And What's With The Ridiculous Get-Ups?

Here's one of those stories that appears every now and again: smug bicyclist informs drivers of their responsibility to "Share the Road."  Which is fine, as far as it goes; the story's hook is about some yahoos in Illinois who used a car to intentionally run down bicyclists, which is Obviously Bad.

But, see, here's the thing.  If you're a bicyclist and you wonder why everyone treats you like a road hazard and an asshole, it's because you are one.  Or at least, enough of your fellow bicyclists answer this description that it's become a useful stereotype.  You can find the Mississippi bicycle traffic law here.  I guarantee your state has a law almost exactly like this:

SEC. 63-3-207. Applicability of chapter to persons riding bicycles or animals or driving animal-drawn vehicles.

Every person riding a bicycle or an animal or driving any animal drawing a vehicle upon a highway shall have all of the rights and all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle under this chapter, except those provisions of this chapter which by their nature can have no application.

Note: not just "all of the rights", but "all of the rights and all of the duties". That means, for instance, that when you come to a stop sign you have to f*^king stop.  When you're going to turn you have to signal. And so on.  You don't get to just blow right on through controlled intersections and then act all aggrieved because somebody almost ran you down.

I understand the problem that bicyclists have with motorists.  But from the driver's point of view, most bicyclists are adopting a very adolescent attitude toward road-sharing: they want the rights, but not the responsibilities.  They demand the freedom to take wild chances, but always blame someone else when they predictably get hurt.