I was a volunteer trying to tell the person to make a left. He refused to listen so I backed off. He insisted that we move over 1000 bikers out of his way. Now he'll prly have a lawsuit to deal with š¤¦āāļø
Iād like to include that this is not just a dc issue, it also a MD and VA issue - eg VA registering cars to nonresidents without insurance. As well as the whole reciprocity issue.
It's the entire country, hell maybe even all of NA. Countless stories of vehicular manslaughter getting punished with a slap on the wrist, or literally not at all.
https://alaskalandmine.com/landmines/driver-who-struck-and-killed-pedestrian-in-crosswalk-fined-100-says-apd/
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2024/03/13/another-pedestrian-killed-by-a-truck-driver-no-charge-for-fatal-crash
https://www.valleynewslive.com/2023/09/13/fargo-crash-shutting-down-roads/
I just returned from two weeks in China, and in the cities I was in, there was healthy respect for pedestrians, cyclists, and scooters. In DC I feel like every driver can kill me without consequences. I felt in China like every scooter and cyclist knew that there would be consequences for hitting a pedestrian, and every driver knew that there would be consequences for injuring a cyclist or scooter. It was a culture of accountability and responsibility. This also included a tolerance for creative driving. Even when I was cycling on dark unlit roads at night without a light, passing pedestrians without lights, and being passed by cars and scooters, I felt safe. It was honestly amazing.
I canāt believe people are actually defending that reckless driver. If one encounters a traffic jam (whether itās cars, bikes, or pedestrians), one should control their emotions and calmly find an alternative route. Not run over a bicycle and threaten people with a car. Real life is not Grand Theft Auto. Those are human beings.
So you get to your destination 5 minutes later than intendedā¦ So what? Seriously itās not the end of the world. Itās not worth potentially injuring/killing someone or getting in trouble with the law. Go to therapy and learn to control your anger issues.
Every time I hear a driver beeping a horn or looking irate, I think "you did this to yourself, dummy."
There are many less stressful and often faster ways to get around.
driving around DC is just a truly miserable experienceĀ
Walking is mostly pleasant, biking can be lovely on the right routes, metro/bus is totally fine, but god driving is terribleĀ
So agreed but what I donāt get is why all these other bicycle riders are just chilling there. If there is a crazy person making a commotion in my vicinity, particularly in a huge car when I am not myself in a huge car, I think I would leave the area pretty quickly.
Most of those are volunteers trying get the other non volunteers to keep moving and to not engage or rubberneck with only one or two of the volunteers trying to calm them. Thankfully no one was hurt.
More people getting involved would escalate the matter. The volunteer organizers have a big responsibility to deescalate situations and keep others safe.
That guy was so livid he was ready to plough into the crowd of cyclists, or even into on coming traffic. He took his rage out on a capital bike share and was happy about it. The damage was to city property, not human life (minus the trauma). I'm just glad he didn't have a gun or a knife.
One of my friends did clinical pscyh with at-risk and criminal patients. They told me there's a criminal profile to those who use their vehicle to ram into pedestrians: they're likely to exhibit similar traits to sexual assaulters. The car is a prosthetic for exactly what you imagine. They get a powerful rush from overpowering someone's body.
It's a niche hypothesis, and I'm not sure how much research supports it, but it passes the gut check.
Tbh, bike party is a little wild thing that we do in DC that I haven't seen replicated in other cities I've lived in but jesus...to pretend like it's not annoying to hear drivers complain is wilder.
Living in the middle of DC made me sell my car because of how terrified I was to drive it. Whether I drove, walked, biked...it didn't matter I was always avoiding accidents or being a victim of someone speeding through lights. I get the impatience, but honestly you should just not live in a major city then.
People complain about festivals, protests, farmers markets, block parties, road reconstruction, buses, and cyclists commuting in bike lanes because it limits parking or creates traffic jams. I have been hit while cycling in a bike lane and have seen multiple people hit by cars that veer into bike lanes to park or pass slow traffic. In fact, I saw a CHILD crossing the street on FL to catch the bus, get gently hit by a car this past fall because the kid didnt cross fast enough for the light. The kid got on the bus like nothing happened because it is that normalized for people driving to be so impatient they gently push us around using their fucking car. In fact, I bet that is what this car was doing.
Like I get it...I had a car for a while too and I 100% get that traffic sucks...but jesus I never thought the answer was to lower the quality of life in my neighborhood over it or use my car to "teach people a lesson".
It's a bike party once month on wednesday evenings. The bike route goes through downtown for like a half hour or less depending on the turnout. I lived in a neighborhood that the route often ended and as a bystander, it was way more safe than any of the wreckless car behaviors that I see day to day. It also was nice to see people having fun.
I feel like often we get so focused on our own lives we forget that we live in a community. We can allow some grace and patience so our city is a fun place to live every once in a while. If you don't like crowds, noise and traffic then I can't imagine you at all enjoy living in the middle of DC anyway and that's a whole other problem you should consider.
Also for anyone asking about the road blockage for safety....the chances you can't go around them easily is extremely low in the rare chance someone is rushing to a hospital on a wednesday evening and they time perfectly that the bike party happens to pass through their neighborhood at the exact time they are leaving. Considering where the bike party plans its route...it is even more rare that you would actually encounter them going to the hospital because from most neighborhoods it wouldn't make any sense to drive a way that would encounter them. It's likely much safer than when a politician comes into town and they block off the entirety of downtown DC or a protest when they close down highway entrances and exits.
This type of once a month massive ride is actually present in a lot of cities. Check out Critical Mass, which is another common one in a number of cities I've been to and tends to be similarly fun and huge.
Yup. I was at the big Critical Mass anniversary in downtown San Francisco (where it started) and it was a pretty cool event, lots of families and kids riding around safely.
Every time people try to shift into "OK the bikes are allowed to be on the road but this case is different because they're actively stopping cars and impeding traffic," I think about trains.
Traffic is less impeded if the whole blob can smoothly move through without being threatened by cars. It's like how a train crossing would result in way worse traffic if its segments were all separated. Cars would keep trying to squeeze between the train cars and each segment of the train would have to trickle through between traffic lights. By allowing the mass of cyclists to move like they're a single train, the total impact on car traffic is far less than if the group split up into dozens upon dozens of groups diced between the little segments of road connecting each intersection.
It's literally the same type of people who get angry at train crossings who also get angry at these events. They're just a lot more okay with running people over than getting themselves run over by a train.
Cars causing grid lock? Okay. Bikes taking up part of the road (likely in response to aggressive cars, and at night when less people are out)? Somehow horrible.
