Unlike The Car Whisperer, if the operator of another vehicle yields the right of way to me, and I've satisfied the requirements of the traffic control device or road situation, I'm not going to turn that down if it is safe to do so. Soemtimes it happens that the driver is encouraging me to cross an intersection and other traffic has not evidenced any intention to yield the right of way. That usually results in a driver who shakes their head and is apparently disgusted that their graciousness has been rebuffed. Far be it for me to stay alive on the road. Put me in the camp with the timid pedestrians who have no faith that they won't be struck and injured by brain dead drivers.
In his view, Drivers who give way at inappropriate times are enabling and conditioning bicyclists to not properly obey traffic controls such that cyclists won't stop for pedestrians or begin to assume that other traffic is going to automatically yield for them, despite not having the right of way.
I disagree. I suspect that the same cyclists who don't stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk are the same ones who won't do so when they're driving their car. I don't believe the conveyance in use at the time makes a difference, but rather the attitude of most road users that if you aren't a vehicle, get the hell out of the way.
I think this goes to Brian's recurring point "You drive like shit." Most people who are on the roads seem to have a very superficial familiarity with the rules of the road and even if they know better, have determined through countless examples and repeated reinforcement that driving like shit doesn't have any consequences. If you are never given a ticket for taking a right on red without stopping, breaking the maximum speed limit, rolling through a crosswalk when pedestrians are present or as a cyclist blowing a stop sign or red light, the entire method of driving will quickly degrade to the minimum necessary to get from A to B as fast as they possibly can.
On the Pedestrian side of the world, I see two types of pedestrians. The timid, afraid to cross, afraid to slow down traffic, afraid to get hit type who won't step off the curb until the road is clear for more than ample time to allow them to cross. The other is the pedestrian who steps out without looking at any point on a block and cross lackadaisically as though there were no other road users. Actually, the second group can be interesting, as often they'll stare down approaching cars after strolling into the road.
In the first group, I once had a pedestrian in a tourist area refuse to cross in front of me while I was on my bike, because there was a car behind me. Never mind that I was already stopped and telling them that they had the right of way and had no need to wait. My impression was that somehow the pedestrian felt they were impeding traffic to cross the road and felt guilty to get in another person's way. Talk about an overdeveloped sense of graciousness.
And finally, for the cyclists. Many of the ordinarily courteous riders that I have the pleasure to ride with get bent out of shape when riding on a bike path and not being yielded to by a vehicle coming from a cross street. These cyclists apparently do fall in to the class of enabled cyclists that Brian is concerned is developing. Apparently enough people have yielded the right of way to them that they feel entitled to be yielded to now.
Brian closes with a very simple statement that captures the essence of Motor Vehicle, Non-Motor Vehicle and Pedestrian interactions under the law:
Determining the right of way isn't hard. Bikers: ride like a vehicle. Drivers: bikers are vehicles. Pedestrians: stand up for your goddamn rights. Hey, if you're not killed, you'll get a helluva'n insurance settlement out of it.
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Since I now live in hippy-crunchy Lotusland, I'm encountering a significant number of courteous drivers while I'm biking. Unfortunately, the courtesy often manifests in drivers just slowing down as they approach my intersection, which leads to the one of the following reactions from me:
1) "Are you slowing down because you saw me, or because your phone started ringing/kid started screaming/bird flew in the window? Cuz that speed may feel slow to *you*, it would still cause me a lot of damage if you *didn't* see me."
2) "I have no guarantee that the person bearing down behind you isn't going to whip around you, and then *over* me. I think I'll wait."
3) "Thanks for slowing down, now I can see if the opposing traffic will slow down, too."
4) "If you think I can cross the road in front of you from a dead stop, when you're going that speed, you've never pulled a trailer containing 40+ pounds of 4-year-old."
75% of the time, these situations end up with the driver almost at a dead stop, frantically waving me across. Since they've gone to that much trouble, I usually just smile, wave, and go. I'm not willing to take the consequences of guessing wrong and hitting that other 25%, though. :)
Oh, and if you want to talk entitlement/enabled cyclists, there are entire traffic-calmed streets in Vancouver designated as official bike routes. It's 95% awesome, particularly during "rush hour" when you can see lines of cyclists stretching for blocks. There is a tendency by some, however, to treat these city streets as dedicated bike paths rather than the multi-modal transportation lanes they actually are. Lots of flouting of road rules. I'm as guilty as the next rider of the rolling/"California" stop, but I see tons of people blowing through stop signs as if they weren't there, going the wrong direction through roundabouts to turn or go straight, etc.
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