From our We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us Dept. comes this story from The Boston Globe about scofflaw cyclists. Multiple reporters spent a week watching cyclists violate traffic laws, from running red lights to riding against traffic to cycling on sidewalks.
It’s an interesting deployment of resources for a struggling newspaper, in that this can’t exactly be considered a major story — renegade cyclists flouting traffic laws hardly qualifies as news, period — but the story already had 367 comments by the time I saw it Saturday morning, so it certainly qualifies as a revenue-generator. Ask the wizards at VeloNews.com, where the least newsworthy Radio Shackstrong story draws eyeballs like a dead hog draws flies.
This isn’t the first of these “investigative reports” I’ve seen, and I expect it won’t be the last. So let’s be careful out there, eh? People are watching.
Mad Blog Media 
It was really interesting to look at the comments — an article like this is red meat to the “let’s run over all them goddam unamerican faggot Lance Armstrong wannabes in their f’in lycra” crowd, but the commentary is almost all measured and somewhat sensible. I see a few comments have been removed by the editorial staff, but if you were to publish such an article in (say) Dallas (or possibly even Bibleburg) the reaction would have been much different. Boston has a great many lowlifes, but they’re a particular New England breed and tend not to have necks that reflect most strongly toward the long-wavelength end of the visible spectrum, if you get my drift.
Yes, but are there any Beantown Transit cops throwing awesome hipchecks to stop cyclists? Nope, but subway thieves yes. Check the Globe for that story from Friday. Just a month and a half until the preseason starts…..
What is it about an article on bikes on roads that were obviously designed for motorized traffic to get the keyboards a-clicking? On one side, most bike types have rather thin skins and are sensitive to the slightest harsh look; on the other, most folks driving land yachts hate to slow down for half a millisecond to go around anything on two wheels.
Seems that articles on bicyclists are a red flag to some. Its a guarantee of getting hits (or as Patrick puts it, revenue generation) on the Intertubes. Here in FantaSe Land, the endless shit-fests on the New Mexican version of Topix are about gay marriage or illegal immigration.
As far as I can tell, its the usual suspects (lots of time, no meaningful life) cutting loose and the discourse is about as intellectually meaningful as a brawl in a waterfront bar.
I’ve tried to avoid those discussions lately. As someone once said, don’t get into a wrestling match with a pig. You just get dirty and frustrated while the pig loves it.
As someone with decades of commuting by bike under my belt, I’m all for nailing the assholes. Most cyclists can’t be bothered to obey even the most basic of traffic laws, and they make me, the safer, effective cyclist look bad to car drivers. Result? No respect from car drivers, unpleasant conversations, etc. I’ve never understood why the cops don’t enforce traffic laws on cyclists. A little bit of ticketing would go a long way toward resolving the problem. Maybe these articles will spur on Boston’s finest to take some action.