On Feb 27, 2:56*pm, wrote:
On Feb 27, 11:21 am, N8N wrote:

On Feb 27, 10:58 am, wrote:

If you have trouble seeing ordinary (non-orange) cyclists or
pedestrians in plenty of time, you're not driving responsibly. *Try
slowing down and paying more attention.

Yes, all of the cyclists in my area are responsible and never, ever do
stuff like riding after dark without lights and wearing dark and/or
non-reflective clothing. *(snort)

Cyclists should use lights and reflectors at night. *Those laws should
be respected.

Agreed.

But clothing that suits _your_ fancy is not a legal requirement, and
should not be.

Being visible is not "my fancy." If you have no lights, no
reflectors, and are wearing jeans and a dark shirt, I have no sympathy
for anything that might happen to you.

If it didn't seem like the vast majority of cyclists that I see had
death wishes ... you might have a point, but my general impression
of them is that they are serious hazards to themselves and others, and
I wish that police would take more notice of this and start enforcing
the rules of the road.

I wish police would enforce _all_ rules of the road, including against
motorists who speed through neighborhoods, roll stop signs, run red
lights, fail to yield to pedestrians, and all the rest. *Yes, they
should ticket cyclists - but it's a far lower priority for good
reason.

Why? If I hit another car because the driver did something illegal,
or hit a cyclist because he did something illegal, I still hit
something. I'm still inconvenienced, and I still have to deal with a
lot of BS. Since my observations are that 100% of cyclists flagrantly
violate the rules of the road, that seems like a real problem to me.

For example, regarding stop signs: *I live across the street from
one. *Fewer than half the drivers bother to stop. The majority roll
right through. The potential harm from a motorist doing that is
hundreds of times worse than that from a cyclist.

100% of cyclists blatantly ignore stop signs.

Regarding "serious hazards to themselves and others," feel free to
post documentation of the terrible carnage caused by bicyclists. *We
know there are roughly 40,000 people killed by motorists each year in
America. *How many are killed by bicyclists? *Post the number, please.

Mostly cyclists kill themselves. But my car will still be damaged.

How many cyclists kill themselves by their mistakes? *Only about 700
American cyclists die per year, total. *That's a tiny number compared
to most other causes of death. *The per-hour risk is also low. *And at
least half those fatalities are caused by motorist mistakes, not
cyclist mistakes.

I don't believe that at all, as as I've stated, bicyclists seem to
think themselves completely exempt from the rules of the road and
quite a few rules of common sense, as well.

I'm not anti-cyclist as a principle; I actually enjoy riding. It is
observation of the behavior of cyclists that has shaped my opinions so
that I probably appear to be anti-cyclist. Basically, I just don't
like the particular cyclists that I have to interact with on the
roads.

nate