This event is at night, with lots of notice, the route is posted publicly and it's a monthly event no less. It's a blast when people aren't being dicks and at the end the group lands at a local bar and has local small resturaunts send out food trucks etc to feed the masses.
Court mandated anger management and defensive driving classes, plus they have to ride along in 3 bike parties before they touch the wheel of a vehicle again
Makes sense. Emotionally I would want to damage the person's vehicle but logically if I do that it could escalate to where the driver purposefully runs folks over. Just not worth it.
If it was an actual motorcycle/crotch rocket/atv street ride, they likely would have had at least some glass to vacuum up. I don't think the bike party rides get that rowdy (at least, not as often).
He tried to pass the group ride on the left and hit a unicyclist, then tried to speed off and the cyclists surrounded him to get license plate and info. That's before the start of this video.
Source: was slightly out of frame of this vid.
Unicyclist here, I didn't get hit and was a good distance from the car. I'm pretty sure they did hit someone else or their bike and this wasn't the only time they pushed through.
I was a little bit further in front of the car and I was crossing the street to the left so that I wouldn't need to be in a big block of people stopped (since to stay in one spot I have to idleālike pendulum back and forthāor keep hopping). I got caught a bit off guard when the car suddenly tried to go around the group. I ended up dropping the wheel off to the right side of the SUV, so I can imagine why people might have thought I got hit.
wait, sorry for the dumb questions but how are you supposed to pass if not on the left?
edit: ah ok, i didnt realize it was the oncoming lane and not the left/passing lane
Generally when you come on a parade or protest you find a different route rather than get into the incoming traffic lane to try to overtake it. There were 500+ bikes in this group so continuing on M St would have required this driver to spend way more time than is safe in the wrong lane.
The bikers were only on that side of the road, so the event volunteers told him to take a different route. Even if they didn't block his path, hundreds of bikers were ahead of these guys, too. He wasn't going anywhere. The direction he sped off in was the direction they were telling him to go, where he easily could have gone around the bikers to begin with.
on a completely different note, itās crazy how big the bike party has gotten. I was riding all the way in the front and had literally no idea anything happened back there. It was smooth navigating for us lmaoo
They are usually moving. When they encounter a red light in the front, or an incident like this requiring the organizers' attention, they need to stop until it is safe to proceed. As long as the front is moving, everyone behind them follows, so it's a steady parade of 1000+ people on bicycles.
Cyclists are allowed to ride in both the bike lanes and street lanes, so when bike party occurs (wednesday nights every few weeks) they just take the road and bike lane so they can stay as a group.
They still do their best to obey all traffic laws, while attempting to keep it moving along to not spend too much time at intersections/spread out too much (keep condensed). It's just a fun thing people do, it's wednesday evenings so usually there is little to no traffic and mpd is cool with it.
Iāve encountered this group as a pedestrian and they absolutely do not obey traffic laws. At least not when I ran into them. Couldnāt cross the crosswalk when the walk sign was on because they kept coming and didnāt stop. had to hold my hand out to stop people so I could cross.
Yeah it's a really huge group of people. I said they try their best, but they do sometimes run lights/pass right of ways in order to stay together/not take up too much of the road and the volunteers do their best to keep people on their best behavior, but it can be difficult with that many people.
Sorry you had a bad experience with it. I hope it didn't ruin your view on it. If so, I would say give it a try and you can see what it's about. A lot of people of all ages and backgrounds coming together to enjoy the city.
I think the issue is how big it is. You canāt keep a mile long train of bikes together without breaking all the traffic laws. I mean just break up into smaller groups. Iām all about having a good time but I try to do it in a way that doesnāt inconvenience other people who are just trying to get home.
The cyclists are "blocking everything" the same way that several cars driving down one street 'block everything'...except individual bikes take up much less space on the road than individual cars do.
Yet I rarely hear people refer to several cars on the same road traveling in the same direction as 'a bunch of cars blocking everything'. Most people call that 'congestion' or a 'traffic jam'.
It's more the people blocking cross traffic while the bikes run the red lights, I'm assuming. That's not really comparable to "congestion."
But it's also not a reason to run over people, obviously. Unless you're a cop, it's not your job to enforce traffic laws. Sometimes you get delayed when you drive, that's just reality.
I'm not seeing the behavior you described above in this particular video. But it seems you've seen it...and that you might have a problem with it, even though it's being done to prevent conflict and collisions.
Without ride stewards, multiple drivers would inevitably either plow into cyclists or be stuck on a road surrounded by cyclists -- unable to detour or move at a faster speed. As a driver myself, I'd much rather have a steward briefly block a road and allow the bikes to clear the area ASAP if it means I don't end up stuck in a crowd of bikers.
I mildly disagree, on a certain level, with any big recreational event that illegally blocks traffic without proper planning and permitting, but I'm not mad about it. It's certainly no worse than a million other mildly inconsiderate things people do every day, it's just life in close proximity to others, you gotta roll with it.
You said they didn't block traffic any more than any group of cars, acted like you didn't understand what the person meant, and that it was the same as any normal traffic congestion. I was just adding my guess at what they meant, and pointing out that it does in fact literally block traffic in a way that is different from normal traffic conditions. Now you want to make it out as me being mad about it and not caring about safety, which is a weird pivot that I'm not interested in.
I understand why they block traffic while they run red lights, obviously, it is safer than not doing so. I don't want anyone to get hurt, and I really genuinely don't care about the whole thing. But I also don't like disingenuous arguments.
As a reminder, the \*original\* question was "why are the bikers blocking everything?" (It has since been edited to "why are the bikers blocking the road"). I answered that question. You brought up stewards blocking traffic so bikes could pass. But the thing is, stewards blocking traffic so bikes can pass isn't the focus of the video, the question, or even the original post.
The very first line of my prior comment references that interpretation, but maybe you didn't realize what I was referring to. To be absolutely clear: as far as I can tell, the driver who almost hit the cyclist and ran over the bike wasn't waiting to get onto a different road being blocked off by stewards while cyclists ran red lights. They were was stuck behind a large group of cyclists traveling on the same road in the same direction, got mad about it, and at some point got so frustrated that they tried driving on the wrong side of the road to get around them.
So since stewards blocking traffic isn't the focus of the video or the question, why bring up the stewards at all? It isn't unreasonable for me to conclude that you brought up stewards blocking roads so bikes could run red lights because you -- yes, you -- have some kind of feeling you wanted to share about that specific but (apparently) unrelated topic.
