We're Alcoholics on Bikes, Apparently

[GLC1968]

they also generally ride without helmets and lights and wear dark clothing. They are who i consider the invisible bicyclists because they are part of the bicycling population but they have no voice.

I've also noticed that they tend to be on bikes that don't fit or they are riding with the seat way too low.


I commute in regular clothes, but I also always wear a helmet or my 'fancy' showers pass jacket to hopefully discourge the image that I'm doing this as the result of a DUI.

I agree that the general image is going to change as more and more people are deciding to bike to work due to rising gas prices.

[mimitabby]

I commute in regular clothes, but I also always wear a helmet or my 'fancy' showers pass jacket to hopefully discourge the image that I'm doing this as the result of a DUI.

my goodness! are you really worried about it? I just ride my bike and hope no one tries to run me over. (but i ALWAYS wear a helmet)

[SlowButSteady]

Seems like I've heard a song or poem about adults who ride mopeds and the consensus is that adults out riding mopeds are doing so because they've lost their drivers license.

My DH and I saw a guy out riding a moped once and we were laughing so hard we nearly wrecked. The guy was wearing a tee shirt that said "Please Do Not Arrest This Man."

With gas prices so high, I've contemplated a moped but then everyone in town would think that I've lost my license.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

This is just silly.
There are PLENTY of adults on bikes who wear regular clothes and no helmets who are not "DUI".
Plenty of people riding mopeds and scooters...and not DUI.
Plenty of people who can't afford cars and have low paying jobs who ride ill fitting bikes to work and shopping who are....not DUI.
To equate people on bikes who don't wear spandex with alcoholics is just a totally over-the-top crazy generalization.

My mother calls him Odie, the name of some famous drunk on a bicycle.

Meg, I think your mother is mixing up two names from the Andy Griffith Mayberry show: Opie, Andy Taylor's kid....and Otis, the town drunk who was always getting thrown in the drunk tank to sober up.

[GLC1968]

my goodness! are you really worried about it? I just ride my bike and hope no one tries to run me over. (but i ALWAYS wear a helmet)

I'm not actually worried about it...at least not so much here in the PNW - but I certainly was in NC. I actually know of a$$holes who would make a point of intentionally driving too close to people they see on bikes that they think are DUI's.

Yes, people suck for making those assumptions, but they make them anyway. I'm just trying to watch out for my own safety.

[batsheva]

here in florida, although a bike is a vehicle under the road laws, you cannot get a DUI cycling when drunk because as you need no license to cycle, you have not given presumed consent to be breathalyzed - acceptance of a driving license is the acceptance of consent to be breathalyzed and so even if you drive a car and have a valid drivers license, you cannot lose it as there would then be different penalties for car driving cyclists and non car driving cyclists, so the ruling is no DUI for cyclists as not licensed and therefore have not consented to be tested.

[cyclingmama]

here in florida, although a bike is a vehicle under the road laws, you cannot get a DUI cycling when drunk because as you need no license to cycle, you have not given presumed consent to be breathalyzed - acceptance of a driving license is the acceptance of consent to be breathalyzed and so even if you drive a car and have a valid drivers license, you cannot lose it as there would then be different penalties for car driving cyclists and non car driving cyclists, so the ruling is no DUI for cyclists as not licensed and therefore have not consented to be tested.

But you don't need to be breathalyzed to be arrested for DUI. In many states you may refuse the breathalyzer, but you can still be arrested based on officer observation, smell of alcohol, field sobriety tests, etc.

Where I work there is definitely a contingent of low-income cyclists that don't have cars, as well as several homeless people who ride their bikes around town looking for empty bottles (for the 5cent refund), spare change, and discarded food. It really never occured to me that any of them were using bikes due to DUIs. I guess it makes sense that a certain percentage of cyclists would be using a bike due to having lost their license, but I was never aware of such a stereotype or stigma. Maybe I'm just naive.

I just wish that they would all wear helmets, whatever their reasons for being on a bike . . .

[PscyclePath]

As noted, in many states the DWI/DUI statutes apply to motor vehicles of just about any sort. Other states simply use "driver of a vehicle" which definitely includes us riders in the mix.

Bob Mionske's recentn book, Bicycling and the Law has a good discussion of the BWI issues and how (and where) they work. Some states would indeed rather that when you get on the whiskey, you take your bike or faithful horse rather than the keys to a motor vehicle...