This is from a regularly scheduled Everglades Bike Club weekend ride in Key Biscayne, USA, on a 10km stretch of road, and all the drivers know to expect it will be there in the mornings.
It’s actually sad to see how many people are on the side of a beligerant driver going offload because of their road rage. Comments blaming the cyclists for being unpredictable, unsafe, or unfair to other drivers couldn’t be further from the truth.
Cycling safety courses teach that you should stay together when riding as a group. Those saying they should’ve closed the road down are basically saying drivers can’t be trusted to handle having cyclists on the road, hence why the group is so clustered for protection.
I think we are interpreting the driver’s actions differently. He is giving them a ton of space, not honking and bullying his way through the bicyclists. IDK about you, but I feel like a hero when there’s an obstruction justifying adv tires.
“Ope, construction ahead, guess I have no choice but to detour across a mile of beautiful rolling hills. Good thing I prepared for this exact moment”
“Share the road” goes both ways. It’s a two way street so to say.
I see the highest throughput of people that road had all week now that it isn’t blocked by cars for once.
Know what solves this. Protected bike infrastructure that segregates car and cycling traffic. You all are making good points on both sides. But if the two types of traffic never interact this becomes a non-issue.
Even with segregated bike lanes these people will still drive on the road. There have been many times people drove their cars into groups of them where I live because of frustration. (I live in Western Europe where there’s great bicycle infrastructure). So yeah, as long as they drive where they are supposed to drive it’s fine, but it doesn’t magically solves it.
That driver is obviously an idiot that needs his license revoked.
That said, as a fellow cyclist, you all need to do better as well. For this large an event, there should either be a road closure, or break it up into flights. If those aren’t feasible, restrict yourselves to one lane instead of taking up both. Not excusing the drivers carelessness at all, but judging from your reaction to other comments here, your ride group’s sense of entitlement is a problem as well.
Nah
No idea why that’s necessary. This is quite common in my country.
Allowed by law here, if you take certain precautions. Judging from the motorcycle, it seems this group also took precautions to keep the group safe.
It’s funny how you complain about entitlement.
You don’t know the driver’s life. His wife could be in labor, he could be trying to visit a dying loved one, or rush home because he left the stove on.
Besides, it’s the law that slow moving traffic stay on the right side.
And stfu about safety. Do you how many alligators are in this video literally just off screen? At least 50.
Seeing how wide the road is, there’s no reason to block the whole road in one direction. This doesn’t seem to be a competition, just a casual ride. Block a single lane then.
Heaven forbid; not the whole road?!
It’s not my ride group. I’m not even in the same hemisphere, let alone the same ride group
Was anyone else hoping he would have hit a hidden ditch and wrecked his car?
Not wrecked, but I was kinda hoping itd be an open diff and get stuck with 1 wheel spinning when they tried to get back on pavement until a kind bicyclist helped weight it down.
All the LOCAL drivers know to expect it. If someone is from out of town they would have no way of knowing that happens on that road unless there are signs posted or something. The dude is still a dipshit though.
The cyclists have every right to use that road as cars.
End of story. Grow the fuck up, motorists.
You’re going to get where you’re going a minute or two later than you wanted. Big fucking deal.
They’re not using it like cars do though. They intentionally block all of it.
So do cars
It’s interesting that you say this unironically. Have you ever driven through Dallas or Los Angeles?
Also, groups like this don’t have much choice but to take up the available space when riding as a group. Drivers do not navigate safely with people on two wheels, and often, drive aggressively and dangerously owing to entitlement.
Ah, right, forgot this was the US. Americans can’t do shit without trying to kill their neighbours lmao
In the civilized world, you could just use a single lane and people would pass by, slowing down from the posted speed limit to do so.
Based on most of the comments here so far, you all hate cyclists more than cars.
What I really seem to hate is just people with zero situational awareness operating any sort of vehicle.