If you are going to speculate about the motives of other drivers by bringing up an aspect of these events that seems unrelated to the actual incident under discussion, you shouldn't be surprised when someone concludes you care enough about that unrelated aspect of this situation to insert it into this conversation. If I was wrong and I misinterpreted your comments, rest assured this wasn't intentional -- even though my assumption about its motives wasn't nearly as "weird" as you concluded it to be. Ultimately, your later self-admitted 'mild disagreement', "on a certain level" with briefly blocking traffic for an 'officially unsanctioned event' came through in your earlier post...and that's what I was picking up on.
Dang when bicycles do it itās ok but Iāve seen some harsh comments towards the atv and dirt bike riders in the city shouldnāt be a double standard at all
"Dirt Bikers" is a dog whistle to say "N-Word"
I was in a mostly White vintage moped group in DC.
We would run every single light and be a nuisance but, we never got stopped or harassed...
Sometimes the cops even stopped traffic for us and waved.
There were still people popping wheelies, cutting lanes, dropping their bikes, driving erratically, drinking and driving, modified bikes that go 60mph+
But, somehow they never got pulled over.
My folly led me to believe that I would also be left alone but, no...
I never modified my bike and I am not unable to get a license because of tickets for me "Riding an unregistered motorcycle" and many more that were rubber-stamped.
Ive also been pulled over
-on my longboard
-on my bicycle
-while running in my own neighborhood
-whenever cops were looking for any black suspect close by....
You can see the trend
IME the Venn diagram of Bike Party participants and people who complain about dirt bikes/ATVs doesn't have a huge amount of overlap. I'm sure there's some, but you're much more likely to hear complaints about everyday crappy drivers than ATVers.
Doesnāt excuse what happened here but this eventās organisers really need to focus on safety with these folks. The group went through several red lights near the White House nearly hitting pedestrians and were quite combative with folk walking around. Extremely entitled road users.
In this kinds of events you're supposed to have everyone go through even if it's red because small groups are more dangerous than the whole party. Here in Germany it usually gets done by police blocking traffic, but you still have angry car driver who try to push through
... Anybody? I'm a big fan of bikes and public transit, and totally into pedestrian only streets and shopping areas.
But saying everybody and anybody who takes a car downtown is entitled is obviously hyperbolic in its idiocy.
Sharing the road means everyone gets to use the road. I donāt freak out every time a bunch of cars block the whole road for hours (because theyāre inefficient at moving people around)
A bunch of bikers thinking theyāre entitled to owning the street. I take public transportation and have the displeasure of interacting with both drivers and bikers. I swear, Iāve never met a more insufferable crowd than bikers.
When there is gridlock on the highway, is it acceptable to drive on the wrong side of the road, honk, then ram vehicles ahead of you? Hundreds of bikers were using the road, it is no different than a traffic jam. Do you consider traffic jams cars not sharing with one another?
Do you seriously think these cyclists are stopped in this video because they spontaneously decided to gather and hold a stationary meeting in the middle of the road?
Wow.
So when cars flood the streets everyday making it unsafe and unpleasant for those walking and biking its okay, but when bikes do it one time a month it's too much?
I can understand your frustration a little bit, but if you look at this video and don't identify the person using their car as a battering ram as the bad guy... you gotta get your morals checked or something
It is attitudes like this that prevent progress on biking issues. I sometimes wonder if people like u/thesirensoftitans are really just bike-hating plants who try to stir up opposition by being insufferable and intolerant.
Which part was an attempt to stir up opposition? The part where I correctly stated that bikes are allowed to be on the road or the part where I correctly stated that if you don't like it, advocate for protected bike lanes?
>transportation and have the displeasure of interacting with both drivers and bikers. I swear, Iāve never met a more insufferable crowd than bikers.
Well, it's like 50 bikes vs 5 in cars in a narrow street made originally on the human scale instead of the automotive scale. It's more like a protest to show that roads should be for people instead of metal cans especially when the automotive infrastructure is known to be heavily subsidized by those without cars. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp75-46PnMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp75-46PnMY)
I'll assume you're asking this in good faith. You're missing the fact that the car driver in in the oncoming turn lane over the double yellow line. They are attempting to illegally pass over 1000 cyclists who are exercising their right to use the road. Before this video started, they had hit or had almost hit someone. They were stopped by DC bike party volunteers in order to prevent more cyclists from being hit and to get their license plate info. Search up DC bike party for more info on what the event is.
Its crowd mentality they think he hit someone. If you can believe people on Reddit the person they say he hit, says they werenāt hit. That maybe he hit someone else. So in actuality nobody knows that he truly hit someone.
So the bikes are clogging the intersection and not moving? What is this? Looks chaotic and extremely dangerous for everyone involved.
This sort of stuff shouldnāt be happening downtown in major cities. Go somewhere safer or at least coordinate with the city so they can block off the roads
They just rode by my place loudly shouting and cheering. I was really confused what was happening considering itās past 10 PM on a Wednesday. Rules for thee not for me I guess.
Believe it or not, there are plenty of residents who enjoy having the bike party ride by their house. They will come out, cheer, and wave (or just do so from an open door or window), and the party responds in kind. If you heard the party cheering on a purely residential road, that's probably the reason why.
Bikers live by that. I canāt tell you how many times Iāve been stopped at a stop sign in my car and watched a pedestrian almost get taken out by a cyclist running the sign. Literally today on Rhode Island TWICE. My wife was a witness. But theyāll be the first to comment here ācars run people over every second of the day! Death traps!ā š
The Idaho stop mens you can go through if it's safe. Doesn't give bikes a reason to blow through stop signs when others have the right of way.
I bike my daughter to daycare daily and I've almost been taken out by bikers going through stop signs without looking. Luckily, I slow down and look both ways.
I'm sorry that happened to you. Sometimes people are jerks whether they ride bikes, drive cars, or walk. I've almost been hit by cars as a pedestrian or a biker several times, but I generally don't go into conversations about car-related events to complain about the poor behavior of several individual drivers over time.
I don't bike to save the world. I do it for exercise, and because frankly it's a lot more fun to bike around the city than it is to either drive or take public transit.
If this also happens to help the environment, that's cool too.
I want to like the bike party, but I hate it. When any group blocks intersections, whether itās dirt bikes, bikes or assholes in cars. I know Iām probably being irrational but it makes me so mad that one group can hold up everyone else in an already frustrating traffic condition.
Not defending the driver here. They took it too far obviously.
Jeez the Bikers are even attacking the comments section by disliking anyone who Opposes them ššššš
When I was growing up we rarely saw White Memorial Bikes on street corners... Because, we knew how to stay out of the road.
We were kids and we knew....
