Idaho Stop
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
I'll go ahead and present the cyclist's view, and try not to get flamed:
A cyclist's head is much closer to the end of their vehicle, and they have a much more unobstructed view around them. By the time they are a few feet from the stop sign, they can already see much further down the street than a driver in a car could. This means it's easier to assess safety and make a snap decision to keep going. Coming to a complete stop doesn't really add any more safety.
Further, while accidents that harm pedestrians do certainly happen, and shouldn't be minimized, the vast majority of the time the biggest danger to a cyclist is themselves. Cars kill people every day, so it is reasonable that they be held to a higher standard. If you started out with a bicycle-only intersection with a yield sign, and then started allowing cars through, wouldn't you want to increase the safety of that intersection by requiring a stop?
As a final thought, most red lights in America could probably be stop signs or yield signs. The UK has been working towards this (with roundabouts too) and in general roads are safer when you require drivers to think and make decisions. I think much of car drivers' anger towards cyclists treating red lights as stop signs is not so much the safety aspect as a feeling of unfairness that they are stuck at the light while the cyclist checks the road and then bikes through.
This twitter video exemplifies it pretty well https://twitter.com/toddnickel/status/1560358628707618816
We just take for granted that cars will blast through stop signs at a pretty high speed (maybe 10 - 20 km/h?). But when we see a cyclist do it, for some reason there seems to be some sort of optical or logical illusion that makes it stick out to us more. If you look at the speed these cars are going at, a lot of them are probably actually going at around the full cruising speed of a casual cyclist. So, considering most cyclists would actually slow down somewhat to roll through a stop sign, they're probably actually going faster.
Oh the Urbanity! Recently had a great episode on this as well https://youtu.be/HT_KdFCVEdc
I stopped to watch a police fishing campaign at a set of lights that a lot of cyclists went through - and had to physically go to the police to get them to intervene when motorists did the same - as they were ignoring them (mentality seemed to be 'we are here to ticket cyclists, anything else that happens today isn't my problem').
LOADS of people break the rules of the road, let's focus were the biggest risks and dangers are. That said, I haven't run a red on a bike for a very long time - I'd rather not give drivers any more reasons to be annoyed with cyclists.
No, we don't. This doesn't happen, at least where I live.
This sounds like a made up statistic, to justify bad behavior.
For the record, I’ve seen plenty of bad behavior by people in cars, on bikes, and on foot everywhere I’ve lived, just not such a consistent flow past stop signs without stopping.
* a lifetime of experience as a driver, passenger, cyclist and pedestrian
* explicit counting in multiple intersections near me
* the video on twitter
* the informal study on youtube
which all agree. At what point do I have enough evidence to form a personal opinion for the sake of a hacker news comment?
Source, please. I live in an area where most people do this, but definitely nowhere close to 100% (not even "approximately" - maybe 80%).
It's definitely inconsistent to both roll through stop signs and get mad at bicyclists, but that doesn't apply to those of us that actually follow traffic laws. (although, I get far more upset over motorists breaking traffic laws than bicyclists, with exceptions for the rare cases where bicyclists do risky things around me driving)
I linked to a video on Twitter of a totally normal intersection in the Vancouver area where I think every single car ran the sign if they were able to. This is completely normal road behaviour and could have been any stop sign anywhere in Canada. I have confirmed this by walking around my neighbourhood to various intersections, observing the same thing. The second video I linked to actually counted at multiple intersections in Ottawa and found about 90% of motorists run the stop sign. How many sources do you want? I don't think that whether the true number is closer to 90% or 100% takes anything away from my point that society incorrectly perceives cyclists as being especially lawless when it comes to stop signs.
You haven't given a single source, just lots of anecdata, for two intersections, over a tiny slice of time, in a country (Canada) that I don't live in and isn't related to the topic of discussion (which is the US).
Also, I'm calling you out as disingenuous. Everyone who has been through North America knows that practically everybody all the time rolls through stop signs. Do I need to provide a source that water is wet and the sky is blue?
The Urbanity video tested three intersections, over twenty minutes of a single day, with no methodology given for the picking of the intersections, no controlling for the day of the week or the time of day. It should be very clear to anyone who has an inkling about how scientific evidence works that this isn't a source of reliable information. And, even if those results were representative of Ottawa, it's pretty obvious that Ottawa is not representative of the US.
> Here's an other article that was like 5th google result of "how many people stop at stop signs". https://wtop.com/news/2013/08/wtops-stop-sign-experiment-how...
Did you read that article? It's only a few paragraphs long and it includes lines like "At the end of the five-minute experiment, six out of 21 cars had actually stopped before crossing the intersection." and "It was unscientific to say the least." - and even by that extremely unscientific test they found that over a quarter of the cars stopped. You claimed "approximately 100% of motorists", which is wildly different from that 71% in that, again, not scientific at all "test" that was performed.
> Everyone who has been through North America knows that practically everybody all the time rolls through stop signs.
I live in the US (the location under discussion - not Ottawa) and I've heard people say that maybe twice across three different states. So, no, this isn't true.
> Do I need to provide a source that water is wet and the sky is blue?
That's not relevant, because you are unable to come up with sources to defend this particular claim that you've made above.
Your nit picking of the Urbanity informal study is weak. Unless you think the authors intentionally went out of their way to cherry pick a particularly bad 20 minute period, on a particularly lawless day, at 3 particularly lawless intersections, I think it's fair to assume that their observations are pretty typical and representative of Ottawa. That is really the occam's razor explanation and it's good enough to form an opinion unless you want to come and provide even more reliable evidence otherwise.
But if you actually are interested here's US study that observed a full stop rate of only about 20% https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00224...
Cyclists tend to be very letter of the law when it comes to the behavior of cars, then take a pragmatic approach to their own behavior when it suits them. If they were legalistic consistently they would stop at stop signs, if pragmatic they would keep the toys out of the road. Choosing one will draw less ire.
Someone riding on a bicycle going 22km/h has, without exaggeration, less than 1% of the momentum of a car going 60km/h, and 1/2500th the amount of power. They have orders of magnitude less capacity to cause harm to anyone.
Appropriately, and reasonably, they bear a lot less responsibility on the road and can be a lot more flexible with the rules. Similarly, pedestrians have even less capacity to cause harm so they enjoy even more flexibility. On the other hand, semi trucks have more ability to cause harm and so have to contend with even stricter regulations, licensing etc. Commercial aircraft, stricter still.
Traffic laws and infrastructure in North America are almost entirely put in place for the benefit of cars and ignore the existence of all other modes of transportation. I submit that the North American legal and physical environment are just flat out broken, unjust and illogical when it comes to cyclists (as well as pedestrians to an extent). It really is reasonable that someone on a bicycle should enjoy more flexibility than a 3 ton SUV. The fact people are so upset that cyclists would behave any differently than cars despite being completely different is a great achievement of motorists and the auto industry to manipulate our culture, to force everyone to navigate society on their terms for the benefit of cars, to the point of insanity.
The fact that you refer to bicycles as "toys" reveals that the real issue you have with cyclists is not the bullshit story you present, where you pretend that cyclists doing the same exact thing as every motorist does - rolling through stop signs - presents some danger to society. You simply hate cyclists outright, you don't care about their safety, and think they don't deserve any space on the road at all. You just don't care about people who want to, or have to get around without a car. Your motivations are selfish and you should feel bad about yourself.
As a car, if I am stopping first at stop sign, honest ass to the ground, I am going through that intersection first. If you are a cyclist who is still rolling up to the stop line, you do what you got to do, whether it is full stop or slowing down just enough. I got into multiple arguments with cyclist who thought they should be able to just roll through the stop sign and I should have waited for them. That’s illegal even with the Idaho stop.
