Road Behavior

For people interested in using bicycles as a regular means of transportation and for daily commutes, the relationship between cars and bikes inevitably becomes an important question to think about. Both groups of travelers want to use the streets to effectively and safely get to all the places they need to be. Yet, despite the common goal of transportation, many conflicts between cyclists and motorists still tend to arise -- and I'm not even talking about any type of ideological issues and disagreements such as environmentalism, health, community sustainability (these are all hugely important topics of their own that definitely need to be considered) -- but I am here talking about simply the physical act of traveling and using the same roads, the same space.

Critical to this issue is the behavior of both cyclists and motorists, and while we've all had our scary and frustrating experiences with cars pulling out of parking lots and making blind turns, nearly plowing us down, we ultimately have no control over the actions of car drivers -- although to be sure, trunk-whacking, middle fingers, scowls, and yells do, at the very least, express our frustrations. In the end, however, we can only focus on what we ourselves do. We can really only focus on the behavior of cyclists.

When considering the behavior of cyclists, there seem to be two main opinions:

1) Rights through Responsibility: proponents of this approach argue that only through consistently responsible cycling will the cycling world gain respect as legitimate travelers with legitimate rights and concerns. For this school of thought, obeying all traffic laws is critical: stopping at red lights, stopping at stop signs, lights at night, hand signals. It is argued that if all cyclists follow the rules and regulations, then in any conflict or accident, it will be impossible to blame the cyclist. Through all this, the cycling world will demand -- will rightfully earn -- it's respect on the roads.

2) Rights through Seizure: operating on the firm belief that cycling is an inherently superior mode of transportation, this approach maintains that, ultimately, cyclists are not cars, and are thus not bound by the codes of the automobile. Such cyclists will stop at red lights and stop signs, and will generally follow traffic regulations, but only insofar as it keeps them safe and allows them to keep on biking. They will not wait at an empty red light on the principle of the thing, but rather, will assert their rights as a cyclist -- explicitly not a car -- to ride wherever and however they will, so long as they do not directly endanger themselves or other cyclists. Riding through empty intersections is a privilege of biking, and doing anything different is a nonsensical acquiescence to laws only in place because of the dangerous unwieldiness of the car machine. In short, rights aren't earned, but seized.

This brief discussion does not attempt to choose a side or highlight which approach is better and for what reasons. It seems that both sides have legitimate perspectives and ideas. While this debate continues, what is ultimately most important for us to consider is how best to ensure that cycling becomes an increasingly safe, effective, and popular mode of transportation, and that scenes like this are avoided, whatever it takes.