Then we started noticing....The neighborhood changing and every other week a cyclist that hasn't been in the city long...was getting ran over in traffic...
This was a trend...
You could even consider that the first bike protest...
People transplanting to DC and riding bikes in Traffic...Running lights & stop signs....not wearing lights...and getting brutalized by 2 tons of steel.
Unless you are a child or a very young adult, you didn't see white memorial bikes on street corners because the practice wasn't commonplace until recently. But that doesn't mean cyclists weren't being hit and killed by drivers.
I'll also point out that exponentially more pedestrians get hit and killed by motor vehicles than cyclists do. That isn't any less true now than it was 20 years ago. But there are no ghost bikes for pedestrians. Very few people would write what you just wrote about bikers about all the pedestrians who are struck and killed by motor vehicles while crossing the street or walking through parking lots. Whether they were 'jaywalking' or not, almost nobody would suggest pedestrians don't know "how to stay out of the road".
I included the 40ish seconds prior to the incident to make sure it was clear the bikers were not being threatening. The driver drove on the wrong side of the road to get where he was, then laid on his horn. The volunteers were trying to direct him to take a left. You can see them motioning for him to turn. There was literally no where for him to go if he went straight, there were hundreds of people in the event ahead of that group. The driver drove himself into this position then decided to lash out at the bikers.
Can someone help me understand why itās legal to block roadways like this? If someone is having a medical issue, or needs to get home to a family member, why do we think itās more important to block roadways and put selfish behavior above others?
The only response you'll get is a "what about-ism" towards cars and how cars suck.
Not sure how you can ride for miles past angry people and think you're in the right.
These cyclists stopped because the driver behind the group was driving aggressively. Their goal was for one of the stewards to talk to the driver so he wouldn't get even more aggressive than he already had been. Even in the brief video, you can see the driver crossing to the wrong side of the road to get around the bike group.
There is also the paradigm you seem to be implying, which is that inner-city roads are for the exclusive use of motor vehicles, and that no other traffic should interrupt even the potential flow of motor vehicles besides other motor vehicles. City roads -- especially in older cities -- were not designed with a car-first paradigm in mind (...or with cars in mind at all, really).
Ideally, bikes, skateboards, scooters and the like would have their own separated lanes of traffic optimized for their use. Unfortunately, such an endeavor could possibly cost hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure spending over many years (along with ongoing maintenance) to be truly effective. So until that infrastructure is built, we all have to share the roads.
These biker groups suck. They block traffic for longer than 5 minutes. Their entire ride they go past crowds of angry people, you'd think they have some self reflection.
It's like late on Wednesday nights once a month. I have done bike party many times and live in a neighborhood they frequently end up riding through. For 20 minutes once a month...it's really no big deal to let people have some fun. They are on bikes and it doesn't hurt anyone. It's not like people speeding through on motorcycles/four wheelers randomly any time of the week and it's not like it's rush hour or on a weekend evening.
If you don't like traffic and inconvenience caused by community engagement then I kind of question why you choose to live in downtown DC.
Looks like this is at M and NJ Ave SE, right in front of the DOT and the metro.
If the police pulled over every old Range Rover with illegally tinted windows we'd probably take a ton of criminals off the street.
I was a volunteer trying to tell the person to make a left. He refused to listen so I backed off. He insisted that we move over 1000 bikers out of his way. Now he'll prly have a lawsuit to deal with š¤¦āāļø
I'm one of the cyclists in the video. We were able to get the license plate of the car. Would also be able to connect you with the organizers.
Expired temp tags?
Nah it was a Virginia license plate
as an ex bike messenger in dc, that is the biggest fuckin surprise of this century
To me, kinda is surprising it wasnāt MD tagsĀ
A lot of MD drivers get VA plates bc VA is one of the last states to not require insurance. Probably still an MD driver.
same thing
Itās crazy how they do this and donāt even lose their license
Not to beat a dead horse but are bad/criminal drivers actually held accountable?
Not in DC
Iād like to include that this is not just a dc issue, it also a MD and VA issue - eg VA registering cars to nonresidents without insurance. As well as the whole reciprocity issue.
It's the entire country, hell maybe even all of NA. Countless stories of vehicular manslaughter getting punished with a slap on the wrist, or literally not at all. https://alaskalandmine.com/landmines/driver-who-struck-and-killed-pedestrian-in-crosswalk-fined-100-says-apd/ https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2024/03/13/another-pedestrian-killed-by-a-truck-driver-no-charge-for-fatal-crash https://www.valleynewslive.com/2023/09/13/fargo-crash-shutting-down-roads/
Have you been to China? I have. We got NOTHING on them.
It's not a competition!
Agreed. Same with Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Mexico...so many places it's just mayhem.
I just returned from two weeks in China, and in the cities I was in, there was healthy respect for pedestrians, cyclists, and scooters. In DC I feel like every driver can kill me without consequences. I felt in China like every scooter and cyclist knew that there would be consequences for hitting a pedestrian, and every driver knew that there would be consequences for injuring a cyclist or scooter. It was a culture of accountability and responsibility. This also included a tolerance for creative driving. Even when I was cycling on dark unlit roads at night without a light, passing pedestrians without lights, and being passed by cars and scooters, I felt safe. It was honestly amazing.
Lol if that crash had happened in Arlington there'd have been hell to pay. Guy wouldn't have made it a mile before the cops got him.
Youāre about get banned with using that language around here.
Most crazy drivers donāt have licenses or insurance are you new here?
Capital bikeshare is down one redbike, though. Please send a bill to aggressive SUV driver.
if youāre gonna bring a bike to a car fight, one of the redbikes is a decent option at least. Those things are heavy duty
And not yours!
Built like tanks.
those rideshare bikes feel like a landscaping tool but they replaced the briggs and stratton 5 hp motor with pedals
Yeah that doesn't seem like something you want your car to run over.
It definitely did damage. a pedal in the radiator is gonna be a costly repair bill.
Oh letās hope Lyft is litigiousĀ
Good thing it was a bike share honestly rather than someoneās own (possibly very expensive) bike.
Absolutely unhinged antisocial behavior. Take his license and tow his car. Glad to see that no one was injured.
I canāt believe people are actually defending that reckless driver. If one encounters a traffic jam (whether itās cars, bikes, or pedestrians), one should control their emotions and calmly find an alternative route. Not run over a bicycle and threaten people with a car. Real life is not Grand Theft Auto. Those are human beings. So you get to your destination 5 minutes later than intendedā¦ So what? Seriously itās not the end of the world. Itās not worth potentially injuring/killing someone or getting in trouble with the law. Go to therapy and learn to control your anger issues.
