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Riding a bike in the city can be very challenging. And by challenging I mean terrifying! There are so many ways you can get hurt! Car doors, cabs, pedestrians, buses, etc.! This is why the issue of police “cracking down” on bicyclists seems like a difficult one to me. You hear a lot of stories about cops giving unwarrented tickets and, you know, that sucks. Obviously. And shouldn’t happen. But also all the time you see bike-riders breaking lots of actual traffic laws, putting themselves in danger, and almost running you over. And that sucks too. And they should get tickets sometimes! Controversial opinion, I KNOW. But I’ve definitely been almost run over by a person on a bike lots more times than I’ve been almost run over by a person in a car. So take it easy sometimes, bicyclists. And take out your earbuds. And put your hands on the handlebars please, you’re giving me a heart attack.
That isn’t to say that cops aren’t in the wrong in lots of these cases. And CERTAINLY isn’t to say that car-drivers aren’t in the wrong in lots of cases. And not that this is Lawgum. But just, you know. If you broke a traffic law and you got a ticket, pay the ticket? And don’t be upset just because you aren’t in a car? And put your hands on the handlebars please? Let’s all just be reasonable. Also let’s watch this video together and then talk about it:
First of all, “I’m doing the world a favor riding my bike.” UGGGHH. Hahah. Ugh. Can I give you a ticket? But seriously folks, a problem I have with this video is that it isn’t against the law to ride your bike not in a bike lane if the bike lane is blocked, but he never goes into whether or not the bike lane was blocked here? While “sometimes the bike lane isn’t the safest place to be” is true, it doesn’t really seem like it validates anything in this case. Sometimes there are laws! I’m sorry about laws. I didn’t make the laws.
A problem I DON’T have with this video is how funny it is to watch people run into things and then fall over. Hahahah! Classic. Put on a helmet though, you’re giving me a heart attack. (Via Reddit.)
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You can now buy his ticket at http://www.bicyclistgetsaticket.com/ART
I remember having a lot of free time before kids, too.
I’m pretty sure this guy is the grown up verion of the birthday bike kid, but instead of crying everytime he sees a bike he cries about everything else.
Helmet: nowhere to be seen. Even when doing those staged stunts. Seems bad.
Countries with the most helmet use also have the most head injuries, and other information about the necessity of helmets: http://bicyclesafe.com/helmets.html
Although yeah, maybe if you know for sure you are going to be crashing into cars and roadblocks some extra protection would be good.
I used to volunteer at the Bici Co-op in Birmingham, AL and we were SERIOUS about helmets after one of our own got a concussion during a race. HELMETS!
I wish his ticket would have been $130
what a dick
I appreciate that you want to punish him but only up to the maximum possible fine.
At least in New York, they have bike lanes. In New Haven, bicyclists use the sidewalks – which is definitely illegal, and New Haven cops are too understaffed and overworked to address pedestrian safety. Once I was run over by a bicyclist while leaving a Fresh Taco.
That’s what you get for eating at Fresh Taco. HORRIBLE.
Guilty Pleasure. Guilty Guilty Pleasure.
There are also a lot of terrible bikers in Boston who just blow through red lights at dangerous intersections and get fairly high and mighty re riding bikes/’saving the world’. And they, like this guy, don’t wear helmets and have terrible logic. They want to be treated like cars but act like pedestrians. Obviously you’re not always going to want to be in the bike lane (hello, turning left), but more often than not it’s there for a reason. It’s unclear from the video why he wasn’t riding in the bike lane, so yeah, “ugh” is right.
AMEN. Boston (i.e. Cambridge) has the worst bicyclists.
Boston also has Massholes, and i am comfortable screaming at a bicyclist for breaking the rules. Angry Bostonians are at least as bad as getting a ticket.
How do you know they have terrible logic? Can you read their minds? How is this guy acting like a pedestrian? He was trying to be treated as a vehicle by behaving as a vehicle, and got a ticket for it.
and Winwood spelling comment in 3.2.1…
I remember learning in school about GIdeon v. Wainwright and how Clarence Gideon stayed up all night in prison reading law books and traded all his money and favors so that he could submit his case to the supreme court.
Why didn’t he just make a silly video???
So, in NYC, pedestrians are supposed to use the sidewalk and crosswalks, right? But sometimes there are obstructions on the sidewalk, like tourists or charity muggers or tourists or sidewalk cafes or tourists or dog poop or tourists or sidewalk vendors or tourists or umbrellas or tourists.
You know what I do? I walk around them like a grown ass man and don’t dive head first into them to make an extremely belabored point.
There’s a truck in the way of your precious fucking bike path, pedal your fixi around it like and adult, shitheel.
