Community Commentary:

Glendale is made up of beautiful streets, homes, schools, businesses and parks. In short, life is good in Glendale. But Glendale, we have a problem.

For now, I’ll set aside the aggressive behavior of motorists toward bicyclists on Kenneth Road and Mountain Street. I’ll set aside the time when two men in a new BMW decided to play a game of chicken with me while I was on my bicycle. I yelled at them when they ran a stop sign on Mountain Street. It was their way of acknowledging me. I’ll also set aside the time when two women in a small white truck yelled, “Share the road,” while I was at a stop sign at Kenneth. They threw water at me and sped away.

For the purposes of this letter, I’ll focus on three incidents on the steep section on East Glenoaks Boulevard east of North Verdugo Road. In the last three weeks, there have been three dangerous driving maneuvers by motorists that endanger my safety as a cyclist, and if these behaviors continue, I fear that someone will be killed or hurt.

On March 22, as I was descending westbound on Glenoaks after it had rained, I was squeezing the brakes all the way down to make sure I would be safe. Halfway down, a dark-haired woman in a BMW decided to enter the road while I was coming down the hill. I slowed down even more because I didn’t know if she planned to cut me off or not. When I got to the traffic light at Verdugo and Glenoaks, the passenger in the front seat, a dark-haired man, told me that “you shouldn’t even be on the road. You were in the middle of the lane.”

For all those who share this man’s sentiments, here are some relevant sections of the vehicle code:

“21200. (a) Every person riding a bicycle upon a highway has all the rights and is subject to all the provisions applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this division . . . ”

“21202. (a) Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time shall ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway . . . ”