I'm torn. On one hand, I feel I should applaud anyone who chooses to ride their bike instead of driving their car. Getting physically fit while taking carbon dioxide out of the air is a double whammy of all around goodness.

But Austin bike riders can be a tad bit self-centered. Just a tad. Is that a stop sign in front of me? Why, I think I'll run it. Is is pitch black outside? Yes it is, I'll ride my bike down the second busiest road near campus without so much as a visible reflector on my bike.

Sigh. Last night, I was stopped at a traffic light awaiting the green light so I could turn left. As I'm halfway through my turn, I see a biker racing through a red light and towards my car. It's too late. I realize it's too late and continue driving, hoping he'll turn ever so slightly and miss my car completely. He realizes its too late and lays his bike down.

Realizing that I should stop and see if he's okay, I pull over and go to the intersection to help him move his bike out of the way.

He seemed pretty shaken up by it all. He must have been going the speed limit (30 mph), so he really hit the ground pretty hard when he decided to lay down his bicycle. Luckily, he got off relatively easy with a slightly scraped elbow and one heckuva charlie horse on his leg. If I had been a second later in my turn, I either would have hit him with the front of my car or he would have not had the time to lay down his bike and he would have probably flipped over my car.

I felt really bad about the whole thing.

The cops came out and made a police report. Under most other circumstances, this would have completely been my fault and I would have been given a ticket for "failure to yield" on my left turn. But since he didn't have any reflectors of any kind on his bike (including the required blinking white light on the front and blinking red light on the back) and since he ran a red light, it's his fault too.

We traded insurance information, but I'm really not sure that anyone's going to be contacted. There was literally a firehouse right across the street, so a couple of paramedics gave him a little look over. An ambulance was called, but he denied formal medical care, so I'm not sure if his charlie horse is going to turn into something worse.

His bike was basically fine, but needs a little tweaking on the back and handle bar to get it back to normal. Because it was both our faults, I'm willing to pay for half of his repairs. I think he may be expecting me to pay for all of it.

It just makes me angry about the whole thing that I even have to deal with this situation in the first place.

As I said, I'm greatly appreciative of bikers taking the physically fit and environmentally conscious route, but follow the fucking rules.

Bikers and car drivers have a hate-hate relationship in Austin. Motorists are always getting upset that bikers are driving down Lamar, clearly in the road, clearly slowing down traffic to a near standstill as we try to go around. Bikers I'm sure hate motorists for assuming that the roads are made specifically for cars, buses, and nothing else.

But I'd be willing to bet that most motorists follow the rules of the regulations of the road on a 60% accuracy level. Maybe even more than that. I bet that 20% of bikers ride according to the rules of the road. Maybe even less than that. Most bikers don't have reflectors on their bikes and treat stop signs as suggestions.

Oh well. Rant over.

- Matthew