Via James Fallows (who has some funny comments), you absolutely have to watch this WSJ video of Dorothy Rabinowitz absolutely losing her shit because of a bike sharing plan in NYC.
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Via James Fallows (who has some funny comments), you absolutely have to watch this WSJ video of Dorothy Rabinowitz absolutely losing her shit because of a bike sharing plan in NYC.
Comments are closed.
Mnemosyne
I honestly don’t get the hostility some people have towards bicyclists. It seems to go well beyond being annoyed at the actions of bike messengers or other reckless riders.
The people who seem most hostile towards me when I’m riding my bike to work are Prius drivers. What, are you upset because my vehicle is more “green” than yours and you feel like I’m showing off? WTF?
Cris (without an H)
I’m sure this thread will soon be full of attempted justifications for it though.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was fairly well deep in the blogosphere in 2004, and had still never heard of Dorothy Rabinowitz, when she wrote some nonsense about the massacre at the school in Beslan by Chechen separatists proved that we were right to invade Iraq, George W Bush was the greatest president ever, and that John Kerry was the greatest threat to Democracy since all the you-know-whos combined. I was kind of surprised to see that kind of looney shit in a mainstream if far right publication like the WSJ, then I thought of Charles Krauthammer in the liberal Washington Post, who was probably mad she thought of it first. And of course, Our Lady of the Magick Dolphins.
Mr Stagger Lee
The interviewer is just as odious, ohh the poor oppressed residents of Park Avenue! Bicycle Tyranny! Jeez where is Ms Rabinowitz when the authoritarian NYPD is conducting Stop and Frisk on Black and Latino males?
schrodinger's cat
OT
DougJ@top
Did you see the story about Psychology professor who got into trouble for suggesting that fat people should not apply to a PhD program?
Warren
I have no hostility toward bicyclists who:
1. Don’t blow through red lights. If you stop at a red light and there’s no one coming, fine. Don’t just blast through the intersection like it’s not even there.
2. Stay off the sidewalk. If you’re too much of a pussy to ride in the street, or the dedicated bike lane (of which Boston has miles and miles), then you don’t deserve to ride a bike.
dmsilev
“The bike lobby is an all-powerful enterprise.”
So, we are to believe that the Illuminati have taken up fitness and sustainable commuting as their most recent causes?
Fnord.
geg6
I simply do not understand the wingnut hate for bicycles. And bike lanes. And anyone who wears a helmet, whether on a bicycle or a motorcycle.
In other news, Cole, read your email.
jl
@Mnemosyne:
I think natural self-centeredness explains it. When I walk in the city I am annoyed by the irresponsibility of bikers and motorists. When I bike, the damn pedestrians and motorists. And when I motor around, its those damn walkers and bikers who think I have eyes in the back of my head or can stop faster than they can.
The clip was bizarre. I guess bicycles is supposed to be the new wedge issue. You thought commies, the black and Hispanic hordes, the welfare leechers, the Muslims, and totalitarian healthcare reform were bad, but the BIKERS! OMG it’s the end of civilization.
Let’s see here, the GOP cannot figure out any sensible conservative free market policies that will allow younger people to buy cars at the same rate as their parents. So demonize everything but cars as the work of Satan that will come and kill you. Yeah, that’ll work.
Death march of the reactionaries. I hope they keep up the good work. Nutcases.
Redshirt
What’s up with the clothes, cyclists? You’re not riding in the Tour de France! Throw on some sweats and a helmet and ride.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
Oh my! As a Prius driver in a town full of Prii and bike lanes I am shocked to hear that. I too don’t get the hostility some people have toward cyclists but I think there are just some crankypants people in this world.
JD Rhoades
Bicycles=tyranny. Duh.
hitchhiker
I got to “The bike lobby is an all powerful enterprise.”
And then laughter overtook my best intentions to hear orange-suit-woman all the way out. She should be wearing a red clown nose to complete the effect.
ETA: I see somebody beat me to it! What a great quote.
Joseph Nobles
A bicycled society is a polite society.
piratedan
who will stand up (with their canes or walkers) and stop this madness! It’ll be rickshaws next I tell you, RICKSHAWS! ON OUR STREETS!
MomSense
I wonder if the WSJ has discovered Mr. Money Mustache. This is my favorite of his posts about cars and bikes.
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown-like-car-habit/
Mnemosyne
@Redshirt:
Dude, I ride to work in a skirt and heels. Fortunately, I am a woman, so it doesn’t draw as many stares as you would think. I own some spandex riding gear in case I decide to go on a longer ride, but I don’t bother with it when going to work or running errands.
@MomSense:
I don’t get it, either, but it’s a thing and I don’t think I’m the only one who has run into it. I wanted to link to a tote bag that someone has for sale over at Etsy, but I think it’s blocked at work. Search “bike prius bag” and it should pop up.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
I do. I’m very aware that drivers find it exasperating to be stuck behind my slow-ass bicycle, and that pedestrians find it infuriating when I ride on the sidewalk and they’re afraid that I’ll hit them. And I sympathize. Which is why whenever there’s a bike lane where I can share the road with my kind and not have to worry about colliding with people going at very different speeds, I take it.
Sadly, when there’s no bike lane, I have no choice but to piss off one or the other demographic. So it goes.
Violet
She represents the majority of citizens! Yes, she does!
Mnemosyne
@hitchhiker:
Don’t you see? It’s all part of AGENDA 21!! OPEN YOUR EYES!!
Gin & Tonic
@jl: sensible conservative free market policies
The really amusing thing is that the NYC bike-sharing program is founded on precisely those conservative free market policies that I’d think the WSJ would be in favor of. You know, you have to pay money to ride those bikes. Citibank isn’t in the business of giving away something for nothing, last I checked.
aimai
@Mnemosyne:
Well, I have to admit that I hate the bicyclists that I see because they are (generally) as bad as Boston drivers but without the pounds of protective steel around them. In other words they are often helmetless, they change between following the rules for bicyclists, for pedestrians, and for cars at a whim so you can never predict where they will be once you’ve scanned them and noted them. When I’m driving I can predict that, if I am in the left lane, no car is going to pass me on the left and I also know that no pedestrian is likely to run up behind me and try to zig zag in front of me (except at pedestrian crossings). I simply don’t know that about bicyclists–someone who I’ve spotted in my mirror a block behind me can behave completely erratically and frequently does. His estimation for how much room he needs to maneuver safely and mine never seem to match.
My daughter bicycles to school, about five miles, and I tremble for her. The daughter of a friend of mine was killed when a really big truck turned and pulled her under.
I am afraid of the bicyclists I’m sharing the road with, not hostile to them. I’m afraid I’m going to be in an accident with one of them.
