Bike Police

Biking in this morning I was already on alert for the bike police around the UW since I had heard that they were hiding near the two new blinking stops signs on the Burke. When I reached the sign for the crossing at Brooklyn (which was not blinking today) I did the closest thing to a track stand that I can manage and waited for a car to pass. The nice lady on her cruiser style commuter bike did not stop and rolled through. Low and behold there they were on their mountain bikes on the other side in the grass. They pulled the lady over to reprimand her. I didn't stay for what they had to say or if they gave her a ticket, but I felt very bad for this person who is simply trying to do her part and not clog our streets with traffic.

There is the importance of safety and education for people on their bikes but I believe that if you post the stop signs most of these people on their bikes also drive and can read and will most likely understand the concept of a stop sign. If they then choose to ignore it and roll through they either are taking a risk that they have chosen or have enough common sense to know when stopping (i.e. when the several 1000lbs object is not going to stop and they will get squished) or when rolling through is safe (i.e. lack of vehicles on the road or these vehicles yielding.) Really if they make a bad choice unfortunately they will get hurt in most cases but the innocent driver just minding there own business while talking on the cell phone (or texting or checking the traffic alerts on their smart phones) will be unscathed. OK they could have some scratches on their car, but that is about it.

I am all for following the laws and rules but I also believe that people need to take responsibility for themselves and their choices and we don't need this extra policing by a third party. If the lady flew through without looking making a car screech to a halt and then she almost ran over a baby, then by all means pull her over and give her hell, but that is not what they are doing. It is like the Mercer Island issue and drivers in general that think that stopping is putting a foot down no matter what the circumstance. I see cars and motorcycles roll through stop signs all the time, we all do. The fact is that so many people do that they would need to keep a cop at every stop sign to enforce "the rules". Not practical and the majority of the time people are safe, we by nature don't want to get hit by someone or hit anyone.

These cops would be much better utilized if they would stop the runner with the headphones on that flips a Uey on the trail with out looking or the group of walkers that spread out over the trail blocking traffic in both direction. Educate not ticket, remind anyone who is not sharing the trail that it is a shared commuting thoroughfare (yes, this would include cyclist). That would require these bike cops to actually ride up and down the trail encountering all the users and vehicles the real trail users have to contend with daily. Maybe then they would be more aware of what should be addressed as unsafe and what is reasonable for a person on a bike to do safely. Hiding in the bushes waiting to catch those rouge cyclists who don't follow the rules is not the best incentive for getting the average joe to bike to work or making it any safer for the rest of the tail users.