Right on ... As a fellow biker, I couldn't have explained the pedestrian/vehicle dual personality better. Thanks for the post.

Bikers - Please follow traffic laws (i.e. if I, in my car, cannot run a red light - nor should YOU) and then we won't hate you so much :) It's more a fear of being charged with vehicular manslaughter than hatred anyway.

Growing up in France, it was hammered into us: bikes must follow all traffic rules. So it was a shock to come here and see the self-righteously anarchic bicyclist behavior.

The law says you can't ride on the sidewalk, and that you must obey traffic rules. Don't like it? Change the law. But good luck -- I think you'll find most people think those laws are reasonable and prudent, and that your current behavior is not.

I agree the author, and I do believe it is a case of bicyclists with bad habits making a bad name for anyone who rides a bicycle. It's completely dangerous and wrong for someone on a bicycle to blow through a half dozen stop signs during rush hour, but if it's at 11PM when there are no cars, i could care less. I'm just sick of coming to a stop at a stop sign, with my right blinker on, I begin to turn and I'm passed on the right hand side by someone doing 15 or 20 on a bike. I mean, you could at least pay attention to my blinker and see that I'm turning, and that when you come down off the sidewalk and pass me less than a foot from my mirror it's difficult.

Same goes with cutting in between cars at a busy intersection such as M street/Key Bridge at 5 PM. I don't really want to have to decide should I swerve into oncoming traffic and potentially kill several people or just hit the guy on the bike.

I understand that a lot of people use bicycles to get to and from work/school/etc and I respect that. I didn't own a car for the first three years I lived here and either walked, rode the bus or used a bicycle.

I've noticed it's usually these people who think they are Lance Armstrong, who are out on their $2,000 bike wearing their bicycle racing clothes (and no backpack or anything, so I can't help but assume they are not going to/from work or anything) zooming around like it's the Tour de France. Why not just go on a bike trail instead of Connecticut Ave?

I've probably just become paranoid after a guy on a scooter ran into my car as I was making a left turn at a 4-way stop. I had my blinker on and started to turn and he blew through the stop sign and ran into the side of my car mid-turn. At the last minute I saw he wasn't going to stop so I stopped, and my car wasn't even moving when he ran into me.

Of course, a nearby woman walking her dog started screaming at me for being such a horrible driver, and the guy on the moped was yelling at me becuase, as he said, he doesn't have to stop at stop signs and I should be more careful.

Thanks for posting the DC bike code Chris (though I don't like your tone so much). Section 1203 is interesting ... has anyone actually registered their bike? I never knew that was a possibility, and certainly not a requirement.

Wow, great post. Couldn't have put the bikers dilemna any better. We aren't like cars or walkers, but at times we can be like both.

Also, I find making the choice to ride the sidewalk or stay on a busy and dangerous street difficult just because I don't want walkers to give me dirty looks. When I do choose to ride on the sidewalk, I ride slow and often times get off my bike if it is busy.

And as for only your own safety at risk, that's nonsense. If you should one day get hit as you run a red light (say, some car speeding around a turn and you don't see it), the driver of the car that hits you is going to have to deal with the guilt of injuring you (or worse), and perhaps get rammed by the car(s) behind him getting hurt as well.

I fail to see how asking cyclists to follow the rules of the road and to stay off sidewalks (where it is illegal in many areas, and should be illegal in all areas) is anti cyclist.

If anything I think it's pro cyclist. I'd love more cyclists on the road, less (hopefully none at all) violence against cyclists, and drivers to better respect cyclists, but I think it's a two way street.

I don't believe that many cyclists are doing their part to respect drivers and to respect pedestrians, but I don't think that makes me anti cyclist.

Couple of points:
Bike lanes simply aren't safe. Invariably, bike lanes are against the side of the road, where debris (dangerous for tires, cause crashes) accumulate, or against a "parking lane", where careless people open car doors into (very dangerous). Also, either location puts the cyclist against a curb or a parked car, which cuts off a potential avenue of escape should something go wrong.
Multi-use trails are even worse. Most all are narrow and encumbered by pedestrians (who are often two or more abreast), rollerbladers (who weave back and forth), and canines. All of these present a huge safety hazard to a cyclist going over ten mph. Also, many trails are rough, have blind corners, and get covered with loose dirt and/or gravel.

For commuting and/or fast riding, taking the lane on the public road that's legally due to a bicyclist *should* be the safest choice. It probably would be, if cyclists were accorded proper status by people in motor vehicles. But if only a relative very few drivers don't respect cyclists' right to take *a whole lane*, then there's a problem, and cyclists will often a) ride on the sidewalk or b) behave in a way that appears erratic and unpredictable, but often is a form of self defense.