Postscript: There was an underground fire on my block last night that knocked out power on my block from 10:30 p.m. until 8:15 a.m., so I had a collective hour/hour 15 worth of sleep in 90 degree heat w/ no ac or fan, so I’m a cranky today.
I feel like a lot of the city was on underground fire last night, there were Con Ed emergency trucks all over the West Village.
“I’m a-cranky!” –Franco Lloyd Wrong
the problem is that often “pedaling around it” means “swerving out into traffic without really being able to look to see if there’s a truck about to run you over,” which is really dangerous. Basically, I don’t want to die so that some delivery guy doesn’t have to find a legal parking space.
Isn’t it just responsible to get a bike mirror then?
even with a mirror, it’s still dangerous to have to move into a lane of traffic, especially if it’s rainy or dark and hard to see behind you with the mirror or by turning around to look. The existence of a product that minimizes the risk doesn’t excuse the behavior that creates the risk in the first place.
Whoah, there’s a lot of danger in the world. I better not go outside.
Delivery trucks suck but in their defense, there aren’t any spots for them. Double parking (even when there’s a bike lane!) is pretty much the only way to do deliveries on a busy commercial street in the city.
Driving in the city is nobody’s idea of a good time, and when you take to the streets in a bike, car, or anything else, you should be prepared to be inconvenienced occasionally.
no I understand, but it seems like the NYPD should ticket them as aggressively as they’ve been ticketing cyclists recently, because it’s not always commercial delivery trucks. In Brooklyn, tons of people just leave their car in the bike lane for 15 minutes while they go into a friend’s house to pick something up or whatever, and I’ve never seen a cop giving a ticket to someone blocking the bike lane. Meanwhile, I have a friend who walked his bike to the curb, but still had the back wheel on the sidewalk when he started to ride away, and got ticketed for “riding on the sidewalk.” (“Good anecdotal evidence, very relevant and persuasive.” – Everyone)
very true – the obstructions are more than ‘occasional’ – i ride in manhattan every day, and it’s honestly something like HALF the blocks in the bike lane on 1st ave have parked cars and trucks, garbage trucks (seriously), construction, and other obstacles. it’s honestly just impossible to deal with the bike lane sometimes, because people know the police don’t take it seriously.
Can we also mention the livery cabs who use the bike lane on Lafayette as a cab stand? Or the “bike lanes” near schools that are functionally pick-up and drop-off lanes? And my personal favorite: cop cars in bike lanes. They should give themselves a ticket.
Can we also mention the livery cabs who use the bike lane on Lafayette as a cab stand? Or the “bike lanes” near schools that are functionally pick-up and drop-off lanes? And my personal favorite: cop cars in bike lanes. They should give themselves a ticket.
My other favorite: double-posting. Sorry, internet.
Can’t you just, oh I don’t know, hit the brakes? That’s what I have to do, in my car, when someone on a bike decides to use the street and not the bike path.
He originally DID ride around the obstacle like a grown-ass man, which is what got him in trouble in the first place. Then he tried to use humor to make his point, the success of which is debatable—though it was undeniably hilarious when he crashed into the back of the semi.
as a cyclist I’m torn about this video. Blocking bike lanes really is super dangerous and cops don’t really enforce it as much as they should. But also, I want to give this guy every ticket for everything, because ugh.
I replied above, but I’ll add this.
If I double park in a bike lane in my car, I’m an asshole. If a delivery guy double parks in a bike lane in the course of business, he’s really just doing his job. There truly isn’t a viable alternative. It’s not like we have parking lots and loading docks out behind the stores in NYC.
Yeah, and I guess I run into* the asshole-car double parking more than I do the delivery-truck double parking b/c I mostly ride in Brooklyn and try to avoid riding in Manhattan whenever possible.
* “run into” meaning “encounter,” not “run into” meaning
In Athens, Georgia there’s a huge “share the road” movement, which I’m willing to do, but it’s difficult when the road is roughly four feet wide and you, Mr. Biker, are ignoring even the most rudimentary of social road-sharing conventions. It’s like a game of fucking Frogger every time you want to go to the grocery store.
You live in Athens? I went to UGA and am thinking about moving back.
I lived in Athens for three years while I was in grad school, and LOVED it. I’m in Atlanta now, but I would love to go back. I did have to move because I was in my late 20s and had a difficult time finding young professionals like myself–most people that age are on the bar/restaurant schedule of late nights and late mornings. But oh, it was so fun. I miss the Manhattan Cafe! And The Grill!
Georgia Theater is reopening! http://www.georgiatheatre.com/index.html
AH! That is really exciting!
