"Yesterday while awheel on the Ironic Orange Julius Bike, I stopped for a red light at a busy downtown Manhattan intersection. Despite my total lack of tweed and my overall contemporary appearance, I must have cut an approachable figure, because I was approached by a fellow cyclist on an SE Draft or Lager or Pilsner or similar.
"Will the police give me a ticket for going through a red light?," she asked.
I assured them that they could, and if they felt like it they most certainly would.
"How much is the fine?"
I explained it was in the low three figures, which she found shocking. "Have you ever gotten a ticket for this?," she wanted to know.
I assured her that I had.
At this point I detected a European accent of some kind, and it was clear from her tone that she was shocked by our city's draconian traffic laws laws. She next pointed to the lime green bike lane upon which we stood.
"What about here? What if I ride against traffic? Will they give me a ticket for that?"
I explained that this too might potentially result in a ticket; moreover, it would also result in irritating other cyclists such as myself, as well as possibly cause her to be hit by a car.
This she simply laughed off, as if the notion of a motor vehicle reducing her and her SE to a twisted, bloody, hi-ten wreck was totally impossible. She then exclaimed proudly, "I'm Dutch!"
Ah, yes. We American cyclists are constantly subjected to stories of the cycling paradise which is Holland, where people pedal happily to and fro on bicycles without fear of injury, and where drivers are not only required to yield to cyclists but also to exit their vehicles and supplicate themselves before them, and where the junkies wash and detail riders' bikes instead of stealing them. Nothing bad could possibly happen to a Dutch person on a bicycle--in Holland. But New York City is another story. So I explained to her that while she may be Dutch that most of the drivers around her are not, and thus she might want to refrain from bike-salmoning.
At this point she clearly dismissed me as a curmudgeonly fussbudget, which I most assuredly am. However, this does not alter the fact that the vast majority of drivers in New York City are not Dutch--especially the cab drivers. They hail from places as disparate as Queens, New Jersey, Pakistan, and Somalia, but they all share two things in common: they will not hesitate to flatten a cyclist faster than you can say "unfortunate smelting accident;" and they certainly won't stop beforehand to make sure you're not Dutch.
Of course, the truth is that I was less concerned with her safety than I was about having to dodge yet another bike salmon. After all, visitors from abroad should at least be considerate of the locals. It's not like when we go to Amsterdam we take lots of drugs, knock on the prostitutes' windows while making obscene tongue gestures, and generally act like idiots. Actually, that's completely untrue--I've seen entire American families in Amsterdam do exactly that. But it's not as bad as bike-salmoning.
Still, it's not surprising. There's a rich tradition of Europeans coming to America and telling us what to do. The Dutch used to own Manhattan after all."
http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2009...odynamics.html
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