[B’ Spokes:Read this in light of Baltimore County Bike Plan expansion.]
\nVia Rebel Metropolis
\nYou\u2019ve heard it ad nauseam: Share the Road \u2013 a mantra adopted much by cyclists and not at all by motorists. It\u2019s become a passive petition: vulnerable bicyclists begging for enough street space to not be run over and killed from drivers largely indifferent due the empathy-crushing confines of the metal machines they drive. Even worse, groups like Please Be Kind to Cyclists have taken this kind of Stockholm Syndrome to absurd extremes, using language that would embolden any bully, ceding them power over their pleading victim.
\nThe PC urban professional crowd you see on their corporate sponsored, helmet-required tours will shun assertive language and cling to a vocabulary of non-confrontationalism. For them, reputation and obedience are more important than responding to clueless motorists and their lethal driving habits with equal and opposite force. Whether in the streets or in our ongoing discourse, the tendency is to back down, to let the oppressor define the rules of engagement and debate. That kind of power dynamic has gotten us basically nowhere.
\nThe burden of mortality is always on the person riding a bike, yet the burden of responsibility for using a car to kill or maim a person virtually never falls on the driver. If that pisses you off, it\u2019s time to start acting like it. We\u2019ve come to a point where all the soft-ball pitching of our needs has failed to deliver streets that are safer. Asking for permission to ride without fear doesn\u2019t work \u2013 motorists don\u2019t care, or they can\u2019t hear you. It\u2019s time to start adopting principles of two-wheeled liberation.
\n…
\nhttps:\/\/rebelmetropolis.org\/its-time-to-stop-sharing-the-road\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[B’ Spokes:Read this in light of Baltimore County Bike Plan expansion.] Via Rebel Metropolis You\u2019ve heard it ad nauseam: Share the Road \u2013 a mantra adopted much by cyclists and not at all by motorists. It\u2019s become a passive petition: vulnerable bicyclists begging for enough street space to not be run over and killed from … <\/p>\n