In his Sept. 4 letter, “Bikers: follow laws or face consequence,” Mr. Van Valkingburg implies that when a car and a bicycle collide, the bicyclist is at fault and deserves what they get. I don’t think this is a fair or balanced picture of the truth.

Bicycles are treated as motor vehicles under state law. This means they should be riding in the street, using turn lanes and, yes, even obeying stop signs. When I do such things on my bike, it often seems to upset drivers of cars, especially when I have the gall to obey the law in downtown Ames at 5:15 p.m. when everyone is getting off of work. I guess it unfairly diverts their attention from their cell phones. They are appalled at my nerve for taking up “their” space on the road and slowing down traffic. From time to time, they’ll illegally pass me, breaking the law themselves and coming within inches of my bike, while spewing obscenities out the window, honking their horn and occasionally sharing choice hand gestures with me.

However, I’m mostly disturbed by his nonchalant attitude toward delivering crippling injuries to people.

If a driver is too busy chatting on the phone to look, turns left into my side when I have the right of way and kills me, am I collateral damage, secondary to the dent in his fender? Since I was on a bike, is the whole situation funny instead of serious?

If a bicyclist blows through a stop sign and a car with the right-of-way accidentally hits them, the bicyclist is at fault — that is a fact. But I’m more concerned than ever about the hypocrisy of drivers who sometimes make rolling stops and illegal turns themselves, especially when they proclaim death sentences upon bicyclists who commit the same errors.

Michael Falk

Graduate Student

Meteorology