The most-egregious breakdown of this that I have seen is when a cyclist who decides to STOP (and even signals this intent) is then overtaken by another cyclist at near full speed who then suddenly bursts into the intersection without warning.
I don't see it too frequently but I have it seen multiple times. This is simply bad and dangerous behavior but still considered justified by some.
Where I live we have a huge number of sport bicyclers that come in from other areas, especially on weekends.
So the percentage of clueless hotheads on bicycles is higher than average I would expect.
Whereas free-for-alls like India, et al, are predictable in their unpredictability - you can't rest for a moment because everything is chaos.
There's also a tipping point when you have enough crowding that everything slows down.
We even kind of see that with air and train travel - they are almost perfectly incident-free, but when an incident does happen many can die.
Stupid? Yes. Illegal? Yes. Did they learn anything? Probably not, based on their reaction.
Oh cool, you met a single bad cyclist. Every time I go out on foot or on bike I meet like 3 bad drivers. Oh, and when I meet a bad driver I am likely to die or be critically injured, when you meet a bad cyclist you're likely to scratch your paint.
It's important to zoom out and have some perspective.
I could say the same to you.
I'm listing one of many bad experiences.
Look at my other comments - I'm advocating for stricting driver testing because the current stuff is a joke.
How about the percentage of bad drivers vs bad cyclists? I see a lot of bad drivers because they're more drivers. I'd guess about 1 in 40 cars I see are doing something illegal and unsafe. I'd say I see 1 in 10 bicyclists doing something illegal and unsafe.
Yes, the severity is likely higher with a car. But don't handwave away the possibility of serious injury or death in an accident involving a bad cyclist, particularly if another driver is trying to avoid hitting them. Hitting a cyclist can be a lot like hitting a deer, and there are fatalities associated with that every year.
Edit: why disagree?
It's about 95 in 100 in my experience. No exaggeration. It's remarkable when a car comes to a complete stop at a four-way non-lighted intersection. Or when they travel no faster than the speed limit (this is slightly more common in my experience).
1 in 40 is really hard to believe unless you ignore rolling "stops" and speeding.
I'm not even counting all of those since I'm saying "and unsafe" as well. If a bike or car does a rolling stop without anyone around, I don't care. You are being illegal, but there nobody there. It completely changes if there are people around.
Almost every driver breaks the speed limit on a regular basis. It happens so often that it’s completely normalised and ignored, despite the fact it significantly increases the risk of serious injury and death to vulnerable road users.
Fatality rate of pedestrians in car related collisions rises from something like 10% to 100% between the speeds of 30mph and 40mph. Yet many drivers see no issue with ignoring a 20mph or 30mph speed limit in a residential area.
Just curious... Do you have asource for your data though? Google seems to indicate that cyclists and drivers are similar in their law breaking. https://whyy.org/articles/cyclists-violate-traffic-law-no-mo...
I'd love to find data like this for the US. If your Google-Fu is better, can you source me some? https://fullfact.org/news/are-cyclists-blame-road-accidents/
> How about the percentage of bad drivers vs bad cyclists? I see a lot of bad drivers because they're more drivers. I'd guess about 1 in 40 cars I see are doing something illegal and unsafe. I'd say I see 1 in 10 bicyclists doing something illegal and unsafe.
Collected data disagrees with you. Strongly suggesting you’re falling prey to confirmation bias, or you’ve become highly desensitised to driver misbehaviour. Neither of which would be surprising if you live and drive in the US (my experience of driving in the US, is that it’s almost designed to make it hard to do the right thing as a driver, little to know affordances in the infrastructure to allow for normal human error).
> Just curious... Do you have asource for your data though? Google seems to indicate that cyclists and drivers are similar in their law breaking.
I assume these conclusions change by locality, and collections method. However I’ve never seen a study demonstrate that cyclists break the law substantially more than drivers. Certainly nothing close to the 4:1 ratio you suggest.
> I'd love to find data like this for the US. If your Google-Fu is better, can you source me some?
I don’t have any US data unfortunately, I’m mostly interested in the UK where I live.
Ultimately the TL;DR is that cyclists are no worse at rule breaking than drivers. They just tend to break different rules, and driver rule breaking is almost entirely normalised. Big difference of course is severity of outcome, which pedestrian fatality rates suggest is about 400x to 1000x greater when a car is involved.
If drivers really cared about the safety of road users, they be up in arms about poor driving standards, and the lack of consequences for drivers that kill people. They wouldn’t be shouting about cyclists.
Source? Also note the phrasing "illegal and unsafe". Strictly illegal behavior seems to be about equal based on the link I provided.
"If drivers really cared about the safety of road users, they be up in arms about poor driving standards,"
Which my comments advocate for.
Most people aren't advocating for tougher standards because they're afraid their privileges will be taken away. This appears true for both driver testing and calls for cyclist licensing. Just how the comments on this post are mostly about each side pointing the finger at the other.
Also, it's possible the drivers like to yell about cyclists doing illegal and unsafe things because they perceive more risk and want to avoid a negative result. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23021420/
Are you saying that when driver breaks the law, it not unsafe, or more frequently not unsafe than when a cyclist does it? How do you square that with this statement?
> Yes, the severity is likely higher with a car.
With regards to licensing, there are real logistical issues and macro scale affect associated with that approach.
Licensing would be expensive and very difficult to enforce, not that governments haven’t investigated the possibility before. It would presumably require even children to be licensed before going near a bike, which in turn would basically eliminate cycling as form of transport. Who can be bother with all that hassle?
It also feels entirely disproportionate to risk. The stats show the bikes don’t kill or injure people very often, hardly greater than injuries and fatalities caused by pedestrian-pedestrian collisions. Compared to cars that kill dozens every day.
If there was data, rather than hysteria, demonstrating a high risk caused by cyclists then I would agree. But there isn’t, and I doubt you’re going to advocate for licensing for pedestrians as well?
When a driver or cyclists breaks the law, it is not necessarily unsafe.
"Who can be bother with all that hassle?"
What hassle? You're implying details that aren't there. It wouldn't be difficult at all to require online training/testing for a low fee. This is already done commonly with boating licenses and us low cost and easy. And yes, kids get boater certificates too. Based on the data, they are the cycling age group that would most benefit from the knowledge in the training/test.
"It also feels entirely disproportionate to risk."
How so? The data I posted about UK cycling accidents shows about 52% involve a factor on cyclists end. If these people are at risk, then we should attempt to get this number down to zero. It seems the data suggests that even if we eliminate driver errors, we would still be left with just under 40% caused solely by cyclist error.
"If there was data, rather than hysteria,"
No hysteria here, just data.
Sure, but I would argue that law breaking is good proxy for unsafe behaviour. And rates of law breaking are similar between drivers and cyclists, so to say that doesn’t demonstrate that cyclists don’t behave more unsafely than drivers would require you believe that driver rule breaking is somehow inherently safer (on average) than cyclist rule breaking.
> What hassle? You're implying details that aren't there. It wouldn't be difficult at all to require online training/testing for a low fee. This is already done commonly with boating licenses and us low cost and easy. And yes, kids get boater certificates too. Based on the data, they are the cycling age group that would most benefit from the knowledge in the training/test.
What percentage of children have a boater licence? What percentage of children have a bike? Do you think those numbers are even vaguely comparable? The barrier to entry for boating is very high regardless of licensing, that is not true of biking.
Schools are quite capable of running bike training courses without a licensing scheme. Just like they’re quite capable of teaching any other subject. If you want to advocate for better bike training in schools, then I’m right there with you, I just don’t see how licensing helps with that endeavour.
> How so? The data I posted about UK cycling accidents shows about 52% involve a factor on cyclists end. If these people are at risk, then we should attempt to get this number down to zero.
