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I have a feeling that the general populace of hacker news will disagree with us, but I am with you 100%. I live in a small-ish town on the outskirts of Philade

I have a feeling that the general populace of hacker news will disagree with us, but I am with you 100%. I live in a small-ish town on the outskirts of Philadelphia that happens to be in the middle of some sort of really popular biking route. Unfortunately, we have a ton of really small streets with cars parked on both sides. I understand and appreciate that cyclists have no other place to ride then in the street, and they as much a right to the road as drivers. But it can be quite frustrating to be stuck behind a cyclist who is making no effort to pedal quickly on a road where it is impossible to pass them. The really frustrating thing though is that they completely ignore traffic rules. If you have to ride in the street and I have to treat you as part of traffic, fine. But why do you get to creep up the side of the street at red lights, then positioning yourself in front of more cars to slow down. And why do you get to run red lights? It seems it needs to be one way or the other. Either you are a pedestrian, and you should be trying to avoid traffic, or you are a participant on the road and you should obey the traffic laws.

Zigurd 13y ago
If the biking routes are that popular, one side of the street should be a bike lane separated from traffic. Until such time, cars need to be patient. Each one of those cyclists you are stuck behind is keeping a 3 ton multi-kilowatt biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions car off the road. Cars are huge polluters and energy consumers. Would you be equally pissed off if the residents along narrow streets had speed bumps installed to reduce noise from fast traffic?
- oceanplexian 13y ago
  Cyclists are using roads that are subsidized and paid for by gasoline taxes and automobile registration fees. If you really want dedicated lanes and preeminence then pay your fair share. I don't think bicycling would be as attractive if cyclists paid for all the externalities of their hobby.
  - yackob03 13y ago
    I can't tell if this is satire.
  - bryanlarsen 13y ago
    Pedestrians, bicyclists & mass transit reduce the number of cars on the road, making the gas taxes that you pay go further. And since buses & bicycle lanes are a lot cheaper than widening the road or other measures that allow more cars on the road, as a car driver you should be happy that gas taxes go towards bicycle lanes.
  - oh_sigh 13y ago
    Very few bicyclists just use a bicycle. Most, including myself, own a bicycle and a car, and choose the bicycle for trips where it makes sense(single person trip, short distance, safe route, no cargo). I would be willing to bet that people like me put less wear and tear on the road since the effects of bike on asphalt are negligible.
  - scarmig 13y ago
    As your first assignment in transit 101, calculate the wear and tear on a road from a bike vs a car vs a semi.
  - jlebar 13y ago
    I'm not aware of any country where gas taxes cover the externalities of the emission of that carbon. I'm also not aware of any country where gas taxes and car registration fees come close to paying for the total cost of roads.
  - scoofy 13y ago
    This is nonsense. Roads that cyclists ride on in the states, which are city roads, hardly ever state highways, are paid for via sales tax, not the state gasoline taxes and registration.
  - nitid_name 13y ago
