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I commute regularly by car on designated and well used bike routes, and quite frankly, the cyclists terrify me. They frequently ignore traffic signals, running red lights and blasting through stop signs. In fact, I find that cyclists who obey stop signs and lights are the exception, rather than the rule.

THe other night, I was driving home from work on NE Williams at about 9 pm. I watched a cyclist in dark clothes on a bike without a light, riding with headphones (from an MP3 player?), riding hands free and text messaging on a cell phone. About a week before, I nearly hit another cyclist who jumped the curb off of a sidewalk and cut diagonally across the intersection immediately in front of my car.

While I believe that commuting by bike is environmentally sound, it also creates inherent conflicts with automobiles. If bikers want to ride on public streets, they should be forced to obey all of the rules of the road. If they are not willing to do that, and if the Police will not cite them for infractions, then the two categories of vehicles should be separated completely, not just with bike lanes. I would like to see entire streets designated as bike commuter routes to avoid the inevitable conflict.

posted 4 years ago
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