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Does this guy have an email address?

Nice to see this one taken apart.

The disconnect between driver perception and what many cyclists see out there is part of the reason I ended up getting a helmet camera and have been recording my commute in to work every day. I'm fortunate that about half of my commute is either on the CCT or on Water st, where (at least betwenn the CCT and Wisconsin) things are pretty light.

The recording is somewhat reassuring when things get dicey, but more generally, there's just plenty of footage of drivers doing stupid things - much of it the very same behavior that they call cyclists out on. AND, I catch plenty of stupid behavior by cyclists too. ALSO - I'm not taking the holier than thou stance here either, I do my fair share of Idaho stops and half-assed hand signals too - all of it caught on tape.

So short of doing what the one guy profiled on CNN a couple weeks back did (recording a year's worth of riding and then uploading all the videos where he was almost hit) - I'd like to do something constructive with the footage that I'm capturing.

I don't want to just upload videos of drivers almost hitting me - for one, there are some crazy people out there that probably wouldn't take kindly to that. And just posting video of drivers boulevard stopping along K st. all day every day wouldn't be particularly helpful.

Anyone have any thoughts on a good thing to do with street-riding video footage to help encourage better driving/riding all around?

"The sad thing is that Mr. Johnson's pointless, rambling, disjointed, inaccurate and badly written opinion piece was actually published."

I'd say the sad thing is that the majority of area residents would probably agree with at least one of the claims. We probably need a comprehensive strategy for addressing this perception. Setting the record straight is often not enough--almost half the public doubts global warming after $billions of research.

TurbineBlade, not that I know of.

The point I always make about commuting times within the region is that Arlington County residents have commute times that are slightly below the national average, and DC residents have commute times slightly above the national average, but most of the rest of the jurisdictions have commute times significantly above the national average.

But that isn't DC's fault. Partly this is an issue of jobs/housing balance, partly it's an issue of people's choices. But it isn't DC's duty to accommodate bad choices. DC prioritizes its transportation investments to meet its transportation priorities. That doesn't mean widening 14th Street (as suggested by Congressman Jim Moran) to accommodate more car traffic...

Like I wrote in my blog last week, how Arlington's decision to oppose HOT Lanes derives logically from their Master Transportation Plan, which does not prioritize single occupant vehicle trips, DC's transportation priorities should and do support "millions of s.f. of development" but in terms of transit, walking, and biking trips primarily, rather than single occupant vehicle trips.

P.S. hopefully this piece will do some good. I wrote an entry the other week about the Examiner writings of Markham Heid, and how his writings frequently use misleading or "charged" words/wording. I've noticed since then, including an article in today's paper on Alexandria rate and tax increases, that his pieces have been more measured. Hopefully this will help too.

C'mon guys be reasonable! All the folks in the suburbs are asking for is that we just widen all our roads into freeways, flatten the downtown neighborhoods to provide plenty of free surface parking, and be a little more gracious for the 40 cents tax they pay on their $4 latte.

Michael Johnson likes the cliched catchphrases: renegade bicyclists, cycling obsession, slow burn, social engineering. What is this he's describing, Mad Max on bikes? I guess I must not be that observant since I haven't seen a resemblance between downtown D.C. and post-apocalyptic dystopia.

Maybe he's getting paid for each charged/loaded word. Or this is all in response because of the admitted jerk who scared his daughter. I'm all for punishing people who intimidate others on the roads and elsewhere but there are far more drivers who act aggressively. Plus they have a far more deadly weapon at their disposal, namely 3000 lbs.+ of metal with an engine to move it fast.

I can see where he would be upset about the incident with his daughter but he is going way overboard in generalizing his frustration to include all cyclists and going after the Penn. Ave. bike lanes in retaliation. It doesn't add up.

I think you guys got it exactly. You can't judge all cyclists based upon the actions of a few (or possible just one).

If I did that I would have already tried to take revenge on many, many motorists.

You missed one false claim:

DC has added insult to injury by turning loose on the city streets a band of renegade bicyclists who, thanks to the example set by the Mayor (WTOP.com November, 9, 2009), disobey traffic laws with reckless abandon, endangering both motorists and pedestrians.

WTOP never showed the mayor disobeying traffic laws, certainly not "with reckless abandon, endangering both motorists and pedestrians."

Thank you for addressing this screed so thoroughly!

Whatever useful commentary Johnson might have provided here was rendered ridiculous when he started his "renegade" diatribe. A few bad cyclists, sure. But really, people aren't "cyclists" or "drivers" or "pedestrians". They are just people who happen to be in that kind of vehicle. In cars we're all pretty good about obeying laws (except speed limits of course). But when on foot, almost everyone ignores signals and don't walk 30 feet out of the way to use a crosswalk. And as bicyclists most people improvise rather than follow the laws that were written for drivers. People who I call "rare" cyclists, who get out of their cars and ride once a year, are at least as "renegade" as those who bike every day, and more dangerous about it. It's whenever I ride with friends who just dug their dusty bike out of the basement that I see the most law-breaking - by my friends. It's not cyclists who break laws, it's people.

20th and L, road rage central, who knew. I was once nearly run over at that intersection (or the next one) by a cab driver who turned right from the middle lane. Drivers honk, cyclists yell or rap on the fender, so that's what I did. The driver chased after me (I admit I let him reach me so I could tell him off, since no driver can catch a cyclist downtown) and then he got out and grabbed me by the shirt and started yelling. Fortunately another cyclist came up and we outnumbered him. Clearly that incident proves that cars and bikes can't share the road... and since the driver was at fault, it's cars that should be banned from city centers, right? That is Johnson's logic. Fortunately you know he's going to get 300 emails on this!

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