this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
19 points (51.9% liked)
Comic Strips
22062 readers
3072 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- AI-generated comics aren't allowed.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Your point is well taken, but whataboutism aside, EVERYONE should be obeying ALL the traffic laws. I cycle on public roads myself and I do see other cyclists not stopping at red lights. A bicycle IS a vehicle - it doesn't come with pedestrian rights.
Or we can just keep escalating finger pointing and law-breaking until the traffic laws are meaningless everyone is dead.
I cycle thousands of miles each year, and I haven't seen a cyclist run a red in years. Depends on where we're riding, I guess.
So, why are you asking me to deescalate? Have you asked everyone else in this post and the author of the comic itself? Why pick me?
That's fair... I didn't mean to single you out. There were a LOT of posts, and I suppose the emphatic and sarcastic nature of yours drew my attention.
That said, I meant this as a general statement to all the commenters of this nature, and your comment is just where it happened to land. I don't have any personal grudge.
can't speak for the other commenter, but i will assume it was because of the whataboutism.
no one disputes that car drivers break a rules, but most of them at least know they are breaking the rules. cyclists really confidently act like the rules don't exist (even that may depend on where you are).
few years back, some non-profit group advocating for bicycles in my city made a presentation for a media, where they showed a video how much faster a cyclist is going through some specific route during the working-day traffic jam than the car.
and then you saw the cyclist ignoring lights, driving on a sidewalk where he had no business to be and so on. he broke like a billion traffic rules during his 15 minute trip and they really acted like they didn't even know that some rules applied to him.
Dude, come ride in my car sometime. Practically every driver out there thinks the rules don't apply to them, either. I'd record them on a dash cam, but I don't want to spend my life editing videos for YouTube. It's a fucking jungle out there. As a practical matter, what's the difference between not knowing the law (an assertion I reject) and ignoring it?
But car brains only get mad at cyclists for it. A car running a stop sign or rolling right on red is treated as business as usual. I see cops doing it.
I had to laugh at the links to deaths caused by cyclists. Two, world wide. Death from drivers doing stupid shit are so common, they don't even bother writing articles about it. It's not newsworthy. Cars do a lot more damage when they hit something.
And I say this as a cyclist that does follow the laws, aside from occasionally rolling a stop sign, when it's safe (Idaho stop, but it's not legal in my state).
as a practical matter, there is no difference. but if one side is acting like a hypocrite pretending it is only the other party breaking the rules, it is worth pointing out.
i am pretty sure people complain about other drivers all the time.
yes, this is true. but should that mean that cyclists should ignore the traffic rules, or what is the point?
On that I agree. Drivers regularly complain about cyclists as though they aren't doing similar shit. Where are the comics about that?
Show me the comics. Show me the online vitriol. Show me the death threats drivers get online every time a video is posted.
The point is that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
They only get mad at cyclists because it's an "other" group they can see.
sometimes one facepalm is just not enough.
Let me put it this way. If that comic had a truck driven by a guy wearing a turban, everyone would be rightly calling it out as racist and bigoted.
Why is bigotry against cyclists not only okay, but also funny?
people wearing religious icons are being made fun of for their flaws, it is just they are different flaws from a cyclists. in one case it is religious fundamentalism, in the other one it is cyclist's fundamentalism.
how does cyclist fundamentalism manifests you ask? when someone points out that a cyclist broke a traffic rule, you start seing red, you try to deflect with "but cars...", and you engage in half day discussion where you are trying to prove a point but you are making circles without any logic to your arguments.
I acknowledge cyclists break traffic laws.
But drivers break them too, while getting angry at cyclists for doing the exact same things.
I take it you've never seen the comments on the internet about any trucking crash. It's pretty fucking racist, apparently no white guy has ever once wrecked a truck.
Painting people with a broad brush, whether it's race, nationality, or hobby, is bigotry.
For whatever reason, bigotry against cyclists is allowed and even celebrated.
Drivers are out there trying to kill us, because they saw some cyclists ran a red light. Doesn't even have to be the same cyclists, just kill a random one, get a slap on the wrist, and go on with life. And 99% of people are happy with that outcome. So yeah I'm fucking fired up. If you don't understand why, I don't know what to tell you.
Comics like this are just pushing the narrative that all cyclists break laws, while ignoring that cars do the same thing - and much worse - with a much higher chance of damage and injury. People regularly die when drivers screw up. Happens all the time. Just another statistic.
I don't know why this is so hard for drivers to understand.
I will not give up.
if that is what you truly believe, i suggest you talk to a therapist, because this level of paranoia is not normal.
you will not give up what? shouting nonsense on the internet? 😂
You're either living a very sheltered life or just trolling.
if i were, i might believe that this is true:
since i have actually been outside few times, i know you are just delusional. go get help, for your own good.
I'm going to assume that you're so blinded by your prejudice against "carbrains" that you haven't seen all the posts bemoaning speeding, passing in the wrong lane, riding people's bumpers, "when a car swerves around you at mach 3 just to get stuck at the same light" to paraphrase a meme I saw on lemmy like last week, etc, and it's everywhere not just lemmy.
You are probably just such a bikebrained chaincel that you haven't noticed it, but it's there.
Been in a college town recently? College kids are basically the cyclist in the comic.
They're also the most dangerous drivers too...
Maybe we should just make everyone walk till the age of 25.
I haven't noticed anything like that in college towns apart from late at night when it's cold, there's barely anyone around and the lights sometimes just don't change for bicycles because they are too light. (The most common possibly illegal thing I've seen is bicycles overtaking cars stopped at lights to get to to the bike spots on a bicycle road where in some cases the cars aren't even supposed to be.)
Meanwhile drivers almost all seem better but I am also aware that most
Laws are a social agreement, not divine. Breaking stupid laws is not bad, and does not imply that all laws should be broken.
Stupid laws like "stop at a red light even if you're wearing lycra in public."
I live somewhere where half the traffic lights don't have buttons and don't respond to cyclists. So when there are no cars to trigger the light I just check if it's safe and go. Meanwhile I have been nearly overrun by cars speeding through red because it was orange 3 seconds ago and see a car going >50kph in my 30kph street almost daily. A bicycle is not a vehicle (at least in france in collisions we are classified as pedestrians). We are way more vulnerable and less harmful and the roads are often not made for us, so we have to adapt our riding to be most safe. Sometimes that means taking a pedestrian green instead of a car green light because it is safer too.