A recent post I mentioned that I would follow up with my irritation with Arizona cyclists. In that post I mentioned the insane practice that is widespread of cycling on the sidewalks, that greatly increases the hazards to people walking.
Today, I am going to grumble about cyclists who are unfamiliar with the rules of the road.
First, I grew up in California, at a time when the schools were well funded (that is, before Proposition 13), and we all learned to use hand signals properly. Just like in a car, you use your left arm to signal intent. Up for right turn,straight out for left turn, and down for stop. Easy peasy, except here in Arizona, people seem to use their right arms to signal right turns, their left arm to signal left turns, and some other hand-wavy things that make no sense.
Second, I continue to see cyclists completely ignore stop signs. As a cyclist, I sometimes slow to an “almost” stop, then move on, and I feel bad about that. But here, I see cyclists not even making an effort to stop. They look to whether there is cross traffic, make the decision to just blow through it, and do it. Crazy.
And you wonder why many car drivers get pissed off at cyclists.