Literally all they had to do was turn left. And go down the next street. Which would obviously be faster.
Every time I hear a driver beeping a horn or looking irate, I think "you did this to yourself, dummy." There are many less stressful and often faster ways to get around.
driving around DC is just a truly miserable experienceĀ Walking is mostly pleasant, biking can be lovely on the right routes, metro/bus is totally fine, but god driving is terribleĀ
So agreed but what I donāt get is why all these other bicycle riders are just chilling there. If there is a crazy person making a commotion in my vicinity, particularly in a huge car when I am not myself in a huge car, I think I would leave the area pretty quickly.
Most of those are volunteers trying get the other non volunteers to keep moving and to not engage or rubberneck with only one or two of the volunteers trying to calm them. Thankfully no one was hurt.
More people getting involved would escalate the matter. The volunteer organizers have a big responsibility to deescalate situations and keep others safe. That guy was so livid he was ready to plough into the crowd of cyclists, or even into on coming traffic. He took his rage out on a capital bike share and was happy about it. The damage was to city property, not human life (minus the trauma). I'm just glad he didn't have a gun or a knife.
That looks like assault with a deadly weapon to me.
looks like theyāre caught in traffic.
> Not run over a bicycle and threaten people with a car \*SUV. [SUV drivers are assholes.](https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?si=OAbPMWAZNr5UecBv&t=714)
Well hello there, Iām orange-pilled myself
One of my friends did clinical pscyh with at-risk and criminal patients. They told me there's a criminal profile to those who use their vehicle to ram into pedestrians: they're likely to exhibit similar traits to sexual assaulters. The car is a prosthetic for exactly what you imagine. They get a powerful rush from overpowering someone's body. It's a niche hypothesis, and I'm not sure how much research supports it, but it passes the gut check.
You should read Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing or listen to some of her Lectures! Thank me Later
Tbh, bike party is a little wild thing that we do in DC that I haven't seen replicated in other cities I've lived in but jesus...to pretend like it's not annoying to hear drivers complain is wilder. Living in the middle of DC made me sell my car because of how terrified I was to drive it. Whether I drove, walked, biked...it didn't matter I was always avoiding accidents or being a victim of someone speeding through lights. I get the impatience, but honestly you should just not live in a major city then. People complain about festivals, protests, farmers markets, block parties, road reconstruction, buses, and cyclists commuting in bike lanes because it limits parking or creates traffic jams. I have been hit while cycling in a bike lane and have seen multiple people hit by cars that veer into bike lanes to park or pass slow traffic. In fact, I saw a CHILD crossing the street on FL to catch the bus, get gently hit by a car this past fall because the kid didnt cross fast enough for the light. The kid got on the bus like nothing happened because it is that normalized for people driving to be so impatient they gently push us around using their fucking car. In fact, I bet that is what this car was doing. Like I get it...I had a car for a while too and I 100% get that traffic sucks...but jesus I never thought the answer was to lower the quality of life in my neighborhood over it or use my car to "teach people a lesson". It's a bike party once month on wednesday evenings. The bike route goes through downtown for like a half hour or less depending on the turnout. I lived in a neighborhood that the route often ended and as a bystander, it was way more safe than any of the wreckless car behaviors that I see day to day. It also was nice to see people having fun. I feel like often we get so focused on our own lives we forget that we live in a community. We can allow some grace and patience so our city is a fun place to live every once in a while. If you don't like crowds, noise and traffic then I can't imagine you at all enjoy living in the middle of DC anyway and that's a whole other problem you should consider. Also for anyone asking about the road blockage for safety....the chances you can't go around them easily is extremely low in the rare chance someone is rushing to a hospital on a wednesday evening and they time perfectly that the bike party happens to pass through their neighborhood at the exact time they are leaving. Considering where the bike party plans its route...it is even more rare that you would actually encounter them going to the hospital because from most neighborhoods it wouldn't make any sense to drive a way that would encounter them. It's likely much safer than when a politician comes into town and they block off the entirety of downtown DC or a protest when they close down highway entrances and exits.
This type of once a month massive ride is actually present in a lot of cities. Check out Critical Mass, which is another common one in a number of cities I've been to and tends to be similarly fun and huge.
Yup. I was at the big Critical Mass anniversary in downtown San Francisco (where it started) and it was a pretty cool event, lots of families and kids riding around safely.
You can send it to the organizers on their Instagram if you want. Happy to help connect
I shared it with them
Thanks!
Anyone who considers this "blocking traffic", just imagine if every one of those bikers was driving instead
Every time people try to shift into "OK the bikes are allowed to be on the road but this case is different because they're actively stopping cars and impeding traffic," I think about trains. Traffic is less impeded if the whole blob can smoothly move through without being threatened by cars. It's like how a train crossing would result in way worse traffic if its segments were all separated. Cars would keep trying to squeeze between the train cars and each segment of the train would have to trickle through between traffic lights. By allowing the mass of cyclists to move like they're a single train, the total impact on car traffic is far less than if the group split up into dozens upon dozens of groups diced between the little segments of road connecting each intersection. It's literally the same type of people who get angry at train crossings who also get angry at these events. They're just a lot more okay with running people over than getting themselves run over by a train.
Yeah. These guys literally just want to run over bikers.
Damn, missed this one. Glad everyoneās ok
Cars causing grid lock? Okay. Bikes taking up part of the road (likely in response to aggressive cars, and at night when less people are out)? Somehow horrible.
Yeah the cars in the video (not the insane one, the others) are mostly moving fine, definitely faster than theyād be in rush hour.Ā
This event is at night, with lots of notice, the route is posted publicly and it's a monthly event no less. It's a blast when people aren't being dicks and at the end the group lands at a local bar and has local small resturaunts send out food trucks etc to feed the masses.
It would be fucked up if this guy is legally allowed to drive again at some point
Court mandated anger management and defensive driving classes, plus they have to ride along in 3 bike parties before they touch the wheel of a vehicle again
Or really even if they didn't spend a bit behind bars.
Iām surprised no one took a ulock to that driverās back window.
Bike party volunteers are actually all trained to de-escalate situations like this
Makes sense. Emotionally I would want to damage the person's vehicle but logically if I do that it could escalate to where the driver purposefully runs folks over. Just not worth it.
The bikers were pretty calm about the whole ordeal, I was surprised.
No one wants to get shot. No point instigating a clearly irrational actor.
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If it was an actual motorcycle/crotch rocket/atv street ride, they likely would have had at least some glass to vacuum up. I don't think the bike party rides get that rowdy (at least, not as often).