Amir Khalid
Do you guys over there see the hostility that some motorists show towards cyclists? I mean, deliberately coming too close, not giving them enough room to ride safely, that sort of thing?
NickT
So no SUV ever hit a bike before the Bloomberg Borg imposed its cycling tyranny?
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Statistically, you’re much better off pissing off the drivers than the pedestrians. The accident rate for people who ride on the sidewalk is MUCH higher than for people who ride on the street, particularly at intersections where turning cars don’t expect a bike going 10-15 miles an hour to come shooting out into the crosswalk. We just had a really sad case here in our small city where a 14-year-old kid riding on the sidewalk got hit by a city bus that couldn’t stop in time.
different-church-lady
@Mr Stagger Lee:
“YOU KIDS GET OFF MY ASPHALT!!”
cmorenc
What Dorothy Rabinowitz revealed in that interview is what a complete toxic loon she is. BICYCLES! Running amok! They’re clearly the offspring of a totalitarian, out-of-touch city government and mayor who don’t understand the real situation of NY residents down on the street!
Geez Dorothy, you better never visit Copenhagen, your cranky ideological fuses would short out within the first 30 minutes of your arrival in that charmingly preserved medieval city, what with happy bicyclists, pedestrians, and motor vehicles cooperatively sharing the streets without incident, with BIKE LANES EVERYWHERE!
dmsilev
What if we arm the bicycles? Would the Journal be OK with them in that case? Or would it be one of those situations from the original Star Trek, where presenting a paradox to the Evil Computer causes it to explode?
Violet
@Redshirt:
I commuted by bike for years. It took me a long time to even try a pair of bike shorts, but when I did there was no going back. The right clothing for the job can make a big difference. So much more comfortable for my daily commute.
Redshirt
Everyone hates everyone else when in transit. Drivers hate pedestrians, pedestrians hate drivers, everyone hates bikers, and bus/subways riders hate every other passenger.
And of course this flips immediately should you change your transit style – as a driver, you hate pedestrians. As soon as you’re walking, you hate drivers.
Bruce S
It says everything you need to know about WSJ that they publish the insane, venomous rants of this crazy old woman. This would be funny if it weren’t the Go To publication of most of the business class. And Rabinowitz’ verbal vomit precedes the Murdoch iteration, so it can’t just be blamed on that scum.
El Cid
Yes, yes, these are the representatives of Western Civilization, whose service is to reveal to us id-addled masses the lessons passed down to them through the millenia.
? Martin
This is really a local NYC reaction to car-service folks having to yet again be sullied with reminders that non-car-service people are permitted to live in their little haven, and that Billionaire Bloomberg was unwilling to grind up the poor people into a slurry to be used in the foundation of Freedom Tower. There have been constant suggestions to ban private cars from Manhattan, and in very small ways that movement is succeeding. This is just one such success. Understand that mass transit presents an existential threat to the WSJ audience, so a jihad against bicycles is entirely warranted.
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne: look at those people actually doing something good for their health instead of just talking about it like I do probably has something to do with it.
Punchy
Why am I not surprised that the lady who wants “Bicycles offa mah street” is old enough to certainly want kids off her lawn?
I didn’t know dinosaurs like her got to make webcasts, mostly because she’s clearly too old to know what the “web” is or what a “cast” does.
Cris (without an H)
Sure do. Luckily, I don’t see it often, but it only takes one in a hundred to really spoil your day.
Redshirt
@Amir Khalid: I do in rural areas. I’ve had maybe a dozen redneck pickup trucks pretend to try and run me off the road.
Shinobi (@shinobi42)
“We now look at a city whose best neighborhoods are begrimed… is the word… by these blazing blue citi bikes.” I was waiting for her to talk about something actually important. She reminds me of my parents and how outraged they get when someone in their neighborhood paints their house the wrong color.
God I hope this is just a stupid person thing and not an aging thing.
Nate
@geg6:
Well it’s not actually JUST the wingnuts who have been raising a stink about the bike share program in NYC. A lot of the hate is coming from progressives who are upset that the corporate-sponsored bike racks are spoiling their historic neighborhoods or taking away their parking spaces.
bobbo
Hilariously, this anti-bike screed brought to you by Chevron.
NickT
@Redshirt:
I hope you gave them a full clip from your Freedom UZI in reply.
Bruce S
@cmorenc:
“Complete toxic loon”
Yeah – I guess that’s a nice way of putting it.
Betty Cracker
@piratedan:
Your rickshaw-infested hellscape is already a reality in some regions. Last time I was in Orlando, FL attempting to enter a theme park, I was almost run down on the sidewalk by a lunatic rickshaw driver peddling a trio of drunken louts.
Chris
@Gin & Tonic:
There is an entire slew of instances where free market policies result in something conservatives don’t like, and they have to scramble to find someone (other than The Market or The Job Creators) to blame, and usually end up calling for government action to remedy the situation. It’s part and parcel of the conservative mentality, but it would probably take an entire book to really do justice to the concept.
countervail
“the bike lobby is an all. powerful. enterprise.” Umm.. what? :-)
Cris (without an H)
That’s beautiful. They claim the same thing about environmental groups.
I guess that part of being conservative means you really can’t understand that someone would do something because you believe it’s right, not because it’s profitable.
Jamey
@aimai: Give us separate lanes. Real ones, not just stripes painted on a hastily and grudgingly narrowed thoroughfare. Problem solved.
Violet
@aimai:
This really ticks me off. When I’m riding my bike on the street, I follow the law. Stop at stop signs and red lights. Signal to turn. That kind of thing. I do sometimes run stop signs if there is absolutely no one around, but not before I’ve slowed right down to be sure I didn’t miss a stealth car.
If a bicycle is on the road the need to be following the rules for the road, not making it dangerous for everyone and worse for other cyclists (because drivers get ticked off in general about bikes).
Redshirt
@NickT: No way man. Just flipped them the peace sign and pedaled on, laughing. You don’t scare me rednecks!
different-church-lady
The funny thing is that I’ve been riding bicycles in both the city and the ‘burbs for most of my life, and I have *never* directly experienced any of the hostility I’ve seen described.
It’s not that I don’t believe the hostility exists. I’ve seen it expressed on-line and in letters to the editor, and it is bewildering. I just find it *very odd* that some cyclists claim they can’t ever ride without having encounters, while I am (I guess) living a magical life entirely free from the cyclist/driver war-to-end-all-wars.
jl
@MomSense:
Thanks for that link. Looks good and I will read the whole thing later.
I personally find drive through absolutely insane. Just completely mad. Gawd, do I hate drive through. But in my ancestral stomping grounds, you see people lined up sitting in their cars to get a damn cup of coffee or something. Even when there is plenty of parking.
