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Comment by oarsinsync | Hacker News Reader

> I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here ... bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers

In the UK, all vehicles on the road are required to abide by the highway code. Yep, that means bicycles have to follow the same rules as drivers.

In the 1990s, schools in the UK ran cycling courses to ensure that children as young as 9 were already learning the highway code, and would be able to cycle on the roads safely. The London police to this day continue to run cycling courses to provide the same level of training.

I can't speak to the rest, nor in other countries, but in the UK, it is absolutely not foolish, but actually required by law, for cyclists to follow the same rules as drivers.

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This is what happens when bikes follow rules designed for cars:

http://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/07/30/this-is-wh...

It's patently stupid to have the same rules for bikes as it is for cars since they are completely different vehicles.

Now perhaps this is a case of semantics: The Highway Code has rules for all users of highways, but obviously within those rules some apply to cars, some to pedestrians, and some to cyclists. Still point remains that the specific rules are different depending on what vehicle you're in, and we'd be wise to think critically about this.

A good example of this is the Idaho Stop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

This is the crux of the issue. Many of the laws we're supposed to follow aren't fit for purpose.

I do stop at red lights - and I can tell you it pisses people off no end. People want to gun it off the lights, and instead they're stuck behind me. I have been involved in an 'accident' where the driver behind me tried to overtake off the lights, through the junction, and into the traffic island on the other side.

At the same time, it's obvious cyclists don't get carte blanche either. Anyone who's seen a bicycle plow through a pedestrian crossing like a god-given right, can see that much.

We need rules that make sense, and then enforce them. Meet us in the middle. Trying to enforce rules that don't make sense doesn't work (and not just for us - many of these cause us to frustrate or hinder other road users too)

Yep.

I observe red lights in London. I observe red lights in Oxford. Locations where, however imperfectly, the highway authorities consider cyclists in the design process.

I used to work in Burton-on-Trent (ex-industrial town in the English Midlands). My daily commute involved one particular intersection so badly designed that the only way to avoid a dangerous and potentially fatal car/bike interaction, if you were at the front of the queue, was to set off 5 seconds before the lights went green. (It has since been redesigned, thankfully.)

If you build infrastructure and formulate laws to benefit motorists and to potentially kill cyclists, don't be surprised if cyclists break those laws.

Funny. I guess there were never enough bikes in the US to make rules to keep them out of the way.

In the Netherlands, one of the rules is that bikes do not take the middle of a lane, but instead the right side of the right most lane (and if there is a bike path or a bike lane nearby, they have to use that).

So this kind of protest would be impossible, because on any road wide enough that a car and a bike can share a lane, cars can just overtake within the same lane the bike is in.

In California, bicycles also must follow the same rules as other vehicles. It is unlikely that is the issue in San Francisco, it is more of a lack of respect for bike lanes and seeing it as an inconvenience. Our culture here is so car oriented that it is showing its ugly side from every angle.

> In the UK, all vehicles on the road are required to abide by the highway code. Yep, that means bicycles have to follow the same rules as drivers.

They're required to follow the road traffic act. The highway code is a simple guide to the road traffic act, and it contains best current practice, but people are not required to follow the highway code.

> The highway code is a simple guide to the road traffic act, and it contains best current practice, but people are not required to follow the highway code.

True, but failing to follow the highway code can result in legal liability.

From https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/introduction:

"Although failure to comply with the other rules of the Code will not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted, The Highway Code may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts (see The road user and the law) to establish liability. This includes rules which use advisory wording such as ‘should/should not’ or ‘do/do not’."

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