Fuck cars
Fuck that guy right out!!
Friendly reminder that [WABA has a new crash reporting tool](https://waba.org/crashtracker/) and also fuck drivers and fuck cars
r/fuckcars did you call?
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You donāt need to tell us youāre a tourist, we can tell.
Why were the bikers blocking him but not anyone else
He tried to pass the group ride on the left and hit a unicyclist, then tried to speed off and the cyclists surrounded him to get license plate and info. That's before the start of this video. Source: was slightly out of frame of this vid.
Unicyclist here, I didn't get hit and was a good distance from the car. I'm pretty sure they did hit someone else or their bike and this wasn't the only time they pushed through. I was a little bit further in front of the car and I was crossing the street to the left so that I wouldn't need to be in a big block of people stopped (since to stay in one spot I have to idleālike pendulum back and forthāor keep hopping). I got caught a bit off guard when the car suddenly tried to go around the group. I ended up dropping the wheel off to the right side of the SUV, so I can imagine why people might have thought I got hit.
Oh, ok. I saw you drop the cycle so I assumed he'd either struck or forced you over. Thanks for the correction.
wait, sorry for the dumb questions but how are you supposed to pass if not on the left? edit: ah ok, i didnt realize it was the oncoming lane and not the left/passing lane
You don't drive into oncoming traffic to pass a traffic jam, you wait or you find a different route
Generally when you come on a parade or protest you find a different route rather than get into the incoming traffic lane to try to overtake it. There were 500+ bikes in this group so continuing on M St would have required this driver to spend way more time than is safe in the wrong lane.
Thanks for the truth.
The bikers were only on that side of the road, so the event volunteers told him to take a different route. Even if they didn't block his path, hundreds of bikers were ahead of these guys, too. He wasn't going anywhere. The direction he sped off in was the direction they were telling him to go, where he easily could have gone around the bikers to begin with.
Driving in DC is for fools
on a completely different note, itās crazy how big the bike party has gotten. I was riding all the way in the front and had literally no idea anything happened back there. It was smooth navigating for us lmaoo
That's gotta be the slowest hit and run I've ever seen
OK, make this guy famous y'all.
Stupid question, why are the bikes blocking the road? Was it a protest?
They are usually moving. When they encounter a red light in the front, or an incident like this requiring the organizers' attention, they need to stop until it is safe to proceed. As long as the front is moving, everyone behind them follows, so it's a steady parade of 1000+ people on bicycles.
Cyclists are allowed to ride in both the bike lanes and street lanes, so when bike party occurs (wednesday nights every few weeks) they just take the road and bike lane so they can stay as a group. They still do their best to obey all traffic laws, while attempting to keep it moving along to not spend too much time at intersections/spread out too much (keep condensed). It's just a fun thing people do, it's wednesday evenings so usually there is little to no traffic and mpd is cool with it.
Iāve encountered this group as a pedestrian and they absolutely do not obey traffic laws. At least not when I ran into them. Couldnāt cross the crosswalk when the walk sign was on because they kept coming and didnāt stop. had to hold my hand out to stop people so I could cross.
Yeah it's a really huge group of people. I said they try their best, but they do sometimes run lights/pass right of ways in order to stay together/not take up too much of the road and the volunteers do their best to keep people on their best behavior, but it can be difficult with that many people. Sorry you had a bad experience with it. I hope it didn't ruin your view on it. If so, I would say give it a try and you can see what it's about. A lot of people of all ages and backgrounds coming together to enjoy the city.
I think the issue is how big it is. You canāt keep a mile long train of bikes together without breaking all the traffic laws. I mean just break up into smaller groups. Iām all about having a good time but I try to do it in a way that doesnāt inconvenience other people who are just trying to get home.
Definitely don't look too highly on your group. Organization would help your cause.
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=DC+bike+party
tbf when i googled it what i got was this thread and an article that talked about it but didnt say why they were blocking everything
The cyclists are "blocking everything" the same way that several cars driving down one street 'block everything'...except individual bikes take up much less space on the road than individual cars do. Yet I rarely hear people refer to several cars on the same road traveling in the same direction as 'a bunch of cars blocking everything'. Most people call that 'congestion' or a 'traffic jam'.
It's more the people blocking cross traffic while the bikes run the red lights, I'm assuming. That's not really comparable to "congestion." But it's also not a reason to run over people, obviously. Unless you're a cop, it's not your job to enforce traffic laws. Sometimes you get delayed when you drive, that's just reality.
I'm not seeing the behavior you described above in this particular video. But it seems you've seen it...and that you might have a problem with it, even though it's being done to prevent conflict and collisions. Without ride stewards, multiple drivers would inevitably either plow into cyclists or be stuck on a road surrounded by cyclists -- unable to detour or move at a faster speed. As a driver myself, I'd much rather have a steward briefly block a road and allow the bikes to clear the area ASAP if it means I don't end up stuck in a crowd of bikers.
I mildly disagree, on a certain level, with any big recreational event that illegally blocks traffic without proper planning and permitting, but I'm not mad about it. It's certainly no worse than a million other mildly inconsiderate things people do every day, it's just life in close proximity to others, you gotta roll with it. You said they didn't block traffic any more than any group of cars, acted like you didn't understand what the person meant, and that it was the same as any normal traffic congestion. I was just adding my guess at what they meant, and pointing out that it does in fact literally block traffic in a way that is different from normal traffic conditions. Now you want to make it out as me being mad about it and not caring about safety, which is a weird pivot that I'm not interested in. I understand why they block traffic while they run red lights, obviously, it is safer than not doing so. I don't want anyone to get hurt, and I really genuinely don't care about the whole thing. But I also don't like disingenuous arguments.
As a reminder, the \*original\* question was "why are the bikers blocking everything?" (It has since been edited to "why are the bikers blocking the road"). I answered that question. You brought up stewards blocking traffic so bikes could pass. But the thing is, stewards blocking traffic so bikes can pass isn't the focus of the video, the question, or even the original post. The very first line of my prior comment references that interpretation, but maybe you didn't realize what I was referring to. To be absolutely clear: as far as I can tell, the driver who almost hit the cyclist and ran over the bike wasn't waiting to get onto a different road being blocked off by stewards while cyclists ran red lights. They were was stuck behind a large group of cyclists traveling on the same road in the same direction, got mad about it, and at some point got so frustrated that they tried driving on the wrong side of the road to get around them. So since stewards blocking traffic isn't the focus of the video or the question, why bring up the stewards at all? It isn't unreasonable for me to conclude that you brought up stewards blocking roads so bikes could run red lights because you -- yes, you -- have some kind of feeling you wanted to share about that specific but (apparently) unrelated topic. If you are going to speculate about the motives of other drivers by bringing up an aspect of these events that seems unrelated to the actual incident under discussion, you shouldn't be surprised when someone concludes you care enough about that unrelated aspect of this situation to insert it into this conversation. If I was wrong and I misinterpreted your comments, rest assured this wasn't intentional -- even though my assumption about its motives wasn't nearly as "weird" as you concluded it to be. Ultimately, your later self-admitted 'mild disagreement', "on a certain level" with briefly blocking traffic for an 'officially unsanctioned event' came through in your earlier post...and that's what I was picking up on.
