"Anarchistic Urban Cyclists"

Over at The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan (himself a cyclist) has some links to discussions of cyclists who don't obey the rules of the road: this one, in which he links to a post by Will Wilkinson, kicked things off yesterday. Today, he posts a couple of readers' responses to that post here, and links to an Ezra Klein response to Wilkinson here.

In that second post, one of Sullivan's readers gets things right:

Cyclists often seem to want to have it both ways: to ignore rules of the road, but then also to complain that cars don't give them no respect. It seems obvious that the rules of the road are a common language that in the end ensure the greatest safety for the greatest number of people.

I'd just amend that, based on almost being run down today on a sidewalk by two cyclists riding two abreast, to include pedestrians somewhere in all this.

All this echoes something I mentioned in a comment over here:

As for the idea of bike-friendliness: Probably more important than infrastructure changes, there also needs to occur a sort of consciousness-raising--and among cyclists (who need to observe the basic rules of the road) as much as among motorists.

What else to say? Bikers can't merely expect to be shown respect because they've asked for it loudly. They need to show through their own actions that they have earned and deserve that respect.