Cop vs. cyclist in Cambridge

When a cop and cyclist tussle, I'm siding with the cop.
Seems there was a bit of a bicycle brouhaha in Central Square, Cambridge, last Friday night, between policeman Raymond Pina and cyclist Yonatan Kurland, who was participating in an irresponsible event called Critical Mass -- a form of not-so-civil cyclist disobedience. The two became involved in an altercation near a CVS on Massachusetts Avenue. Kurland wound up on the ground. Let's just say their accounts differ. From Boston.com:

Pina stated in his report that Kurland was traveling swiftly, weaving through other cyclists on the street, and would have clipped him if he hadn’t grabbed the handle bars on Kurland’s bike. The officer said the momentum dragged him.

Kurland’s account differs drastically from Pina’s. Kurland said he was traveling slowly in the bicycle lane, about 30 feet from the intersection, when Pina approached, grabbed the front of his bike, and pushed him to the ground, leaving Kurland with minor road rash.

I feel bad that Kurland was hurt. Yet I also feel that bicyclists are bringing bad karma upon themselves through events like Critical Mass -- an event designed to show how oh-so-superior they are to motorists.

Created in San Francisco, Critical Mass has spread to other metropolitan areas like greater Boston and foists disobedient cyclists upon streets already clogged with cars. The event seems designed for cyclists to waggle their fingers at the rules of the road with which everyone else has to comply.

"The pace of the ride was leisurely, about 5 miles per hour, and unencumbered because they didn’t wait for red lights," Globe writer Brian Ballou recounts. Later, Ballou notes that "Ride participants acknowledge that they use a tactic known as 'corking' to seal intersections from traffic, allowing cyclists to pass." One wonders whether he would be so cavalier about this if it were SUVs or Scott Brown-style pickup trucks doing the same thing.
A "me-first" attitude is ugly whether it's displayed by a cyclist or motorist. But lately the cyclists are cornering the market. If they hold up traffic, it makes it harder for ambulances, fire trucks or police vehicles to get through. If they are so concerned about environmental standards, they should care more about all that exhaust being released by motorists waiting for them to pass. And if they're participating in a form of social protest demanding more rights for cyclists in Cambridge ... a city that closes off Memorial Drive to motorists and has plenty of bike paths ... well, that just proves the adage, "Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile."
I hope Kurland is OK ... but I also hope cyclists stop the selfishness and start using the bike paths more often.

Boston Bike Summit = good idea, but not enough

As environmentalists would tell you, bicycling is good for Mother Earth. But is it good for Father Traffic? In the greater Boston area, not necessarily.
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino convened an historic bike safety summit Wednesday at Boston University in the wake of three recent accidents -- one of which claimed the life of a cyclist. A biking bigwig quoted in the Boston Metro attributed the problem to "everyone has this 'me first' attitude," whether they be cyclists, pedestrians or motorists."
Personal and anecdotal experience seems to back this up. A friend who spent about a decade in Columbus, Ohio, reports that cyclists there are more considerate, jingling bells to alert passers-by. Other countries seem to make their cities more amenable to cyclists, such as Copenhagen, site of last year's environmental summit.
I have read pro-bike arguments that say, essentially, increase the number of cyclists and they'll all start following the rules to accommodate each other. I don't think that's entirely true, and neither does the aforementioned bike baron: "It seems like there are more and more cyclists on the road and some of them don't know how to ride safely ... At the same time, motorists have no idea what the rules are."
He may have tapped the real problem about anything traffic-related in the Boston area: Too many people crowding already congested traffic routes. The higher the concentration of motor vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians on streets, the greater the traffic snarls and frustration. The measures taken by cities -- such as creating too-narrow bike lanes -- seem inadequate. And if the cops go after cyclists as voraciously as they target psychotic Boston drivers, that doesn't seem so good, either ... based on what happened in New York City.
Yes, it would help if people became less self-centered ... if, say, they wouldn't cycle through red lights (which I believe I witnessed again this morning while driving in Cambridge) or ride the wrong way up streets or whiz past pedestrians while rounding corners. But that would mean changing the psyche of an entire metropolitan area, which sounds like a long-term project with headaches of its own.
Maybe the Bike Summit will lead to something good. And maybe I should think about commuting to Columbus and/or Copenhagen.