This is a tad hyperbolic. Or you were driving through the Taste of Chicago.

This is a tad hyperbolic. Or you were driving through the Taste of Chicago.

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

Of course it's hyperbolic. This entire site is one big example of hyperbole.

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

"Share the road" doesn't mean cyclists can do whatever they want.

I hate when they ride side by side, instead of single file. Everyday, I see a group of cyclists, in full uniforms, riding down Mack Rd. in Warrenville, side by side. It is a two lane road, and if there is traffic in the other lane, and you can't pass, you have to drive at 20 mph for a long stretch of road.

Oh yeah... the worst is these assholes who look at you and purposely walk slower as if to say "I'll walk however fast I want."

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

No.

That seems unfair. If you can ride your bike down the center of the lane why can't I strap on some rollerblades and do the same?

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

You can do that only if you're wearing tight jeans shorts while listening to Sheryl Crow on your Walkman.

I'd still look less ridiculous than amateur Tour De France guy. No offense intended Man Of Few Opinions. I'm sure you pull the look off.

That seems unfair. If you can ride your bike down the center of the lane why can't I strap on some rollerblades and do the same?

You're still considered a pedestrian even with your skates on. That being the case, you are free to strap them on and swing your arms while rolling down the sidewalk screaming "ON YOUR LEFT!" like a complete douchebag.

The truth is I can go faster on my bike in rush hour than you can in a car. It's your perception that's wrong. The speed limit is thirty although most motorists want to go 50. I can go between 15 and 20 on my bike. I'll catch you at every light and if you get behind a guy turning left, I'll pass you again. Most people are more disturbed by the concept of bikes on the road rather than any real impact they have on traffic. We have a car culture. But let's not act like the assholes behind the wheel are clinging to the rules of the road.

I know what the legal consideration is, but that still doesn't mean it makes sense. Is it the act of sitting that somehow changes it?

I don't think they have a major impact on traffic. They are just an annoyance and a danger. In college, I was about 4 miles off campus in an area that was fairly undeveloped but had a few big apartment complexes. I was leaving it to turn onto a four lane road with a median in between. I was turning right so I spent almost all of my time looking left since it was highly unlikely someone was driving down the wrong side of the road. As I inched forward looking left, I stop and a guy on a bike coming from the opposite direction(against traffic) zips in front of my car, hits my car with his hand, and yells that I need to pay more attention.

Now, I don't know who actually would have been at fault there. It may very well have been me especially since pretty much all laws seem to be written as the guy in the car is wrong. However, I almost injured someone, and I'm sure there would have been litigation, and it all would have been because I didn't see a biker coming directly at me on the shoulder of a road with a median in the middle. I could have been facing involuntary manslaughter if things went poorly. My life, and his, could have been severely altered because some guy wants to sit on a few hundred dollars of metal and plastic and he can't compete with the size of the primary reason the road even exists.

I'm less concerned about the fact that people on bikes can be annoying when you see them and have to slow down. I'm more concerned how I could get in pretty serious trouble for a simple mistake or even if I don't get in trouble I have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life that I injured another person. Hopefully with all these cities putting in bike paths and dedicated bike lanes we can finally make it illegal to ride a bike with cars.

One area bikers need to improve is respect of the "stop for pedstrians" cross walks. Bicyclists ignore these and I almost got smoked by one on Halsted a month ago.

I can see pedestrians complaining about cyclists being dangerous, but it seems kind of silly for a guy in a car to complain about it. In most two car accidents, both parties have done something wrong. Nobody practices S.P.I.D.E. and everyone tailgates like douchebags.

Do you consider skates a "vehicle"?

That's an interesting story but it has nothing to do with a bicycle, but rather with some goof going the wrong way. And the only one that was in actual danger was him, not you.

I have MANY years of experience in trying to appreciate steaming piles of dogshit.

What is S.P.I.D.E

It is one letter off from my favorite insult.

