Chambers wrote:
> About two weeks ago I bought a bicycle, and I've been riding to and from work
> every day to get some exercise.
> 
> This morning, as I was crossing an intersection (I had the green light), some
> stupid lady tried to make a turn without really checking if anyone was coming.
> 
> Long story short, my bike has a bent wheel, I've got five stitches in my leg,
> and the lady took off without leaving her contact information.
> 
> But, since my job involves standing on my feet all day, the doctor who stitched
> me up told me to not go until tomorrow.  Fine by me, I'm not having any
> problems following that advice :)
> 
> In all honesty, it hurt, but I'm glad that nothing worse happened.  Now I'm just
> back to riding the bus every day...
> 
> 

Here in New York Bloomberg is making a big push to make the city 'green' 
in many ways and an instrumental part of the effort is his 'Sustainable 
Streets' master plan.  It involves making NY streets bicycle-friendly 
creating 200+ miles of bike lanes and 15+ miles of curb-protected bike 
lanes, with a high degree of connectivity throughout the city.

Recently I have noticed several severe accidents between bicycles and 
automobiles, two times the autos were taxis.  I, of course, am a taxi 
driver so whenever I see that I wince.  I know the cab is going to take 
the blame.  Afterall, the very first traffic fatality in the entire 
United States was a pedestrian run over by a cab in New York City.

The advent of bicycle lanes is naturally a thing of some concern to me. 
  Obviously it feels threatening when the stated target of the mayor's 
plan is to reduce the use of private vehicles in the city.  Taxis are, 
in effect, a service which provides private vehicles for shared use.  It 
casts a shadow over my future. This feeling steepened by the flood of 
pedi-cabs now on NY streets.  So it is difficult to feel a whole lot of 
warmth towards bicyclists.

Bicycles and cabs compete for the curb. Along with buses, maintenance, 
and delivery vehicles.  That creates further systemic antipathy.  And 
with all that the congestion and competition along New York curbs 
entails: buses, trucks, pedestrians, moronic weekend-warrior SUV's, and 
other cabs trying to beat you to fares, trying to take account of 
bicyclists on top of everything else just seemed like overload to me. 
Simply too much. Especially given the absurd lack of visibility from the 
drivers seat of a Crown Vic.

And that is before you even begin to respond to the irrational degree of 
self-righteousness exhibited by bicyclists, even as they display total 
contempt for traffic regulations.

But the bicycle lanes and the bicycles are here to stay.  Being a 
liberal, I listen to liberal media.  And the hocking of the Sustainable 
Streets idea is on in full force.  I have managed some empathy for 
cyclists.  I have learned I can manage to keep them on my internal radar 
scope.  They are added to the list of proximate objects I notice and 
track, which is how you really maneuver in a Crown Vic with its truly 
deceptive 'blind spots'.  Unbelievable even to me, I have managaed to 
add bike awareness to my driving habits.

To that end, cyclists do need to realize that consistent behavior on 
their part would help in this partnership. So would some illumination on 
their bikes at night. It is not just about the irritation of having them 
thumb their nose at the law.  It is about judging and maneuvering in 
traffic when you cannot have 100% visibility.

Finally, the actually traffic regulations governing the bike lanes the 
mayor is so proudly rolling out would be helpful.

-Jim

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