Plenty of blame to go around, here. My rule as a cyclist was simply to assume other people couldn't see me/didn't care, and not to get in anyone's way.

to Mark:

"For commuting and/or fast riding, taking the lane on the public road that's legally due to a bicyclist *should* be the safest choice. It probably would be, if cyclists were accorded proper status by people in motor vehicles. But if only a relative very few drivers don't respect cyclists' right to take *a whole lane*, then there's a problem, and cyclists will often a) ride on the sidewalk or b) behave in a way that appears erratic and unpredictable, but often is a form of self defense."

My question is, how should drivers react to someone on a bike who wants to take up a whole lane, but is going 10mph down say Key Bridge or Wisconsin Ave during rush hour?

To Dave:
The law would require you to put on your turn signal and check your rear-view before making a lane change and passing...

But, hey, if it's rush hour, you're probably being *passed* by cyclists going 10mph, while they split lanes between effectively-parked cars.

Okay, enough making fun of you. Really, how would you react on 495 to someone going, say, 55 in the right lane?

Mark: That's true, but if a bicyclist wants to have the lane to themselves, does that mean then when cars are stopped in traffic or at a light, the bike should remain in it's lane, like a motorcycle would? Or is it okay for the bike to weave in and out of traffic?

I suppose the question I was asking is more fitting on a road that is only one lane. Because I am more than willing to either pass (when legal and safe) or just hang behind the bike... but I get frustrated when I'm being tailgated by people who honk their horn wanting me to cross into oncoming traffic to pass, or speed up enough to "scare" the bike into moving over. Then I get passed by people swerving over and cutting me or the bike off... I would have to say to the bike, if you can't keep up with the speed of traffic than stick to the sidewalk. Most of the time speed of traffic isn't more than 15-20mph...

To Dave:
Thanks for not taking obvious offense at my (late night) jest.

Anyway, if I were on that bike stopped at a light, I would be off to the side, knowing that a line of impatient and accelerating cars will soon try to pass me quickly. Probably, I would move to the front of that line of cars waiting for the light, and would attempt to get a head start through the light so that, by the time the cars reach me, they would have spread out a bit. Doing this would require me to split the lane between the cars stopped at the light and the cars parked against the curb- which is illegal for me to do but, I think, safer then waiting in "my place" like a car and may also require me to run the light, which is also illegal but, IMO, sometimes safer. Riding on a crowded sidewalk is dangerous to both pedestrians and to me. I don't like to do it.

I think the ruling idea for biking on sidewalks is
from the first part of 1201.10

"Any person riding a bicycle upon a sidewalk shall yield the right-of-way to pedestrians,"

that would mean by the letter of the law, i would think, no zooming down sidewalks "ON YOUR RIGHT" style "Coming through" type biking. Sure, common courtesy may be the way for pedestrians to go and step to the side when seeing someone riding toward them, or hearing them coming from behind them, but i think that this section of the code states the most that the sidewalks belong to pedestrians.

This is not to be an ass, i sympathize with not getting the respect in the street (yo), where, in my opinion, bikes actually belong. I'm just saying i don't think bikes on sidewalks should be part of a commute, or a walk on a sunny sunday. Even though, the rest of 1201.10 reads "...and shall travel at a speed no greater than the posted speed limit of the adjacent roadway; Provided, that such speed is safe for the conditions then existing on the sidewalk." (which seems to contradict breaking for pedestrians, if you are going 24 miles on hour down the sidewalk).

I was driving to work this morning and stopped at a 3-way stop and was just about to pull out when some bicyclists came cruising through the intersection, not stopping at the stop sign, causing me to slam on my brakes as I was about to pull out. Then he rode by giving me a snide look. Follow the traffic laws, people. I don't want to hate all of you bikers, I really don't, but you just make it so easy.

To give context, most of my city biking experience is in the older, denser, parts of the city. Apart from that, Beach Dr (in Rock Creek) is great for biking, but cars use it like an expressway. Also, the Mt. Vernon Trail (whcih goes past National Airport) is great for fast recreational biking, but it's often crowded.

I think healthy fear of anything faster and more massive than you (F=MA) is smart and, also, so is respect and consideration for anything slower and lighter than you. Since bikers and pedestrians are both extremely vulnerable, obviously neither should tempt fate.

"Sometimes it surprises me that people fail to recognize that bikes are part of the solution and not the problem. And then I remember what country this is."

So, self-righteous AND anti-American? And you wonder why people hate bikers ;)

Not really anti-American... I've seen enough of the world to know that America's love affair with the car is pathological. We are becoming a country of strip malls and suburbs and we're fighting a war in the middle east that looks suspiciously like a war for oil... all to ensure the uniquely American right to an SUV and a McMansion in the burbs. If feeling disgusted by that state of affairs is anti-American, well I guess that's the way it is.