I’m a cyclist and when I’m on a bike I try to use the road responsibly. If I’m no a long climb going 10km/h with cars behind me I try to stop when possible and let them pass safely. I don’t ride next to someone else chatting and blocking the entire lane. I don’t ride on roads with speed limits over 60km/h. I would never do what they are doing in the video. It’s just disrespectful and causing unnecessary tension between drivers and cyclists.
Have you seen how many cyclists there are? Like, should they all ride in line, and let cars pass at an opportunity? What kind of opportunity would that be? 😅 How’s that supposed to work out?
In Germany there’s a law, that 15 cyclists and above are allowed (and should) use the whole lane in a pack, because it slows and obstructs traffic less than 15 or 100 cyclists in a line. Nobody could ever pass that line correctly and safe.
And
. I don’t ride on roads with speed limits over 60km/h
So, nobody should cycle from village A to village B, ever?
From what I’ve seen in Germany many villages are linked by bike trails anyway. Usually the bike trails are more direct than the major highways anyway
In my cycling club, when we plan events, if we know there will be this many cyclists we work with police and close the roads. This is the last one we did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Kfz9S6h4M You can check out the security measures. And we’re just a local club. We do things like this about 3 times a year. Other local clubs do the same. Having as many cyclist as in the video with no security is amateur hour and it’s irresponsible. My guess is they know this and they are doing this on purpose as a form of protests or something
So, nobody should cycle from village A to village B, ever?
In Spain the minimum velocity is half of the speed limit so a car has to go at least 45km/h on 90km/h road. Going slower than that causes dangerous situations. Bikes have to go on the shoulder and I don’t think that’s safe or responsible. I can get to all the villages using secondary, 60km/h roads.
I can get to all the villages using secondary, 60km/h roads.
Good for you. I don’t know of any road outside of my city that is less than 60 km/h, most are 80 or 100.
My guess is they know this and they are doing this on purpose as a form of protests or something
Well, from the short video, they have at least seemingly safety motorcycles, because the video is filmed from one. But it might as well be a protest, e.g. for better cycling infrastructure, what about it? If some lunatics protest in my city for whatever the fuck I also can’t just drive through them, just because I don’t like their topic or that they’re occupying the road. From my view, if this is a political thing, people need to accept it even more, because voicing an opinion and taking it literally to the street is important.
Go ride on the shoulder up the mountain from Benagalbón to Almáchar and tell me how that goes. You clearly aren’t riding anywhere near Málaga.
If I’m no a long climb going 10km/h with cars behind me I try to stop
Imma stop you right there. That’s not “being respectful”, it’s being a fucking pushover. The last thing you want to do while on a climb steep enough to drop you to 10 km/h is pull over and stop. Pull across to the side of there’s enough room for them to pass, sure, but keep that momentum at all costs.
That said, if this ride is on open roads, then road rules should be followed. Where I live that means two abreast (plus more if overtaking), but a blob that’s at least 5 wide in parts.
keep that momentum at all costs.
Who am I racing? It changes absolutely nothing for me. I’m not stopping in places that are bad for it but if there’s a road where I can get of the road for 5 seconds and then start again it costs me absolutely nothing to do it.
Who said anything about racing? It costs a huge amount. Starting on a 10% grade hill is an enormous amount of energy compared to just keeping going as you were, and it puts you in significant danger as you do it.
Personally speaking because I am both. Cyclists don’t obey the rules of the road to the same rigor as a car. Both parties are open to hate.
Now that said, only one of them is in a 2 tonne death machine.
Cyclists don’t obey the rules of the road to the same rigor as a car
Bullshit
Spend a few years downtown in any metropolitan area and see if you change your tune. The amount of cyclists (myself included) who drive through lights or advances, don’t indicate directions, wrong way on a one way street, cutting through parking lots or alleys the list goes on and on.
No, it’s objectively bullshit. It’s been studied many times and the result always proves that carbrained nonsense to be bullshit.
