This was a Critical Mass event, which is why the bicyclists are taking up all of the street as a way to reclaim the streets and protest the lack of safety for riders under usual conditions. It’s not legal, but protests are never useful if they’re fully legal now, are they.
She definitely should have either stopped or gone a different route, but it is incredibly dangerous to cycle head onto incoming motor traffic. Not really a great look for the cyclists.
Better off staying in the correct lane but hogging it so vehicles had no choice but to stay behind.
Yes the bicycleist are wrong and are only hurting the cause. What if the lady had to get to work with no orher way, or what the hell they do if there was emergency that ambulance needed access. Riding bike on wrong side of the road just makes them assholes. If you don’t know its a protest it ineffective. Besides protesting late at night is also dumb. This isn’t a protest, just bicycles wanting to be dicks.
I’m guessing they would get out of the way?
Protests need to make sure that no one is ever inconvenienced or made uncomfortable. That way people can just ignore it and we can all feel better about ourselves
Be idealist all you want. If you try to convince someone to join or support your cause by angering them, it won’t work. You form enemies, not allies.
If the purpose of this was to make the bikers feel good while turning people against bikers, I’m sure it worked. This protest isn’t going to make someone in a car 30 minutes late and think “hey those cyclists just going through red lights, the wrong way, making me late, they got a real good point.”
People need to be realistic and realize that whimsical ideals don’t seamlessly translate to reality.
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I never drive a car you moron. The last time I was even in a car was like 3 months ago. How about you?
What an absolute embarrassment of a bad take. You people are just so eager to fight everyone you insult people who want the same thing. That’s why you end up with pointless, performative protests like this that change nothing. If you were interested in having people join your cause you wouldn’t be attacking anyone who doesn’t shut up and nod along.
How about you stop making wild, dumb ass assumptions about people who disagree with you all because you don’t know how to process your emotions. Wake up.
You are the white moderate MLK warned was worse the Klan members.
Not wanting people to drive bikes into traffic and through red lights makes me racist and worse than KKK? That’s a reason to bring up race and go after my skin color? Damn you are racist AF…
You live in a fantasy world and are doing nothing but use the actions and words of great people to push your nonsense agenda. You should be ashamed.
No, it doesn’t make you racist. You’re just showing the same moral failings as the white moderates MLK warned us about. You prefer an unjust peace to any struggle for justice. If you were in 1940s Germany, and you were stopped at a train track watching cattle cars full of people being taken to death camps, your only complaint would be that the train was blocking your path.
It’s wild that you can claim to know exactly what I would do. A smart man would know better than to make such strong assumptions about someone’s character.
Your logic doesn’t hold up because this isn’t a struggle for justice. This is people driving head on into traffic through a red light. By your warped world view I can do anything I want and say it’s for a cause, and if you disagree you just want unjust peace.
This is paper thin logic hanging onto a concept you don’t fully understand.
That’s why the best protests are done by leaving a very mildly offensive joke on mastodon.
Can you explain?
Sarcasm.
Oh, oops, thank you. I got stuck imagining that you were referring to something that actually worked 😂 hoo boy not my shining moment.
So the neat thing about ambulances, and other emergency vehicles, is they have flashing lights AND sierns to let people know they are there.
And protesters always swiftly move to create a path for emergency vehicles.
That’s been my experience, bikes also clear out way faster than cars.
Pretty much, more or less, yah.
I agree, crowds of protesters are far more observant than drivers. I’ve seen ambulances stuck in new York traffic before
This guy has a picture of it happening once, in another country, with people stationary on foot, it has to be true. Unless there is a picture floating around out there of people not moving… That would blow this whole thing up.
God, anecdotal evidence is such brain rot.
Nobody thinks this proves anything. If you think that is what is happening, tend to your own brain rot.
This is evidence supporting an argument, not evidence proving an argument. Feel free to provide contrary evidence.
Oh look, more brain rot.
I can find images of people not moving. That would go against the argument. My point is, cherry picking one or two instances of something proves only that it can happen. Not that it does.