Where have you linked this? Additionally licensing should focus on ensuring that people can’t engage in an activity that endangers others with a demonstration of capability, not just endanger themselves. Otherwise we’ll need licensing for every human activity. I argue that cycling doesn’t substantially endanger anyone except the biker, and that there are plenty of other everyday activities that endanger people more than cycling, which aren’t licensed.
> "If there was data, rather than hysteria," No hysteria here, just data.
You haven’t provided the data I'm afraid. Certainly not data demonstrating the risk of unlicensed cyclists to non-cyclists.
"Do you think those numbers are even vaguely comparable? The barrier to entry for boating is very high regardless of licensing, that is not true of biking."
Why do you think these numbers should be comparable? What barrier to entry; access to water? This is more common in some areas. Also, what do barriers to entry in boating have to do with this? If anything the fact that there are higher barriers and yet it's extremely easy to get a license would support my position.
"Schools are quite capable of running bike training courses without a licensing scheme."
I'd be for this. One drawback is that schools could teach a lot of things, but don't. There would be less pushback if we didn't push this into the curriculum too. The other drawback is that it doesn't cover the adults.
"Where have you linked this?"
https://fullfact.org/news/are-cyclists-blame-road-accidents/
"Additionally licensing should focus on ensuring that people can’t engage in an activity that endangers others with a demonstration of capability,"
Is this just your opinion, or is there a definition somewhere? There are licensing requirements for all sorts of things that don't provide risks to other people, but do to property, or to themselves. And particularly if one wants to access community resources, especially when the modest fees are used to provide safe infrastructure (such as boat ramps in the case of boating).
"You haven’t provided the data I'm afraid. Certainly not data demonstrating the risk of unlicensed cyclists to non-cyclists."
Considering the fact you missed my link... the main point is that cyclists contribute to their own accidents as evidenced by the data. My point about being a danger to others is common sense - these accidents caused by cyclists at least produced damage to property. There are occurances of fatalities and injuries to pedestrians too. Nobody has quantified them as far as I can tell. But we're talking about moot here because this detail doesn't matter to my main point (that everyone has been derailing). I really wish I didn't participate in many of these, but I got baited in by that troll and now everyone else is picking apart the details of the response.
If you read my comments, my main point is that there needs to be better training/testing for drivers and cyclists if we want cyclist involved accidents to decrease. The (limited) data absolutely shows near equal fault, and those faults being attributed to driver/cyclist error. Now we could say self training is sufficient. I'd even buy that if it weren't for all the issues I've seen. But these accidents do in fact cause harm to others on shared infrastructure, even if physical injuries are less common. We require permits for assemblies that block roads, permits for special events in public areas or noise exceptions, etc, because they inconvenience the public. So it seems acceptable and reasonable to require some basic training and testing instead of simply blaming it 100% on the drivers as the data doesn't support that.
Money. Boating is an expensive sport. Find me a boat, or even a rental, for less than $100. You can easily find second hand bikes for $50. Boating is also a pure luxury for most, where as cycling can be a necessity for those that can’t afford a car.
> Is this just your opinion, or is there a definition somewhere? There are licensing requirements for all sorts of things that don't provide risks to other people, but do to property, or to themselves. And particularly if one wants to access community resources, especially when the modest fees are used to provide safe infrastructure (such as boat ramps in the case of boating).
It’s my opinion, but find me a government enforced license where that isn’t true? For boating there’s clearly a huge safety element, every person you take out on the boat is relying on you to get them home safe. Just talk to any coastguard (or watch Smarter Every Day’s YouTube series) to see exactly how people end up drowning while boating in a manner that appears normal and safe.
> Considering the fact you missed my link... the main point is that cyclists contribute to their own accidents as evidenced by the data.
The article spends quite a bit of time explaining why you can’t draw the conclusions you’ve derived from the data, including caveats from the data collectors themselves.
> The (limited) data absolutely shows near equal fault, and those faults being attributed to driver/cyclist error.
It shows no such thing. It show contributory factors, nothing about fault. A cyclist that didn’t notice a car pulling out of junction while the cyclist had right of way, might well be marked down as a contributory factor. After all, if the cyclist has been paying better attention, they might have been able to avoid the inattentive driver, but the fault still sits with the driver for failing to properly check for traffic before pulling out.
Even if we take the data at face value and say the driver and cyclists are at equally at fault, then surely we should allocate greater responsibility to the individual in the position of greater power? After all, driver chose to get into a machine quite capable to killing as a consequence of minor fault on the part of the operator, the cyclist didn’t. Surely drivers should take responsibility for their use of such a deadly machine, rather than just expecting everyone else to compensate for their mistakes with potentially fatal outcomes?
> But these accidents do in fact cause harm to others on shared infrastructure, even if physical injuries are less common.
This applies to walking as well. There have been fatal pedestrian-pedestrian collisions. I guess we should licence and permit walking as-well? After all multiple pedestrians are killed everyday by drivers, don’t they need protecting from their incompetence as well?
If you want your licence for bike argue to hold any water, you need to explain why it shouldn’t apply to walking as well. The risk provide of cycling is substantially closer to walking than it is driving.
This is, again, a moot tangent. Please focus on the important point - that a license can be obtain very easily through online education. And yes, many people practically give away old canoes. Strap a trolling motor on it and you need a license.
"find me a government enforced license where that isn’t true?"
Apiary license, among others.
"Even if we take the data at face value and say the driver and cyclists are at equally at fault, then surely we should allocate greater responsibility to the individual in the position of greater power?"
Moot. The percentage of shared contributing factors is low.
"might well be marked down as a contributory factor."
Sure, then we can exclude the very small number with the shared contributing factors.
"The article spends quite a bit of time explaining why you can’t draw the conclusions you’ve derived from the data"
Where at?
"After all, driver chose to get into a machine quite capable to killing as a consequence of minor fault on the part of the operator, the cyclist didn’t."
Bias again. That is a consequence, although more rare, for cyclists.
"Surely drivers should take responsibility for their use of such a deadly machine, rather than just expecting everyone else to compensate for their mistakes with potentially fatal outcomes?"
Tangent, again. I never said anything about drivers not accepting responsibility for their actions. In a proper system, all participants should be anticipating faults of others for maximum safety.
"If you want your licence for bike argue to hold any water, you need to explain why it shouldn’t apply to walking as well."
No, you're the one pulling in walking and the onus would be on you to show why it should. You can research case law cycling DUI and explain to me why it applies to bicycles and not walking - there will be your answers.
It seems you're not interested in a real discussion and have provided substantial bias in your writing. Good luck. I'm done here.
That’s ok, I can see you’ve already decided how this issue should be “fixed”, and you’re not interested in learning more. Ultimately the world isn’t heading in the direction you think it should, so I won’t worry too much about your view points.
You're still not zooming out and showing a large lack of empathy. I beg you to go to any cyclist thread on any platform and look at the lived experiences of cyclists vs drivers. Or just talk to some. Or try riding a bike through a city or suburb yourself to do things like get groceries and follow non-standard bike paths to actually do things. I'm not talking about riding a hidden off the road bike path, I mean commuting.
Car-centric infrastructure is violent and makes it so that the default affordance is towards the driver.
