Both the Sunday NY Times and the SMN had articles about cycling on the front pages of their lifesytle sections (Sunday Styles and Accent respectively). The premise: there are more bikes on the road these days, many bikes on the road belong to bike commuting novices, people who drive cars are annoyed.

Before I get into the rest of this post I just gotta say, ugh. This is not an issue for the fashion and style pages.

The SMN article offered new cyclists tips on “how to share the road and enjoy a safe ride,” complete with color photo illustrations of hand signals. The NYT article (titled “Moving Targets”) focused on nationwide incidents of auto-agression directed at cyclists as well as the bad driving habits of some cyclists.

While the SMN article didn’t seem to acknowledge that auto drivers also need to beef up on their road sharing and safety skills, I was happy to see our local paper putting it out there (even in the style section!). Ongoing education that reaches all segments of the two and four wheel driving population is so important. There is a lot of bad behavior on both sides . . .

Top 5 Bad 4-Wheel Driving Behavior
1. Hit and Run
2. Running a cyclist off the road
3. Yelling obsenities out the window or honking when passing a cyclist
4. Making a right turn in front of a cyclist & generally not looking out
5. Acting all annoyed and making a big show of speeding up when passing a cyclist

Top 5 Bad 2-Wheel Riding Behavior
1. Driving as if autos are actually looking out for you
2. Not following the rules of the road: running stop signs & traffic lights, not signaling
3. Riding on the wrong side of the street or on the sidewalk
4. Not yielding to pedestrians (same goes for 4 wheelers)
5. Not wearing a helmet (because brain damage just isn’t sexy people)