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Comment by tarmstrong | Hacker News Reader

When you say cyclists in Toronto can be awful, what do you mean? Are they mean to you, or do they not follow the rules of the road, or something else?

When I cycle I fear being killed by a motorist; when I drive I fear killing a cyclist. It's important to clarify whether cyclists are putting you in danger or if they are stressing you out. Both suck, but one sucks a lot more.

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Most of them are good. But i've seen many run red lights, go the wrong way on a one way street, i've been nearly hit by cyclists a few times. In terms of driving with cyclists, I think the main thing is lack of space more than actual actions. So an infrastructure problem. When driving what tends to give me pause is people acting out of place. So someone jay walking, or a cyclist cutting across lanes, as I then need to be more aware for people doing things incorrectly.

You are quite right in terms of where the danger lies though. It's on the driver more than any other to be the most careful with their actions.

The rules are not made for cyclists, and you can see that in their riding. When you expend your own power for every acceleration and have better vision & hearing, a red pedestrian light with nobody using it suddenly looks less absolute. A one-way street that can easily take 5 of you next to each other, and probably nobody even driving there, when the way around is 500m longer - the same.

You can see the same behaviour from car drivers when the rules don't make any sense (as for example in some upcoming countries).

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