Drivers break the law all the time. They run blatant reds. They fail to stop when safe to do so at a yellow. They speed. They ignore stop signs. They fail to give way to pedestrians. The pass cyclists too close. They fail to indicate correctly at roundabouts more often than they do it correctly.
The only difference is people are too carbrained to even notice these. Oh, and the reasons for it (cyclists tend to break the law for their own safety unlike car drivers who do it for convenience) and the consequences when they do (cyclists endanger nobody except occasionally themselves, drivers endanger everyone around them).
“Cyclists don’t obey the rules of the road to the same rigor as a car.”
Because you don’t need a license for a bike, the rules are there because cars and motorbikes are incredibly dangerous compared to walking or biking (for everyone involved). A large part of people who bike don’t know the rules because they don’t need to, just the basic stuff and having situational awareness is enough. The issue is that many in all above mentioned kinds don’t have that, they’re either too dumb, thinking about something else or using their phones etc. But it’s way more important for the people who are in control of the most dangerous vehicles to be the ones who know and follow the rules.
Most cars don’t obey the rules of the road for shit. Case in point above
Even in the post, one driver freaks out and does this unhinged maneuver, all the others stay behind the bikes. So fuck off with “most cars”.
Yeah and case in point a cyclist is rarely going to kill someone in a head on collision but a car will.
Indeed, why should they? The rules of the road where made expressly for cars, not bikes, and there are several states which sensibly make carve outs for bicycles and motorcycles.
But, as you point out, the risk for breaking the rules–real or perceived–fall entirely on the cyclist, so I absolutely see no equivalence.
Ya don’t break a rule; the car runs you over because distracted driver.
Ya break a rule to avoid distracted driver; you get ran over because your rule breaking in your tiny and light bicycle triggered the road rage of someone in a SUV whose control was entirely based on spite and the fact everyone else should follow rules without exception (that the state legislature carved for cyclists to try to minimize their deaths).
Being a cyclist commuter is fun, much recommended.
The problem with cars is that they immediately make every other form of transportation incredibly shitty.
Pedestrians and cyclists get killed. Buses get stuck in traffic.
I hate cars, but what am I supposed to do? Getting out of my car is just an invitation to get killed by one. And if I wanted to live entirely without a car, I’d have to move to a city, where I would never be more than 12-feet away from cars and have to cross a road every block, risking my life because of shitty fucking cars.
When we say, “We’re not saying get rid of cars, we’re just saying we need options”, to not scare the carbrains, well, the only way to have real options (ie safe roads) is to have roads entirely without cars.
I would love for my city center to become car free. There is like a square mile that would make so much sense.
maybe its my metro area but I feel motorists are more likely to not follow the rules. There is cyclists but its a pretty low percentage. The ones that do though really do and make themselves a nuisance. There was a guy that would just ignore the red light on a major intersection. like two four lanes. during rush hour because I guess he felt since everything is slowed up he can just fuck right through.
Nah, you’re correct. Any time a study is done on this it finds that either drivers and cyclists break the law at similar rates, or drivers break it more.
There’s also the difference in why they do it. Drivers break the law out of convenience. Because it’s easier to do, or because it gets them where they’re going faster. Cyclists sometimes do that, but far more than drivers, they’re likely to do it because it’s safer. Because laws are often made for car drivers in ways that aren’t appropriate to cyclists, and so breaking the law is often safer. The classic example is treating stop signs as give way signs in places that haven’t implemented an Idaho Stop rule.
Sources:
Depending on your local that could be perfectly legal. It’s called an Idaho Stop. You can treat stop signs as yields and red light like a stop sign. You’re not supposed to treat a red light as a yield so if he’s doing that it’s illegal everywhere as far as I know.
there are cars in the intersection which you can’t do with a stop so its not treating the red light like a stop.
My 2 cents is the closer to a downtown you get the better the drivers are because of proximity however the cyclists are shit at obeying rules. Outside downtown cars are horrible in respecting cyclists who usually end up better at obeying laws because of the speeds.