1. Turning right on red is dangerous for cyclists, yet legal for cars. 2. Bike lanes are unprotected and far too dangerous for the average commuter, forcing cyclists onto shitty sidewalks with obscured visibility. 3. Intersections and right of way laws in most states make it so cyclists must remain in a dangerous area (an intersection) for longer than is necessary with safe stop laws. 4. Automobiles have such diversity that many people cant even safely see cyclists if they were to follow the "rules of the road" because their visibility is so severely limited. Source : Me any time some asshole in a lifted truck pulls up next to me at a red light when I'm in the bike lane and his door handle is above my fucking head. 5. Bike paths are often obscured from cars until it's too late. Also drivers aren't checking bike paths when turning or approaching an intersection 6. Ever seen someone pull out of a gas station or parking lot? Zero percent chance they are checking the bike lane. Quick head turn to the left, see no cars, then full speed ahead. This is also caused by shitty infrastructure that puts cyclists in the blind spot.
You wanna license cyclists? Fine. I expect an equal amount of my tax money to go to bike-centric infrastructure then. I want to see new bike lanes being built instead of new 6 lane roads.
but it doesn't matter, all I ever see from people who haven't had to ride a bike or walk to work is the same ol "well ackshually bikes are dangerous too". And it's so fucking tone-deaf; and after a literally uncountable number of incidents where I've almost been killed, or I've been injured, or thrown from my bike, or cut off; I'm tired of pretending I'm not upset about it.
It's my lived experience where I have to either drive, or be in a stress induced hyper-vigilant ride for my fucking life every time I want to go to a store 4-5 miles away. I just can't imagine being wrapped in 2000 pounds of steel with airbag pillow cloud fucking crumple zone impact rated death machine, and pointing to 100 lbs of flesh on a 10lb aluminum frame and being like "No actually that's the problem and I'm so scared of them I need to make sure the entire world conforms to what I'm doing and leaves no room for them to interact with me"
"You're still not zooming out and showing a large lack of empathy."
I have zoomed out and have empathy. What makes you say I don't? Just that you disagree with my statement that some cyclist do illegal and unsafe things?
Most of the things you mentioned as issues are about education and infrastructure. Improving thr infrastructure would be great. It's happening, but will take time to fully catch on and have implementation funding. The education part goes both ways. You're on a bike and I'm assuming you follow the laws. So from your perspective drivers are the problem because you've already controlled the risk on your end (or are blind to it). The same is true for the drivers' perspective.
"I expect an equal amount of my tax money to go to bike-centric infrastructure then."
Equal how? On a per capita basis, that's fine. But a lot of the funding for roads is done via fuel tax and tolls. With such low use, there's not a lot of political incentive to raise taxes for this funding either. Maybe that will change.
"people who haven't had to ride a bike or walk to work"
I've riden bikes on suburban streets and I've walked to work, the store, and other places on a variety of roads. Yes you have to be vigilant. Arguably the people driving should be vigilant too. But that comes back to testing/training again.
"No actually that's the problem and I'm so scared of them I need to make sure the entire world conforms to what I'm doing and leaves no room for them to interact with me"
You've grossly misconstrued what I've been saying. Which mostly that we need better training/testing for drivers and cyclists.
When two vehicles approach an intersection, if they do so at the same speed (including same variation in speed, like both decelerating), the relative view angle from one vehicle to the other stays the same. It's possible for another road user to be entirely hidden behind a driver's A pillar during an approach to the intersection. In spite of several glances in that direction, it is possible to fail to spot the other vehicle. A proper stop is the only sure thing.
- The pillars of every pane of glass in a car create blind spots, not just the the front - there's a reason changing lanes safely requires both a mirror check and a physical turn of the head.
- Drivers are set back relative to the front of the car, so they can't easily see cross traffic if there's any sort of obstructions.
- If a driver is right at the front of the vehicle (see euro trucks) they're necessarily lifted atop the engine and so have a blind spot immediately in front of them.
- Drivers have the advantage of being able to look behind without completely turning their head, but mirrors have their own blind spots and necessarily have to have either a restricted field of view or distort distances depending on their curvature.
None of these are problems for cyclists because they can just move their body and head without obstruction. The only real vision advantage drivers have is being able to see over the tops of other vehicles if they're driving something tall - which of course comes with its own blind spots (and impedes the vision of everyone else on the road).
True, but not relevant in the context of stopping or or rolling through a stop sign.
I don't care about my B or C pillars when stopping, other than on the passenger side when making a right turn (check for cyclists, scooters).
The A pillar has the unique problem that two drivers approaching the same intersection at constant speed, from a mile away, such that they will meet there at the same time, may fail to see each other almost the the entire time until the last few moments, because each vehicle maintains the same angle relative to the path of travel of the other vehicle.
Neither does a motorcyclist, but no one claims it's safer for motorcyclists to treat stop as yield compared to motorists.
OK, I will claim it now; there, someone does.
> Neither does a motorcyclist
Not true if the motorcyclist has a full helmet. Though it's true that it doesn't have pillars.
Not really. The anger I see is because they didn't stop at a stop sign when there are cars around.
The counter argument to this stop-check-go argument for bikes and not for cars, is that you could just as easily do this safely with a car vs a bike (some states even make exceptions for lights that are too long or for motorcycles), and a car would traverse the intersection more quickly than a bike (safer since the intersecting traffic doesn't stop, requiring a shorter line of sight than with a bicycle).
So there are really points on both sides. The biggest issue is that there need to be standardized rules, and road users need to know and follow them. I see so many near accidents at stop signs because people don't know who has the right of way. Stricter driver training and testing would by far provide the biggest safety increase given that the vast majority of accidents are due to driver error.
(as an aside, right turning vehicles at intersections are allowed to behave much the same as a cyclist doing an Idaho stop - turning right on red, rolling stop)
Ironically, didn't DC just ban cars from turning right on red at the same time they allowed bikes to do this kind of thing?
I'm in MI though and we have Michigan Lefts - I have also heard them called Minnesota lefts, where you turn left after the intersection.
When I cycle and I want to go straight through the intersection, I ride in the middle of the travel lane. Motorists will either wait behind me, pass me on the right to make a right turn, or pass me on the left and go straight (or make a left). But I don't have issues with right hooks because I take the lane.
I agree, but I will add that I can't rely on licensed people to know and follow the rules either. The driving test is a joke in the US.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/globe-drive/culture/comm...
1. The driver behind me doesn't expect me to stop and almost (or does) hit me. 2. I'm very vulnerable when first starting up and it's easy for turning drivers to miss me or for my balance to push me slightly left or right.
An Idaho stop law means that I'm able to proceed through a red light when there's no moving cars around which largely solves (2).
Additionally, in my area I can take a main street or side streets. I generally take the main road for the same reason drivers so: there's stop signs every 600ft on the side roads. If I could cruise down the side street without stopping constantly I'd be much more likely to take it which keeps me out of the traffic on the main road.
My point is that the rule allows me to either go mid-cycle when the cross traffic is clear or at least jump the gun a bit and start moving during the all-red phase. Either way it's safer for me since I'm not having to start with a bunch of cars that can accelerate faster than me in a space where "unexpected" movements are common.
Try signalling. One of two things will happen: they will either realize that you are coming to a stop or they won't have a clue what the signal means (even though it is in the driver's manual, at least around here). Either way, they will slow down.
But even then, I'd be surprised if the driver who's reckless/inattentive enough not to pay attention to the person in front of them at a stop sign both noticed and understood what the signal meant. Worth a shot though.
I have used it in several circumstances where I am fairly certain the driver was responding to the signal. Whether the understood the signal or not is an open question. If they didn't, it seemed to be enough to get them to slow down -- which is all that I can really ask for.
As for the whole signalling while braking situation on bikes, it's kinda nuts. I have to make a left turn while going down hill at one point of my commute. It's pretty much signal, brake with both hands, signal and turn. I understand why bikes don't apply both brakes with one lever, but it is awkward at times.
The city has since resolved that with a clearly marked bike lane. (Though it's fun watching vehicles as large as semi's try to fit into the bike lane, thinking it gives them the right to go straight through.)
