The right to ride a bicycle

I am a cyclist. I do not own a car, I do own legs and wheels. I live in a country where there is not much respect for bicycles and people riding them... If you don't pay attention to every little detail, then nasty things are going to happen to you. You have to be extremely careful with car / truck drivers, and always think that the worse can happen, always think that "this stupid blind a**ole" driver did not even see you. Or at least that's what he pretends...

One day, I was passing a topless Mercedes with a rather brainless pseudo-fashion-bimbo riding her cellphone instead of her car. I was passing her quite legally, but this brainless person did not even notice me (hey what do you think, why would it be necessary to check my rear view mirrors since I own a Mercedes and I am blond!!!) and started to deviate my side without any notice (no blinking lights and so on). The car touched my right knee and eventually pushed my bicycle to the left. So I shout on her with something kind like:

- Please remove that f***ing phone from your ear and PAY ATTENTION to bicycles!!!

What she answeared let me without voice:
- Oh f***ing bicycles, annoying us all the time

Since that day (and some other very stressful situations), I feed my fear of car drivers that hate bicycles that hate drivers.

Each time I grab my bicycle and ride more than 10 minutes in Annecy - France, I can be pretty sure that I will face a surprising situation. Most people don't give a fuck about cyclists here, and they are totally unaware that they can cause extremely bad injuries. Since they are protected in their 50,000 € steel box, they do NOT consider it's important to pay attention to others.

And THIS TOTALLY SUCKS! So as of today, I will be a militant in my own town. I don't really know how at the moment, but I think that I will start with putting stupid stickers on every car that hits me, that is parked where it's not supposed to be.

Several associations and events gather people that want to protect their right to ride a bicycle in the most secure way. A strange event occured in New York, and a little bit everywhere on the Earth, Critical Mass is a monthly bicycle ride to celebrate cycling and to assert cyclists' right to the road. Local authorities are not supposed to be aware of this gathering, and this might be considered illegal. In august 2005, New York Police decided such events could not happen and they arrested 49 persons.

April 12, 2005. The New York Times reported on how police were caught lying about how protesters were resisting arrest, when videotape evidence showed otherwise. Another scandal was that the police doctored their own tapes, removing parts that showed the suspects' innocence. This behavior on the part of the police is outrageous and, of course, illegal -- ironically enough.
The Times reports that of the 1,670 cyclist cases that have run their full course, 91 percent ended with the charges dismissed or with a verdict of not guilty after trial.

Bleh this sounds like an interesting thing to develop, I think there has been no Critical Mass event in Annecy so far... this gives me ideas...

Now some links:
History of bicycle on wikipedia
Rights and duties of a cyclist (french):
Check this page containing a lot of information about the risks of riding a bicycle in town (french)

Activism:
Critical Mass
Bicycle defense fund
Vélorution ! (french)

ps: I have not even talked about the benefits of using a bike instead of a car...