I’m really an ass with some of my elderly fat relatives, who want to drive through on everything. I try to reason with them, and make a stink about it. Tell them they need the exercise of at least getting out of the car and walking a couple of hundred feet before they stuff some junk they don’t need into their faces. (though I try to be more polite).
MomSense
@jl:
You are going to love the link since he makes the same case you make in your comment!
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
Part of the erratic cycling when you’re in the left-hand lane may be people trying to avoid getting “right hooked,” which is when a car makes a right turn into a bicyclist who was trying to go straight. It’s one of the deadliest accidents accidents you can get into on a bicycle, worse even than getting hit from behind. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what happened with your friend’s daughter. So people may be overcompensating and trying to stay to the left to prevent drivers from turning right in front of them.
@Amir Khalid:
Yep, I get it all the time, and I’m about as far from a “racing” cyclist you can see on a bike (I have a three-speed upright Dutch-style bike and I hardly ever wear “cycling” clothes). Sometimes it’s just people not paying attention, but sometimes it’s definitely hostile.
The weirdest one was the carload of kids (late teens-early 20s) who pulled up next to me and said (I quote), “Ha-ha, you’re on a bike!” Uh, yeah, I am. And?
Jamey
@Redshirt: Why the fuck do you care what I wear when I ride a bike?
Redshirt
@Jamey:
While I agree in theory, remember we live in a country that has been living off the hard work and smarts of people from 50 years ago. Our bridges are falling down, our roads crumbling, our infrastructure rotting. New bike lanes seem unlikely.
Wait for the economy to get so bad that no one can afford to drive, and then all good workers will ride bikes – there will be plenty of space on the roads then.
Redshirt
@Jamey: LOL. I’m with the Fashion Police brah.
Nylund
All we have to do is mount guns on the bicycles, then conservatives will love them.
And drivers may treat them more politely as well.
gnomedad
Cyclists are perceived to be libruls, so Cleek’s Law applies. Also they are emasculating our nation by discouraging manly consumption of petroleum.
MattW
Is Dorothy the inspiration for Arrested Development’s Lucille Bluth? Good lord…
geg6
@Nate:
Well, that’s New York for you.
As for here, the wingnuts are the ones that hate, hate, hate bicycles. One poor cyclist got attacked and his throat cut (he lived, but what a scar!) by an out-of-control ragey wingnut in Pittsburgh. For no reason, other than the fact he was riding a bike.
red dog
Another out of touch NYC self centered matriarch whose memories of the “old ways” have pushed her further over the edge. Shame on the WSJ for exhuming her.
PeakVT
@geg6: I think there’s several things going on. First is that anyone cycling is currently ascribed some kind eco-minded motivation, and we all know how cons feel about anything green. Second, cons view routine use of a bicycle as something poor people do, or people in foreign countries (think of images from China from 15 or 20 years ago), so it’s not something they want white middle-class Americans to accept. Third, cons want everyone to be in the same rat race, and to have a definite status in the rat race (which cars do a very good job of broadcasting). A shared bicycle system subverts their ranking system. Finally, cycling does leave somewhat at the mercy of strangers, which I think cons are not comfortable with because they generally don’t like or trust people in the abstract.
belieber
Why should I give a fuck what some relic thinks?! I would image she was also upset when talkies and color TV were introduced too.
NickT
@Redshirt:
Which is an all-powerful tyranny second (or possibly third) only to the Illuminati and the Templars. Not that I know Grand Master Obama personally or anything.
No, no, it’s all right, I’ll come quietly. You don’t have to kick down the door and……
Nerdlinger
@Nylund:
Nah, they’ll just label you a terrorist.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
They took rickshaws and pedicabs off the streets in Asia decades ago. All gone, everywhere, by the early 1970s. If you wanted to bring them back now, people would laugh at you.
jl
I read that electric motor power assist bikes are the next big thing in SF Bay Area. Another deadly foreign threat from Europe and Asia, apparently.
I wonder what kind of foaming at the mouth and crazed howling will happen if that trend spreads.
Jamey
@Redshirt: While true, it kind of has the same ring as, “why have gun laws when we can’t possibly enforce them?” Speaking as a cyclocommuter, a lot of the behaviors you describe are defensive acts committed by cylclists who have grown used to the bike “lanes” being used as “cab door opening lobbies,” and motorists speeding up to pass a cyclist on the right, just before turning left across the cyclist’s path. The hostility I encounter from some motorists borders on the pathological. Forgive me if I seem a bit impatient with the seemingly inviolable rights many of these motorists like to claim.
NickT
@Amir Khalid:
In Vietnam, Thailand and Sri Lanka they still have bicycle rickshaws, as well as the motorized tuk-tuk iteration.
Violet
At about 2:23 in the video the interviewer snorts. She’d just chuckled at the craziness coming out of Orange Jacket Black Hair Helmet-ed lady, and she follows that with a snort.
I completely agree with the interviewer in that one regard.
Jamey
@Redshirt: GOB Bluth’s Hot Cops?
Redshirt
@Jamey: I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m saying who the hell’s gonna pay for it? Maybe we could raise taxes to pay for new bike lanes? It sucks, to be sure, but that’s our present, sucky reality.
Trollhattan
@Violet:
Only people tragically born without crotches get to question the usefulness of biking shorts.
NickT
@Violet:
The interviewer gave the distinct impression of humoring the old crazy person because she might possibly have a derringer in her handbag.
aimai
@Shinobi (@shinobi42): I thought the “best neighborhoods” remark was the tell. She really just means the few blocks she walks in her own neighborhood. If she even walks anywhere and isn’t taken by car, door to door. How anyone who lives in NYC can talk about a soot filled, pigeon pooped city being “begrimed” by something which is definitionally non polluting is beyond me. Its a special kind of crazy.
Redshirt
@NickT: It’s turtles upon turtles, all the way down.
Trollhattan
Special request to the “all. powerful. enterprise.” Now that you’ve ruined New York i a fashion that OBL could never dream of, would you please work on this climate thing, now? I have some “fat research grants” going begging.
raven
@Redshirt: Flo and Eddie!
Violet
@Jamey: This is absolutely true. I generally find bike lanes to be more dangerous than the street. To begin with, they’re usually near the curb and that’s where all the broken glass and nails and other rubbish collects, so you’re more likely to get a flat tire when you ride there. Then, as you said, drivers don’t view them as a lane, they view them as a place where they pull into to drop off a passenger or whatever. As a cyclist, unless you’re going about one mile per hour, a car pulling on front of you suddenly, stopping and opening a door is going to be a disaster.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Cheering them (the cops) on.
jl
@Jamey:
Has anyone noticed that a lot of people driving cars have aggression issues with anyone who gets in their way, for any reason? I think if you are on a bicycle, you notice it more because it is easier for the driver to get your attention when he or she (but usually an older white angry ‘he’, IMHO) and more of a threat.
