Thousands of Maniacs Cycle through Chicago…
There’s the people who are there to protest, and there’s the people who are there to be seen to protest and to cause a little choas. Last night a few of the former and a whole lot of the latter turned out for the Chicago ‘Critical Mass‘ 10th Annual Ride…
While I understand the concept and why these people seek to say that nobody needs a car, I’d like to vent - just a little - on what I think of a lot of cycle-riders in this city… You’re dangerous.
I don’t have a car (you hear that?), I walk almost everywhere in the city and when I don’t (very, very rarely) I will use CTA services. I am very regularly one of those ‘near miss’ pedestrians that you guys get close to hitting when you run a red light or don’t stop at a stop-sign, appear from round the corner of a building or ride on the sidewalk rather than the road.
Sheila and I were by Daley Plaza yesterday when the cyclists were massing, we saw a whole lot of the ‘there to be seen’ protesters - “whoop-ing” and shouting on their way to it from surrounding blocks - and how I chuckled inside when a guy who had been “whoop-ing” and had paid no attention to the fact that there were pedestrians crossing the road (when they had the light to do so) promptly fell off his bike beside me after he’d had to swerve to avoid hitting a woman. After I saw he was OK, I couldn’t help but say to Sheila that “maybe now he’ll shut up.” Maybe he didn’t want to be ’seen’ falling off? Because he - and his friends - weren’t so loud and obnoxious as they rode away.
Still, as much as I find most of the people who do this kind of thing (when they’re in small groups) annoying, it was one hell of spectacle to see the huge train of cycles come thundering by our house. They do have a point - you don’t need a car in this city - infact you can save yourself a huge amount of money not having one! The thing I hope a lot of the full-time cycle rider’s would realize however is that, you don’t need to ride like an idiot on a daily basis.
Photo by Tim Wheatley.
Tags: Chicago, Critical Mass, CTA, Cycling
September 29th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
confession: I once rode my bicycle into the back of my teachers parked car and landed on its roof. I wasn’t whooping at the time, rather just minding my own business and admiring how shiny my wheels were! Bloody stupid bike!
September 29th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I don’t have a car, either (sold it before I moved here) and there have been many times when the walk signal comes on and just as you step off the curb, a cyclist zooms past you, by a foot or closer, as they run the light. It happens frequently, so one has to look for them before crossing. I guess they don’t care about the possibility of colliding with a pedestrian (which would be very bad, at their speeds), even as they complain about idiot drivers.
September 30th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Yeah I know what you mean Nina. I always look and never rely on just the ‘walk’ signal… Still, have had quite a few near misses because like you say - they seem to come from nowhere.
October 1st, 2007 at 10:20 am
There was a huge bruhaha here awhile ago regarding cyclists and their tendency to entirely block out the rest of the world with ipods and creating some fairly dangerous situations.
BTW, in regards to the only child-middle child thing…they’re my stepbrothers.
October 1st, 2007 at 11:45 am
Ahhh, now I get it.
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:45 am
As an avid cyclist, I agree fully with you Tim.
Cyclists need to be taken seriously both as road sharers and as road users and it’s an uphill battle to get MOST of them to obey traffic laws.
You can partly blame the police who aren’t about to waste time ticketing pedestrians and cyclists. A public awareness campaign on the level of the Critical Mass stuff could help us to get respect as road users. But let’s not forget that there are a LOT of motorists who don’t deserve any respect because of the dangerous way that they drive. And they are a much greater danger to lives than errant cyclists.
A long time ago, I used to ride to work somewhat flaunting the rules of the road and had near misses with cars frequently. I decided to lower the stress level and ride like I was driving a car. It took me a whole 4 or 5 minutes longer using the much more relaxed method over my 40 minute ride. And I’m sure that drivers respect me more as well.
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:53 am
Today’s WSJ mentioned a post from streetsblog (streetsblog.org), which argues that traffic laws impede cyclists. “Many of us often just cruise through [red lights] with a careful glance in each direction,” it says, but no, many of them don’t. There are some good arguments in the comments for the pedestrian side, including a concession from the writer of the post: “At the moment though it’s certainly true that cyclists often mow down pedestrians. It’s a real problem.”