I mean I Googled “protesters blocking emergency vehicles” and got tons of results. So what we a exactly does that picture prove? It happened once? Cool.
Very first result, incase you need it. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/just-stop-oil-waterloo-bridge-ambulance-b2443700.html
was that so hard?
close; it proves it DID happen, which necesarily implies it DOES happen. You are right to object that a single genuine datapoint (or as you like to spin it, “anecdote”) cannot say anything about frequency, but I really have to steelman what you are saying to get there.
The protesters weren’t the one blocking the ambulance. The cars were, and the cops didn’t do anything to alleviate that so the ambulance could get through the cars and to the protesters who would’ve let it through anyway.
You should read the entire article when you try to do a gotcha.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/just-stop-oil-waterloo-bridge-ambulance-b2443700.html
There ya go. I forget some people don’t know how Google works and need to be spoon fed. But a picture with 0 context or information, you just eat that right up huh? Don’t question something that supports what you want to be true. Lol
What a spectacular photo.
And bikes are more agile and capable of getting out of the way than cars are
It’s a protest not a rally.
Be glad they’re not carrying bricks.
Then she would have to pull over and wait 10-15 minutes for them to pass. Geez.
In an emergency there would be lights and ee-oo-ee-oo and the bikers would definitely part to let the emergency vehicle.
Literally about 30 seconds, not 10 minutes lol
I’m with you. I get this is a protest, but I don’t protest gun violence against kids by parading them down a firing range. Taking up the whole road can result in you getting hurt, it doesn’t matter what should be our what your ideals are. It’s a road for cars and behaving like this increases the chance that someone gets hurt.
On top of that this does what every protest that interrupts traffic does, makes people dislike you and your cause.
“I don’t protest racial injustice by going to a segregated lunch counter. That could get you hurt.”
-Lightor, c. 1960.
Oh look, a second baseless comment using the racism as a weapon to silence people you disagree with.
Do better. Be better.
Lightor, 1960:
Yeah I get it, people who disagree with your are Nazis. It’s called a thought stopping technique. It allows you to dismiss my view point without having to think about it or engage with the content of it, which would risk you having to change your world view. It’s much easier to think you’re always right and calm anyone who disagrees with you a Nazi.
You don’t live in reality with the rest of us bud.
It’s a metaphor
A poor one that makes a ton of assumptions about my character and what I would do during Nazi Germany all because I said that this isn’t an effective way to gain supporters… Really?
It’s functionally identical. The lane is occupied. Motorists cannot enter it, whether the cyclists are facing them or not.
It’s not functionally identical, the function of the right lane is to move traffic in the opposite direction to the left. It would be absolute carnage if every other vehicle decided to disregard the rules of the road and use any lane they want because it would make it theirs.
Of course the traffic in their own lane has to stop when others are breaking the rules of the road as you don’t want to hurt anyone, but it’s still dangerous and stupid to ride a bike into oncoming traffic.
It is not.
Cars follow the rules of traffic. This means you know basically what they will do. These people are just a mob. Look at how many of those bikes just cross solid lines. This is no where near the same. We can’t make progress if we start acting irrationally.
Also, cars don’t drive on the wrong side of the road into traffic and through red lights.
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Sorry to hear any your friend but it doesn’t change reality. Your friend was following the rules and got hurt. Clearly that upsets you, as it should, they were doing what they should. But I find it interesting that when cyclists do that exact same thing and break traffic rules, putting people in danger, you find them blameless. It seems no matter what you want to blame drivers.
Sure does sound like a group of people are smooth brained and full of themselves.
P. S. Before trying to make some baseless accusations you should know I bike and electric scooter almost everywhere. The last time I was in a car was months ago. I don’t like how cars treat bikers, but this just makes the problem worse.
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This is such a false equivalency. Both cars disobeying traffic laws and cyclists disobeying traffic laws can result in death.
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Yes, a car driving the wrong way on a road is more dangerous than a bike doing it, but a bike doing it can still cause an accident by them getting hit or causing a car to swerve.
Additionally, there are numerous pro-bike laws in place to protect bikers and ensure their safety. Your us vs them mindset is causing you to ignore reality.