Re: Inbox, “Complaint cycle continues over road rules column,” July 17.
Mike Tropp seems upset that some cyclists ride with a different sense of the rules of the road — rules that were always designed for the privilege and free movement of the motorist. The “safety” of other citizens isn’t about their limited rights to trespass on highly valuable public space but about avoiding the traffic jams that result from another body squashed on the pavement. It’s not surprising that pedestrians and cyclists bend the rules that treat them as second- class citizens.
Yet motorists do the same and at much higher risk to those who are banished to narrow sidewalks or forced to play by the rules designed to move multi-ton vehicles as quickly as possible though our cities.
Motorists speed, roll through stop signs and signals, circumvent traffic calming barriers, drive in bike or bus lanes, use handheld devices, drink and drive, carry improperly secured loads and/or have malfunctioning lights.
While cyclists can occasionally be annoying, similar actions by motorists can be deadly. Ninety-three per cent of car-bike collisions [based on 3,000 ICBC collisions between 2007 and 2012] are the fault of the motorist yet some want further crackdowns on cyclists.
It’s pretty clear that, for many, car ownership is as much about self-entitled power-tripping as it is about transportation.
Ron van der Eerden, Vancouver
