They Asked Cyclists to Obey the Law. The City Got a Very Polite Traffic Jam.

The story begins with a sentence that feels like it was written by traffic engineers with a dark sense of humor: “The protest hadn’t even started before the first motorist laid on the horn.” Hundreds of cyclists rolled through The Wiggle in response to a police captain’s calls for—let’s call it—more civic obedience. The cyclists complied.

They did exactly what the complainers said they wanted: stops at stop signs, orderly crossing, predictability. As one Redditor put it, “I just want everyone on the road to be predictable please.” Predictability arrived like a catapulted piano: efficient, lawful, and loudly resented. Inventory: one civic edict, a fleet of bicycles, and the metropolitan horn chorus.

The result was deliciously anti-climactic—an act of malicious compliance that read like patch notes for reality. Motorists, primed for chaos, encountered the unexpected input: cyclists obeying rules. The reaction was immediate and theatrical (horns), as if cars had a tutorial boss that required griefing to progress. If you tell people to follow rules as protest, don’t be surprised when they do; the performance is the point, and the horns are just ambience.

So: ask for obedience, get obedience, then be confused by the consequences. The Wiggle turned into a straight line of stubborn politeness, and somewhere a captain learned that compliance can be louder than defiance—if you have enough horns.