Hey, what makes you bicyclists such total assholes? Always bitching about cars, while using roads PAID FOR BY MY GAS TAX DOLLARS. Why can't anyone on a bicycle stop at a stop sign? Get a real job so you can buy a car or get off the fucking road.
Asshole Driver
What is it about driving that makes someone a psychotic idiot? I long ago stopped paying attention to stop signs, will jump from the sidewalk to the street, and will shove myself to the center of the lane because MY FUCKING LIFE IS ON THE LINE.
Terrified Cyclist
In the aftermath of the July 25 Critical Mass mess—in which a driver, stuck in a crowd of cyclists, panicked, ran into at least one human being, attempted to flee the scene, and was stopped when cyclists punctured his tires and trashed his car—a question has emerged: Who was the bigger asshole, the aggressive (and violent) cyclists or the panicky (and violent) driver?
East Aloha Street, where this whole situation brewed up, is narrow—barely wide enough for two cars, let alone cars and cyclists. The road twists and turns with terrible sight lines. Cars naturally gravitate to this street because it lacks traffic circles, unlike the roads north and south of it. No cyclist should use this road.
Aloha Street also happens to be a city designated cyclist route, as per the Seattle Bicycling Guide Map. That's fucking crazy. The much-hyped Seattle Bicycle Master Plan solution is sharrows, those next-to-useless bicycle stencils out in the lane of traffic, along Aloha Street.
Driving a car is the single most dangerous thing we do. It's a massive assumption of responsibility most of us take about as seriously as flossing. In 2006, 32,092 American drivers or passengers died despite the massive effort taken to design infrastructure safer for drivers. Forced onto autocentric streets, 4,810 motorcyclists, 4,784 pedestrians, and 773 cyclists lost their lives in 2006 to motorists.
A proper bicycle route has a designated lane for cyclists, special bicycle markings at intersections (such as bike boxes), turn restrictions for cars, traffic-calming structures (such as forced turns every few blocks for cars but not cyclists), and more. A tremendous volume of scientific literature exists on the subject.
In cities like Seattle, without an integrated network of properly designed bicycle routes, cyclists are about 25 times more likely to be injured and five times more likely to be killed per mile than in cities that have such a network. With a bike network, both drivers and cyclists are much happier, no longer charged with the impossible task of sharing roads that weren't designed for sharing.
Frustrated to the point of violence by a cyclist blocking your way as a driver, or terrified by a driver as a cyclist? Science says blame the city's contemptuous traffic engineering.
Apprehensively Yours,
Science
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