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.
I cited Critical Mass and documentation about it in my response a lot. I think you might have a lot to learn about the movement based on your reply.
At a parade? One that has permits and works with the city? Yah… lol. Looking into criticall mass is says “These events are spontaneous and unpermitted.” Do you know the difference between a permitted event and one that’s not? Traffic can be re routed, cops can be places to manage traffic. This is not that. On CM it says “The routes of some rides are decided spontaneously by whoever is currently at the front of the ride.” That means anyone can do whatever, causing massive issues with traffic and safety. What a false equivalency.
Looking further into it, they give the reason: The disorganized nature of the event allows it to largely escape clampdown by authorities who may view the rides as forms of parades or organized protest.
So they know it’s dangerous and doesn’t have the permits needed to make it safe, which is why parades and such need them, but they see that as a pro. They basically take to the streets to break the law en masse and inconvenience everyone, including emergency services and they think this will make more people want to support bikers?
This is either being dishonest or not understanding what I said. I’m not talking about an aggregate across the country, I’m talking about dozens doing it at once in such a way that it creates a wall that can cause an accident.
Lol, so cops should just mail tickets to people randomly? You have to catch someone committing a crime to charge them with it. That’s how the law works…
I see plenty of bikers breaking traffic laws too, every week when I ride. None of them get tickets either. Doing the things they do like going across a cross walk when they don’t have the right away, could cause an accident. But you conveniently ignore that and the laws they break.
Not surprised. You can do something for a long time for no reason. CM started in the 1990s. If it’s not pointless, please show me the changes it has pushed or championed. I would love to know all the good work that came from CM aside from performative protesting.
Yah, so they can safely ignore all traffic rules and literally break laws to put on this show. Laws meant to keep people safe. You realize that right?
Also they are literally breaking off to try to control traffic.
From CM: In the Critical Mass practice of “corking”, a rider breaks away from the group to block the side streets of an intersection as the mass crosses. This prevents traffic travelling through the intersection on a green signal and allows the riders to ride through red lights. This both contains cross-traffic while the mass passes and protects the mass from splitting or from drivers who might attempt to pass through the mass.
They are not only unsafely trying to control traffic, they are causing mass congestion, again for no reason but some parade of bikers they decided to do without proper permits. This is such a “look at me, I’m the main character” movement.
Powerful? Sure, but powerful isn’t always positive. I mean take a step back and look at this from a normal persons point of view, someone who is not an avid cyclist. This doesn’t make me think they need more safety or protection; this makes me think they are reckless and a nuisance. This does nothing but make drivers hate bikers more, this doesn’t change minds, at all.
Argh… my browser crashed as I had almost finished my reply. 😱
I’ll condense my points:
Yes, it’s a protest. Just like with protests involving pedestrians, the streets get filled and people “ignore the rules”.
To this point, let me expand on what I mean.
The absence of a ticket does not mean the behaviour doesn’t exist. There are a LOT of motorists who run reds, ignore stop signs, drive over the speed limit, don’t use signals, make illegal turns, park illegally, drive while intoxicated, etc. More than you’d think.
If you set up automated speed cameras, red light cameras, DUI checkpoints, and school zone blitzes, suddenly you realize that it’s more than just a few drivers behaving badly. And that’s during normal traffic, not during a protest.
It’s hard to quantify, because this form of protest operates on many levels:
As with other protests, this is normal. And those traffic rules… are only there because cars make public spaces unsafe. People don’t need traffic rules.
On the flip side, would you prefer that every single cyclist in that group STOP at every single red light and stop sign? I’m a massive fan of that type of malicious compliance, so I’d be OK with that, too.
Man, I don’t even know what to say.
When I see protests, even when I don’t know the motivations or goals, I still respect and value the right to protest.
And if someone “hates cyclists” because of a protest like Critical Mass, they probably hate black people, gays, Palestinians, workers, the disabled, unions, First Nations, environmentalists, animal rights, and other groups of people who deserve to be heard and seen through public protests.