Bicycling and finding balance in the rules of the road

Via Daily Dish, here is a well written post from Steamboats are Ruining Everything regarding:

My principle became, roughly speaking, bike in such a way that even relatively inattentive drivers can be expected to see you and know what you’re going to do next. Also: don't be annoying to pedestrians. I began halting at red lights and stop signs. (Later I relaxed this somewhat, almost to Idaho rules.) I made sure to bike in the bike lane, if there was one (or on the outer edge of it, if biking inside it was going to put me within swinging distance of the opening doors of parked cars). I stayed off sidewalks. And I never, ever biked the wrong way down a one-way street.
Since having this epiphany, "Steamboats" has loosened up a bit, including his approval of the “stop as yield” law used in Idaho. I admit that I rarely stop at stopsigns such that my feet both come to the ground. At 1 am, I don't sit there waiting for the light to change. On a particularly dangerous overpass, I ride on a sidewalk for a quarter-mile. On the other hand, I am aggravated by the bicycle riding behavior of many riders because it is so often dangerous, not because it's a violation of a law. So often, when you see a cyclist violating a law, he or she is simultaneously breaking five laws. The person I have in mind is the wrong-way rider who violates a stoplight in the dark without any bicycle light, while not wearing a helmet, while failing to signal.

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Make money by commuting on your bicycle

There are lots of reasons for you to be commuting by bicycle, but many of you who could cycle to work are still burning expensive gasoline to get there.  What’s it going to take to get you out of that expensive car and onto a high-precision, environment-friendly, health-enhancing bicycle?  How about some money?  Not just gas money, either. Read on.  This post might change your life in a dozen healthy and bank-account enhancing ways. 

More than half of Americans live less than 5 miles from the place where they work. That’s easy striking range for a bicycle.  Studies have shown that trips of less than 3 miles are often quicker by bike, and urban trips of 5 to 7 miles usually take about the same time.  Here are more statistics to consider:

According to the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, 25 percent of all trips are made within a mile of the home, 40 percent of all trips are within two miles of the home, and 50 percent of the working population commutes five miles or less to work. Yet more than 82 percent of trips five miles or less are made by personal motor vehicle.

I’m one of the many people who live about five-miles from my place of employment.  Traveling five miles to work takes me only about 25 minutes.  This is only about 10 minutes more than it would take to drive to work in good traffic. 

I have commuted to work by bicycle since 1998.  Making the …

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