I am a cyclist and I obey all the laws and road-sharing conventions. Please don’t yell at all of us because some assholes give us a bad image.
eeep! bicyclists are somewhat of a problem around alburquerque as well. people do not look out for them on the streets that do not have designated bike lanes, and on the streets with designated bike lanes they feel as though they own the road. your bike is not a car. do not ride down the middle of the street during rush hour. there will be a police officer that doesn’t want to wait in traffic who will run you down because of his impatience. and he will win in court too because you are a moving vehicle that has to follow the same laws as a car and yet you refused to stop at that stop sign because you’re on a bike…eep!
also, it’s hard for me to sympathize with your brains splattered on the concrete when you’re wasted on a fixie not wearing a helmet. get a bike with brakes and gears (we live in the mountains!), wear a helmet, and don’t bike wasted. you give the rest of us a terrible name.
and by the rest of us, i mean those of us who are forced to use a bike as our sole means of transportation not because it’s cool or it saves the planet, but rather because we are broke.
Again, I think you’re projecting an unfortunate stereotype onto an entire segment of the population. I am not wasted when I ride a bike. Most cyclists aren’t, actually. And not all cyclists need bikes with gears. And what type of bike a person rides needn’t be the basis for making hostile comments about them.
“Bicyclists are a problem”? Eeep, indeed.
If “people do not look out for them on the streets that do not have designated bike lanes,” that seems more like a problem with the other people using the road than the bicyclists.
And how do you know that the cyclists using the bike lanes “feel as if they own the road”? (Technically, they do, by the way—just as much so as the cars and everyone else using the road, because we all pay taxes on that road.) I can’t speak for every cyclist because I’m not a mind-reader, but I can say that I’m not using bike lanes or other infrastructure out of any sense of entitlement or arrogance, but because it’s there and it’s legal for me to use it.
Cyclists ride down the middle of the street during rush hour because sometimes that is the safest thing to do for everyone involved. Riding too far to the right means potentially getting doored by people getting out of parked cars, or running into obstacles like the ones in this video.
Finally, your hypothetical situation involving the police officer makes no sense. He ran me down because … I ran the stop sign (which I wouldn’t)? Or because he was impatient, and I somehow deserved it?
I’m sorry if it seems like I’m overreacting, but I face these attitudes every day on my bike and in the media and I live in a city where several cyclists have been killed because of driver negligence and/or hostility, and the attitude in a lot of the media is almost threatening, to the point where people suggest that the deceased “deserved it” because he/she was on a bike.
as a bicycle commuter in a city with very little respect for bicyclists (thanks, NOPD!), thank you for this comment
You know what else is dangerous and sometimes blocked by things? Driving lanes. I just use my brakes though, i don’t go driving on sidewalks.
I left a similar comment above. I don’t know why using the brakes is such an insane concept to most bike riders. Stop your bike and walk the bike around whatever is blocking the bike lane. Yeah, it slows you down, but so does me driving 10 mph on a 30 because I’m stuck behind a bike rider.
And don’t get me started when I have to change skylanes in my hovercraft but it’s blocked by a bunch of sky-hogging geese!
So I got a ticket for riding in the bike lane! – Explain it to us FOUR MORE TIMES, dude.
Nice use of music! – Me reacting to the Bike Guy’s video.
On a super serious note, the only time I wanna punch a cyclist in the back of their helmets and send ‘em flying is when they decide the sidewalk is their best bet. ‘COMING UP BEHIND YOU!’ ‘ON YOUR LEFT!’ Get the fuck off the sidewalk and stop screaming at me.
I’ve started biking to work (from Brooklyn to Chelsea in Manhattan) in the last few weeks. I am not a great cyclist, and so I’ve made it a point to follow traffic laws- I stop and wait at every red light, I only use bike lanes in the right direction, I never drive against traffic, etc. I just don’t want to end up getting hit by a cab or something, and have it be partially my fault.
In the last few weeks, I have only ONCE seen another cyclist who stops at red lights, walks his bike on the sidewalk, etc. People seem to think that being on a bike is like being a super-car or something, where you can/should blow through lights at your own discretion, or suddenly veer into traffic for no reason. As a conservative estimate, I would say 90% of bike riders in New York routinely break traffic laws every time they get on a bike, for no reason other than wanting to get places faster.
There’s a huge political shit fight going on in New York right now over bike lanes, and it’s more or less just a weird cultural battle between people who want free street parking and people who want to ride bikes, but shit like this doesn’t help. Cops are over-reacting with bullshit tickets, like riding with a tote bag on your handlebars, but there is a genuine problem with people on bikes consistently ignoring traffic laws. It’s infuriating, and I have to say, cops ticketing people for actual violations is probably what the New York bicycle community needs, just to normalize bicycles for people.