It's more fun to be a victim

There will never be an effective vaccine. I'll never get one anyway.

What is S.P.I.D.E

I was in danger too. I was almost certainly going to survive the potential accident but injuring or killing another human being would not have worked out well for me.

I picture my life and my whole family's lives getting fucked-up because this bicyclist decided to think he was a car. Anything can happen, and when it happens to a dude on a bike, its probably gonna be pretty serious. Even if you were doing everything right, and you don't suffer any financial or liberal liabilities, you might at the very least see some shit that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Shit, guy could just fall or blow a tire and its lights out.

I know a guy who accidentally hit and killed a guy on his bike, and the effects are pretty fucked-up.

We lose a lot of rights when we look the other way when it doesn't affect our lives or it isn't a cause we agree with.

I passed a group of about 10 bicyclists roughly a 1/2 mile from an intersection that had stop signs going north/south and the east/west traffic had none. I was turning right. I waited for a couple cars to get through the intersection and proceeded to turn right. This pack of bicyclists were going straight and mother fucked me for making my turn. Fuck you!!!! You have to stop at the stop sign too mother fuckers.

I am always respectful of cyclists but get so pissed when they ignore the rules of the road. They have to obey the same rules of the road, signs, and signals that apply to motorists.

That's another thing that really bugs me about these guys. They're all hard asses and MF'ing everybody when they're in a group. I doubt they're quite that aggressive when they're by themselves.

By John Dodge
CHICAGO (CBS) — A female bike rider who said she was verbally abused by an apparently inebriated middle-age man out with his wife and young son in Wicker Park has written an open letter on Craigslist to vent her anger over the ugly altercation.
The note is addressed to: “Stranger outside Big Star who told me you hoped I would die on my bike.”
The woman, who described herself as a “diminutive girl with light purple bike, grey helmet” said she shouted at the man, who was standing with a group in the clearly marked bike lane outside the restaurant on North Damen, to step onto the sidewalk.
She said she was jeered by the group, so she stopped and turned around to tell them to finish their conversation on the sidewalk so other bikers wouldn’t have to swerve around them or, even worse, hitting them.
“I said please and thank you. I called you sir,” she wrote. “You called me an ‘entitled bitch’ and told me the world would be a better place without me and people like me.
“Your friends laughed while tears of shame and anger burned in my eyes.
“Your wife smiled and shrugged when you told me you hoped I got hit by a semi and splattered all over the street.
“Your child looked at me with big, round, curious eyes, and began the lifelong process of learning how to treat other humans like garbage.”
She then said that she wished the man woke up in the morning and saw himself the way she did the night before, a father and husband with “brazen lack of empathy.”
“I hope your son clings to your leg, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and begs you to give him a horsey ride even though now he is getting too big. I hope that you feel a pang of regret, even just a twinge, thinking about his bearing silent witness to your verbal abuse of a stranger.”
The note has sparked a spirited conversation on Reddit, with comments taking both sides.
“That girl is an obnoxious, sensitive, judgmental little bitch and I’m glad she got told off,” one commenter said. “The way she elevates herself in her writing reeks of self-righteousness and inflated self-importance. She started crying because of the words of a stranger? How pathetic.”
Others came to her defense.
“Maybe she shouldn’t have taken it to heart as much as she seems to, but I think a lot of you are missing the point: because she asked to be able to use the right-of-way in the manner that she is legally entitled to, some schmuck wished her dead in front of his laughing buddies, smiling wife, and impressionable young son.
“That’s multiple people who seemingly have no problem with outward and unprovoked cruelty to someone else, and a young child who is slowly learning that treating people like dirt is rewarded with high fives and laughter.
“Whether or not she should get thicker skin, it’s attitudes and wanton cruelty like that make dealing with people in this city such an unbearable fucking chore, sometimes.”

I have MANY years of experience in trying to appreciate steaming piles of dogshit.