BOSTON – It is a troubled relationship on a rocky road. Cyclists don’t feel respected, and they want some space: bike lanes . Drivers don’t particularly love change or sharing: the road.
They can both have tempers. Michelle from Somerville has witnessed it. “Bikers and cars start yelling at each other… And that’s not fun. I do genuinely want everyone to get along.”
How can cyclists, drivers safely coexist?
Admitting- and addressing- bad behavior would be a start. In the first 30 seconds of shooting this story we saw a guy on a bike with grocery bags hanging from his handlebars and another guy pedaling with no hands haphazardly through the middle of Davis Square in Somerville. Mostly, we saw cyclist after cyclist running red lights.
“It drives me absolutely crazy. I don’t do it. I tell others not to do it,” said Joshua Zisson. Zisson rides his bike to work every day. He’s a lawyer who also blogs about bike safety.
“In Massachusetts the legislature has given cyclists a full right to the road. They can go anywhere in the lane that a car can go. They can go anywhere on the roads that a car can go, except for highways,” Zisson said.