When I am driving I hear a honk because I did not rush the butt end of a yellow light, I look back at some loon’s angry mouth moving around. On a bike, I can hear it and am more vulnerable.
There is plenty of bad behavior in all three modes, at least around where I live. The motorist can do the most damage, and has the advantages of speed and horsepower, so should be the most patient.
NickT
@Redshirt:
That’s what Kommissar Plouffe told me at the cyclerati re-education camp.
Redshirt
For 8 years I lived in Fenway and worked in downtown Boston – from 2.5 to 3 miles away. It was perfect biking distance and perfect (in theory) biking lanes. However, everytime I biked I counted the ways I could die, and it seemed like only a matter of time. So I walked. Difference in commute time of 15 minutes to 50 minutes. That sucked too, but with no dedicated bike lanes at the time (there are now), walking felt waaaaay safer.
Villago Delenda Est
@Nate:
Too fucking bad.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: There’s a reference!
Sing me that big hit song, with a bullet!
Hungry Joe
I’ve commented on this before, but what the hell: Part of the hostility toward cyclists comes from their blasting through stop signs. Well, in Idaho they have what’s called the Idaho Rolling Stop: For cyclists, every Stop sign is in effect a Yield sign. Cyclists must slow down and ascertain that no pedestrians, cars, or other bikes are approaching the intersection. If so, the cyclist must yield; if not, he can proceed in a safe manner. The thinking (at least in part) is that on a bicycle you have a much wider field of vision than you do in a car; you can hear approaching traffic much better (unless you’re dumb enough to be listening to an iPod); and, understanding that such a move is now legal, motorists won’t get so pissed off — an emotion springing from the outrage that someone is getting the better of you (i.e., blowing through a stop sign illegally).
Hungry Joe
As for Rabinowitz … a city “begrimed” by bicycles! Begrimed! My GOD, how I love that.
aimai
@Mnemosyne: I’m sure everyone has a very good reason for doing what they do while on a bicycle. Everyone here drives, walks,and bikes “defensively” in a sense–I learned to drive in CA where people are extremely polite and there’s lots of space.I was stunned by how crazy Boston drivers are but my father, an echt Boston driver, pointed out to me that you have do drive in the middle of the road, ignoring the lanes, because so many people are going to pull out in front of you or double park.
Its not that I think the people I see biking, especially around BU, have a death wish–its just that the end result is a level of crazy unpreditability on their part for me as a driver that I find frightening and hard to calculate for. I spend a ton of time in the car discussing car driver behavior with my daughters because you have to be able to anticipate what the other cars are going to do just to avoid getting into a fender bender. Throw in a bicyclist zig zagging between temporarily stationary cars and leaping across the red light which he/she should have stopped at and you get a very dangerous situation. From the perspective of the bicyclist its no big deal–they’ve looked around and decided to take the risk and they usually don’t get creamed by the cars coming the other way. But next time I see a bicyclist coming up behind me at a red light I don’t have any way of guessing whether this bicyclist will behave one way or another.
I was actually in a car accident with a cyclist when my oldest daughter was an infant in a toddler seat in the back. I stopped at a red light and a (very sweet) guy biking behind me didn’t–he crashed right through the back window of my car and showered broken glass all over my baby. He was ok (thank god) because the glass was safety glass and he was wearing a leather jacket. He said to me, rather shamefacedly “no drivers stop for red lights in Boston so I figured you’d run it.” We weren’t hurt and, like I said, he was a really nice guy but I worry every time I see bicyclists weaving in and out behind me.
Gin & Tonic
@Hungry Joe: It is also more taxing on a bicycle than in a car to re-start from a full stop. Keeping that rolling momentum, even 1-2 mph, is very helpful. If you’re in clipless pedals (or toe clips) you will try even harder to avoid having to put a foot down. Obviously if there’s cross traffic you’ll do it, but if there isn’t you’ll be inclined not to.
bemused
Crankyass conservatives in rural, small town areas foam at the mouth over bicyclists too. They are bitter, very bitter about Jim Oberstar helping create bike trails through state forests in NE MN. Total waste of taxpayer money!!
burnspbesq
I couldn’t make it to the end. I was laughing too hard.
Trollhattan
@jl:
And there it is. Motorists killed by bicyclists: Some unknown number that rounds down to zero.
Cyclists killed by motorists: Holy crap, lots and lots.
And yes, it’s always the cyclists’ fault, so they deserved it, see?
I bike-commute. In the last month I’ve been nearly taken out three times by drivers illegally turning left into my path (no signal, of course), had to swerve around two driver’s doors to the right and one passenger door to the left, and as a bonus literally got into a shoving match (me vs. Taurus, not just the driver) as he absentmindedly[?] drifted into me from the left. I was still riding forward, leaning onto his car and struggling to keep upright so I wouldn’t be run over by his back tire or crushed against the line of parked cars to my right.
Then there was the time last fall when the Camry with handicapped plates and an ancient couple inside drove straight at me. On a foot and bike path.
Mike in NC
@gnomedad: Exactly. Bicycles are for metrosexual Euro-trash and oppressed Chinese peasants. Real Americans drive gas-guzzling Detroit-built pickup trucks with gun racks.
NickT
@Mike in NC:
And built-in rocket-launchers. Second Amendment, baby!
Bill E Pilgrim
The part about how some future mayor should dig it all up to “preserve our traffic patterns” couldn’t be improved on by someone doing it as satire.
RaflW
You know it’s not going to end well when a crabby old lady in crabby old lady Upper East Side clothes, in the newsroom of the WSJ, starts off with “I speek for the majority of all New Yorkers…” with that arrogant, insufferable snuffle of richness in her voice.
FU, crabby old lady in crabby old lady Upper East Side (and ugly!) clothes.
Trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
TBogg went for the ChiCom angle.
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2013/06/02/those-bolshevik-rapscallions-and-their-blasted-velocipedes/
Amir Khalid
@NickT:
Sorry. I meant in Malaysia.
Suffern ACE
@Nate: Really, find them? Please find those progressives who are all aflutter in hate.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Actually I leand toward their work with Frank on Ruben and the Jets.
I’m Not Satisfied
I don’t like the way
life has been abusing me
kindness
When that meteor hits the WSJ or Fox offices in NYC, I will not shed a tear.
aimai
@jl: I think thats a very good point. There is also a very different relationship with the road and with other moving vehicles when you are “protected” by your car and when you are vulnerable on a bicycle or walking.
