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Comment by matkam | Hacker News Reader

On the flip side, I've nearly hit two pedestrians on Market Street who were not paying attention, and jay-walking right in front of me while it was my right of way (traffic light was green). As a cyclist, you have to be aggressive, or people (including those driving cars) don't notice you.

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I remember walking across a four-lane major road with the last moments of the pedestrian walk signal allowing me the right. A cyclist was turning into the four-lane road, all lanes of which were empty and available for him to choose from, with only light traffic waiting for the lights to resume. Despite this bevy of selection, his chosen course of action was to buzz the single pedestrian crossing and abuse him for being in the way.

Aggressive cyclists are a problem. Assertive cyclists are not, and there is a clear and important distinction between the two.

The point is there shouldn't be such a thing as an 'aggressive' OR an 'assertive' cyclist.

All cyclists should follow the law and follow predictive traffic behavior! It's pretty simple.

Good job on being so aggressive. I suggest you go even further like Chris Bucchere [1] who killed someone and then proudly posted about it online. Maybe one day, you will even make CEO. Asshole.

[1] http://abc7news.com/archive/8635496/

This is a wonderful moment to face the beast that is cognitive dissonance.

For your perusal:

http://nypost.com/2013/03/12/deadly-wipeout-van-jumps-curb-a... - "The driver was not charged with a crime"

http://nypost.com/2013/08/20/cabbie-fighting-with-cyclist-ju... - "the cabbie [..] was likely to be slapped with multiple summonses for the crash but not criminally charged"

As it turns out, unless you are hopelessly drunk or leave the scene, you can kill someone with your car (even with blatant recklessness) and you will not face charges of any kind. I think the fines don't even go above $1k. Oh, you'll be driving the day after.

How in God's name did you leap to the assumption that me pointing out that an aggressive cyclist is a dangerous thing is me assuming that an aggressive car driver is an OK thing? Or are you participating in the classic but oh Car Drivers also kill people so it is OK if a biker kills someone? Let us be clear here. As a pedestrian, I don't want any one fucking killing me.

Oh, Chris Bucchere got 3 years of probation. For killing a human being.

As you surely read, plenty of people get zero years of probation for killing a human being (or multiples).

You seemed to be plenty enraged with Bucchere, when his case is an obvious outlier for the system as a whole.

This is why we discuss, to calibrate expectations and guide our understanding.

No, I am enraged by the idea of road aggression and pointed out that there are cases where similar things can be dangerous.

It is not obvious to me how you using italics in the term "outlier" makes his case an outlier.

I am not the asshole, buddy. The point is that people don't see cyclists. In my case, people would walk in front of me without looking, barely giving me time to swerve or break. Yes, cyclists should be careful not to hit people and should not blow through stops where there are people crossing. But cyclists don't exactly have it easy amongst aggressive cars and oblivious pedestrians.

However, the law says you still have to yield to these people. So why not follow the law and stop?

Stopping at a green light is the law?

It sounds like he DID yield, despite the pedestrians VIOLATING traffic law.

I don't know if you've ever ridden a bike, but they don't exactly stop on a dime. The point is these people don't notice you and will walk right in front of you within a few feet when the light is green for you.

You can be extra noisy.

It's obnoxious, but sometimes it's the only way to be noticed.

And a little noise will not kill anyone.

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