Biker Killed - Runner Injured (Read 1224 times)

I think you'll find that most cyclists on the road are traveling at speeds in the 20-25 mph range. That's not a whole lot slower than traffic on most roads. If you need to swerve to miss them risking a horrific crash, you should probably pay more attention to your driving. Unless there is a dedicated bike lane, cyclists belong on the road, not sharing the sidewalk with slow moving pedestrians. Tom

In NC cyclist have all the laws and responsibilities of a moving vehicle placed on them. ie drink and bike you get a DUI, run a red light on a bike you get a ticket. Sidewalks are also very narrow places. there is no way you can fit 2 bikes on that. As for speeds people have it right. Most cyclists who are on the roads are usually in the 20+ range. While that may seem slow it really isn't. Having to wait that one second to pass is easily made up when the driver guns the engine to get around, cause god knows it's so difficult to pass a 18" wide vehicle going 21mph on the shoulder. If anyone should be throwing a fit about slowing traffic it should be about the scooters that do 30 and take up the ENTIRE lane. As a cyclist I'm given the shoulder and yet I get screamed at for being on it.... but put an engine on it and it's OK... People really need to go back and look at the DOT handbook and see how much they really don't know.

I'm just thinking of the rural roads in my town (no sidewalks). The speed limit is 45, but most people go faster than that. The roads are VERY narrow, twisting, and hilly. No shoulders at all. They just do not seem safe to bike on, yet I see lots of bikers there, sometimes two abreast. Sometimes there is NO way to pass them safely for a pretty good distance. It seems like a recipe for disaster.

I'm not sure what country town you live in, but most roads are nowhere near 20-25 mph. When the speed limit is 45-55, bikes are a LOT slower than traffic. I don't think bikes belong anywhere except dedicated bike trails, but my point was if that's not going to happen at least restrict them to sidewalks because the difference in biker/pedestrian speed is much closer than that of biker/car. As for paying attention, I do that just fine thank you, but when I come around a corner doing the speed limit of 45 and come up on 10 bikes going less than half of the speed limit all the sudden I'm in a dangerous situation. .

It's the same here too, but very few bikers obey the law and cops never issue citations to them. As for the speed my complaint isn't about having to slow down for a few seconds, it's about bikers making it unsafe for drivers who are the ones roads were designed for in the first place. I've seen way too many accidents and near-accidents caused that were 100% the fault of a biker who was technically obeying the law, but still being unsafe because they were on the road. I hate that it happened to the guy in the story at the start of this topic and would obviously never wish that on anyone, but it's another example where if he had stayed off the road he would still be alive. As my first comment said, just because it's legal does not mean it's smart.