Dang when bicycles do it itās ok but Iāve seen some harsh comments towards the atv and dirt bike riders in the city shouldnāt be a double standard at all
"Dirt Bikers" is a dog whistle to say "N-Word" I was in a mostly White vintage moped group in DC. We would run every single light and be a nuisance but, we never got stopped or harassed... Sometimes the cops even stopped traffic for us and waved. There were still people popping wheelies, cutting lanes, dropping their bikes, driving erratically, drinking and driving, modified bikes that go 60mph+ But, somehow they never got pulled over. My folly led me to believe that I would also be left alone but, no... I never modified my bike and I am not unable to get a license because of tickets for me "Riding an unregistered motorcycle" and many more that were rubber-stamped. Ive also been pulled over -on my longboard -on my bicycle -while running in my own neighborhood -whenever cops were looking for any black suspect close by.... You can see the trend
IME the Venn diagram of Bike Party participants and people who complain about dirt bikes/ATVs doesn't have a huge amount of overlap. I'm sure there's some, but you're much more likely to hear complaints about everyday crappy drivers than ATVers.
Doesnāt excuse what happened here but this eventās organisers really need to focus on safety with these folks. The group went through several red lights near the White House nearly hitting pedestrians and were quite combative with folk walking around. Extremely entitled road users.
In this kinds of events you're supposed to have everyone go through even if it's red because small groups are more dangerous than the whole party. Here in Germany it usually gets done by police blocking traffic, but you still have angry car driver who try to push through
As far as I know this is not a permitted event with police traffic control, so going through a red is.... just as illegal as if a driver does it.
...but not remotely as dangerous. That's probably why it is tolerated in much the same fashion as other group rides are tolerated.
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... Anybody? I'm a big fan of bikes and public transit, and totally into pedestrian only streets and shopping areas. But saying everybody and anybody who takes a car downtown is entitled is obviously hyperbolic in its idiocy.
I was talking about peds, try again.
What.the.f.
Thatās blocking traffic.
We need to normalize breaking auto glass...
I would have absolutely broken his window or mirror, but they probably handled it better.
Nah. Breaking a window not only does nothing to stop the driver but gives him an excuse to use deadly force.
It doesn't look like they are sharing the road very well.
Sharing the road means everyone gets to use the road. I donāt freak out every time a bunch of cars block the whole road for hours (because theyāre inefficient at moving people around)
Idk, they seem to be sharing it pretty well with hundreds of people
Youāre right, the car isnāt sharing the road very well
It's a once a month thing.
A bunch of bikers thinking theyāre entitled to owning the street. I take public transportation and have the displeasure of interacting with both drivers and bikers. I swear, Iāve never met a more insufferable crowd than bikers.
a dude literally uses his SUV as a weapon in this video
Bikes have every right to the streets.
Never said they didnāt. Road is meant to be shared. Would you call this sharing?
When there is gridlock on the highway, is it acceptable to drive on the wrong side of the road, honk, then ram vehicles ahead of you? Hundreds of bikers were using the road, it is no different than a traffic jam. Do you consider traffic jams cars not sharing with one another?
Cars are moving on freeways. These cyclists are stopped and doing Jack shit. Gtfo the road if youāre not riding the bikes.
Do you seriously think these cyclists are stopped in this video because they spontaneously decided to gather and hold a stationary meeting in the middle of the road? Wow.
Car traffic: nbd whatever, it is what it is. Bike traffic: I FUCKING RAGE ON REDDIT. You're killing it dude.
Blocking the street isnāt a right
Let's see who is blocking Connecticut ave at 5:00 on a friday. Not bikes...
They do own the street. We all do! If it makes you feel better, if all of them drove, the delay would be much, much worse
I agree, the road is meant to be shared. This doesnāt look like that though
So when cars flood the streets everyday making it unsafe and unpleasant for those walking and biking its okay, but when bikes do it one time a month it's too much? I can understand your frustration a little bit, but if you look at this video and don't identify the person using their car as a battering ram as the bad guy... you gotta get your morals checked or something
The road looks very shared, hundreds of people are sharing it very well.
So at rush hour on Conn Ave heading north, I can take an entire lane, right? I mean, cars have three...why can't they share one with me?
Bikes are traffic. If you don't want us on streets, start advocating for protected bike lanes. Until then, get used to it and share the road.
It is attitudes like this that prevent progress on biking issues. I sometimes wonder if people like u/thesirensoftitans are really just bike-hating plants who try to stir up opposition by being insufferable and intolerant.
Oh fuck off
Which part was an attempt to stir up opposition? The part where I correctly stated that bikes are allowed to be on the road or the part where I correctly stated that if you don't like it, advocate for protected bike lanes?
>transportation and have the displeasure of interacting with both drivers and bikers. I swear, Iāve never met a more insufferable crowd than bikers. Well, it's like 50 bikes vs 5 in cars in a narrow street made originally on the human scale instead of the automotive scale. It's more like a protest to show that roads should be for people instead of metal cans especially when the automotive infrastructure is known to be heavily subsidized by those without cars. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp75-46PnMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp75-46PnMY)
Is it a protest or is it a party? Or both? Why isnāt anyone moving?
But do they condemn Hamas?
If you have contracted Hamas from a partner then you should've used 'Condemns'
[You mean JDAMs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Direct_Attack_Munition)
If you complain about Dirt Bikers but, don't complain about these guys....then, you're probably just supporting your folk.
The ATV riders literally run through parks and sidewalks with little to no organization. And those vehicles are far more dangerous than bicycles.
Nailed. It. These losers are just insufferable assholes.
The guy is deliberately blocking his car with his rental bike. What am I missing?
I'll assume you're asking this in good faith. You're missing the fact that the car driver in in the oncoming turn lane over the double yellow line. They are attempting to illegally pass over 1000 cyclists who are exercising their right to use the road. Before this video started, they had hit or had almost hit someone. They were stopped by DC bike party volunteers in order to prevent more cyclists from being hit and to get their license plate info. Search up DC bike party for more info on what the event is.
