BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I don't get it, what is the big deal about a bike getting someplace before a car does. Hardly seems worth risking someones life just to be one spot up when waiting at a red light

Maybe this dude doesn't drive downtown much and sees smithfield st like drag strip. At 8:30 its so stop and go most motorist don't even bother, or can't, pass me.

He looked like he may have been late to see his parole officer.

By the way, I think that was the first Bike Pgh sticker I've seen on a car. (maybe it was the first time I noticed) But, seeing that helped drain some of the negativity out of me.

Yea, I get people that will pass me 25 feet from a stop sign almost daily when im coming down off mt washington. They always look like they are late for someting.

It helps me to think when people are in a hurry to get nowhere that they have some horrendous appointment to get to. I.e. a tooth extraction or a colonoscopy maybe. And, mother of all horrors, they're late.

This guy got the parole officer treatment because of his beater, and aggressive style.

This morning coasting down Liberty as fast as traffic I decided to get out of the bike lane and avoid any potential door incidents and make myself more visible to turning cars. So I am in the middle of the lane, a car just a few bike lengths in front of me when a giant Mercedes truck starts to pass me, going soooooo much faster than me that I am able to look to my left in disbelief and see the woman pointing and shouting for me to get in the bike lane.

It must have taken her five seconds to pass me that's how fast I was moving. I pulled up behind her at the red light at Herron. I ended up passing her while she waited to turn right at 31st.

Some people just have to get passed you, no matter what the situation. Luckily most people don't behave like her.

The R-complex is named for the most advanced part of the brain higher mammals share with reptiles. It is responsible for rage and basic survival fight-or-flight responses.[1][dubious – discuss][not in citation given] Often, the R-Complex can override the more rational function of the brain and result in unpredictable, primitive behavior in even the most sentient of creatures, humans included. A well developed and healthy neo-cortex can monitor R-Complex activity in sentient beings. The Reptilian complex is the most ancient part of a very successful brain scheme, evolutionarily speaking

I now have an alternate theory for people in a hurry to nowhere. They have a feral poisonous snake in their back seat. The snakes lizard brain is making it freak out trying to bite the motorist. The motorists own lizard brain and limbic system, old monkey brain, are making him freak out, while he tries to get to the zoo for a shot of etorphine, for the snake not him. If only this damn biker would MOVE. And dammit if this snake and biker aren't gonna make him late for his prostate exam!

They have a feral poisonous snake in their back seat. I didn't realize many poisonous snakes have been domesticated... (as to make them feral).

I have a cottonmouth next to me now, gentle as a lamb.

Must be the morning for it. I was biking to work riding west along Schenley Drive, just past the bridge over Boundary Street. As I was approaching the red light (with several stopped cars) at the intersection of Schenley Drive Ext, I could hear a car behind me, but I was moving at a pretty good clip and we were only ~15-20 feet from the stop light anyway. I was far enough to the right that any car could still legally pass me and stop in the going straight lane (however pointless those 2 seconds would be).

I continued my line, which would keep me just to the left of the bump out, but out of the right turn lane. When out of nowhere this SUV pulls around me (across the yellow line), and quickly cuts over (without having fully passed me) so they could get into the right turn lane. SUV ended up pushing me into the curb bump out there, the whole time I was banging on the rear side window yelling, HEY HEY HEY!

Of course, light is red, so this SUV had to stop 3 feet after running me off the road. I pulled up beside the drivers side window, and in full on angry mode, started yelling and cussing. I know I shouldn't, but such a stupid and dangerous maneuver got me worked up. The lady in the SUV looked up from her center console, where she was digging for something, eyes as wide as saucers, looking like she just saw a ghost. I thought it was some jagoff trying to be a jagoff, but she honestly looked like she had no idea what she just did.

After I cooled down, parked my bike, and started walking to work I actually felt bad for yelling. I mentioned my interaction with one of my cooler-headed friends, and he sent me a link to a yellow card. What are the chances we could come up with something along these lines for Bike Pittsburgh? I think I would be less apt to go all road ragey on someone if I could just stick a magnet on their car after they do something really dumb, and it might better help the car drivers realize they did something dumb too?

Hmm, I like the yellow card idea. I would merely change it to read "bicyclist or pedestrian" so I can slap them on all the drivers downtown whom insist on turning left after the arrow has turned red and split the peds who have the walk signal.

dmtroyer, sounds like a good idea. I think the grammar could be fixed up as well, and the font looks pretty ugly. If bike-pgh doesn't care for the yellow card idea, I would be happy to redesign them and find a local place to print a few hundred up, if a few folks want to share a bulk order.

I would go in on an order, with or without Bike Pgh's blessing.

On my way to work today, I had drivers be polite to me and a pretty woman pedestrian at a corner smiled at me and said hello as I rode past.

Mick

I have a pick up truck, I have a Bike Pittsburgh sticker on the back window, AND I was on the Smithfield Street Bridge earlier this morning. But, I don't remember a cyclist coming up behind me. If it was me, I wish you would have hollered in the window. If it wasn't me, that means there were two of us there today......trucks with BP stickers in the window, that is.

"I am able to look to my left in disbelief and see the woman pointing and shouting for me to get in the bike lane."

Disturbing. I never got that on Liberty when I lived in Bloomfield. Not once. Though that was before the bike lane was painted so maybe that has something to do with it. Correlation is not causation, of course, as I try to remind people in other contexts.

Yellow Card: I like it. I like the font, too - it's "classical", and that evokes a little sense of old-timey appreciation for classical virtues like consideration of others. I think that in order to obtain a set of these magnets, the cyclist should also agree not to be a dick on purpose.

Swalfoot, I saw the truck in station square. They had to see me as I rode right past them and then did something illegal (went down the street the wrong way, by the g concourse)

Oh yeah, I think I ran the stop sign also.

I'm not usually such a scofflaw but my mood was dark.

I like the idea of the cards too but, alas, dickish behavior is in my dna. To deny this would be to deny my very nature. Torturous stuff indeed.

I try and stop at all the lights, signs, etc. Or at least roll to as much of a stop as the other users of said sign/light. Back in CA a cop gave me a written warning for running a stop sign (there was no other traffic at the intersection, so I rolled through). He told me the fine was the same as a car (over $200, and a moving violation on my car insurance). I learned my lesson and have stopped ever since.

I stop for peds in a cross walk, I stop for peds j-walking, I slow down on a trail if there are peds in front of me. I do my very best not to be a dick to cars too, and am usually pretty nice to everyone around me, giving a little wave of head nod where appropriate, but when some guy can't wait the actual, literal two, TWO seconds, for me to pass an intersection and turn right behind me, rather than pass me and cut me off, I guess all politeness goes out the window. Given the option, I think I'd prefer to just yellow card them, rather than flip out, and I think it may be more productive overall. Brushing it off with zero reaction (yellow card or yelling, or whatever) is not really in my DNA, though it probably should be.

I stop and wait for lights. I do sometimes roll through stop signs slowly if and only if there is nobody at the intersection. But same as you, dwillen, my temper flares when someone is a dick to me, and I've definitely done that "pulling around directly in front" maneuver a few times, too.

I just think that if we're going to go around preaching courtesy to people, it won't do any good to be a holier-than-thou hypocrite about it. Just saying...

Hey, where better to put a Bike Pittsburgh sticker than on the rear window of my pick up truck? Lots of people see it, and it is big enough to be legible at a distance. You'd have to be pretty close to read the one(s) on my bike!