> They're asking how to signal continuous travel through an intersection.
No, they are not.
I've also been involved in car(-car, not car-bike) accidents before where some idiot at a light was looking at their phone while stopped, and did something stupid when they noticed others moving in their peripheral vision. Plausibly, such idiots could be the cause of a lot of accidents at intersections.
The study[1] where they stated that said it only decreased in the year after the law was passed. They didn't check what happened in subsequent years.
> At least according to the wiki. Naively, I would think they'd go up, or stay level. Do you have any hypothesis for why that may be?
The study they used to justify that conclusion compared two cities in two different states in different parts of the US. They didn't have before and after data after the law was enacted to make a direct comparison (since the law was enacted in the early 1980s). In my opinion, the study doesn't really support the conclusion that not coming to a full stop is safer. It would have been better had the study compared multiple locations with similar characteristics over the same time period.
[1] https://meggsreport.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/idaho-law-ja...
Segregating cyclist traffic across space by using separate roads works best, but when the amount of cyclists is low, it turns out segregating across time works well enough.
I haven't been riding in a long time but when on trails (i.e. "in the woods") I wouldn't look down. You saw that ground as you approached it and it's all the same for the most part. Differences in elevation are easy to see with peripheral vision.
In the city there's potholes and puddles of unknown depth with who-knows-what buried in their depths, haha.
BTW: I'm legally blind in my right eye so all I have on my right is peripheral vision so I may not be the best example. I've probably developed a near-instinctual glance.
I think if we can all take a deep breath and acknowledge that it is a relative majority who ride with situational awareness and understand right-of-way, even if sometimes the specific dynamics of a specific interaction means the rule won't be strictly obeyed in all scenarios, and that's fine.
There are many, many cases where I ride (SF bay area) where drivers are so extremely deferent and "nice" that they give up their right-of-way and just wait for a bike to roll through the intersection, even if it's clearly their turn and the obligation of the person on the bike to stop. But this gets back to the points made elsewhere about why right-of-way exists: for predictability. It's easier on everyone and conserves mental/decision-making effort to just do what right-of-way dictates. It gets to the point where I forcefully put both feet on the ground and stare through their windshield til they get the message and go.
While we're on the point of complaining about unsensible driving practices: do not stop for bikes who want to ride across the street in a crosswalk! They are not pedestrians, they have to use the road! They can wait for traffic to pass, it's fine. No, I don't care if it's a mom with her baby on the back, she has strong instincts around safety anyway and won't do anything dumb around cars. Relax and trust other people.
Bike cops, perhaps.
I really hope there's some other reason besides drivers acting like babies over this.
Depending on your state, not only is coming to a full stop more dangerous, it may actually not even be the law.
.. in the bike lane, alone? Rolling through a stop sign as a yield is only legally allowed in 9 states as of 2022.
No one is saying anyone is trying to act like entitled babies. All my point is saying is that a vehicle is a vehicle as defined by the law.
Any time anyone talks about cycling outside of a venue designated specifically for topics on cycling, you can generally assume it's going to result in uncivil discourse. There should be an Internet law about that or something.
(But who are we kidding? Cyclists would find a way to break that law too. OH, SNAP!)
Nobody on/around the roads using any mode of transit cares at all about any other thing on/around the roads so long as it is not in their way or otherwise about to cause them to need to take action to avoid a conflict. They don't like you as a cyclist because your actions are hard to predict sufficiently far in advance relative to the speeds at which you move.
When you're walking do you care about the cars? No, of course not. Unless they're doing something that's likely to cause you to need to do something.
They are moving between traffic in the next lane and the cyclist. Lanes simply don't have room for an automobile and half of another one.
> When you discuss a two-wheel vehicle and talk about lane-splitting you are talking about moving in the middle of two lanes between automobiles, essentially claiming a middle third lane that's not marked.
From a legal perspective, the driver of the two wheeled vehicle is not keeping their vehicle as nearly as practicable within a single lane. While I personally agree with lane splitting for single track vehicles like pedal and motorcyclists, the law says otherwise in most states in the US. But I don't agree with lane splitting for dual track vehicles because drivers of those types of vehicles don't have a precise idea of their extent, which makes it more likly they may end up colliding with a vehicle in the next lane when they lane split, compared to the driver of a single track vehicle.
No, they are blocking the next lane. Lanes are sized to hold a single automobile. Half of an automobile will clearly block another automobile from filling that space. This is not lane-splitting. When a bicyclist rides between two automobiles in adjacent lanes, that is lane-splitting. An automobile that does what you characterized as lane-splitting is simply performing a passing maneuver. Legally speaking, at least in FL, you don't even have to fully move over to a passing lane when passing a bicycle, you simply need to ensure 3ft of clearance. Again, not lane-splitting, passing. My "half-assed passing maneuver" statement is just my personal opinion that you should perform a normal passing maneuver and go totally into the other lane for the safety of the bicyclist, even if it's not legally required.
> I personally agree with lane splitting for single track vehicles like pedal and motorcyclists
I find any lane-splitting, legal or not, to be incredibly foolish. The level of risk taken on when you feel the need to purposefully put yourself between two very large moving metal objects that have unpredictable behaviour and very little safety clearance is just too high. As evidenced in this thread already, riding a two-wheeled vehicle in automobile traffic is already risky enough, why the hell would you want to increase that risk.
According to the Wikipedia article you cited about lane splitting, they define it as:
>> Lane splitting is riding a bicycle or motorcycle between lanes or rows of slow moving or stopped traffic moving in the same direction.
A cyclist riding close to the edge of the lane and a motorist in the adjacent lanes form 2 lanes or rows of traffic. Another motorist attempting to go between those two lanes or rows of traffic is lane splitting because their vehicle is between two lanes of traffic. Whether or not they partially block the lane as they pass doesn't change the fact that that's what it is. Both a motorcyclist and a pedalcyclist are wider than their tire width, so they are partially in both lanes when lane splitting, and they would block both lanes if they're attempting to go between two tractor-trailers for example.
> Legally speaking, at least in FL, you don't even have to fully move over to a passing lane when passing a bicycle, you simply need to ensure 3ft of clearance.
Traffic law pertaining to passing, what side of the road to drive on, and where to position one's vehicle when preparing for a turn were written for roads that don't have marked lanes for traffic. There also another law[1] that lists additional requirements for drivers on roads with marked lanes for traffic. One of those requirements is to remain as nearly as practicable within a single lane. Straddling the lane line while passing does not meet that requirement. So while the minimum safe distance/3 ft distance requirement applies on roads without marked lanes, it does not supercede the requirement to keep one's vehicle within a single lane. So, unless it's possible to leave 3 feet of distance between one's vehicle and a cyclist while remaining entirely within the same lane, one has to change lanes to pass in order to comply with the single lane requirement imposed by 316.089.
[1] http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...
As far as the USA goes:
Absurdly, roundabouts in California (a relatively recent import, starting about 20 years ago) always have stop signs! In fact in Palo Alto there is precisely one roundabout with yields on all entrances. Makes me wonder why they bothered.
Roundabouts (called "rotaries" there) are common in Massachusetts and don't have stop signs. Not that it would matter much as traffic signs and other rules are optional and not enforced there.
On the streets with little or no traffic it doesn't matter, it's the larger roundabouts on already difficult to walk highways.
There are two problems with that argument:
1. Very few intersections meet the criteria where a cyclist would be able to see approaching cross traffic significantly earlier than a motorist could. In over 30 years of motoring and over 15 years of on road cycling in various locations, I have not encountered an intersection where I'm not able to see approaching cross traffic when motoring but could see while cycling
2. No one argues for treating stops as yield for motorcyclists
> Coming to a complete stop doesn't really add any more safety
It really depends on the intersection. An intersection where one cannot really see approaching cross traffic until shortly before entering it would have a safety benefit if drivers came to a full stop and checked for traffic before entering the intersection. Other intersections where the roads don't intersect at near right angles or where cross traffic is moving at higher speeds also have a safety benefit by adding a requirement that traffic stop and check before entering.
> Further, while accidents that harm pedestrians do certainly happen, and shouldn't be minimized, the vast majority of the time the biggest danger to a cyclist is themselves.
Traffic control designating right of way isn't about minimizing harm. It's about preventing collisions in the first place by having a clear set of rules about who has the right of way and who does not and has to yield it. Just because a certain vehicle/driver combination has less mass compared to another doesn't mean that they shouldn't be following the same right of way rules. Regardless of the amount of damage caused or who gets injured, a crash still causes harm and costs money. In this particular case[1], the cyclists didn't get harmed, but their actions in terms of violating the established rules designating right of way resulted in significant property damage
> As a final thought, most red lights in America could probably be stop signs or yield signs.
This is the actual root cause of this issue in the US. But even so, if cross traffic is moving at higher speeds, it's best for drivers of all types of vehicles to stop and check before entering the intersection. In the US, this is the case for many types of intersections (a side road crossing or joining an arterial with traffic moving in excess of 40 mph). But for residential neighborhoods with sparse traffic and low traffic speeds, full stops are not required.
[1] https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manches...
> I think much of car drivers' anger towards cyclists treating red lights as stop signs is not so much the safety aspect as a feeling of unfairness that they are stuck at the light while the cyclist checks the road and then bikes through.
I think the actual issue is a step beyond that: cyclists are treated as if they were equal to drivers sometimes (e.g., bikes being entitled to the whole lane even if they're going 20 under the speed limit), but being treated differently than drivers other times (e.g., this), and both cases are always at drivers' expense.
Could you expand on this? And explain why this expense is so great, that it’s more important that the life and safety of someone on a bike?
Unless the road has a minimum speed limit posted, there's no requirement to drive at or near the speed limit. The rules of the road were designed to accommodate drivers moving at different speeds. Where traffic keeps to the right, the general rule is that slower traffic keeps further towards the right and faster traffic passes them on the left.
But when there are marked lanes, slower traffic just uses the right lane and faster traffic passes using one of the lanes to the left (even if that lane is normally for traffic moving in the other direction. Whether the slower vehicle is a bus, truck, or pedalcycle doesn't really matter. The lane isn't wide enough to share side by side anyway because lanes are really only wide enough for a single dual track vehicle. The only exception to that is two single track vehicles traveling side by side within the same lane.
This is what makes it possible for traffic moving at different speeds to share the road.
> Drive with the flow of traffic (within the speed limit). You should not drive so slowly that you block other vehicles moving at normal, safe speeds. You can be issued a ticket for driving too slowly.
I would imagine that other locations may have similar laws. Do the police enforce these? Not that I have ever seen.
>> (5) No person shall drive a motor vehicle at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, except when reduced speed is necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law.
So this restriction only applies to motor vehicles. Safe operation would involve yielding to slower traffic in front of you, so you would not be ticketed if traffic in front of you is also moving slowly. Compliance with the law would include yielding to oncoming traffic while waiting to make a left, or stopped while waiting for the light to change, so you wouldn't be cited for this either in those cases.
[1] http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...
> Unless the road has a minimum speed limit posted, there's no requirement to drive at or near the speed limit. The rules of the road were designed to accommodate drivers moving at different speeds.
Sure, I'm making an assumption here, but I'd say it was a reasonable assumption that "driving", in this case, was referring to operation of a motor vehicle. With that baseline assumption clarified, what I mentioned was 100% correct. You said "Unless the road has a minimum speed limit posted, there's no requirement to drive at or near the speed limit." and I refuted that statement. Driving 20mph under the speed limit is most definitely impeding 'normal' traffic flow.
Florida law[1] defines a vehicle as follows:
>> (106) VEHICLE.—Every device in, upon, or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, except personal delivery devices, mobile carriers, and devices used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks.
You can certainly drive vehicles without a motor equipped (animal driven vehicles, bicycle, etc)
> You said "Unless the road has a minimum speed limit posted, there's no requirement to drive at or near the speed limit." and I refuted that statement. Driving 20mph under the speed limit is most definitely impeding 'normal' traffic flow.
If there are multiple lanes of traffic, it's easy enough to change lanes to pass a slower vehicle, so driving under the posted speed limit isn't necessarily a violation of that law. Also the law[2] does allow for vehicles moving at less than the normal speed of traffic to use the roadways as long as they use the right most lane or keep as far right as practicable.
It also depends on whether one has to comply with the law or operate at a reduced speed for safe operation. So, for instance, in inclement weather conditions, you have to drive slower. The same applies if the vehicle has a compact spare tire mounted that doesn't allow operation at normal speeds. In the case of a bicycle, it's not reasonable to expect that one can go faster than a cyclist is capable of going, like one can't expect a truck to sustain speeds over 100 mph. There's actually a court ruling[3] from Ohio that goes into more detail about this particular line of reasoning (where their slow vehicle law applies to all vehicles, not just motor vehicles).
[1] http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...
[2] http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...
[3] https://www.ohiobikelawyer.com/bike-law-101/2010/09/the-selz...
No, the requirement does not apply to only to motor vehicles, because we have another law:
s. 316.2065: Every person propelling a vehicle by human power has all of the rights and all of the duties applicable to the driver of any other vehicle
Therefore the law applies to bicyclists as well. Too many think they have a right to the road, but not the same duties.
You left out the second part of the law you cited:
>> (1) Every person propelling a vehicle by human power has all of the rights and all of the duties applicable to the driver of any other vehicle under this chapter, *except as to special regulations in this chapter, and except as to provisions of this chapter which by their nature can have no application.*
A statute that applies to motor vehicles, by its nature, cannot apply to a pedalcyclist.
Also, the definition of the term "motor vehicle"[1] in the same chapter reads as follows:
>> (46) MOTOR VEHICLE.—Except when used in s. 316.1001, a self-propelled vehicle not operated upon rails or guideway, but not including any bicycle, electric bicycle, motorized scooter, electric personal assistive mobility device, mobile carrier, personal delivery device, swamp buggy, or moped. For purposes of s. 316.1001, “motor vehicle” has the same meaning as provided in s. 320.01(1)(a).
That definition specifically excludes bicycles.
[1] http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...
Cyclists need a different set of laws on the road for everyone's benefit. But people have become so inured to the constant threat and frequent (and often fatal) harm of motor vehicles, that they fixate on and exaggerate the threat of cyclists, and illogically insist that they need to follow the same rules of the road as cars.
Cyclists should follow rules of the road -- special rules created for a special vehicle.
I think about this a lot when approaching a stoplight or stop sign.
For any road user, where is the most dangerous part of any road? You guessed it, the intersection.
When is an intersection safest? When it's empty.
So, for a cyclist, it makes the most sense to cross through the most dangerous part of the road when it is devoid of danger; i.e., when it's empty, or when other cars are stopped.
This of course gets a little dicey when you consider protected turns, leading pedestrian intervals, jaywalking, or anything else which would make that "empty" intersection a little less empty and therefore unpredictable and dangerous. But generally speaking, I feel way safer running a predictable red light than crossing it with moving traffic.
The rules of the road[1] were first developed in the early 20th century before motor vehicles were very common. They were designed for operators of vehicles like animal driven vehicles, cyclists, and early motor vehicles (anything on wheels).
> So, for a cyclist, it makes the most sense to cross through the most dangerous part of the road [an intersection] when it is devoid of danger; i.e., when it's empty, or when other cars are stopped.
> [...]
>
> But generally speaking, I feel way safer running a predictable red light than crossing it with moving traffic.
I don't see how the second part follows from the first. Your assertion is that it's safe to cross an intersection when it's empty or when other cars are stopped, but then you say you feel safer running a red light. But when the light for cross traffic is green, cross traffic will neither be stopped or not in the intersection.
Statistically, you're far more likely to get hit by cross traffic compared to same direction traffic, so while you may feel safer, you're actually putting yourself in more danger.
[1] https://www.enotrans.org/wp-content/uploads/RulesOfTheRoad.j...
I'm approaching an intersection on my bicycle and the light ahead is red. The motor vehicle traffic is stopped at that red light. I pass by that stopped traffic and get closer to the intersection. My head is largely above the cars stopped at the crosswalk and I have good visibility. I scan the entire intersection (from an elevated view standing up on my pedals, without any pylons or mirrors obstructing my view as in a car) and note that there are no pedestrians in or entering the crosswalk, and no motor vehicles approaching cross-wise (the intersecting street that has a green light). I can clearly see that the way is clear and it is safe to proceed.
The law would say I should stop and wait for the light to turn green. However, when the light turns green, all the motor vehicle traffic anxiously accelerates and jockeys for position in the intersection. If I'm in a bike lane, some of the traffic may be attempting to turn across my lane (and right into me) to beat the pedestrians into the crosswalk. If I've taken the lane and I'm between a car ahead of me and one behind me, the car behind me may get upset that I'm not moving quickly enough and honk, swerve around me, tailgate me, etc. This is unsafe and frightening, and I seem to be slowing other people down.
Instead, if I arrive at that red light and I can clearly visualize that it is safe for me to proceed, I will then proceed through the light and get out of everyone's way while having an impact on basically no one. Still, the folks in cars will be very upset with me, and sometimes still honk, or write angrily on message boards about bike scofflaws, because I'm breaking the law (I suspect it's more that they're upset they're stuck in their car and experiencing classic road rage), even though if I had remained with them at the light, I'd likely just be getting in their way.
---
To move on from the grossly simplified example, there is a matter of degree to how clear the intersection is. Maybe there is a pedestrian just entering the crosswalk, but I'm in the center of my lane a good 15 feet away from them. That still seems safe to me. Or there is a car approaching the intersection that has the green, but they're still a good 50 feet away and I have plenty of time to make it through the intersection.
On the one hand, some more reckless/careless riders will make closer calls than I would think are acceptable or safe. And on the other hand, many pedestrians who don't have honed spatial awareness will insist they were "almost hit" by a cyclist when it really wasn't close and the person could have suddenly sprinted and not been in danger.
As I learned how to ride in the city, I had to start safer and gradually find my way to what I considered acceptable. I couldn't rely on the law to tell me, because if I followed the law, I'd be risking my life unnecessarily.
I'm not trying to say it's clear or obvious what the rules should be, but just that in the current situation, applying the existing laws evenly to cars and bikes doesn't make sense.
It really depends on the intersection, traffic level, how many lanes of cross traffic there are, how fast they're traveling, and if there are any visual obstructions (e.g., parked vehicles, poles, building features, etc). In my experience, many signal controlled intersections have too much traffic to really proceed straight through or make a left without having to wait quite a while for a gap.
> all the motor vehicle traffic anxiously accelerates and jockeys for position in the intersection.
They may do that after the intersection, but most people don't try changing lanes within the intersection. What I do if I have a platoon of traffic build up around me in an intersection while waiting at a light is to proceed through the intersection and pull over at the far side. Once the platoon has passed, I then take the lane on the empty road behind them.
If you run the light instead, then when the light changes to green, they're going to catch up to you while moving at speed as opposed to starting from a complete stop.
> I'm in the center of my lane a good 15 feet away from them
At 10 mph, you're moving around 15 feet per second. That's not enough distance or time to react.
> Or there is a car approaching the intersection that has the green, but they're still a good 50 feet away
At car moving at 25 mph is going about 37 feet per second. They'll get to you a little over a second.
> On the one hand, some more reckless/careless riders will make closer calls than I would think are acceptable or safe.
The problem is that when they cut it too close a collision or a crash caused by evasive acion on the part of the motorist(s) occurs. This is one example[1].
> I couldn't rely on the law to tell me, because if I followed the law, I'd be risking my life unnecessarily.
Exactly in what way would following the law put your life at risk? You mentioned earlier that you felt that motorists would be slowed down by you taking the lane, or you would be at risk of a right hook by remaining in the bike lane. It's clear that the former is a perceived risk, while the latter is an actual risk. In that case, I would just take the lane, proceed through the intersection and move off to the side to let the motorist who was behind you pass (as I mentioned earlier). One you're past the intersection, the motorist isn't going to turn across your path.
> applying the existing laws evenly to cars and bikes doesn't make sense.
In my opinion, the only laws that don't make sense are the ones that require cyclists to keep as far right as practicable on roads with marked lanes and/or require them to use a bike lane. Those laws I ignore, but I still follow the general slow vehicle law that requires use of the right lane when going less than the normal speed of traffic. I just ride in the middle of it and move to the side to encourage motorists to pass when safe to do so.
[1] https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manches...
Motorcyclists have the colloquialism "cager" for automobile drivers for the big steel cages they are contained in.
There is really no fundamental difference between pedalcyclists and motorcyclists on surface streets where traffic moves between 0 and 30 mph. Neither one needs a barrier separated lane to operate in traffic.
> As a former professional urban cyclist, I constantly broke the law to keep myself safe,
By breaking the law, you made yourself less predictable to other drivers and pedestrians. That actually decreased your safety because people were expecting you to do one thing, but you did something else. The key to safety is to be predictable and following the same rules of the road as drivers of other vehicles. When I rode my bicycle yesterday, I just stayed in the middle of the travel lane and complied with traffic control devices. I didn't have any close calls or threats to my safety even though I was riding in moderate to heavy traffic.
> Cyclists need a different set of laws on the road for everyone's benefit ... A kind of Three Laws where the unarmored travelers come first, then myself, then the folks in big steel boxes.
The current rules of the road require pedestrians to follow a certain set of rules when crossing or walking along a roadway and group cyclists with drivers of vehicles in that they have to follow the same set of rules in terms of right of way, signaling, and where to position themselves laterally when preparing to make a turn at an intersection.
Some cyclists want to operate in a manner similar to pedestrians (using side paths and crossing at crosswalks), but the problem with that is that even the slowest cyclists move much faster than a walking pedestrian. This means that a cyclist a second away from entering the intersection would be much further away compared to a walking pedestrian. This makes it less likely a motorist or motorcyclist would see them and yield to them compared to the pedestrian. In fact, this is the reason why statistics show that riding on the sidewalk is more dangerous compared to riding on the road with traffic.
Even if the rules were changed to match your proposal, that doesn't address the issue I brought up about cyclists moving too fast to really be seen by motorists so that the latter have time to see them and yield to them.
One of my greatest fears when riding a lot in the city was being run over from behind. This is more common on country roads, where I believe it's the leading cause of cyclist fatalities in collisions, but I still saw it as a constant threat in the city. Especially when vehicles would intentionally tailgate me in the lane, rev their engine to speed toward me, slow down and repeat, etc.
In _Zodiac_, by Neal Stephenson, the author describes two opposing frames of mind that a cyclist must maintain simultaneously in traffic: 1) I'm invisible, no car can see me and no matter what I do to make myself visible a car will ignore my presence and drive through me, and 2) I am extremely visible and have a target on my back, and every car is intentionally trying to run me over. Only by riding in a way that is defensive to both cases can I approach a guarantee of safety.
