The streets are not safe. Lurking around every corner there is an asshole cyclist or a maniacal UPS driver ready to plow into anyone in sight. In our parks, children and the elderly are routinely yelled at by runners, cyclists, and stoners on longboards (watch out, breh). And in our cities, uniformed officers are a constant nuisance and danger, parking wherever they goddamn please.
But who is the worst? (Everyone, really.) Here, we've arbitrarily ranked who we feel are the absolute worst road users in America. If there are any notably dickish road users we've neglected, please take it to Kinja below.
1. Cop Cars Parked In Bike Lanes. There is no debating this. Patrol cars, paddywagons, and those tiny-ass Interceptors regularly take up residence in precious bike lanes. They are the worst. The NYPD has the gall—get this—to ticket cyclists for veering out of a bike lane if a cop is parked in said bike lane.
2. Motorists. Loud, ornery, and bad for the environment, motorists have a penchant for barreling over unsuspecting cyclists and bludgeoning pedestrians with zero repercussions. They're concealed carry on four wheels.
3. Salmon. Cyclists who ride against traffic. Whether it's a delivery man rushing General Tso to your apartment or some dumpy bartender with a waxed mustache on a fixed-gear bike, salmon are a menace—pedestrians have been hurt, law-abiding cyclists killed—and should be punished. I don't care if you're late for your kickball game. Follow the fucking rules: Don't ride upstream.
4. Freds. You know the type. Middle-aged dude on a $7,000 bike wearing a Livestrong bracelet and a full kit from last year's Tour de France winner. Likely being passed by a 12-year-old riding a Huffy to his soccer game.
5. Runners Taking Nike+ Selfies. There is a book to be written about how social media has made exercise, a very basic and human thing, extraordinarily annoying in the last five years. And these days you can't go for a jaunt through the park without encountering some dolt stopping mid-run to snap a selfie and #brand it with a Nike logo. (This bro is the poster child.)
5. Delivery Guys. Always in a hurry, with good reason, the courageous folks who deliver your takeout must chill. Tips hinge on timeliness, yes; they have a job to do. But that job does not involve riding on the sidewalk, against traffic, and generally fucking up the ecosystem of roads. Going one extra street south to follow traffic will not make your subpar chicken wings cold.
6. E-Bikes. Though illegal in New York—and up for debate in Chicago—electric bikes still reign as the ride of choice for deliverymen (and menacing teenagers) in cities. It's like a low-rent moped met a shitty Walmart bike with a basket on front—all it needs is streamers hanging from the handlebars and baseball cards in the spokes.
7. Tourists In Flintstone-mobiles. For $50 an hour, you and your family can rent a quadcycle and terrorize Chicago's Lakefront Path (and other similar tourist destinations across the country) like Fred Flintstone with blatant disregard for your surroundings. Feel free to cut across traffic, blow through crosswalks, and make it impossible for others to pass.
8. Tourists On Segways. Why, of the various transportation options to explore a city, would you choose a Segway? They're cumbersome, negligibly faster than actually walking, and make you look like a mall cop.
9. Shoalers. Ever stopped at a red light on your bicycle only to be passed by some eager dolt who wants to get a head start? This practice is annoying. And, in 2009, Bike Snob NYC gave it a name, dubbing it shoaling: "On a busy day, this accumulation results in sort of a shoal of cyclists which juts out into the middle of the street like a sandbar of idiocy."
10. Running Groups Taking Up Both Lanes. Whether it's the local running shop's Wednesday night group run or a tattooed running crew, these masses of humanity love nothing more than hogging all the real estate and forcing you off the road.
11. Middle-Aged Lawyer Training For A Marathon With A Water Belt. We get it. It's fucking hot out. You want to stay properly hydrated. But if you're doing 14 laps around the park, you can just stop at the water fountain. Ditch the ridiculous belt. It's only going to chafe.
12. Eccentric Hippies On Homemade Contraptions. Look, everyone's impressed that you managed to weld a filing cabinet full of important research materials to the back of your tricycle, but you have got to move over to the right. Your four foot long American flag is billowing so that no one behind you can see the road.
13. Shirtless Dude With A Heart Rate Monitor. Put a goddamn shirt on. It's embarrassing.
14. Idiot Runners Running In Place at Stoplights. It's not keeping your heart rate up. This isn't jazzercise. Just wait for the light to turn green. Or jaywalk.
15-t. Indignant Motorists Yelling At Cyclists, Indignant Cyclists Yelling At Motorists. You deserve one another.
17. Cyclists In Spandex With Whistles. A bell is annoying enough. But there is a certain breed of cyclist that rides, often hours at a time, with a whistle at the ready, which they will gleefully brandish at anyone that crosses their path, even unsuspecting parents pushing strollers.
18. Careless Parents Pushing Strollers. Often victims of the aforementioned whistlers, these parents neglect any and all road signs, oncoming traffic, and standard rules of the road. Goddamn, those kids are cute—stop risking their lives!
19. Construction Workers Who Aren't Working. Entitled workers in unions out of some Fox News fever dream, standing around with their dicks in their hands gobbling up taxpayer dollars and catcalling women.
20. Runners Talking on Their Phones While Running. Stop it. You're not that important. Even the leader of the free world found time to squeeze a run in.
21. Elliptigos. I don't care if Meb Keflezighi endorses the absurd elliptical on wheels, you look like an asshole. If running is too high impact, ride a bike.
22. Runners. While the more ridiculous varieties are laid out above, America's running boom has flooded the streets with a scourge of insufferable bipedal monsters in overpriced athletic gear, all of them unbearable.
23. Dogs. Four-legged domesticated house pets that run in front of cyclists and shit in front of restaurants. Generally smelly, always annoying. Owners are often worse than the actual canines.
24. Tech Bros On Longboards. That Google Glass video is wack, breh.
25. Cyclists Waiting In Crosswalks. Cyclists, rivaling only marathon runners in their entitlement and hypocrisy, love to get a head start by clogging up sidewalks.
26. Pedestrians. Civilians going about their day trying to navigate all the madness. Can't all you road users just let us live?
Bill Bradley's work has appeared in GQ, Outside Online, Pacific Standard, Runner's World, and Vanity Fair, among others. Follow him on Twitter @billbradley3.
Image by Jim Cooke; Flintstone-mobile via Wikimedia