who I fell in behind while moving up to turn right on Beacon St in Brookline one day.
I was on my scooter and they were on their bikes. They look back when they hear my putter behind them. I was simply moving with them back about 10 feet waiting until I could go right at the intersection ahead. One looks at the other, points back at me and turns and says "Like his bumper?"
On the bumper was wrapped one of the Martha Vineyard snob stickers:
I said, "Rough life" and then took my turn since we had reached the intersection.
Disgusting, given that I am often *very* aware of bike riders around me. I will often go so far as to shield them at lights from the car behind us and stay well out of the right hand area when I can't fit past a parked car, but I recognize that bikes can often make it where my scooter can not to get ahead of traffic. I only pass bikes on the left when there's plenty of room in the lane and give them deference around double-parkers, etc. But these two felt the need to denigrate me based on my choice of vehicle with a sticker based on Vineyard tourists and their inability to motor safely.
Nevermind that they weren't wearing helmets...talk about dangerous. Yeah, so keep in mind that there are definitely cyclists who are elitist with entitlement issues over other their cousins on the road (let alone how most end up feeling about cars, SUVs, etc).
above the law, maniac
...like the idiot I encountered speeding down a narrow Marlborough St. sidewalk towing a small child behind him in one of those bike trailers at 9:30pm at night almost plowing into me and a friend without warning, without a sound and without an apology afterward. We were in mid conversation so I only heard him coming up behind us at the last second. I yanked my friend aside as he just narrowly missed slamming right into us. He didn't look back or slow down, just sped right down the sidewalk.
As big an asshat as that NYPD cop in Times Square was,
it's good to watch for ideas in case anyone pulls a squirt gun on you.
The NYPD could tear gas the
The NYPD could tear gas the critical massers for all i care, they are knowingly going out to cause headaches and break laws. I've been bike-only, no car, since most of these boutique bikers were still driving their parents' grand cherokees to outdoor concerts, and they are a thorn in the side of every well-meaning cyclist. I just want to ride, follow the laws, and be left alone.
More and more I'm siding with the non-bikers, as more idiots take to two wheelers. This woman was obviously pushing the limits of yellow light-dom, and I believe its technically illegal to enter an intersection on yellow. If it were her pedaling off on half-yellow to go across the intersection and some car came whizzing through the yellow, she'd be just as ungraceful in her reaction.
Technically Illegal?
Nope. Geesh. Look it up already. You are supposed to stop UNLESS you are moving too quickly to do so safely - such as when you are doing 15mph and it changes to yellow when you are 5 feet from the stopline.
Idiot loudmouth pedestrian is lucky - usually that vehicle coming through is a car. A car that is blasting around the vehicle with the driver who DID stop, on the right side, in the bike lane, horn blaring, middle finger waving, cell phone in hand, that is coming through the pink-yellow light that is IN HIS WAY.
I reread the post and am
I reread the post and am perplexed about her use of the word orange instead of yellow to begin with.
Also your supposed to slow down when making a turn, and if she were slowing down AND saw the "orange" yellow light then she should have been able to come to a safe stop. She was obviously blowing the light and that IS illegal. Cops have given tickets to people for going through a yellow if they could have helped it.
Oh Horrors!
A cyclist did what nearly all drivers do! Kill her! Burn her! She don't know her place!
For once we seem to agree,
For once we seem to agree, you get the pitchforks I will take care of the torches.
Wouldn't she already have
Wouldn't she already have been in the processing of slowing down for the turn? That seems like a pretty casual stop on yellow. If that is unsafe then she needs to have her brakes tightened...
Most bikes already have water bottles
which are designed to be 'squirted' for ordinary drinking purposes.
Race you to the light
My scooter is a lot of great things, but a mountain climber it is not. Going up Corey Road in Brighton, I can usually maintain about 15 mph on the climb up to Summit Ave. The road is only two lanes wide with a double-yellow line.
I was halfway up when a Black Civic passed me across the double-yellow and zoomed over the hill. I reached the top soon after to see him stuck behind a turning vehicle on the down-side and then stopped at the traffic light at Washington St. I pulled in behind him and gave him a golf-clap applause in his rear view window. It was to say "Congratulations, you douche, you risked my life and your's on that insane hill just to stop here mere seconds before me". He spun in his seat and grinned at me. I think he got the message, but I have a feeling he's dumb enough to do it again.
OH NOES
"Congratulations, you douche, you risked my life and your's on that insane hill just to stop here mere seconds before me".
Curses, what a vile character! I have never been passed on yonder whilst riding my pedaling contraption.
Call the rozzers!
Feel free
If you ever catch up with someone who passed you, feel free to give them a golf applause too. I won't even charge you a licensing fee or nothin'.
Courteous Mass
Just like Critical Mass, only law abiding! Boston Biker reports on the first ever Courteous Mass ride, on Aug. 8, starting at 5:30 p.m. in Copley Square: