John Kass Pens Another Trolling 'Lawless Bicyclists' Column
By Chuck Sudo in News on Dec 14, 2012 3:30PM
Tribune columnist John Kass returned to one of his deeper wells for column subjects Thursday and penned another “lawless bicyclists” column. The article was written, conveniently, with Friday afternoon’s opening of the Dearborn Street bike lane.
Kasshole continued to bludgeon his reader over the head with his theory that the overwhelming majority of “little bicycle people” don’t follow the rules of road, even as Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein appease cyclists with luxuries like protected bike lanes.
He's squeezing out lanes of car traffic, installing new signs, buying untold gallons of expensive paint for the new bike lanes on Dearborn Street. Sure, there's less room for cars, and less room for drivers who actually pay the freight, but more room for the little bike people to ride to and fro.So how do they repay him?
Well, some of them ride like barbarians, ignoring traffic signals, weaving across the lanes, hopping up onto the sidewalk while narrowly missing elderly pedestrians and innocent children. They drive the wrong way on one-way streets. They're completely above the law. You've seen it. I've seen it. They don't even get tickets.
The column is vastly entertaining, if you read Kass writing in derp voice. Otherwise, he adds nothing new to his argument or his proposals that bicyclists who break traffic laws be ticketed (with which we fully agree). Kass’ column follows an appearance by Klein on his WLS-AM radio show with Jake Hartford where Klein handily rebutted Kass’ assumptions.
Kass did ask for email accounts from motorists who have watched cyclists break the law—as if Kass and other motorists have never driven like barbarians, ignored traffic signals and wove across the lanes. Having been ticketed ourselves for moving violations on a bicycle (and since Kass didn't ask for the other side of the coin), I’m asking readers who have been ticketed by police while cycling to offer their own accounts, which we’ll publish. My inbox is waiting.