    In Virginia, there is no longer a gas tax. Roads are funded by an extra half percentage added to the sales tax. This means non-drivers now subsidize the roadways with each purchase, while people buying gas/diesel for their mowers and generators no longer do. That said, how much toward road maintenance would you say the average commuter pays? You're looking at $214/car/year, according to the FHA and Census Bureau (see, for example, http://www.artba.org/about/transportation-faqs/faqs/#4 http://www.artba.org/about/transportation-faqs/faqs/#4). How much more roadway is used by a car than a bicycle? How much less maintenance is caused by a bicycle than a car? (N.B. cars are more than an order of magnitude heavier than bicyclists; trucks are two orders more per axle.) How much do you think a bicyclist's fair share should be? How should it be measured, applied, and taxed? As for registration, I was under the impression that was more akin to registering a firearm; it's chief purpose is enforcement of laws and property taxes, rather than offsetting the costs of highway maintenance. Is there a state where vehicle registrations are a major source of highway maintenance monies?
chockablock 13y ago
>I understand and appreciate that cyclists have ... as much a right to the road as drivers. The rest of your comment does not make me feel like you truly believe this. Bikes are slower than cars. All road users deserve to be treated with respect and should follow the law.
HNaTTY 13y ago
I understand your frustration, but (a) there are no easy answers, and (b) as I'm sure you can imagine, bicyclists don't like riding near your car either. I've pissed people off by following traffic laws on a bicycle as much as breaking them; I'm slow to get going from stop signs and I won't pull to the side of the road so you can squeeze me into a 2ft space of sand and crap next to the curb as you pass me. A lot of the times that I break traffic laws, the result is me getting out of your way (running the light/not stopping at the stop sign/riding on sidewalk). Of course yours and my experience could be very different. Traffic isn't too much of a problem here, one way or the other. The biggest problem I have to deal with is if a train comes through town and I have to wait 5 minutes for it to pas.
mzs 13y ago
Why I pull in front of the line of cars stopped at the red light on my bike is because otherwise a car will clobber me. It's not a matter of if but when and the consequences will be severe for my family and me. On my commute I am minimally wearing a bright neon green penny over my clothing. When I have stopped in the line of cars at the light I have had cars almost rear end me. Also when I get to the intersection drivers do not seem to notice me there and turn right directly in front of me or a car from the oncoming lane decides to turn into me. So I crawl to the front. And do you know what happened here a handful of time? Even when I make eye contact with an oncoming car, the moment the light turned green, the driver forget I was there and tried to turn left as I was crossing on the green. So for my safety on this particular intersection on my commute I crawl to the front, wait for the light for the cross traffic to turn red and verify that all the cars are slowing, then I book it across before the light turns green for me and the other people barely awake behind the wheel. In this way I am not there anymore when another car starts going. I know it's illegal, but it is the only way I have found to get to and from work safely as it is the only entrance. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know why I do that. Some people that do not ride bicycles enough just don't have the experience to appreciate what other things might be going on when not in a car.
- stanleydrew 13y ago
  This is absurd. Your solution to the mere possibility of being rear-ended while waiting in the line of cars at an intersection is to "book it" across an intersection before the light is fully turned. And you somehow think this is safer?
  - mzs 13y ago
    I agree Stanley that it is absurd that what I do is safer, but sadly more than an dozen years of experience with this intersection and what I have witnessed there makes it clearly the case based on the level of care taken by too many of the motorists I share that part of the road with, good road to you as well Mr. Drew.
- grkvlt 13y ago
  In the UK this is actually enforced, and we have ASLs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line) allowing cyclists to move in front of other traffic at junctions, and start ahead of them. Is this sort of thing not part of the road system i9n the US?

