As someone who is constantly going back and forth from the Pearl to BPA and back during peak cycling hours...and dodging the packs of suicidal hipsters...reading the "invisible cloak of smugness" line was absolutely priceless.

Hey Bill McDonald, you have a twin in NYC!

I have bicycled since I was a little kid. I full-heartedly admit to running the occasional stop sign in quiet residential neighborhood. Yet, I always wear a helmet and stop at busy intersections because of the inherent vulnerability when it comes to car vs. bike.

What I have noticed in both Portland, OR and Chico, CA is that bicyclists do have this smugness about them that is justified with this weak argument:

I am not driving a motor vehicle that pollutes, henceforth I do NOT have to follow the rules of the road blah, environmentalist blah, liberal blah, etc.

A bicycle is a motor vehicle that HAS to follow the rules of the road just as if you were driving a car! The written law states this and makes no exceptions.

Yes, cops may occasionally look the other way, but that does not excuse the bad example you are creating for your fellow bicyclists.

Bicyclists are a minority compared to non-bicyclists and if bicyclists routinely ignore the rules of the road, then they are given a bad rap and very little sympathy when one of them blows by a red light and gets blindsided.

I have no crocodile tears for these smug losers.

A bicycle is a motor vehicle

Not.

It's times like these that I wish that DieHipster.com was still up. The site's founder was always telling New York's transplanted hipsters to "go back to Portland".

814.400 covers it.

Whatever we can do to 'encourage' the folks on bikes to move to New York ... I'm all for it. Heck, for me, that would be one government subsidy that I'd be willing to support (however, once you move to NY you can't come back - that has to be part of the deal).

In the words of Rodney King, "Why can't we all just get along?"

Sure, there are extremes behind the wheel and the handlebars, but I bike to work and drive a car for longer trips and when I am behind the wheel, I respect the bikers out there that follow the rules and vice versa.

All of this anti-bike venom is scary. When you are in a car you could kill a biker in a second, it does not work the other way around.

A good amount of people that bike to work are not smug. I do it to save money and get some exercise outside of my busy life, and I drive when I need to. I think if you asked, this would be commonplace among most bikers.

Don't damn the whole lot of us because some people don't choose to follow the laws behind the wheel or behind the handlebars.

All of this anti-bike venom is scary. When you are in a car you could kill a biker in a second, it does not work the other way around.

It's just pack mentality. Like the story in the Oregonian about gossip this morning, you get one person in a group making a bitchy comment and then others have to pile on, trying to outdo it and blend in.

That said, I'm appalled by the way some bicyclists treat pedestrians in pretty much the same way some drivers treat bicyclists. Curb cut-outs are not there to turn sidewalks on, say, SE Hawthorne into bicycle lanes, as the woman with her child on the back deck of her bike who yelled at me that she was coming through the other night seemed to think. Some of us with leg injuries and might have problems stepping down off a curb use those cut-outs for, you know, walking.

Over the years I've had hundreds of cyclists blow past stop signs at intersections I've been waiting to cross as a pedestrian, even when I was on crutches.

It doesn't make be disdainful of all bicyclists, but it sure didn't encourage me to buy in to the idea that cyclists should have been allowed to cruise through stops when that was floated last year.

Obviously much of this bike/car conflict is generational....the kids on bikes are getting uppity and the oldsters are outraged/jealous....
The oldsters and outraged vehicle drivers need to chill out and realize they are driving 2 tons of steel far more capable of killing and maiming than a 30 lb. bike.
I am all for bikers being more responsible/courteous....I have a feeling that the percentage of crappy aggressive drivers is roughly equal to the percentage of bad bikers though....and again the consequences of bad driving are far worse than bad biking......

So what we need to focus on instead of bikes v. cars is civility and responsibility among all road users.

"Invisible cloaks of smugness" says it all, and I am speaking as a pedestrian and a bus rider not a driver. The other morning an older woman was leaving the bus and the driver warned her to watch out for bicycles (because of the bike lane right next to where the buses board). She said, "I watch out for them but they don't watch out for me." Sad but true. Someone needs to remind bicyclists that pedestrians have the right of way even over bikes.

Today's bike fanatics are far too arrogant and aggresive.

I've biked West Coast, East Coast and most places in between -- but even when practiced carefully it's just not a very safe proposition, particularly with aging, fading reaction times and brittle bones. Indeed, here's what happened to the fellow who introduced me to the case of the hairy hand...

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august3/john-barton-obit-080609.html

May he rest in peace.

Grady,

You said: "but even when practiced carefully it's just not a very safe proposition, particularly with aging, fading reaction times and brittle bones."

Can the same not be said about older car drivers or walkers for that matter?

I think we too easily pick sides instead of agreeing that we are all here together and we should try to work together. A majority of us are hard working people who need to get to work, be it by car, bike, bus, foot. We should all be looking out for each other and give each other the respect we deserve as members of our society.

I am sick of it being an us against them mentality, instead it should be a how do we coexist mentality.

I was a ped at nw Lovejoy this week , and as I came to cross ,
I checked right , no cars , I checked left , one bike followed by a car. The bike rider came to a full stop in the middle of the street to let me cross. Thanks bud , there are many good bike riders out there !

Can the same not be said about older car drivers or walkers for that matter? I think we too easily pick sides

Where I hang on most days I see bike riders (not cars or pedestrians) flying full speed through stop signs, hogging multiple traffic lanes by going two and three abreast, and yelling at toddlers to get out of their way when travelling up to 30 miles per hour. I'm not going out of my way to pick on today's bicyclists; they are asking for it.

As for safety, I used to ride a bike most everywhere. I've probably wiped out and crashed seriously a half dozen times biking (wet leaves, loose gravel, wheel edges off into the grass, dodging a veering skateboarder etc.) but I've never somersaulted out of a car or while walking down a sidewalk. At this point I've lost the resiliency to bounce back from bike crashes so my bike has pretty much gone the way of my roller blades and boogie board. Don't tell me I can or should ride. My family needs me around and healthy.

And where do you hang out Grady? Your all encompassing attacks on bikers are kind of silly. Again, why can't the same be said about car drivers? I see some ridiculous stuff happening from human beings on all kinds of transportation daily. It is not all bikes against the world as it is being painted here.

...the consequences of bad driving are far worse than bad biking...

Actually, if the result of bad biking is a that a bike is run over by a car, I think the consequences are pretty much the same as if the car driver is (or both parties are) at fault.

I'm on the other coast so I guess the cult of arrogance that's developed must be pretty widespread. I see cyclists most frequently along and around an obscure area known as the National Mall, with the most consistently reckless behaviour occuring on Hains Point.

As soon I see drivers displaying the same behaviours I will criticize them as roundly.

And if cyclists get together through their associations and lobbyist groups or otherwise to police and conform behaviours, rather than to merely leverage political influence, I will sing their praises.