The Rock Creek trails are NOT bike trails. They are dangerous at any speed greater than about 8 mph, and are heavily used by joggers deafened by iPods and people walking leashed dogs. Beach Drive is a designated bike route, and cars MUST slow for bikes until it is safe it pass (this is actually true on all D.C. streets, but it is ESPECIALLY so on Beach, where drivers are explicitly warned again and again that bikes share the road).

Mark: "all of you bikers...."

I think it's plain that this is a broad generalization. Just like humans are challenged to think of other groups of people as diverse within the group so that we avoid things like sexism, racism, and classism, it would serve us well to not categorize all cyclists as "the same."

Tom Lee: "Here's the thing: taxonomically messy thought it may be, it doesn't make sense to treat a bike the same way at all times."

First, thanks for this column and the discussion it's raising. Second, this brings up a really good point that highlights what I mentioned above. Because our laws and our culture are constructed in such a way to make everything as "simple" as possible, they leave no room for any shades of grey in our dualistic (and proverbial) black-and-white, either/or thinking.

This means that cyclists can't fit easily into the pedestrian category or the automobile category, but our laws, our infrastructure and our minds want (even require) cyclists to fit neatly into one of the categories we've already defined.

But the task of making sure everyone gets what they need from life is not neat and tidy, it is truly messy business. Bicycles, as a type of transit, are an entirely different mode than our laws, infractructure, and minds can comprehend.

Really, it's a larger human task for us to shift out of tendency toward the easy, the neat, and the general and live with each other in the messiness and difficulty that lets more people than just ourselves thrive.

No solutions proposed, because another flaw of our culture is the need for immediate gratification and immediate solution (it's easier), not to mention that changing laws and minds just plain takes a long time.

I'll 2nd MM in saying Rock Creek trails aren't fit for bike riding. They're narrow and in poor repair, and used by too many children, joggers w/earphones, dogwalkers, etc. Rock Creek is a Parkway- bikes belong on it, and not on the trails. If that slows down a motorist's commute to a degree they find unacceptable, that motorist might consider taking another route, same as I would as a cyclist if I considered a road to be too crowded or dangerous.

JR- You've read The Geography of Nowhere"?

As a cyclist, I hit myself every time I see posts like this. Why? Because staying within the law as a cyclist is not only correct, but easy.

Take the infamous "I'm a biker so I can ignore red lights" attitude. It's idiotic. If you're at a red light and no one is there, take a right on red, do a u-turn, and take another right on red to keep going. Total elapsed time: 5 seconds. Legal? Sure.

The sidewalk issue is pretty clear-cut: don't ride on the sidewalks. Cyclists, bike-lanes or no, have the right to as much space as a car in regular traffic. The fact that most bikers stay near the right side of the road is simply good etiquette, not where they have to go. And if a cyclist can take up as much room as a car, there should never be a need to ride on the sidewalk.

Riding up one-way streets? No.

Ignoring stop signs? No.

Riding on the opposite side of the road? ARGH! No!

Every road in DC, with the exception of the major highways, is available for people on bikes, including rock-creek parkway. Instead of viewing bikes as "taking up part of the road" they should be viewed as a "really slow car". Would you demand that elderly drivers turn in their registration? Of course not. So just signal and pass.

Will bike messengers ignore the law? Sure. So do taxis occasionally. But the idiot without a helmet riding on the sidewalk is a far greater risk to the safety of pedestrians than the messenger guy who's weaving in and out of traffic. Why? Do the math: hitting a pedestrian with a bike could do some serious damage to them. Conversely, the only one who stands to be injured from running red lights and darting through traffic are the messengers themselves. I have far more respect for their cycling ability than the people on sidewalks.

Cyclists have the legal right and responsibility to take the entire lane anytime they feel the lane is not wide enough for a car to pass them safely. This commonsense law allows the cyclist to use their best judgement for the exisitng conditions. If you're hugging the right side of the lane, cars will be much more likely to try unsafe passing and potentially force you into a parked car or the curb. As the previous poster mentioned before, riding to the right is a courtesy, not a requirement.

>>Conversely, the only one who stands to be injured from running red lights and darting through traffic are the messengers themselves. I have far more respect for their cycling ability than the people on sidewalks.

Actually, the bikers running red lights are dangerous to pedestrians too - pedestrians cross the road when the light is red. I was almost run over by a speeding courier the other day, who I'm certain (from the angry speech he gave me) wouldn't have stopped had he hit me. As a pedestrian I'm terrified of cyclists.