My car’s airconditioning is busted and has been for months. During the winter I didn’t notice but now I have to drive with my windows down to get any air at all. The entire experience is much more exposed, painful, noisy, and scary. I find it takes a lot of concentration and a lot of energy to drive distances which I didn’t notice previously–the number of distractions, sounds, smells, sights, increases a thousand fold. Someone upthread said that bicyclists have a “wider range of vision” than motorists. I don’t know about that in a technical sense but I do get the feeling that a lot of people who commute in cars, regularly, have an extremely…pathological and intimate relationship with the isolation and control they feel (or don’t feel) in their cars. I think a bunch of people find that bicyclists, because a new competitor for attention and space on the street, are like one last straw in what is already a very complicated and stressful commute.
I’m not excusing any of the horrendous behaviors car drivers get up to vis a vis pedestrians, cyclists, or other drivers. There are a lot of extremely agressive people out there and they don’t stop being agressive or selfish when they are behind the wheel of their cars. In fact the car gives them that little extra bit of protection, like concealed carry guns, that pushes people from being covert assholes to feeling free to act out. I think that the car is a bit like the internet–it has an anonymity about it that enables people to behave in ways they never would if they knew for a fact that people who could name them saw them do it.
Punchy
Did you mean War Games’ WOPR, or did Star Trek do this too?
jl
@Trollhattan:
Some of my comment is garbled. So I agree with you if my comment is not clear.
Things are pretty chaotic here in SF. Bicycles do the sidewalk, two different legal ways to do left turns, and sometimes seems like bikers change their minds at the last second. Lots of stop sign running by bikers.
I would complain, but at least as much horrendous driving.
I would like to bike around the city more, but unless I can do most of it on a bike path, no way. And not many dedicated bike paths. Fortunately, I am near GG park, so anything where I can go through the park most of the way, I will bike.
RaflW
@Mike in NC:
Or ride in gass guzzling Town Cars to Lincoln Center (while dreaming of the long-shuttered Lutèce, which closed about the time crabby old lady bought her crabby old lady knit wool orange jacket).
Shortstop
I love bicyclists except when they arbitrarily change rules, as Aimai describes. It’s not okay to zigzag between cars and lanes, run lights, not bother to signal left turns, etc. It’s also dangerous as hell when motorcyclists do it and then complain that people in cars don’t “watch” for them.
Suffern ACE
I do feel bad for the all powerful gay lobby having to share the pedestal with the all powerful bike lobby. I wonder if Justice Roberts will feel the need to step in to curb the power of these social groups for the sake of our democracy.
Democracy works best when it is organized to benefit the rich and powerful, and these groups are only powerful.
MomSense
I finally watched the video. That lady should be mad at her plastic surgeon or whoever injected all those “fillers” into her face. WTF is up with that? She looks insane, bebloated even.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: I have both Fillmore 1971 and Cruisin’ with Ruben and the Jets on my iPod.
Shortstop
@Suffern ACE: Excellent.
NickT
@Amir Khalid:
Well, there’s an Asia in Malaysia, so, fair enough.
Trollhattan
@jl:
All good, I was responding to your final thoughts–it’s assumetrical warfare when considering bike vs. car/truck/large motorized thing.
Cycling SF? Not high on my list–too many opportunities to mess up very badly (having had a few motorcycle misadventures there). I’ve refined my commute verrrry carefully WRT route and time of day. More than half is on paths, but some downtown jousting is required until I get my jetpack.
Eric S
@PeakVT: I think there’s something to this. Especially your 1st and 4th points.
Living in Chicago I go back and fourth between all four types of transportation: I either bike or take the El to work, I jog for additional exercise, and I have a car I drive a few thousand miles a year. Cyclists need to follow the same rules as cars but the reverse would also be true. I can’t tell you the last time I saw a car come to an actual stop at a stop sign and that can have some real consequences for pedestrians, cyclists, and other motorists alike.
Bike lanes are nice and I use them where I can but as mentioned they are often filled with debris and open car doors and cabs and delivery trucks and joggers who find the sidewalks just too damn inconvenient for them.
I’ve only once experienced direct hostility while biking but the number of inadvertent close calls are far too numerous. I think most of the solution would lie in everyone – walkers, bikers, and drivers – paying more attention to their surroundings and having a little courtesy.
/climbs on unicorn and rides away.
Shinobi (@shinobi42)
@aimai: Completely. I live in Chicago and there is nothing about NYC that isn’t begrimed. We go on day trips there about once a quarter, and invariably my clean hair is sticky with dirt when I get home.
Trollhattan
@Trollhattan:
“assumetrical” Sheesh, pretty sure that’s what McMegan does for a living. (Where my edit button at?)
Shortstop
@Trollhattan: And WTF is that jetpack? Also too, we were promised flying cars by, like, 20 years ago at the latest.
Cris (without an H)
@Punchy: dsmilev is referring in particular to “I, Mudd” (where Spock seizes up an android with a simple Cretan’s paradox) but the trope appears elsewhere, like in “Wolf In the Fold” where they flummox Red Jack by making the computer calculate the digits of pi.
but I’m not a nerd because I don’t cite episode numbers
Trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
“Mud…sha-sha shaaark”
Shortstop
@Shortstop: sorry, that was supposed to be “where the fuck….”
gopher2b
“Why do we need bikes? Do you think we are fat?”
Ummm, yes?
Eric S
@jl: “There is plenty of bad behavior in all three modes, at least around where I live. The motorist can do the most damage, and has the advantages of speed and horsepower, so should be the most patient.”
THIS
GregB
I hope the New Black Panthers don’t stand outside any pulling places with bikes during the next election.
RaflW
So, now to actually talk about the bike share program, it’s a fantastic addition to Minneapolis. I’ve yet to ride one, but it makes my red, red communist heart beat faster each time I see a proletariat swipe her credit card and go.
We’ve gone from 700 bikes at 65 stations in 2010 to 1,500 bikes and 170 stations this summer. The worker’s paradise is nearly at hand.
Trollhattan
@Shortstop:
Damn straight. I’d be all Boba Fett, all the time.
mclaren
Car culture is America. Our whole society has been based on it for the last 70 years.
As someone who abandoned cars and took up riding a bike everywhere, all the time, 7 years ago, I see this kind of spittle-flecked rage from motorists all the time.
Riding a bicycle is unamerican. It’s the Number of the Beast. It’s a sign that you’re not just a member of the underclass untermenschen, but that you’re violating the very laws of nature and consorting with the devil.
Cris (without an H)
@Trollhattan: But look where Boba Fett’s jetpack got him.
mclaren
@Shortstop:
We’ve got flying cars. Do you really want your drunk-16-year-old nephew to drive one?
