The Blog

@T.C. O'Rourke

1.) "Accident" is a useful word when one is attempting to distinguish between deliberate collisions (vehicular assaults, basically) and the other kind. It implies nothing about God one way or the other.

2.) Nobody said disrupting traffic was the goal of a Critical Mass. But I dare you to argue that it is not an effect of Critical Mass, at least where larger rides are concerned. (To answer your question, I've encountered Mass rides but never participated in one.)

Yes, I know, bikes are traffic too--trust me, I am a firm believer in that principle--but regardless of how much fun anybody's having or how great the sense of community is, some bystanders will only see the disruption, not the good intentions behind it. Given that Critical Mass involves a degree of public activism, it's not unreasonable to ask questions about how it's perceived.

1) Quit saying "accident". These are *collisions* and a predictable outcome of our transportation network, not some unavoidable act of God.

2) Have any of you actually *ridden* on a Critical Mass? "Disrupting" traffic is not the goal, reclaiming public space and creating community is. And even amongst motorists the response is 98% positive. It's been going on for over 10 years and even the cops enjoy it.

@clincher

The few times I've tried something similar to your technique I've been greeted with screaming and profanity before I even opened my mouth--there wasn't much of a chance for me to explain anything, at least not in a way that it'd get through to anybody.

Do you guys ever confront motorists that yell or swerve at you? I'm not a violent person but I do stand up from myself. I ride in Atlanta and (which by the way is not a bad place to ride as long as you stay out of the burbs - Roswell excluded) from time to time someone will yell or swerve at me. I usually track them down and calmly explain to them the rules of the road. My friends tell me that I'm crazy for this but my thought is if no one speaks up eventually these people will hurt someone.

@Philip

Yup. I'm pretty sure they're a troll, but on the other hand they could be self-entitled anarchist from the fact that they think Critical Mass is a "positive" force for cyclists and that "attacking and vandalizing" cars will help cars respect cyclists. If you actually read their post, you'd see that they dislike conservatives and just think liberals are doing enough - extreme leftist?

Last I checked, violence will beget violence.

Not to mention over-privileged trust-fund anarchists just always make things worse. Reading helps with writing an essay for a forum.

@50thward

Are you trolling? Have you ever ridden a bike in Chicago?

I can't believe you'd advocate violence against cars and drivers if you had any sense for how vulnerable cyclists actually are, or for how thoroughly they depend for their safety on drivers being responsible and courteous.

Leaving aside the fact that attacks and vandalism are juvenile and criminal--that is, WRONG--encouraging such tactics, even against people who've done plenty to provoke them, is basically asking cyclists to sign up for a quick trip to the ICU (or worse).

It's really hard for an unarmed cyclist to hurt a driver or do more than a few hundred dollars' worth of damage to a car, no matter how motivated he is. On the other hand, it's alarmingly easy for a driver to cripple or kill a cyclist--he doesn't even have to be trying.

Seriously, escalation is only going to favor the party with the weight advantage. Cyclists need to be tolerated and respected to be safe, and confrontational tactics are 100 percent destructive of those ends. (I have mixed feelings about Critical Mass for this very reason.)

There are ways of fighting back that aren't tailor-made to enrage the very people you most need to persuade. Some friends of mine at anti-dooring.org run a sticker campaign intended to cut down on dooring incidents--the stickers remind people to look back or check their mirrors before they open their doors into traffic. I've also joined the Active Transportation Alliance, which will use my dues money to push the city to engineer its streets to be easier and safer for drivers to share with cyclists and pedestrians.

I must say I'm a little nonplussed by your attempt to bring the liberal/conservative angle into this, as though traffic accidents were principally political problems. What we're dealing with, in my opinion, is a civil engineering problem. And because the civil engineering problem has gone unaddressed for so long, it's created some deep-seated antipathies between drivers and cyclists that need addressing as well.

Chicago could turn into Amsterdam overnight and we'd still need to do a bit of rapprochement, I think.

fight back. Stop complaining. Liberals want a society guided by rational debate between civilized participants in three-pointed hats, sipping tea while discussing the rights of man, just like our forefathers. Liberals are deathly afraid of violence and ugliness. These radio clowns are rightwingers who welcome it as a way out. So the liberals ignore the anger, ceding it all to the rightwing, the only group comfortable enough with hate to make it front-and-center stage in their act

So fight back bicyclists: Make critical mass a weekly event, attack and vandalize cars who are attempting to harm you, disrupt traffic.

Two years ago my girlfriend was hit on her bike by a driver who was speeding up Ashland in excess of 60 MPH in a failed attempt to make a yellow light. Amazingly she survived with no injuries more serious than a broken wrist--her bike looked like a pretzel--and now that she's healed, she's back to riding in the city.

I wonder if these assholes think she's arrogant. I wonder if they'd say she doesn't know or care that drivers could easily end her life with a moment of inattention or recklessness or anger. Fear is an unavoidable part of the experience of cycling on Chicago streets, and people like this are one reason why.