Edit, was a link to different content with the same title
> The city responded to what is truly a life and death crisis by erecting small yellow signs which read: Seniors Safety Zone: Drive Slowly. One more piece of city signage for drivers to ignore as they race to the next red light.
Cyclist here. There are a few crossing I go through every day where drivers need to yield to cyclists. I started keeping statistics on how often drivers yield to cyclists at these locations, and it's only about 62% of the time (N = 58). This is despite the TWO signs at each crossing saying for drivers to yield. I've talked to a few drivers at the next stop light and many of them see me but choose to plow through the crossing anyway because they are unaware of the law and the signs.
I think these signs exist as a CYA measure for the city. The city will then blame the driver if something bad happens. I regard signs saying to yield to cyclists or "share the road" or whatnot as evidence that a particular location is dangerous to cyclists because they city wouldn't spend the money on the sign if they didn't have to. Since the signs don't work, they mainly serve to mark dangerous locations.
> Drivers of high-end cars are the worst: BMWs, Audis and at the top of the list, Porsche drivers.
Yep, as a cyclist I've noticed that luxury car drivers are particularly bad on average. Pick-up truck drivers seem to have a worse reputation among cyclists but I'd say they aren't worse drivers specifically than luxury car drivers on average. Though trucks are larger so they perhaps should get more attention.
Pretty much any time I can tap on a vehicle that is pulled into the bike lane or cross walk I do just to let them know that they are driving poorly. Not anything that will leave a mark, just enough to get their attention. I usually end up doing this two to four times a week.
Most of the time it seems to me that the offending drivers are in pretty poor physical shape. So I've just kind of chalked their driving behavior to be due to their lack of experience using the bike trails and sidewalks.
Specifically the issue is running red lights and not stopping at stop signs. It's not "optional" for bikes in California.
Example: A couple of years ago my mom was bicycling on the bike path near her home. There was a driver stopped at a stop sign. They were stopped behind the bike path crossing which they are also supposed to yield to but never saw her coming down the bike path. Instead they were searching the on-coming traffic for an opening to cross the intersection. My mom thought she made eye contact before starting to cross but apparently the driver never saw her. Just as she started crossing the driver saw an opening and gunned their vehicle crashing into her bike and throwing her. She ended up needing to get knee surgery due to that.
And that doesn't even start to get into how most stop-lighted intersections are not designed for bicycle use. Many stoplights that I end up at are weight sensitive meaning that there is no way for me to trigger a green light to go straight or make a left hand turn without first crossing the right turn lane, pushing the cross walk button (if it exists at all) and then crossing back to the left hand turn lane.
Haven't red light cameras been linked to increases in accidents? I'm pretty sure I've read it was in part due to decreasing the length of yellow lights to try to increase revenue.
I think distracted driving is the problem IMO. I cannot go anywhere without seeing people driving while looking at their phones and cops right next to them not doing anything about it.
They can pull 1000 people over for various offenses like drifting out of their lanes or failure to signal but that isn't going to put fear into people like it would if all of those 1000 people were busted for driving while holding a cell phone.
People tend to overestimate their ability to drive well while playing with their phones and if you're caught but the officer doesn't see it in your hands it only takes a second to drop it into the seat next to you.
And to be able to receive this ticket readily, with no ability to hide a cell phone or claim to be in a navigation app. And it applies to other major causes of distracted driving accidents: drinking, distracting passengers to the driver, eating, and whatever else.
In the time before dash cams, there was the option that this would be a subjective offense, an officer's word against the perpetrator, and so many of these are "secondary" offenses (a warning and reason to pull over for something else). But now that every officer has a dash cam, they can be objectively evidenced.
a dash cam might see someone holding a cell phone to their face, but people texting or checking social media sites tend to keep their phones in their laps which is why police want the birds-eye view of a semi to spot them. Bikes have been used at intersections but with low held phones and high SUVs that wasn't always very effective.
This is bullshit. People just don't like them. People don't like having to stop at yellow lights, including the people setting the laws.
https://tucson.com/news/local/no-more-tickets-from-tucson-s-...
An increase in minor accidents, and decrease in major accidents involving death, which is exactly what you want.
I can't remember the exact reason anymore, but it was pretty interesting. Once they fixed the issue, they deactivated the cameras lol.