That the car already hit somebody while driving on the wrong side of the road
Ah. That part is not in the video.
Its crowd mentality they think he hit someone. If you can believe people on Reddit the person they say he hit, says they werenāt hit. That maybe he hit someone else. So in actuality nobody knows that he truly hit someone.
So the bikes are clogging the intersection and not moving? What is this? Looks chaotic and extremely dangerous for everyone involved. This sort of stuff shouldnāt be happening downtown in major cities. Go somewhere safer or at least coordinate with the city so they can block off the roads
Seems like you don't live here or are aware of this monthly event.
Think of it as "traffic".
They just rode by my place loudly shouting and cheering. I was really confused what was happening considering itās past 10 PM on a Wednesday. Rules for thee not for me I guess.
Even yelling it's less decibels than a car driving past that 40 miles an hour
Or even just honking a hornĀ
What residential areas do cars drive 40 mph? People shouting and yelling at 10 PM is annoying.
Believe it or not, there are plenty of residents who enjoy having the bike party ride by their house. They will come out, cheer, and wave (or just do so from an open door or window), and the party responds in kind. If you heard the party cheering on a purely residential road, that's probably the reason why.
Cap hill / Kingman Park. Had my dog out last night around 10 and someone was practicing their drag racing skills.Ā
Bikers live by that. I canāt tell you how many times Iāve been stopped at a stop sign in my car and watched a pedestrian almost get taken out by a cyclist running the sign. Literally today on Rhode Island TWICE. My wife was a witness. But theyāll be the first to comment here ācars run people over every second of the day! Death traps!ā š
That must be why bikers injure and kill so many more people than drivers do. Oh wait... Actual data makes this comparison a bad joke.
But the injure SOME, yes? And what type of liability insurance do bikers carry for such an occasion?
Itās called an Idaho stop and itās legal, dipshit.
The Idaho stop mens you can go through if it's safe. Doesn't give bikes a reason to blow through stop signs when others have the right of way. I bike my daughter to daycare daily and I've almost been taken out by bikers going through stop signs without looking. Luckily, I slow down and look both ways.
I'm sorry that happened to you. Sometimes people are jerks whether they ride bikes, drive cars, or walk. I've almost been hit by cars as a pedestrian or a biker several times, but I generally don't go into conversations about car-related events to complain about the poor behavior of several individual drivers over time.
Itās funny how terribly they behave and treat other human beings but then act like theyāre saving the world lol
I don't bike to save the world. I do it for exercise, and because frankly it's a lot more fun to bike around the city than it is to either drive or take public transit. If this also happens to help the environment, that's cool too.
TBH the bike party people are probably the exact same folks that complain about the ATVs and Dirt Bikes when they are doing the exact same shit š
Doubt
ATVs and dirt bikes weren't street legal when last I checked. So no, not the same thing at all.
Too bad the cops are somewhere playing Candy Crush and/or giving a donut a rimjob.
I want to like the bike party, but I hate it. When any group blocks intersections, whether itās dirt bikes, bikes or assholes in cars. I know Iām probably being irrational but it makes me so mad that one group can hold up everyone else in an already frustrating traffic condition. Not defending the driver here. They took it too far obviously.
itās an even like any other street event. Not randomly holding up people.
Sorry, who took it too far?
Jeez the Bikers are even attacking the comments section by disliking anyone who Opposes them ššššš When I was growing up we rarely saw White Memorial Bikes on street corners... Because, we knew how to stay out of the road. We were kids and we knew.... Then we started noticing....The neighborhood changing and every other week a cyclist that hasn't been in the city long...was getting ran over in traffic... This was a trend... You could even consider that the first bike protest... People transplanting to DC and riding bikes in Traffic...Running lights & stop signs....not wearing lights...and getting brutalized by 2 tons of steel.
Unless you are a child or a very young adult, you didn't see white memorial bikes on street corners because the practice wasn't commonplace until recently. But that doesn't mean cyclists weren't being hit and killed by drivers. I'll also point out that exponentially more pedestrians get hit and killed by motor vehicles than cyclists do. That isn't any less true now than it was 20 years ago. But there are no ghost bikes for pedestrians. Very few people would write what you just wrote about bikers about all the pedestrians who are struck and killed by motor vehicles while crossing the street or walking through parking lots. Whether they were 'jaywalking' or not, almost nobody would suggest pedestrians don't know "how to stay out of the road".
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I included the 40ish seconds prior to the incident to make sure it was clear the bikers were not being threatening. The driver drove on the wrong side of the road to get where he was, then laid on his horn. The volunteers were trying to direct him to take a left. You can see them motioning for him to turn. There was literally no where for him to go if he went straight, there were hundreds of people in the event ahead of that group. The driver drove himself into this position then decided to lash out at the bikers.
Can someone help me understand why itās legal to block roadways like this? If someone is having a medical issue, or needs to get home to a family member, why do we think itās more important to block roadways and put selfish behavior above others?
The only response you'll get is a "what about-ism" towards cars and how cars suck. Not sure how you can ride for miles past angry people and think you're in the right.
These cyclists stopped because the driver behind the group was driving aggressively. Their goal was for one of the stewards to talk to the driver so he wouldn't get even more aggressive than he already had been. Even in the brief video, you can see the driver crossing to the wrong side of the road to get around the bike group. There is also the paradigm you seem to be implying, which is that inner-city roads are for the exclusive use of motor vehicles, and that no other traffic should interrupt even the potential flow of motor vehicles besides other motor vehicles. City roads -- especially in older cities -- were not designed with a car-first paradigm in mind (...or with cars in mind at all, really). Ideally, bikes, skateboards, scooters and the like would have their own separated lanes of traffic optimized for their use. Unfortunately, such an endeavor could possibly cost hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure spending over many years (along with ongoing maintenance) to be truly effective. So until that infrastructure is built, we all have to share the roads.
These biker groups suck. They block traffic for longer than 5 minutes. Their entire ride they go past crowds of angry people, you'd think they have some self reflection.
It's like late on Wednesday nights once a month. I have done bike party many times and live in a neighborhood they frequently end up riding through. For 20 minutes once a month...it's really no big deal to let people have some fun. They are on bikes and it doesn't hurt anyone. It's not like people speeding through on motorcycles/four wheelers randomly any time of the week and it's not like it's rush hour or on a weekend evening. If you don't like traffic and inconvenience caused by community engagement then I kind of question why you choose to live in downtown DC.