You can be neither.
Bicycling on the sidewalk is something that needs to be addressed by
the City as part of an expanded bike program: most specifically, bike
operation lessons for kids and wide adult education. (It'd probably
help if SFPD bike officers stayed off the sidewalk, and if other SFPD
officers didn't occasionally instruct bikes to keep off the street.)
>I am ... blamed for running over bicycles that are
>violating traffic controls when I am operating correctly.
When, when has this happened? This doesn't sound like a reference to
any recent event I know about.
>I would have more respect for bicyclists if they respected
>traffic laws and controls.
Supervisor Barbara Kaufman said it this way: "I don't know if I've
ever seen a bicyclist stop at a stop sign or traffic light."
(Reported in the Chron, Ex, and Bay Guardian.)
It's very hard for me to assess comments like these. Your
"respect[ing] traffic controls" could mean many different things.
Kaufman's assertion is like most political speech, a memorable
combination of CYA ignorance ("I don't know") and easily disproved
hyperbole ("ever").
Both comments, though, indicate 1) an observable common behavior
among *some* people on bikes, which I don't deny!!!!! and 2)
discriminatory perception by *some* people in motor vehicles, which I
hope no one else would deny.
Robert, do you have counts of how many bikes you encounter, and how
many of them violate traffic controls?
/ dtp /
-- David Powers san francisco ca usa fax 415 436.9141
chromo@sirius.com <http://www.sirius.com/~chromo/screed/> --
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