When a teenager drives a car drunk, he takes out the living room wall of a house. If a teenager drives a flying car drunk he takes out the entire subdivision. That’s why we have but have not yet widely adopted flying cars, bucko.
Hungry Joe
How about limited-access, stand-apart bicycle freeways cutting through cities? Just making a few existing streets Bikes Only would be a good start. Yeah, it’d be ungodly expensive. But look at how much we spend on building and maintaining roads for cars and trucks. If we could get just, say, 10% of a city’s population to commute via bicycles, well, 10% — what the hell, 5% — of the budget for streets could be justifiably be devoted to Bike Freeways. And maintaining them would cost a hell of a lot less per mile, because even a godawful heavy beach cruiser weighs maybe 1% or 2% as much as a measly Fiat.
HW3
As a (recently converted) daily bike commuter, I have taken a page from the Russians and their crazy dash cams, and now I sport a frickin’ laser powered camera on my noggin. Makes me feel much better about my chances of knowing what actually happened while I’m riding, and it has seemed to make the road ragers less likely to express. A little video evidence goes a long way.
Todd
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Is it wrong for me to express a wish that Rabinowitz falls and breaks her hip?
mclaren
@Hungry Joe:
These are the kinds of things I’ve been suggesting for years. But we’d have to redesign American cities to do this kind of things. Still, think of the number of jobs we’d create: knocking down buildings and building up this new kind of infrastructure would be a one-two punch — it would reduce employment and vastly cut America’s need to invade middle eastern countries to maintain our oil addiction, while at the same time increasing aggregate demand and pumping up our economy.
These kinds of basic structural changes in the design of U.S. cities and fundamental changes in our way of life are what we need to fix our current economic problems. Tinkering around the edges with “stimulus” like just building more highways, as Obama is doing, isn’t the solution — it’s just kicking the can down the road.
MikeJ
@Hungry Joe:
Amsterdam has them from the burbs into the city centre.
Tonal (visible) Crow
@geg6:
Three words: anthropogenic global warming.
Trollhattan
Having finally waded through the entire video (eye canna take it in one dose, captain) I don’t think this has much to do with bicycles and everything to do with attacking Bloomberg in anticipation of the coming war against the NRA.
mclaren
I meant “reduce unemployment” in the above.
gnomedad
@HW3:
“laser powered”?
Joel
@Redshirt: The “mandex” and padded bike shorts are necessary because of 1) sweat and 2) saddle sores. That doesn’t excuse people for wearing the fake sponsorship jerseys, though. That’s just silly.
Joel
@Amir Khalid: During my bicycling days, I remember a cabbie that pulled into the bike lane so that I couldn’t pass them in stalled traffic. People are lunatics.
gocart mozart
Shorter: Bloomberg instituted a bike sharing program just like Hitler.
RaflW
@Trollhattan:
Well, yes, she hates Bloomberg, who’s totalitarian ways have made him very rich…oops, no I think he made his billions as a capitalist serving capitalists.
Come to think of it, maybe what the WSJ hawks is a tad too much like some of what Bloomberg hawks. Could that be it?
Could it be that crabby old lady hates Bloomberg because he’s richer and smarter than her?
I mean, it could be the guns, but more likely, he declined her snooty canapes at one of her society dos and she’s hated on him ever since.
Seanly
@Hungry Joe:
A lot of the bicyclists in Boise take that few very liberally. Hell, a lot of cars think that applies to them at stop signs…
I support bikes, but if you’re on the road, you’re a vehicle & need to obey the rules.
What’s the premise of the hostility towards the bike lending system? Aren’t they for-profit companies? I’m so confused re: when capitalism is good and when it’s bad…
MCA1
It should be noted that Rabinowitz is the primary television critic of the Journal, and the critic who most uses his/her column as a place to score ridiculous, cheap culture war punches and not actually add any critical value that I’ve ever seen.
muddy
In Vermont if a road is being re-done or the fixing reaches a certain level they have to put a bike lane.
gocart mozart
If you don’t have a car, you’ll need a bike to get to your mandatory gay abortion appointment.
HW3
@gnomedad:
Well it has a laser… And lasers are frickin’ awesome.
Suffern ACE
I actually do like the blue bikes. They look comfortable enough to use for short distances which is what they are there for. I do drive in the city quite a bit and I have far fewer problems with the bikers in the city than I do out here in the burbs where there aren’t places for them to ride on the road. Most of the racks are located in the third sidewalk separating the bike/parking lane from the main street, so not where people are walking. Those third sidewalks have been in place for years now. I will probably try riding one someday and from the looks of it on Saturday, lots of people were trying them out.
If people didn’t like them, well, it is new york and they’d slash tires. I’m not seeing this “majority hates the bikes” out there.
Eric U.
@gnomedad: I know there are plenty of staunch republican cyclists. Kinda funny that people don’t realize that. For the most part, people ride bicycles because they like to ride bicycles. I didn’t think doing something you enjoy is against republican principles, but I could be convinced fairly easily.
gocart mozart
Exactly on point!
http://vimeo.com/36287895
RaflW
@Eric U.:
Ummmm, Sex.
Trollhattan
@HW3:
By gawd, you DO have a frickin’ laser.
Trollhattan
@RaflW:
Two wetsoits and you’re ready for some mission action, CPAC-style.
JWL
The only times I’ve ever been angry with bicyclists was in San Francisco 15 years ago, when the Critical Mass jackasses intentionally jammed up getaway traffic during Friday night commute hours.
The law of physics is the great equalizer in the cars vs. bicycle debate. (Personally, I’m in the habit of turning on my emergency blinkers whenever approaching bicyclists sharing my lane on any road, whether or not a bike lane is delineated, just to give traffic behind me a momentary heads-up to be careful). A car will always prevail in any collision with a bicycle, end of story. When you pedal, you best keep that immutable law in mind, and drive like your life depends on it, because it does.
NickT
@Trollhattan:
Don’t forget the auto-erotic double-dildo-enhanced saddle!
Mnemosyne
@Shortstop:
That thought occurred to me the other day when I was driving home from work — I think many of the dangerous jackass cyclists I see around here are trying to emulate motorcycles rather than cars, but they don’t seem to understand that a motorcycle has enough speed to get out of a potentially hazardous situation if one comes up. Your legs are not going to have a burst of speed that gets you up to 50 miles an hour in an emergency no matter how many protein supplements you drink, so a bicyclist will be hit where a motorcyclist might be able to squeak past.
