error

only trouble makers ride bikes!

TROUBLE MAKERS?-I am a bike messenger in Downtown L.A. We have no rights, We can't ride in the street or on the sidewalk, Police hassle us daily, ticket us while we work, and we haul ass on these streets which are now the grounds of demonstrations on every issue of oppression, its like saying all activist are anarchist, just like the call to action, brought all here to our city to practice their political right and to express thier right to the first ammendment WE TOO need to be heard not just run over...Long after the DNC and and all the actions will be history I will still be here riding rain or shine...

only trouble makers drive cars, think about it. If no one drove cars would OXy have any reason to drill in Uwa lands, we have met the enemy and it is us

Leslie - Perhaps you should check the California DMV for the laws on bicyclists. You are most certainly allowed to ride in the streets, but you are also governed by the same traffic rules as motorized vehicles. The problem I think you are having is that the majority of bicycle messengers in downtown do not obey traffic laws and are a constant hazard to pedestrians and drivers as well as themselves. I work in downtown LA on Bunker Hill and I am sick and tired of having to dodge a bicycle coming at me at 25 mph on the sidewalk where I thought it was safe to walk... Get it? Side-"WALK". I have a very hard time believing that you or your two-wheeled comrades have ever been fined unjustly. But if you have, then I suggest you learn the law. Ignorance will not protect your rights. Save your arguments against the police for a REAL cause and for when you're not breaking the law yourself.

Here's the CVC on bicycles. Looks like LAPD adopted the tactic SFPD used on us in summer '97. Pigs.

21202. (a) Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same directionat that time shall ride as close as practicable to the right-handcurb or edge of the roadway except under any of the following situations:
(1) When overtaking and passing another bicycle or vehicle
proceeding in the same direction.
(2) When preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into aprivate road or driveway.
(3) When reasonably necessary to avoid conditions (including, but not limited to, fixed or moving objects, vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, animals, surface hazards, or substandard width lanes)
that make it unsafe to continue along the right-hand curb or edge, subject to the provisions of Section 21656. For purposes of thissection, a "substandard width lane" is a lane that is too narrow for
a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane.
(4) When approaching a place where a right turn is authorized.
(b) Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway of a highway,
which highway carries traffic in one direction only and has two or more marked traffic lanes, may ride as near the left-hand curb or edge of that roadway as practicable.

Dave, you should be venting your anger at the real target
for both pedestrians and bicyclists: cars! You've obviously
never or at least rarely ever ridden a bicycle and certainly not on a regular basis. The whole point that you've missed, even while you chastised others, ironically, for "ignorance" of the law is that bicyclists have to ride on the sidewalk IN ORDER NOT TO GET KILLED and not because they are set on breaking the law but because CARS ARE IGNORANT OF THE VERY LAWS THAT YOU CITE. Wake up, Dave, cars push bikes off the road and bikes have no other choice but to ride on the sidewalks. If you're angry about that then you should be angry at car drivers who are constantly yelling at bikes to "get off the road." Your clever quip about side-WALK should be directed at idiotic car drivers not wasted on bicyclists. Laws about bikes on the road do no good if the CARS don't obey them. It's ignorance like yours, not of the law but of reality, that is most dangerous.