Be careful bikers

im gonna get a big rubber inflatable hamster-ball to ride my bike in. not only would hte ride be extra cushony smooth, it would be safer. if i got hit by these bike-lane-driving cars you speak of, i could just bounce off of them.

and if i played my cards right and made sure i got bounced in the correct direction, i might even get to my destination quicker!

Subject: Re: Be careful bikers

tk was me! wrote: I was just riding bike on bike lane on Bergen and other streets this morning. Some drivers think they own the whole street, totally ignoring the bike lane and some really speed up as soon as they see you..that's crazy. Another thing I noticed today, the school bus drivers could be very dangerous..

Heads up and avoid any incident, everyone.

Some tips for dealing with these a-holes who take the bike lane:

1. Sometimes I smack the side window with an open palm as I bike around the illegally parked car to wake up these idiot drivers who not only taking up the bike lane, but are also double parking.

2. Some other people I know will stop their bikes in front of the offending car, preventing them from merging back into traffic. Afterwards, they remind them that they are blocking the bike lane.

3. I don't know if anyone has ever done this, but how about taking pics of the cars in the bike lane (with license plate in view) and posting it online? I'm pretty sure that most of the people who do this are repeat offenders and have no regard for cyclists (or pedestrians, for that matter)...

As for other dangerous drivers, the best you probably can do is get their plate number and call 311. This works for reporting crazy cabbies, but I don't know how well it will work for private motorists. It should also hold true for schoolbus drivers...

Subject: Re: Be careful bikers

JamesonVandy wrote: [quote=alan][quote=tk was me!]I was just riding bike on bike lane on Bergen and other streets this morning. Some drivers think they own the whole street, totally ignoring the bike lane and some really speed up as soon as they see you..that's crazy. Another thing I noticed today, the school bus drivers could be very dangerous..

Heads up and avoid any incident, everyone.

Some tips for dealing with these a-holes who take the bike lane:

1. Sometimes I smack the side window with an open palm as I bike around the illegally parked car to wake up these idiot drivers who not only taking up the bike lane, but are also double parking.

2. Some other people I know will stop their bikes in front of the offending car, preventing them from merging back into traffic. Afterwards, they remind them that they are blocking the bike lane.

3. I don't know if anyone has ever done this, but how about taking pics of the cars in the bike lane (with license plate in view) and posting it online? I'm pretty sure that most of the people who do this are repeat offenders and have no regard for cyclists (or pedestrians, for that matter)...

As for other dangerous drivers, the best you probably can do is get their plate number and call 311. This works for reporting crazy cabbies, but I don't know how well it will work for private motorists. It should also hold true for schoolbus drivers...

I did that a couple of weeks ago on Bergen just before Court Street. It was some young hothead in an SUV on his Bluetooth phone earpiece. He freaked out: "DON'T TOUCH MY CAR!" (as if my hand on his car could harm it), and when I told him he was in the bike lane, he yelled "It's a car on the road, it belongs here!" What is with the anti-bike animosity? I don't get it.

It's not anti-bike animosity as much as it is "I drive my fat a** SUV and I have a DIVINE RIGHT to occupy this chunk of pavement as it moves beneath me" attitude. The larger your vehicle, the more of a right you have to the road. If you own a Hummer, you're practically God! A "God" with a certain item that is inversely proportional to the size of your vehicle, but a "God" nonetheless.

Subject: Re: Be careful bikers

JamesonVandy wrote: What is with the anti-bike animosity? I don't get it.

some drivers are definitely anti-bike... or anti-anyone-but-themselves might be more like it... which leads me to believe that the vast majority of people have very profound issues with entitlement...

which would explain their logic of "i can be here but you cant! even though its the bike lane! im the only person in the world! im gonna get what i want! especially if getting it is as simple as parking my car and yelling at you from it!"

i hate that sort of attitude.

rhodamine wrote: [quote=Oiseau]Bike lanes are nothing more than truck double-parking lanes. Until the bike lanes are seperated from the car lane by more than a white stripe, which is usually in a state of decay, bike lanes are IMO a waste of money. As an avid biker who rides into Manhattan frequently, I use whatever is the fastest route, bike lane or no bike lane. When in a bike lane I like to flex my bike lane muscle a bit but I always got to remember I'm not encased in 2 tons of metal.

over the years, i think that over 95+% of the collisions/crashes/drama/injury ive recieved whilst on my bike have occurred in bike lanes.

odd how that works, huh?

the worst is the lane in times square... even with its plastic cone barriers, you still have the dangers of clueles tourist pedestrians looking up at the shiny signs, stepping out smack in front of you when youre going 20 mph. god, i hate that... :evil:

Don't forget the large sections of 6th and 42nd that's "paved" with metal plates. Sooooo much fun losing control with a rush of taxi cabs behind me...

I've always had a bad feeling about the bike lane on Bergen, ever since it was installed. there seems to be some magical magnetic force that pulls drivers on Bergen toward the left and into the bike lane.

you know, i support wholeheartedly the institutionalization of bikers' rights that on-street bike lanes represent. but i rarely ride in them...i just find them to be generally more dangerous than non-lane areas. cars park in them, drive in them (especially the one on plaza, which rendered what was used as a two-lane street a one-laner, much to the dismay of delivery vans), and fling their doors open in them. and so many cyclists think it's okay to ride the wrong direction down the street because there's a bike lane! i just find that they create a sense of safety and complacency that doesn't really exist - they're really no different from riding on-street in general.

Oiseau wrote: After the last post, I rode down the Bergan Bike lane from Vanderbilt to Court St. There were ten cars parked in the lane. Most ere work vans. However one was a cop car parked in the lane while the cops went to City Sub. How can a bike lane be enforced when the cops don;t even respect it?

Also, most bike lanes lead to no where and the end abruptly.

"Park Different"

--sign left on Steve Jobs' car after he parked in handicapped spaces at Apple for several days.

vanilla wrote: why do people think the bike lane is for double parking?

Because most people have no clue what a bike lane is. It's really a joke in this city.

i really adore the bike lane on plaza st. its a double wide. so luxurious.

JamesonVandy wrote: "Park Different" --sign left on Steve Jobs' car after he parked in handicapped spaces at Apple for several days.

Well, that's kind of a cruel thing to do, especially given that Steve Jobs has pancreatic cancer. I would think, given that, he'd have every right to park in handicapped spaces, ANYWHERE he went, not just at his own company.

JamesonVandy wrote:
1) This was before the cancer, when he was just another able-bodied asshole parking in a handicapped spot.
2) FYI, by his own account, the surgery was successful and he's beaten the cancer.

My mistake ... :roll:

JamesonVandy wrote: I'm loaded


with good intent.


I swear.

I noticed that, hmmm ... not to worry.

Jobs had a quite rare and treatable form of pancreatic cancer. He talked about it in a recent commencement speech at Stanford which is in the current Fortune.

And the joke at Apple, about twenty years ago, was that one day Steve parked in a handicapped spot and someone had to explain to him that it didn't mean "emotionally."