APR 27, 2009 – 12:00AM

The other day, a bicyclist ran a red light and was hit by a car, and within hours of it being posted on our website, a friend sent me an e-mail asking if I’d seen the story. He wanted to know my response.

“My response?” I wrote back. “I don’t really have any. If you run a red light, you have to live with the consequences.”

A few days later, the Journal-World ran an editorial lamenting the fact that too often cyclists break the laws and aren’t held accountable.

A neighbor asked how I felt being called out by my own paper.

“Called out?” I responded. “I follow the laws. If I don’t, I expect to be held accountable.”

Then a few days after that, the J-W ran a letter to the editor attacking the editorial. The LTE’s author opined that drivers regularly break the laws and aren’t held accountable.

A co-worker asked if I was the author using a pseudonym.

“Why would I do that?” I asked. “Why would I jump in the middle of yet another cyclist-vs.-driver war of words?”

In each case, the online comments were fast and, mostly, furious. Names were called. Cyclists are arrogant and oblivious. Drivers are self-serving and homicidal. Cyclists wear weird clothes. Drivers are unyielding. Cyclists deserve to get crushed. Bikes belong on the sidewalk. No they don’t. Drivers don’t know the laws. No, cyclists don’t know the laws. No, drivers don’t.

Did not. Did so.

Yawn.

I have to admit, at first I used to get upset reading these items and the comments they spawn. I used to be surprised at the vitriol.

Now I try to avoid ’em like a sneezing pig.

Why? They’re all the same. The tired, old circle repeats itself every time there’s a trigger — usually a cyclist getting hurt. And I read enough and spend enough time at the appropriate online sites to know it’s not a local thing. It’s the same thing everywhere. It’s the same old arguments, the same old hatred.

Where do I stand? What’s my response?

It’s really pretty simple.

By law, I can ride a bike on the road. And I do. By reason, I can do everything in my power to stay out of the way of a two-ton vehicle that may or may not be piloted by a member of the vitriolic anti-bike faction. And I do. If I run a red light or a stop sign, I expect to be held accountable, whether by becoming intimate with a bumper or getting a ticket. And if you break the law, whether in a car or on a bike or a hovercraft or broomstick, I expect you to be held accountable, too.

Sounds simple to me.

Let the flaming begin …