Ah yes, but you see I'm in a hurry home to catch Game of Thrones reruns and I had to wait twelve entire seconds for oncoming traffic to pass so I could get around some inconsiderate guy trying to stay fit and/or reducing the effects of traffic.
</sarcasm>
The sad irony is it's those "pushy" cyclists who stay alive, by making themselves more visible, being a part of typical traffic patterns, and refusing to be pushed off to the side by cars trying to squeeze into the same lane.
Yes, it's strange how motorists perceive the cyclist limiting their speed to 15-20 mph for a whole city block when most of the city is crawling at 5-10 mph due to all the cars.
Certain streets in SF are unspoken "highways" with timed green lights to get across the city quickly: Fell/Oak, Sutter/Bush, Geary, Lincoln Ave, 19th Ave, Guerrero, Howard/Folsom (though this seems to have changed with the crazy wide bike lanes).
While it's completely in one's rights to ride a bike on those streets, it's pretty stupid unless you're hauling ass because the speed differential between the car and bike is too great.
Urban planners can talk all they want about how these streets are bad design and cities shouldn't have them, but it's best for both parties if bikers didn't use those streets. I don't know how someone rides on those streets without thinking it's a bad idea because most of the time, it's someone on a slow mountain bike going 10 mph.
They're vehicles, sure, but not motor vehicles. Unless they have motors, anyway. And sure, "they have just as much right to the road as cars". But being right isn't much use if you're dead.
