Slate article on bicycling

I was going to start responding to some of the inaccurate (and, particularly at the beginning, horrifying) claims in this
Slate article on bicycling, but I just don't know where to start. I think the worst part to me is that he's writing as a bicyclist, but the kind of bicyclist who makes all the rest of us law-abiding riders look awful. Gah.

What do you think of the author's discussion about bicycling?

Edit to add: I couldn't resist. I did post a response, but only on my blog.

Ya know what, responding to his article would probably be a complete waste of time & effort :(. THe main reason being people just don't want to listen & have come to see cyclists in a certain way.

Sad that we can't respond to an article in some sort of paper without being attacked by those who don't quite get what it's like to be on a small piece of metal/carbon whatever...

Just a thought for my friday night :o

Sounds like the kind of story that I'm not going to even click on and gain them profit from their advertisers.

I miss a lot of offensive stuff that way...

But consider the source. :rolleyes: Yeah, I do still occasionally read the Post, which is the parent organization of course, but I stopped reading anything on Slate.

It's almost the same article that recently appeared in the Boston Globe. People went CRAZY on both sides of that one in the comments section - and neither side came out looking good.

I read the article, it incensed me, and I closed it. Commenting on these just adds fuel to an already raging fire, IMHO.

Keep doing the RIGHT thing as a cyclist. That's what is important.

SheFly

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kfergos

I was going to start responding to some of the inaccurate (and, particularly at the beginning, horrifying) claims in this
Slate article on bicycling, but I just don't know where to start. I think the worst part to me is that he's writing as a bicyclist, but the kind of bicyclist who makes all the rest of us law-abiding riders look awful. Gah.

What do you think of the author's discussion about bicycling?

Edit to add: I couldn't resist. I did post a response, but only on my blog.

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I saw that article as well and was going to post it but you beat me to it. My first reaction was exactly as you say--he makes all the rest of us look bad! I will admit to doing the rolling stop on occasion, but this guy sounds like some of the cyclists I see here in Worcester where you never know what they are going to do next and it's scary whether you're on a bike or in a car (or walking on the sidewalk for that matter). As for his discussion in general, I read your blog post and don't really have anything to add.

I didn't think the article was so horrible. And I hope our state gets a law like Idaho's stop sign law for bikes. That would be great!

I don't see anything wrong with the article. There are cyclists who obey the law and those that don't. He didn't tell us anything new except I'd never heard of an Idaho stop before.

I thought it was an excellent article. He ignored some important issues (primarily to do with commercial bikers) but overall it's one of the better stories about biking that I've seen lately.

Pam

opening remark sure gets your attention. :eek:

The rest of the article was interesing.

I too, thought it was an interesting article...and not in a bad way. As a cyclist that often uses the "Idaho-stop" (never knew it had an official name), I'd be all for it. Of course, I assess the traffic situation at every stop sign before making a decision on whether to roll through cautiously. I do the same with certain stop lights in my area, as well...as many of them are not triggered by a bicycle and I'd be sitting there forever, waiting for it to change.