How one cyclists hurts all of us

I was stopped at the traffic light, at the junction of Rt 513 and Pittstown Road, along with several other cars waiting to turn left to head towards Clinton. Along comes a cyclist, who first rode through the red light, made a shallow right turn and then made a U-turn onto Pittstown road and started heading the direction I was about to go.

This simple seemingly innocuous act of boneheaded-ness is bad for cyclists in general. I waited at the light another 20-30 sec. and then it went green and I drove North. I came upon the lone cyclist heading up a short rise on a 2-lane road with a 45 mph speed limit.  What should I do? I thought about slowing down and yelling something to him about the fact that he should not ride through red lights.  But my guess is he understands that and just chose to ignore the light.  As a cyclist, I wouldn't crowd him, although I am sure some drivers would as "retaliation" for his stupidity or flaunting traffic laws.

The foolish thing is there are not a lot of stop lights in this part of rural NJ, and there were already cars waiting at the light, so he could easily have waited and gone on the green light.  He saved 30 seconds of waiting and hurt cyclists everywhere, as a group.

Why? Because we want respect on the roads. Respect is difficult to gain, when as a group there are individuals who don't respect the traffic laws.  When a rider runs a red light in front of a group of motorists, it instantly changes the motorists opinion of cyclists.  How can we expect cars to respect us on the road and obey traffic laws, when we ourselves flagrantly break them?  Now, the next time I am out riding on 513, I am just "one of those stupid cyclists, who has no respect for the traffic signals or roads…"

Here's a tip- if you plan to run a red light, do it when no one is looking.