It's been written many times that we are a society of laws, not men.

With respect to my cycling cohorts, you are a vehicle, and you aren't helping when you don't obey traffic controls.

Please don't decide for yourself which laws you're going to obey. It's bad for the rest of us.

Stoping at a sign or light is good for your health. Every cyclist that is killed running a controlled intersection has two things in common: (1) They thought they'd see the car that killed them. (2) They're dead.

everyone decides which laws they obey. sometimes there are good reasons for disobeying laws, sometimes it's simply convenience. but to get on a moral high horse about "obeying the law" when a goodly portion of those laws as written suck turds, is breathtakingly naive and incredibly stupid.
the standard rejoinder to this is "well, then change the law." and personally, i'm trying in the ways i can. yes, i run lights and stop signs, with greater regard given to my personal safety than to my convenience and momentum. but to assert that my lawbreaking behavior endangers you, merely because we are both on bikes, is not in any way a compelling argument, as it is based in self-righteousness.

you can go ahead and obey the law as you see fit. i'll do the same.

also, your quote is wrong. it is "we are a GOVERNMENT of laws, not of men." strangely enough, uttered by the Man Who Pardoned Nixon, Gerry Ford.

well, gerry wasnt the first. originally john adams. "i believe in a government of laws, not of men"

society is made up of people. government is made up of laws. thats the difference.

Lets not forget too that more bikes on the road are good for drivers.

More bikes means:
-less traffic since bikes take up less room on the road.
-less pollution.
-more available parking spaces.

I have not owned a car since 1987. I am a bike rider for 20 years in SF. I think there should be a bike speed limit on the panhandle. Often bikes fly down the bike path as though they were in a race, 30, 40 miles an hour, buzzing pedestrians, elderly, and women with baby strollers, missing them by mere inches. It is an accident waiting to happen if it hasn't already. We must stop these selfish maniacs before they kill. I am as reckless as they come and even I have had enough which says a lot....

Anten--

You're certainly right, but remember this: orders of maginitude more pedestrians are killed by cars than by bikes. Should steps be taken to slow bike traffic on the Panhandle? Absolutely. But first, let's take on the much larger problem of motorist misbehavior. Pedestrians are at much, much greater risk from motorists than bikes, and to divert law enforcement resources from traffic enforcement directed at cars puts everybody at risk.

By the way, there are two paths on the Panhandle; the southern one's pedestrians-only--no bikes. If pedestrians are feeling menaced by bikes, they have an option. Bikers feeling menaced by cars have, alas, few options...

Human paraquat, a defoliant used to eradicate Mexican marijuana plants in the 1970s that is toxic if inhaled in smoke? Unclear on that analogy.

The panhandle bike path is the only class 1 bike facility--one where cyclists and autos are not in competition--in town to speak of. Strollers and dog leashes should be banned from the north pathway in the panhandle.

I'll use it heading west, but for heading east, it is very easy to keep up with traffic on Oak, as it is a slight downhill grade with the wind at your back and timed lights. If you wait for the Green at Stanyan or Shrader, you can make it to Pierce or even Steiner and further at the speed limit.

After Broderick it begins to get hairy as you approach Divisadero, but you can center stripe it and generally make it through passing most cars you'd just cruised the panhandle with.

Cars cause the most damage, cyclists cause a few orders of magnitude less damage and peds generally only damage themselves. Law enforcement should be structured proportionately to check observed dangers, not to promote cop suburban autocentric sensibilities.

More and more cars are cool to ceding the ROW to bikes so that we can conserve our momentum, esp when hills are involved. The main dangers to cyclists are along the city street freeway feeders where motorists have yet to decompress from their high speed drives.

-marc