A bike (even an electric bike) is not a motorcycle. It doesn’t have the same speed or maneuverability. You will get yourself killed trying to pretend that it is.
different-church-lady
@JWL:
QFT. Amazing how many people don’t get it.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Hungry Joe: while not quite what you’re talking about, Palo Alto have put together what they call Bike Boulevards where a city street is re-done to prioritize thru bicycle (and pedestrian) traffic. It’s pretty popular.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
I admit, I have never driven in Boston, but if Boston drivers make you long for the days of the polite and considerate California drivers I deal with every day … oy.
There’s a cartoonist who lives and works (and bikes) in Boston who does a web comic called Bikeyface — you might like it. She generally has equally bitter things to say about Boston drivers and Boston bicyclists.
Mnemosyne
@PeakVT:
I actually know a store in LA where you can get those Chinese bicycles (it’s even named after them — Flying Pigeon). They also have some other good artisan brands (like Linus) and the guy who runs it is really hot … er, I mean, is a good bike mechanic. Yeah, that’s what I meant.
ETA: Every summer, an alert goes out to let women cyclists in the area know when he’s working shirtless. You know, because he’s … a really good mechanic. No, really.
MattR
@Suffern ACE:
My only real problem in Manhattan is with the delivery guys going the wrong way down narrow one way streets. When I am driving it is an annoyance (I know I will win the collision but will have to deal with the paperwork), but they were the biggest danger I faced when I used to rollerblade to work.
NickT
@Mnemosyne:
His spanner can tighten your nuts any day of the week.
(Yes, I should avoid mechanical metaphors.)
MCA1
On the side topic, I’m a driver and train taker who likes the occasional bike ride on forest preserve trails and the general idea of cyle-commuting and the exercise of riding a bike (though I vastly prefer other forms of exercise and would never bike seriously). As others have noted, a lot of the antagonism between drivers, riders and walkers just stems from people thinking from their own perspective depending on their current mode of transport. That said, here’s most of my list of grievances re: bikers, which is almost entirely directed toward weekend warriors and not daily commuter types:
– Bikers get pissed at drivers for not according them some perceived extra level of attention and courtesy, yet insist on riding in packs that take up the entire lane on a two lane road, stopping car traffic completely, and expecting their ride to be some kind of peaceful bliss and break stress. This is a double standard. Look over your fucking shoulder every once in a while if you’re going to get out into the middle of the lane to pass another rider or chum it up with them. You’re the one who’s one with the road and your surroundings – you should pay attention to them yourself, too. We’re driving machines at 30+ miles per hour and have to pay attention to both things right in front of us and things 100 yards away and your obliviousness make it harder. I honestly don’t get the attitude that drivers are supposed to be incredibly sensitive and hyperaware of their surroundings, while for bikers it’s some kind of imposition to upset their serene blissfulness on a ride. Go ride in the gym or the park or the country if you don’t want to spend all your time worrying about crashing. There should not be an expectation of peace or an ability to zone out while using a busy road just because you’re not going as fast as a car.
– The bike lane in my suburban enclave is decidedly not full of beer bottles and other debris, or parked cars or delivery guys opening their doors. It’s clean. Use it. Are you so special that not even the are specially dedicated to you is enough?
– Bikers routinely ignore traffic signs and signals, thinking they impact only themselves and pedestrians. Essentially, I observe an awful lot of bikers who obey the pedestrian rules when it suits them, and stick to the car rules instead when that suits them better, switching between them. You should be stopping at a red light if I have to. And if you’re wearing clips that make it hard to come to a complete stop, then you should be riding somewhere without stop signs.
– You look like complete fucking douchebags in your biking uniforms. Don’t give me the functionality line, either. Sometimes form has to prevail over function, I’m sorry, and spandex and US Postal Service pinneys is one of those times. I’ve ridden 25 miles in a day, and you don’t need skin tight leggings to do it. If you must, wear something normal over that stuff. Sure, they might help. You wouldn’t wear baseball pants and eye black in a softball game, though, would you? Those help, too, but you look like a poseur dork wearing them. You’re likely riding 5 miles with your friend to go hang out at Starbucks before riding home again. You do not need to dress like a Tour de France team with your friends.
– When you get to Starbucks, you smell sometimes. You don’t look as good in your spandex as you hope you do. And your shoes click. Also, take off your fucking helmet and your wraparounds while you sit there with your latte for 20 minutes. Everything you do is screaming “LOOK AT ME I’M WORKING OUT!!!” So do we. Act like you’ve been there before, chief.
//angry guy rant//
Alex S.
Mao rode a bicycle! It’s a highway to totalitarianism!
Seriously, the WSJ editorials are full of loons. No serious person should add their name to the roster.
Omnes Omnibus
@MCA1: You may want to consider either increasing or decreasing your chemical intake.
Steeplejack
@MomSense:
Thanks for that. He’s got some other good posts, too.
Ruckus
@Todd:
I’d give it a not nice but thinking wrong may be going a little too far.
Mnemosyne
@NickT:
What did you think the “Body and Fender Man” was planning to do, anyway?
(He is married with small children, so it’s just about admiring the scenery. But if the scenery is gonna be there, why not look?)
Sad_Dem
@Redshirt: About the clothes: the options are limited. I don’t like the super-clingy multi-colored stuff either, and I am a bike commuter. So I have a pair of black bike pants that aren’t visible at night and are poorly designed to boot. Regular street clothes get dirty and caught in the chain. Alternatives are lacking.
Sad_Dem
@Mnemosyne: Have you gone on one of the rides from that store?
Mnemosyne
@Sad_Dem:
I have not. Sadly, most of the group rides around here are set up for people who have much faster, lighter bikes than mine. If someone had a “Granny 3-Speed Bikes — We Ride Slow” ride, I could probably do that.
Ruckus
@Redshirt:
Well let’s discuss.
Shorts. Regular shorts have a seam down the middle and no padding. Not an issue except when ridding a bicycle, especially for any distance. And this is for men and women. We may be built different but those parts we both cover with shorts are somewhat sensitive. YMMV
Jerseys. A top that wicks away the excess cooling liquid we generate is very nice. Doesn’t have to be ugly though that’s for sure.
And none of these are issues when not ridding a bike or ridding slowly for short distances.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I have an aunt who has joined a group in her town called “Pokey Peddlers,”
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Had a women’s bike group out of my shop called TARTS. And no I had nothing to do with the name, they came up with it and designed the logo for the clothing.
MCA1
@Omnes Omnibus: I tried to include some innocuous language at the outset to lighten the impact of the rant, but perhaps that’s not enough. :^) I don’t actually hate cyclists, but they do tend to do some things that bring the blood pressure up and/or make themselves the targets for easy mocking. Was there anything substantive in there that you see a different way, or was it just tone? To tone it down on my end, I do often perceive an attitude while I’m driving from cyclists that suggests an entitlement to a no stress ride without any worry or danger, and that it’s my responsibility to provide that for them because I’m the one won’t be killed in a mishap, despite the fact that they’re using the road, too. No one should be able to check out even for a second when there are moving cars around. Perhaps others don’t perceive that. No biggie.
