Cycling in Ottawa

Slate has a good piece up on the nature of traffic laws and cyclists (as a group we tend to break them). It has as good a breakdown as any on the tension between vehicular and facilitator cyclists, which essentially divides into a no paths vs. paths split. I think I like the ultimate conclusion that only enforcing egregious violations of the existing law is probably a good fit. I also like the last paragraph:

As a biker, my wish would be for police to crack down on more dangerous behavior, such as riding at night without a light or tearing the wrong way down a one-way street. Yes, I committed the latter crime just yesterday, and I admit I was in the wrong. If cops started handing out more tickets for one-way infractions, bikers like me would probably clean up their most-outrageous behaviors. Once that happens, maybe all of us—cyclists and car people and activists and cops—could agree to leave the rolling stop alone.

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