Bikes are Vehicles, they are not Pedestrians with Wheels

Cars must follow the rules of the road. Trucks must follow the rules of the road. Motorcycles must follow the rules of the road. Bicycles must also follow the rules of the road. This is often overlooked.

I love to ride my bike, and I try to bike as often as possible, and not for exercise (although that’s a great side benefit), but just to get around. When I ride, I follow the rules of the road. When I ride, my bike is just a slow car with two wheels. The red octagon means stop and the red triangle means yield, and unfortunately, not all cyclists understand this. My biggest pet peeve is when cyclists stop traffic and ride their bikes across a marked crosswalk. If you’re on a bike and you really need to get across the road, you can walk your bike across the street.

If you’re a cyclist, please follow the rules of the road. I don’t want to give drivers reasons to bitch at us, things are difficult enough already. If you’re a cyclist and I see you making us look bad, I’ll track you down and wag my finger at you.

June is Bike Month

June is bike month in the City of Edmonton and there are all sorts of activities planned. I wanted to ride to school with my daughter last Friday, but it was too cold and rain was imminent. We passed a “bring you’re bike to breakfast” gathering a block from my daughter’s school. I was so sad, I couldn’t wait to get on my bike.

I hope City of Edmonton employees can’t wait to ride either. The city just spent $17,000 on new bikes for city employees to use in the downtown core. The right-wing pundits are of course attcking this decision, calling the bikes “luxury” or “high-end”. While you can get a good, reliable bike for $700, it’s far from “high-end”. I suspect the right-wing pundits would consider a $99 bike from Canadian Tire more reasonable in the same way I think it would be more reasonable for these same pundits to abandon their Hummers and drive around in used K-Cars. The left-wing is of course supporting this idea but they want to see it expanded. I think the $17,000 bike plan should be treated as a research project. If the plan works and is found to save money, increase productivity, reduce traffic, etc… then it’s a success. If the project is deemed a failure, losses can be reduced by selling off the bikes. Selling bikes at half the purchase price would mean an overall cost to the taxpayers of $8,500, which in my opinion is an acceptable risk when weighed against the possible benefits. I realize it’s a simplistic analysis, but I’m not a spin-doctor.