Bicycle Rant

Let me begin by saying I used to be a commuter bicyclist. For an academic year, I commuted by bicycle from my apartment to campus (and sometimes across campus to the rec center). I get it; drivers can be insensitive to bicyclists on the road, especially if they aren't used to them.

That said, get your bike off the sidewalk.

The campus police really need to start doing more of this.

Unless it is designated as a bike path (and there are some of these around campus) or the road experiences heavy traffic and is without a bike lane, bicycles don't belong on sidewalks. A bicycle is a vehicle and being on sidewalks endangers pedestrians. I've been nearly run over a few times by inconsiderate bicyclists riding on the sidewalk where I was walking and yelling at me to get out of the way.

What I feel like doing every time I see it happen.

I cannot begin to describe the rage that swells up in me whenever I see a bicyclist riding on the sidewalk and there's no reason to do so - like today when I watched a bicyclist ride from the bike lane onto the sidewalk. He had a bike lane. And that road connected to another road with a bike lane. I wanted to scream and throw something at him for his idiocy. The impulse is almost as strong as the one to shout encouragement and thanks to bicyclists who are actually riding where they're supposed to be: in bike lanes and on the side of the road. It's these few who remind me that not everyone on a bike is pretending they're a pedestrian.

Although I haven't seen the wreck, I have had a number of bicyclists jump out into intersections in front of me from sidewalks when they had a stop sign and should have, in following the rules of the road, stopped.

But I shall contain my rant and end with a plea: if you're going to be a commuter bicyclist, look up what bicycling in traffic entails and follow the rules. Stop giving bicyclists a bad name. Get off the sidewalk, use the bike lanes, follow traffic signals, and be courteous - both to drivers who don't want vehicular manslaughter on their record and to pedestrians who don't want to be run over by a bike. Be considerate and know the rules of the road, or get off the bike.