I am a bike anarchist

Per "Anonymous" on the Noe Valley SF blog...

and let's be clear: murphstahoe is more than a bike advocate. He is a bike anarchist, constantly preaching, harping and ranting that we ALL should be living just like him and riding only a bike anywhere. I just had to clear that up.

This confuses me. Checking Wikipedia... and taking definitions which seem reasonable...

Anarchy - "Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder."

or

"A social state in which there is no governing person or group of people, but each individual has absolute liberty (without the implication of disorder)."

"Anarchist" is a catchy term, but here it is not used accurately, probably in order to make an Ad Hominem attack. If you look at the thread on the Noe Valley blog it is far more accurate to portray the driver of the Mercedes who wrote the note, and those who back his/her position, as anarchists. The driver decided they didn't give a shit about the law, parked illegally, and when they were caught, made an ad hominem attack on the person who turned them into the fuzz.

If you look at my collective writings, and those of "prominent bike activists", the tendency is to want *more* government and *more* enforcement, not less. We want more bike lanes (at least some of us do). We want motorists who cause accidents that injure others (cyclists, pedestrians, other motorists) to be taken to task. I do not want to force everyone to "live just like me" (whatever that means). However, I don't want to be forced to live "not just like me" because we do not support the choice to drive, bike, walk, or take public transportation and charge each mode accordingly.

The instant reaction to this point is that "cyclists don't want the laws to apply to them - ergo 'anarchists'". I disagree. There are certainly sitations where cyclists think the law is improper and we'd like to change the law, but a desire to change the law is not anarchy. The simple understanding that the law exists such that you want to change it, is an acknowledgement that the law applies, and that if you skirt it you are aware of the consequences and subject to penalty.

I certainly have done a "California roll" of a stop sign or two (thousand) and will grudgingly run a red light after waiting 2-3 light cycles to find I'm just never going to get a green because the traffic sensor isn't detecting my bike. This doesn't mean I don't think the law doesn't apply to me.

And if I were ticketed for running a stop sign on my bike, I doubt I would tell the cop a "This is a community, not Nazi Germany". Just like any motorist I would grumble, perhaps even try to beat the ticket, but I'd hardly think I was above the law.