You’re actually right and it goes down to how drivers respond to their surroundings. Areas with narrower streets, more traffic, and more pedestrians encourage drivers to be more observant passively.
When you have a wide, clear, straight road people pay less attention.
It’s a psychology thing and some people are trying to design roads around the concept
The drivers a dickhead and I was secretly hoping they’d have a wheel ripped of by a hidden kerb or something and I hope they were at the very least arrested for that, but… well, let me come back to this thought.
Those cyclists are irresponsible pricks for riding in a pack like that. They look like they’re trying to buy the own little Tour de France but that’s clearly not a rally that was organised with cooperation of ANY relevant authority - council, highways, police, whatever - and just looks to me like a bunch of yuppies that decided to take over a highway. No pilot vehicles, no safety stewards, occupying the full width of both lanes for no reason other than that they can, just a rolling roadblock of self-righteousness and no consideration for other road users.
So, as I was saying: the drivers a dickhead and I was secretly hoping they’d have a wheel ripped of by a hidden kerb or something and I hope they were at the very least arrested for that, but… maybe they had a really, really good excuse for wanting - or needing - to get somewhere with desperate urgency and simply could not afford to be delayed at all, let alone by the arbitrary whims of a bunch of hobbyists. Or maybe everybody in the video was being a selfish-righteous prick.
Roads don’t belong to cars. If each of the bikers were in their own car for a 3 mile long traffic blob for some hobby event no one would have batted an eye.
Roads don’t belong to cyclists either. They belong to everyone. Common courtesy says everyone needs to be considerate of others on public property.
Also if each of these cyclists was in a car for a 3 mile long traffic blob and did this as a regularly scheduled event, it would get shut down by the authorities right quick for disrupting traffic and lots of people would be mad about it. I know this because “car enthusiasts” do exactly that kind of thing fairly frequently and that’s the response it gets.
“share the road” mfers when its their turn to share the road
The overwhelming majority of road users have no issue letting people pass, and I don’t think the people who sit in the left-hand lane parallel with another vehicle or drive in the center of a 2 lane road for literally no reason are the ones talking about sharing the road.
Cambodian traffic law literally requires you get over and reduce speed if somebody is trying to pass, presumably to decrease cases like OP.
it would get shut down by the authorities right quick for disrupting traffic and lots of people would be mad about it.
Tell that to the sports stadiums in my city.
So? I’m assuming you’re responding to the wrong comment or didn’t actually read mine at all.
Those cyclists are irresponsible pricks for riding in a pack like that.
I was replying to your comment.
Actually admire some one taking a mini back to its rally roots
Maybe they’re from out of town? I mean, they’re still being an asshole, but there’s no way to know if they even knew it was a thing.
This is not a sane reaction even if they’re “from out of town”, wth is wrong witchu?
Yeah, the “it happens regularly” isn’t really good reasoning.
“It’s clearly a bike event and you can’t drive there” is much more valid.
What a dickhead
Wouldn’t the road be closed for cars? At least no one died
That’s exactly what I was thinking how the fuck a car got in there the roads should be closed or marked. It seems to be a Highway to boot so there shouldn’t be a lot of options left. The guy in the car was dumb yes but the organization incompetent.
Yes I don’t know if this is a governmental issue or an issue with the event organizers.
Like obviously don’t drive in the median and break traffic laws, but this kind of event not being appropriately managed is going to increase the likelihood of accidents. Mostly from assholes driving poorly
Based on other comments in here, this isn’t an organized event. It’s just a group of bikers that do this every single weekend.
When they close the road for races here the cops are on every corner. This dude would’ve gotten the shaft real quick.
That’s not a race, that’s just a big and well organised group ride.
Huh! That’s actually crazy cool. I imagine they don’t have good bike paths?
Rarely. But that doesn’t stop shitty drivers (which I don’t consider op). My cousin lives a bit north of this, he got hit-and-run’d by an old lady driving on a grass-seperated sidewalk riding his bicycle to a fishing spot before sunrise.