Omnes Omnibus
@MCA1: All I can say is that when I am on a bike (and I live in a bike-friendly town), my head is constantly on a swivel in case some dude in a car is changing playlists on his iPod and inadvertently changing lanes at the same time. Most of the people I see are riding the same way. I get the feeling that you have noticed a few colorful douchebags and are attributing their behavior to cyclists as a group. BTW the shorts doubled the distance I could ride all by themselves. And I don’t do logos – until someone sponsors me, I ain’t advertising.
Joel
@Omnes Omnibus: This is absolutely the scariest thing about drivers nowadays. Hardly anyone is paying attention. It’s like driving on a roadful of drunk drivers. For what it’s worth, I no longer cycle. A friend of mine had an accident with a delivery van driver that made a U-turn across a two lane boulevard from a *parking spot*. He didn’t walk away from that one.
Gin & Tonic
@MCA1: Bike lanes in places like NYC are indeed full of trash and opening cab doors. “Bike paths” in the suburbs are full of joggers and stroller-pushers and kids on their first pair of rollerskates who are all completely incompatible with a cyclist moving at 20+ mph. Neither bike lanes nor bike paths are at all suitable for a serious cyclist. I’m legally allowed to use the road while on a bicycle, and will use it. Deal with it.
Oh, and “riding somewhere without stop signs.” Sure. Great plan.
Robert
My only issue is that people who rent the bikes probably don’t have helmets. NYC is a great city with a lot of places to ride, but I’ve seen too many bikers go head over handlebars because taxis decided not to look before turning to the curb or crossing an intersection. The difference between the biker walking away and the biker being carried away is a helmet. The ambulance always comes, but the bikers with the helmets can walk away.
gcwall
Three days ago at two in the morning a man in his fifties drove a van into a Walmart parking lot nearly hitting a man on a bicycle. The bicyclist followed the van into the parking lot and as the driver exited the van the bicyclist jumped him and strangled him. Due to the number of witnesses in the parking lot the strangler came to his senses and ended his attack against the driver of the van.
Mnemosyne
@gcwall:
We have had thirty (30) reported cycling fatalities just in Southern California this year, and your comeback is one (1) driver being assaulted but not killed by a bicyclist?
Weak sauce, man.
Mike G
Shorter Wall Street Urinal:
Stop and Frisk is Freedom Massaging.
Share bicycles are ZOMGHITLER
NickT
@gcwall:
Link? Yes? No? Maybe?
PurpleGirl
@Robert: A NYC resident who rents a bike should be able to bring a helmet with them when they rent. It’s the tourists who might not be able to bring a helmet — unless they pack one for the trip knowing they plan on biking in the City.
PurpleGirl
Re Star Trek and computers: The episode that really involves Kirk having to get something over a computer and confuse the hell out it is The Changeling..
Nutella
Heh. Rabinowitz is particularly outraged that this shocking imposition of blue (blue!) bicycles was done “in the interest of the environment”.
Has Bloomberg no shame?
Another fine feature of the rant is the complaint that none of the local bikers obey the law leading directly to the danger of tourist bikers because they don’t know the law. Logical consistency, who needs it?
stinger
So who exactly are you, cranky orange suit lady?
“I represent the majority of citizens of the city”
Oh, so you’re an elected official. Wait — you’re on the WSJ editorial board; aren’t you a journalist?
“I want [Bloomberg] to leave one of his fourteen residences, or maybe he has five”
Nope, not a journalist either. And you seem to be confusing Bloomberg with McCain.
Just some cranky old lady BESMIRCHING our best neighborhoods with your 1960s-era orange suit and our airwaves with your false and intentionally misleading diatribe.
Nutella
I remember a discussion at work once where two biker guys had a great time bonding by comparing notes on the awfulness of car drivers until they realized that one biked on a motorcycle and the other biked on a bicycle. They almost came to blows right there at work.
JWL
@gcwall:”..Due to the number of witnesses in the parking lot the strangler came to his senses and ended his attack against the driver of the van”.
All’s well that ends well, I always say.
It might even well be that van driver had it coming.
As Lenny Bruce once noted about another celebrated victim, “Bobby Franks was a snotty kid”.
hells littlest angel
She is indeed a horrible old lady, but riding on the sidewalk should be a hanging offense for anybody over 12. Also, riding the wrong way in a bike lane.
hells littlest angel
@MCA1: I’m a biker and I mostly agree with you. When I ride, I watch out for cars, but I really watch out for other bikers.
KS in MA
@Redshirt: Totally agree. I’m afraid to ride a bike in my ridiculously congested town (pop. 50,000) in western Mass. There are bike lanes, but nobody knows how to drive AND nobody knows how to ride a bike. We have bicyclists killed on a regular basis.
Mnemosyne
@JWL:
Actually, my second thought about the story was that I’m pretty sure that a 2 a.m. weeknight brawl in a Wal-Mart parking lot means that at least one of the parties (and probably both) was drunk.
sm*t cl*de
ohh the poor oppressed residents of Park Avenue! Jeez where is Ms Rabinowitz when the authoritarian NYPD is conducting Stop and Frisk on Black and Latino males?
In Park Avenue. SATSQ.
MobiusKlein
@jl: For power assist bikes in SF: I see about 1 out of 50 bikes are power assist.
Not quite the ‘big thing’ yet – more fixed gear by a long shot.
JustRuss
I have to say this may be my favorite BJ thread title ever. Well done, Cole.
Adam C
@Mnemosyne:
For the wingers? It’s resentment. They’re being told all the time that driving cars makes them bad people, and they hate it (that’s why they love bigger cars and trucks; they’re sticking it to The Man). When they see you on your bike, you’re telling them that they’re a bad person, and so they hate you.
Ecks
@Violet:
well, the ones that COUNT anyways.
Jebediah
@MCA1:
Do you get as angry at douchebags who insist on wearing baseball or basketball team jerseys out in public?
Jebediah
@MCA1:
How many miles, minimum, do I need to ride before I can dress properly for it? 10? 20? 40?
My jerseys have sponsors’ logos on them because my club has sponsors. Am I a poseur dork still? (For the record, I have never worn jerseys of teams I don’t ride for, unlike those TOTAL ASSHOLES who wear the jerseys of professional teams they TOTALLY DON”T PLAY FOR.)
Complaints about what cyclists DO or DON”T DO might make sense. Ranting against how they dress is a little weird. What do you care?