Zigurd 13y ago

If the biking routes are that popular, one side of the street should be a bike lane separated from traffic. Until such time, cars need to be patient. Each one of those cyclists you are stuck behind is keeping a 3 ton multi-kilowatt biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions car off the road. Cars are huge polluters and energy consumers. Would you be equally pissed off if the residents along narrow streets had speed bumps installed to reduce noise from fast traffic?

oceanplexian 13y ago
Cyclists are using roads that are subsidized and paid for by gasoline taxes and automobile registration fees. If you really want dedicated lanes and preeminence then pay your fair share. I don't think bicycling would be as attractive if cyclists paid for all the externalities of their hobby.
- yackob03 13y ago
  I can't tell if this is satire.
- bryanlarsen 13y ago
  Pedestrians, bicyclists & mass transit reduce the number of cars on the road, making the gas taxes that you pay go further. And since buses & bicycle lanes are a lot cheaper than widening the road or other measures that allow more cars on the road, as a car driver you should be happy that gas taxes go towards bicycle lanes.
- oh_sigh 13y ago
  Very few bicyclists just use a bicycle. Most, including myself, own a bicycle and a car, and choose the bicycle for trips where it makes sense(single person trip, short distance, safe route, no cargo). I would be willing to bet that people like me put less wear and tear on the road since the effects of bike on asphalt are negligible.
- scarmig 13y ago
  As your first assignment in transit 101, calculate the wear and tear on a road from a bike vs a car vs a semi.
- jlebar 13y ago
  I'm not aware of any country where gas taxes cover the externalities of the emission of that carbon. I'm also not aware of any country where gas taxes and car registration fees come close to paying for the total cost of roads.
- scoofy 13y ago
  This is nonsense. Roads that cyclists ride on in the states, which are city roads, hardly ever state highways, are paid for via sales tax, not the state gasoline taxes and registration.
- nitid_name 13y ago
  In Virginia, there is no longer a gas tax. Roads are funded by an extra half percentage added to the sales tax. This means non-drivers now subsidize the roadways with each purchase, while people buying gas/diesel for their mowers and generators no longer do. That said, how much toward road maintenance would you say the average commuter pays? You're looking at $214/car/year, according to the FHA and Census Bureau (see, for example, http://www.artba.org/about/transportation-faqs/faqs/#4 http://www.artba.org/about/transportation-faqs/faqs/#4). How much more roadway is used by a car than a bicycle? How much less maintenance is caused by a bicycle than a car? (N.B. cars are more than an order of magnitude heavier than bicyclists; trucks are two orders more per axle.) How much do you think a bicyclist's fair share should be? How should it be measured, applied, and taxed? As for registration, I was under the impression that was more akin to registering a firearm; it's chief purpose is enforcement of laws and property taxes, rather than offsetting the costs of highway maintenance. Is there a state where vehicle registrations are a major source of highway maintenance monies?

chockablock 13y ago

>I understand and appreciate that cyclists have ... as much a right to the road as drivers. The rest of your comment does not make me feel like you truly believe this. Bikes are slower than cars. All road users deserve to be treated with respect and should follow the law.

HNaTTY 13y ago

I understand your frustration, but (a) there are no easy answers, and (b) as I'm sure you can imagine, bicyclists don't like riding near your car either. I've pissed people off by following traffic laws on a bicycle as much as breaking them; I'm slow to get going from stop signs and I won't pull to the side of the road so you can squeeze me into a 2ft space of sand and crap next to the curb as you pass me. A lot of the times that I break traffic laws, the result is me getting out of your way (running the light/not stopping at the stop sign/riding on sidewalk). Of course yours and my experience could be very different. Traffic isn't too much of a problem here, one way or the other. The biggest problem I have to deal with is if a train comes through town and I have to wait 5 minutes for it to pas.

mzs 13y ago

Why I pull in front of the line of cars stopped at the red light on my bike is because otherwise a car will clobber me. It's not a matter of if but when and the consequences will be severe for my family and me. On my commute I am minimally wearing a bright neon green penny over my clothing. When I have stopped in the line of cars at the light I have had cars almost rear end me. Also when I get to the intersection drivers do not seem to notice me there and turn right directly in front of me or a car from the oncoming lane decides to turn into me. So I crawl to the front. And do you know what happened here a handful of time? Even when I make eye contact with an oncoming car, the moment the light turned green, the driver forget I was there and tried to turn left as I was crossing on the green. So for my safety on this particular intersection on my commute I crawl to the front, wait for the light for the cross traffic to turn red and verify that all the cars are slowing, then I book it across before the light turns green for me and the other people barely awake behind the wheel. In this way I am not there anymore when another car starts going. I know it's illegal, but it is the only way I have found to get to and from work safely as it is the only entrance. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know why I do that. Some people that do not ride bicycles enough just don't have the experience to appreciate what other things might be going on when not in a car.

stanleydrew 13y ago
This is absurd. Your solution to the mere possibility of being rear-ended while waiting in the line of cars at an intersection is to "book it" across an intersection before the light is fully turned. And you somehow think this is safer?
- mzs 13y ago
  I agree Stanley that it is absurd that what I do is safer, but sadly more than an dozen years of experience with this intersection and what I have witnessed there makes it clearly the case based on the level of care taken by too many of the motorists I share that part of the road with, good road to you as well Mr. Drew.
grkvlt 13y ago
In the UK this is actually enforced, and we have ASLs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line) allowing cyclists to move in front of other traffic at junctions, and start ahead of them. Is this sort of thing not part of the road system i9n the US?