Cyclists abuse living lab

Regarding the living lab experiment, the fatal flaw (no pun intended) is the fact that not everyone is playing by the same rules. Cars and pedestrians seem to be on the same page, but many bikers are riding amok. Nearly every trip through town I see 1) a biker sizzling through a stop sign, or 2) a father circling cluelessly across the entire street waiting for his kids to catch up or 3) bikers on sidewalks, or etc., ad nauseum. 

My favorite example was Friday. I stopped at the plaza stop sign, waiting for pedestrians to cross. The biker I had passed a half block earlier signaled stop, but made a left turn, zooming across my bow, nearly clipping the pedestrians (including a small child), cutting off the car coming west that had the right of way and smoothly turning their stop signal into a bird salute for that driver. 

Bikers need to be educated on how to safely operate in the car/bike/pedestrian environment, which I don’t see happening with most tourists. They are ignorant (as in “not aware of”) of how much danger they are exposing themselves and their kids to. They don’t even know what they don’t know, which makes the whole lab a recipe for disaster.

Michael Campbell

Aspen