An Unfortunate Incident

This morning on my commute into work there was a red light that is usually pretty short, and almost no cars go through the cross street that has the green, so I saw it was turning yellow and biked past two other cyclists, who were already braked, to keep my momentum on the hill. A few minutes later one of those bikers caught up to me and lectured me about rolling through red lights, and told me that I am the reason cars are mean to cyclists. It really bothered me.

I could have told him a lot of things; I really try to be one of the most responsible bikers on the road for that exact reason, I've been doing this for a year, I knew the light was about to turn green and I double checked no cars were coming, but instead I just kind of nodded and said I don't usually do it (which is also true).

I want to let it go, but he really bothered me. I would never tell another cyclist how to bike in that situation, especially pulling up next to them on a busy road (another act that gives us cyclists a bad name). I see other cyclists fly through red lights all the time, and that's at their own risk. I am not entirely innocent, I probably should have braked and waited the half second for the light to turn green, but I know my commute, and what I did wasn't even remotely reckless, and it wasn't his place to scold me.

I can deal with drivers being mean to me, but I find it very discouraging when fellow bikers don't treat each other reasonably or try to give each other the benefit of the doubt.