I agree. It makes me really angry when I see other cyclists breaking laws, because it leads to our terrible image in the media and in popular culture, which leads to otherwise nice, reasonable Monsters making sweeping generalizations about us and actually wishing us physical harm in what I’ve found to be the kindest, most reasonable comments section of any blog I visit.
I follow the laws. I ride safely. Please don’t yell at me or run me down with your car because another cyclist doesn’t.
I do feel like there is a a chain of no respect though. I run on the west side Greenway every morning, and it is a rare day that I don’t almost get hit by “serious business” head to toe spandex bikers. Speed limit signs are posted just for them, as that path is intended as a leisurely recreation path and not a race course, but I don’t imagine they will slow down until Parks & Rec starts targeting them.
“I’m from New York” –Casey Neistat
there was just an article in the chicago Tribune about cops monitoring one of the most dangerous intersections to make sure cyclists were stopping at red lights. the cops only ticketed one guy for b/c he was apparently being a huge dick when they told him it was against the law.
it was about 50/50 of those cyclists going “yep, we should be careful. thanks” and others pissing and whining about how they should be ticketing cars, and leave cyclists alone etc. etc.
get off your high horse [which isn't even that high since your seat is down so low]. you can’t be both a pedestrian and a vehicle, you have to pick one and deal with it.
I’m so jealous of the bike lanes in NYC. In Toronto there are a few bike lanes but not really that many in the downtown core and so I’m just way to scared to bike across town. Because I know that my secret weakness is being hit by a car.
ALSO! Fun Cops are sometimes jerks story:
My girlfriend hadn’t ridden a bike in 20 years or so because of a terrible fall when she was a kid. Wanting to give it another try we found a friend who was selling a bike for 50 dollars, went to her house and my girlfriend hopped on to check it out. We’d never been to her neighborhood before and didn’t really know the area. My girlfriend takes the the bike around the corner and BAM a cop gives her a $110 ticket for driving a bike the wrong way on a 1 way street. In a residential area! On a Sunday night! At 7! There was literally no one around and she tried to explain that it wasn’t even her bike, etc, etc. He just told her she had better pay the ticket. We also bought the bike (for some reason?) and it was stolen three days later. So all in the bike could have potentially cost $160!
HOWEVER! 7 months later in court he didn’t show up and so the ticket was thrown out. But yeah! Really? Really?! Cops!
“I’m from such-and-such place” –everyone on this thread.
And everyone not on this thread.
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Old and gay.
I’m pretty okay with videos being “old news” if it means I don’t have to go on Reddit.
lol my first successful troll. u mad?
as someone who is living in a city that’s trying to be more bike friendly, and has it’s share of unfriendly bikers, this short from portlandia is the only thing keeping me sane these days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3nMnr8ZirI
that short is YES! i’ve made all of my fellow cyclist friends watch it!
WE’RE NOT ALL LIKE THAT! I feel like a Christian right now.
You and me both.
A few months back I was pulling out of the driveway and it was getting dark and a group of those bicyclists that are just slathered in spandex and weird logos rode by, and one of them yelled out “Turn your lights on, idiot!” I hated all bicyclists everywhere that day.
Exactly! Heart attacks! And the ear bud thing! Man, sometimes I feel like I’m alone on the ear bud thing. So many heart attacks, though.
I’m from the Moon and some idiot astronaut left his moonbuggy parked in the “bike’s only” crater and I crashed into it and flew endlessly into space because of a low gravitational field.
I ride my bike and I love Videogum. Reading this post and these comments is like having a friend who you think you know pretty well until out of the blue one day he tells an offensive ethnic “joke” (and no, I am not equating racism with anti-cyclist sentiment, I’m just looking for an example of the type of shocking and surprising thing that we don’t believe the people we like and care about would ever say, until they do, and we’re forced to reevaluate things a little bit).
The anti-cyclist sentiment on here makes me sad like that.
I am a cyclist as well. I ride it everywhere. But other cyclists certainly don’t make it easy for pro-cyclist sentiment to exist. They chastise anyone who drives to work but when they go out and get a bike they scoff at them for getting a bike that coasts and has break and is, you know, safe.
That being said, I don’t think I’ve ever once rode anywhere more than a mile away without something blocking the ENTIRE bikelane. And it’s never anything I can just wait around for to drive away. So I GO AROUND THE OBJECT BLOCKING MY FUCKING PATH. If I were to receive a ticket for each one of these apparently illegal acts, I’d be so in debt I’d never get out. So despite how smug this video may appear, I’d say it’s an effective way to draw attention to an actual problem.
What I’m trying to say is that fixed gears are fucking stupid.