Someone explain the point of this critical mass thing to me, i fail to understand.?

Question

Taken from the CM website - "CM is intended to be a celebration, not an opportunity to cause trouble. Those who want to try to tie up traffic as much as possible and be confrontational with motorists are missing the point. We can assert our right to the road without being rude about it. Focus on the ride, not on the cars that also happen to be on the road."

seems to me that if they don't want to be rude and inconsiderate they would not be taking over the roads and impeding motor vehicles in the first place, i just really don't understand why they think that making all these people in the cars wait an extra hour to get home to their family or whatever is helping anyone. seems to me all it does it p**s people off. From the numerous police issues i've heard about at CM as well it also seems like people from this organization purposely go out of their way to cause trouble and draw attention to themselves.

Answer 1

I can't stand CM....none of the bike shops around here support it either.  Your thoughts are right-on and seem to be how most cyclists (and most people) view CM, too.   It started out as a good thing many years ago, but now it appears to be just another place for kids to spout anarchy and get attention....most of the people on CM rides that I've seen are a far cry from what would be called a cyclist, and the c**p they pull only serves to make things worse for cyclists when it comes to driver relations and encouraging cities to be supportive of cycling, if not progressive in that regard.

It's become a great big mess and a blight on bike advocacy.  I wish they'd grow a collective brain and just quit that c**p.   :o)

Answer 2

"CM is intended to be a celebration, not an opportunity to cause trouble. Those who want to try to tie up traffic as much as possible and be confrontational with motorists are missing the point."

That is a base lie. CM was conceived as a demonstration for more bicycle facilities, and deliberately tying up traffic was its method of getting its point across. The people who "are missing the point" are their core members. The time for CM to disband is long past.

Answer 3

I suspect its much like any minority group of people wanting to improve their situation. They give a voice and in many cases while alienating some people the bring highly visible awareness to their cause.  How much funding for bike paths came about by politicians trying to appease the CM bikers? They may have approved a higher amount for more paths in hopes to get more of us off the streets. I bike in a town w/out a CM org and we have almost no bike trails and yet a 20K student college campus with many bicyclist.

Black protest marches made many more people realize what was wrong with their treatment. And so we can see organized mass marches and protest was very successful in making changes in spite of all the racism still here.

g*y pride marches also bring peoples awareness to their cause and make some people angry with some of their flamboyant behavior. Some people think it does more harm than good and yet society is changing in that regard.

CM will most likely follow in the same path. The only way to get change is to get people thinking and talking. Good or bad it gets the subject on the table. And while cycling doesn't come close to comparison with mass prejudice of the first 2, it is getting an awareness to people who don't know or don't think we need to improve the car/bicycle/pedestrian interaction.

CM is a protest of the current biking conditions. If every road had a bike trail next to it you wouldn't have CM in the streets.

Answer 4

You're not the only one with a problem understanding them

http://youtube.com/watch?v=__dFgPjRd34

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/nyregi...

When Official Truth Collides With Cheap Digital Technology

By JIM DWYER

Published: July 30, 2008

Around 9:30 on Friday night, a bicyclist pedaling down Seventh Avenue veered to the left, trying to avoid hitting a police officer who was in the middle of the street.

Videotapes made at protests and mass bike rallies in recent years such as the following three examples have shown major discrepancies in the police accounts of events that were captured on camera.

I

III. The arrest of Alexander Dunlop, a bicycle rider accused of flailing his arms to resist arrest after he allegedly rammed his bicycle into a line of police officers. Dunlop appears on the right-hand of the screen, calmly walking his bike.

Related

  About New York: In Day of Mass Arrests, Divergent Versions of Events (August 29, 2007) But the officer, Patrick Pogan, took a few quick steps toward the biker, Christopher Long, braced himself and drove his upper body into Mr. Long.

Officer Pogan, an all-star football player in high school, hit Mr. Long as if he were a halfback running along the sidelines, and sent him flying.

As of Tuesday evening, a videotape of the encounter had been viewed about 400,000 times on YouTube. “I can’t explain why it happened,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Tuesday. “I have no understanding as to why that would happen.”

But this episode was not just a powerful crash between one bicyclist and a police officer. It may turn out to be yet another head-on collision between false stories told by some police officers in criminal court cases and documentary evidence that directly contradicts them. And while in many instances the inaccurate st

But this episode was not just a powerful crash between one bicyclist and a police officer. It may turn out to be yet another head-on collision between false stories told by some police officers in criminal court cases and documentary evidence that directly contradicts them. And while in many instances the inaccurate stories have been tolerated by police superiors and prosecutors, Officer Pogan’s account is getting high-level scrutiny.

Later that night, Officer Pogan composed a story of his encounter with Mr. Long. It bore no resemblance to the events seen on the videotape. Based on the sworn complaint, Mr. Long was held for 26 hours on charges of attempted assault and disorderly conduct.

Over the weekend, though, the videotape, made by a tourist in Times Square with his family, fell into the hands of people involved with Critical Mass, the monthly bicycle rally that Mr. Long had been riding in.

The availability of cheap digital technology — video cameras, digital cameras, cellphone cameras — has ended a monopoly on the history of public gatherings that was limited to the official narratives, like the sworn documents created by police officers and prosecutors. The digital age has brought in free-range history.

Hundreds of cases against people arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention collapsed under an avalanche of videotaped evidence that either completely contradicted police accounts, or raised significant questions about their reliability. The videotapes were made by people involved in the protests, bystanders, tourists and police officers.

At the New York Public Library, a small group holding a banner against one of the stone lions was arrested and charged with blocking traffic in the middle of 42nd Street, although video showed they were on the steps, and nowhere near the street.

In another case at the library, a police officer testified that he and three other officers had to carry one protester, Dennis Kyne, by his hands and feet down the library steps. Videotape showed that Mr. Kyne walked down the steps under his own power, and that the officer who testified against him had no role in his arrest. The charges were dismissed; the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to bring perjury charges against the officer who gave the testimony.

Dozens of complaints were sworn by police officers who said they had witnessed people violating the law on Fulton Street and near Union Square, but later admitted under oath that their only involvement was to process the arrests, and that they had not actually seen the disorderly conduct that was charged.

An assistant to District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau wrote to the Police Department to stress the importance of officers’ not swearing to things they had not seen for themselves. The prosecutors said the confusion surrounding mass arrests made it hard to bring perjury charges.

The case of Christopher Long and Officer Pogan is shaping up as another example of an official narrative being directly challenged by videotape.

In a criminal court complaint, Officer Pogan wrote that Mr. Long deliberately attacked him with the bike — although the videotape shows Mr. Long veering away from Officer Pogan, who pursues him toward the curb.

The officer said he was knocked to the ground by Mr. Long. Throughout the tape, though, he remains on his feet, even after banging into Mr. Long.

The police officer wrote that Mr. Long had been “weaving” in and out of traffic, “thereby forcing multiple vehicles to stop abruptly or change their direction in order to avoid hitting” Mr. Long. However, in the videotape, it appears that there are no cars on the street.

Mr. Long is due back in court in early September. By then, most of Mr. Long’s bruises are likely to have healed. The prognosis for the truth is not so clear.

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