Also, as a driver I'm terrified of hitting them. Whether or not it ends up being "the driver's fault" in court, that's a hell of a lot of hassle to go through, plus the fact that someone is getting greviously injured. We have helmet laws for motorcycles to protect the motorcyclists. We have traffic laws that apply to bikers to protect the bikers, not just the drivers who would otherwise hit them.

Also, to MM ("I commute 25-30 miles by bike every day year around, and this allows me to eat like a sumo wrestler and drink oceans of beer without putting on an ounce. So chew on that you lame fatasses stewing in gridlock"), I'm sure dining out with you must be a pleasurable experience...

Hardy har.

But digs aside, Jenny's post is telling me that in the public mind, cyclists and couriers are more-or-less synonymous, which (as a former downtown bike messenger way back when) is really, REALLY bad. That's like saying all drivers are like cabbies, which is obviously not the case (no offense meant to any cabbies out there, but you guys have made the unsignalled U-turn in 18th Street traffic an art form)

I forgot to mention in my last post that I find it very difficult to ride the right side of the road where cars are parked. My biggest fear is that someone will open their door and I'll go flying. Its a big risk and I tend to use the sidewalk when its not crowded or take up the lane when walkers prevent me from riding the sidewalk.

Thanks Mark. I actually try my best to stay to the right and also out of the way of an opening door. I think the worse part of riding a bike though is when a car passes you and then stops to make a quick turn or just double parks. I'm then forced to the sidewalk or to the other lane (where I slow down traffic to get past the car).

I really try to be a good bike rider (as I try to be a good car driver and walker), but reality sets in and I find I have to do things that angers others or may be illegal.

I enjoy riding my bike to get around the city and I like the thrill of riding in all the crazy traffic. I do make a conscious effort to stop at stop signs, let pedestarins cross, and keep to the right. But I will ride on the sidewalk at a slower speed on roads where it is too dangerous to ride on i.e. Key Bridge. It drives me crazy when I'm walking (or walking my bike)on those tiny sidewalks in U Street, Adams Morgan, and M street in Georgetown and a biker is riding on them. Get off your bike and walk it on the sidewalk. It's hard enough already to manuveur on those sidewalks with all of the slow walkers/tourists then have to worry about you blocking the pathway with your bike or wonder whether or not you can break well enough without flipping over the front of your bike.

I think people hate cyclists because they're not a nameless faceless box of metal you can treat with the contempt nameless faceless metal boxes deserve. They're harmable people with ears and eyes and mobility who could just as easily get squooshed as they could turn around, write down your plate, follow you to the garage and write their name in the paint on your car with their cleats whilst you're paying vast ammounts of cash for your gas in the store.

Drivers are either jealous or spooked because they didn't realise you were there...

As if pedestrians always follow traffic signs and walk only when there permitted. Same with cars. I think there are many people who only looked at the negatives of bikers and not also at the faults of cars and walkers.

I think that cyclists have to deal with their persecution complex, and work out how to stay alive. The same old debate - cyclist wants respect, car drivers are never going to give it (that's why they bought such a big SUV) so cyclist begins a guerilla war against red lights and pedestrians, small animals, you name it. Woooh, well done everyone! I haven't experienced any hate in DC (much less than in London, where I cycled for many years) but I have experienced bad drivers like I have never seen, and nearly been nailed as a result twice in two months. But not through malice, just through total incompetence! Cyclists should remember that drivers *do not expect to see them*. To most people, you are a freak if you use a bike. But why ride your bike like you're a twerp? And if you don't use a front and rear light, you can't, I repeat, you can't be seen when it's dark!

I ride a bike when practical (e.g., not freezing or pouring with rain) and drive when needed. One observation I'd like to make about red lights is that in our city (Minneapolis/Saint Paul) there are many lights which are triggered by the arrival of a vehicle and the bicycle alone is not wieghty enough to make the light go. In that case, I will happily run the light once cross-traffic is cleared rather than wait for My Friend The Car to arrive and trigger the light for me.

As for stop signs, I think it's worth noting that the vast majority of motorists do not come to a complete stop at Stop signs when there is no crossing traffic. Slowing down from 35 to 6 and rolling through looks like a stop in a car (watch the wheels--they don't stop turning), slowing from 12 to 6 on a bike looks like running the sign.

There are reckless cyclists out there and their herd will be thinned in time; most motorists are courteous and respectful; it's the minority of cycle-messenger-racer-wannabe-twits and idiot-macho-support-our-troops-drive-a-pickup motorists who aggravate their opposite numbers. In the meantime, the rest of us should try to get along.

Real Conservatives Ride Bikes

I think cars get upset when bikes ride between them. When I bike I never do that but I do take up a lane when I fear for the opening of a parked car's door.