This was a Critical Mass event, which is why the bicyclists are taking up all of the street as a way to reclaim the streets and protest the lack of safety for riders under usual conditions. It’s not legal, but protests are never useful if they’re fully legal now, are they.

  • Showroom7561@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    8 hours ago

    You’re really close to what I’m saying. Cars don’t do this. That was what I said. Many people, yourself included said cars do this. They don’t.

    Well, I gave you a long list of things that car drivers are doing, and you keep pointing to the one thing that they don’t do as often.

    Fine. Yes, not all drivers are driving on the wrong side of the road. Just enough to cause over 400 deaths a year on dividend highways (these are roadways with separation between direction traffic!!!) (REPORT FROM AAA)

    The U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported over 1200 fatalities caused by wrong way drivers in 2022 alone! (SOURCE)

    With those facts out of the way, in a protest, do you expect people to only move using the right-hand side?

    They don’t have the same rules. There are tons of rules that apply only to vehicles and plenty of laws that apply only to bikes or people. I don’t know here you’re getting this concept from unless this is more sarcasm.

    Well, I live in Ontario, Canada. And “under Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act, a bicycle is considered a vehicle, just like a car or truck.” (SOURCE).

    Not sarcasm. Cyclists are expected to wait at red lights, even if the lights remain red because they require an actual large vehicle to trigger their sensors. This is discrimination.

    There are also unfair speed limits put on e-scooter and e-bike riders. Bans on using e-scooters on roads "60km/h or more). And plenty of crossings where pedestrians and cyclists must yield to vehicles, even when it should be the other way around.

    They don’t… Cars don’t use cross walks to cross the road. Where are you getting this concept from? Do you use a turning single when walking? How often do you get your bike inspected for road worthiness to make sure a wheel doesn’t come off and cause an accident? Cars can’t drive on the sidewalk, I see bikes doing this… This is so baseless and wild. You’re just literally making things up.

    Makes no sense. You are trying to apply the same rules that trucks have to a pedestrian.

    I’m saying that pedestrians are forced to follow “traffic rules” designed because of cars, not because pedestrians need them.

    Show me a functioning city where cars don’t have rules. Because there are hundreds of examples of places where thousands of pedestrians and cyclists can move about without any of the same rules.

    I’d like to see these studies. A car can break the law by swerving into an empty oncoming lane to avoid hitting a person that jumping into the road. That is a VERY valid excuse to break the rules.

    A few studies off the top of my head:

    • Marshall, Wesley E., et al. “Scofflaw Bicycling: Illegal but Rational.” Journal of Transport and Land Use, vol. 10, no. 1, 2017, pp. 805–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26211757. Accessed 9 June 2025.

    “Ulawful drivers and pedestrians tend to rationalize their behaviors as time saving; bicyclists similarly rationalize their illegal behaviors but were more inclined to cite increasing their own personal safety and/or saving energy.”

    “A new study from the Danish Road Directorate shows that less than 5% of cyclists break traffic laws while riding yet 66% of motorists do so when driving.”

    • Cyclists Are More Law-Abiding Than Drivers (ARTICLE)

    “In the end, the results indicated that cyclists were compliant with the law 88 percent of the time during the day and 87 percent of the time after dark. The same study determined that drivers who interacted with the study subjects complied with the law 85 percent of the time. In other words, drivers were slightly naughtier than the cyclists—even without measuring speeding or distracted driving.”

    About compliance, there are several more that show when cyclists have better infrastructure, they don’t break the rules as often, because their safety needs are being met. I don’t have a link, as it was something I remember from a while ago.

    So bikes should be allowed on the freeways and criss-cross up and down the highway? People should be able to just walk down the middle of the highway? Do you live in reality man?

    Of course not. Keep cars where cars belong. They don’t need to dominate every square inch of space.

    The road was made to be used by both, not just one. But we should share? So you think cars should be able to drive on bike paths too right? Otherwise it would be “discrimination.”

    I’ve seen cars try to get onto bike paths… honestly, if they were wider, I’m sure more drivers would try.

    Drivers already park in designated bike lanes as a matter of entitlement.

    When I say it’s discriminatory to put disproportionate rules on cyclists and pedestrians, I mean exactly that. Large, fast machines should not be sharing space with pedestrians and cyclists. I say the same about high-powered e-bikes… they don’t belong near people.

    Roads are built for cars to use first, especially some highways. Sorry if that upsets you but it’s reality. This idea that bikes should be allowed to just crowd a freeway or drive wherever they want without any rules and impede people, businesses, and emergency services is delusional.

    Yes, unfortunately, much of North America is car-centric in their design. But things are changing, like in Montreal, where some roads are being given back to pedestrians.

    Bikes don’t impede people, businesses, or emergency services. Cars do. Parked cars, cars in gridlock, cars that have crashed, and now major roadways are closed, cars not yielding to firetrucks, and especially large SUVs taking up far more space than the single occupant they are carrying.

    The amount of space that bikes and people on foot take up is minimal. If you want to move people you get them out of cars.

    If you really, truly think that the only way to show someone that biker safety issues exist is by causing massive disruption to people, businesses, and emergency services while putting lives at risk there’s no convo to be had.

    I don’t. I think it’s one way, but it’s certainly not the only way.

    Out of curiosity, do get this fired up about “massive disruption to people, businesses, and emergency services” when other events do the same? Or is it only protesting cyclists that you have a problem with?

    Like, does your blood boil when your local Santa Claus parade closes some major streets in the area? Or when a major music festival comes to town? Or the Olympics? Or… GASP… road construction to fix the damage caused by large vehicles causes significant closures?

    There are 1001 disruptions caused by human activity, celebration, and protests. Yet, you’ve got a problem with Critical Mass. Pick your battles, man.