Armistice proposed between pedestrians, cyclists

Raise your hand if you don't want to run over a pedestrian! — Raise your hand if you don’t want to run over a pedestrian!

Who’s the more rightfully aggrieved population in New York City, cyclists or pedestrians? The question will never be answered, and probably because it doesn’t have a correct answer. Well, outside of “blame drivers for everything.” But in an effort to bridge the gap and unite against the common enemy that is the car, Slate got a cyclist and a pedestrian to sit down and discuss ways in which they could be less annoyed at each other. They came up with 5 rules for each side to follow, here’s a couple we took an interest in.

FOR PEDESTRIANS

-Stay out of the bike lanes: we’re glad they included this. You wouldn’t walk in the street, would you? No, you’d die probably. So why walk or stand in a part of the road that’s carved out for other fast-moving vehicles that can only mildly injure you instead of killing you?

-Check before opening your cab door: getting doored is terrible, most of all because it’s so damn avoidable. Plus, if you door a cyclist, you could knock him into traffic and get him further injured.

FOR CYCLISTS

-Stay off the sidewalks: fellow cyclists, come on now. It’s one thing to pull up on the curb if it’s right in front of where you’re going. But if you ride your bike through throngs of pedestrians in their domain, you could hurt someone. Frankly, they should be legally allowed to shove you over.

-Careful running that red: it’s one thing to go through a red light on your bike carefully. In fact, you shouldn’t be blowing through them recklessly anyway, because you can get yourself killed. But you’re also more likely to injure someone crossing the street when they have every right to. So slow down, coast to the red, and then if things are clear, proceed through. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

There are some more rules at Slate’s article, so check them out and we can potentially put an ened to a feud that’s only slightly less intense than the Israelis versus the Palestinians.