Here are some things that bicyclists do not have the right to do:
1. Nobody has the right to travel around at 10 mph, impeding the flow of traffic.
2. Nobody has the right to cause someone to drive dangerously close to oncoming traffic to avoid hitting someone that is traveling around at 10 mph, impeding the flow of traffic.
Bicyclists always end up wanting to ride side by side. To give them 3 feet of clearance puts a motorist across the center line. Believe me, there are a lot of people that will opt for taking out the bicyclist to avoid a head-on collision.
3. Nobody has the right to use public roads to practice for racing. If so, we will have to allow dragsters, turtles and every other thing that races the same privilege.
We went through this years ago in Norman. Gangs of bicyclists were taking over all the roads, being obnoxious and causing traffic congestion everywhere they went. They had the same attitude as some outlaw motorcycle gang. Almost laughable, they were a very brightly colored group of ruffians.
I live outside of town, and there were several occasions when I got stuck behind bicyclists who wouldn't move over. I was forced to drive the 15 miles into town at 10 mph.
Bicyclists committed so many traffic violations that we lost count. They don't have to buy license tags or pay gasoline taxes or taxes on tires, and yet they think they have even more rights than motorists.
On one occasion, they set up a race right across Highway 9 and left a 16-year-old girl to jump out onto the highway and warn motorists every time the racers were approaching. She had no signs or anything. She jumped out from behind a tree and threw herself in front of me. I went into a skid and stopped within inches of hitting her, as a group of bicyclists flew across the highway, out of nowhere.
I came over a hill on a country road one day and a bicyclist was sitting in the middle of the lane, fixing a flat tire. I'm sorry, but these things are unquestionably stupid.
As a matter of fact, there seems to be a large percentage of bicyclists that are lacking self-preservation skills and have a below-average IQ. I don't know what has gotten into some of these people, but, they are living dangerously in a dream world.
You couldn't play in traffic when you were a kid, and you still can't play in traffic as an adult.
Get over it.
"Roy Neher
Norman
