Ride a bike and learn to kick cabs in your steel-toed boots and always cherish the scabs when you fall hard and it's dirty dark and you're forever scarred by a stark reality, a compassion-free urban community. The majority is the majority no matter where you are (no matter where you live most) (no matter where you go) and a freak is a freak is a freak is a freak is a freak. It's no new news story for the Toronto Star (or the National Post) (and it's not like that's not something that you don't already know). It's just another business day in another business week - Who cares about the fall of the freak?
-, "Freak" (Permanent Marker, 1999)
Clearly, it's not enough that I write this post about twice a year, so I'm doing it again.
Cyclists are traffic.
Cyclists. Are. Traffic.
CYCLISTS ARE TRAFFIC.
Any questions? No, really, any questions?
When a cyclist signals that s/he is moving over to the left instead of merging on the highway, it's the same as if someone driving a car is using a blinker: if they are in front of you, you just have to wait.
If you are waiting at a traffic light to turn left and a cyclist is in the oncoming lane going straight, you yield to the cyclist, just like you would a car.
When a cyclist is on the right side of a left turn lane waiting at a traffic light, it is much more likely that the cyclist is waiting to take a left-hand turn than that s/he is sitting in the middle of the road simply to anger you.
One more thing: Cyclists are forced to ride over on the right-hand side of the road, where sewer grates and potholes live and people throw glass bottles. Give them more than a foot of space between your side-view mirror and their elbows. You'll thank yourself when you don't have cyclist splattered on your windshield after they try to avoid these obstacles.