I do not trust drivers to respect my presence on the road. This is a perspective I have learned repeatedly through experience.
With pedestrians, I ride such that no matter what they suddenly decide to do, to respond weirdly to my presence, it doesn't matter. They can start running, they can stop on a dime and turn around, they can fall over, and I will have positioned myself not to be in their way.
I'll also say I don't really have a proposal. I'm not saying everyone should follow the way I ride. Just that I had to invent a way to ride that felt safe for me and others because the law makes no sense for me.
If you try to ride in a way that you're not noticed (off to the side, behind parked cars, using the sidewalk, then motorists will not see you until it's too late to avoid a collision. That's not because they're purposefully ignoring you. It's because their attention is focused on traffic, traffic control devices and where they expect traffic or pedestrians to cross. They're not focused on you because you're not where they expect.
> I am extremely visible and have a target on my back, and every car is intentionally trying to run me over.
This is demonstratably false. There are many cyclists who ride and motorists aren't intentionally targeting them. The motorist who doesn't notice the cyclist is the greatest risk because the motorist won't take actions to avoid a collision until it's too late to do so. Therefore, the safest option is to ride where motorists are looking, which is in the center of the lane.
> Just that I had to invent a way to ride that felt safe for me and others because the law makes no sense for me.
The problem is that different cyclists will come up with different ways to deal with the situation at hand. This makes them hard to predict or know where to check for motorists and drivers of other vehicles. One time, there was a cyclist riding down the sidewalk the same speed I was going on the road. The cyclist suddenly decided to cut across the road right in front of me and I barely avoided a collision with him. I had a trailer and one of my kids in the rear child seat with me and had there been a collision, we would have suffered serious injuries. A cyclist riding in the road directly in front of me is more predictable and won't cause a situation that could lead to a crash with injuries.
I think that eduacation programs that focus on how to safely ride in traffic is the best option. Cycling Savvy[1] is one program that I've found very useful.
Spoke like someone who has little experience of either.
I can tell you from experience that the introduction of a physically separated cycle lane on a 30mph road which is part of my commute as reduced the number of close calls I’ve had from every couple of days to zero.
As would like to remain alive and with all my limbs intact, I would strongly argue that your opinion on this topic is somewhat simple and desperately lacking.
What happens when you cross an intersection? The physical separation doesn't extend through the intersection and intersections are where most crashes and close calls happen.
> I would strongly argue that your opinion on this topic is somewhat simple and desperately lacking.
You're not arguing. You're just dismissing without an actual counter argument.
Traffic lights prevent car movement, at other junctions the lane is set back, and road is elevated to the level of the cycle lane, creating a natural speed bump. That plus bright paint and very sharp corners on the junctions forces cars to slow down, substantially decreasing both the probability and severity of collisions.
> You're not arguing. You're just dismissing without an actual counter argument.
There’s plenty of literature, studies and statistics out there. Bikes aren’t some new invention, methods for making roads safe for vulnerable road uses is well documented and tested with decades of data.
It’s not my job to educate you. You can do that yourself, if that’s too much effort for you, then don’t bother sharing your views, as they’re clearly going to be poorly informed.
There are virtually no intersections like that in the US where there are barrier separated cycle tracks, nor do they have separate signals for cyclists. And the intersection configuration you're referring to will not work for mid-block intersections due to lack of necessary space.
The one intersection I know of[1] that meets some of the criteria you mention was studied and they found that turning motorists yielded to cyclists 87% of the time. That doesn't sound very safe to me (more than a 1 in 10 chance a motorist won't yield when I go through the intersection).
Thankfully I live in a more civilised country.
I also see you’ve taken no real effort to educate yourself. I assume you’re going to continue finding way to blame cyclists for road issues, rather than consider that the issue is more complex than cyclists = bad?
Where have I blamed cyclists for road issues?
> rather than consider that the issue is more complex than cyclists = bad?
> that just means US road planners don’t know how to build safe cycle tracks, and US drivers aren’t very good.
>
> Thankfully I live in a more civilised country.
It seems that you have simplified the issue into government/countries and motorists = bad and that they're uncivilized. You appear to be blaming everyone else for road issues besides cyclists.
Hardly. More like US government and drivers = bad. Specifically around the subject of vulnerable road users and sustainable transport. An opinion backed by person experience, and plenty of statistics.
The right thing to do is to follow the rules as written and lobby for change rather than to go about doing things that the rest of us don't understand because you perceive them as safer.
I think the Idaho stop is actually a good rule as long as you have to slow down to 10 mph/15 kph as you go through the stop sign - I have lived in NYC and nearly been on the receiving end of an asshole on a 20 mph bike several times.
Right now, we have car-centric rules that apply to cyclists, and that is pretty unsafe for cyclists and drivers, but pedestrians are often the ones on the receiving end of cyclists' bad/unpredictable behavior today.
I agree that cyclists need different rules, but I also think that cyclists need to have those rules written down and follow them. If you have walked around NYC for any length of time, you will experience an area that has: (1) a lot of cyclists, (2) decent infrastructure and well-defined rules for cyclists, and (3) a lot of cyclists who break those rules when it is convenient. That is completely untenable.
What evidence do you have that their behaviour significantly impacts the safety of others?
The statistics clearly show the drivers are largest cause of injury and fatalities on the road, and bikes cause so few injuries and fatalities that the stats are basically just noise.
Additionally if you look at UK police reports of incidents between bikes and cars, the police almost never attribute blame to cyclist behaviour. Only something like 10% of cases are cyclist found to be partially at fault, and never fully at fault.
I have been involved in two pedestrian-cyclist crashes (never seriously hurt) and witnessed another ~5, and in all cases, it wasn't reported to the police. These were in NYC, where the police won't pay attention to anything short of a homicide, so people rarely report things. I suspect that a lot of pedestrian-cyclist incidents don't get reported, even when one of them ends up in the ER.
Where I live now there aren't many road cyclists, but like the child, if a cyclist does something unpredictable and a driver doesn't notice, I assume the driver would still legally be at fault.
That might be true in the US, not so much in the UK. The police reports try to determine root-cause, including any mitigating circumstances for any party involved. Insurance might consider that as “legal-fault”, but the courts don’t. They’ll use it as part of their evaluation, but judges and magistrates also include other information that might be pertinent when trying to divvy up fault.
> Where I live now there aren't many road cyclists, but like the child, if a cyclist does something unpredictable and a driver doesn't notice, I assume the driver would still legally be at fault.
Has it occurred to you that if a cyclist making a minor error results in a car hitting them, it might be that the driver was far too close to the cyclist? It not like a bike can accelerate or change direction extremely quickly, giving a bike a couple of meters of space is usually all you need to ensure that a collision doesn’t happen if either parties do something unexpectedly.
Finally the most common cause of bike-car incidents is driver doing stupid things like pulling out in front of bikes, or more likely, turning across them unexpectedly. Cars can behave just as erratically and unpredictably as bikes, difference is, car occupants rarely suffer serious consequences.
As a former bicycle commuter, I had to ride defensively because automobile drivers would behave unpredictably around me, but I can't be certain how much of that was because bicyclists are, as a whole, unpredictable. Commuters and tourists on rental bicycles behave very differently.
Rolling stop signs and lights when safe to do so is normal for bicyclists everywhere (when police are not present). Legalizing it so that automobile drivers become accustomed to it makes things safer. The principal hazard to surrounding traffic from a cyclist is when a car makes a sudden move in response to behavior by the cyclist that the car driver did not anticipate.
I wonder what the law is when I'm on a 40-50 mph 2 lane highway with a 1-2 ft margin and a bicyclist is in the margin going 20 mph and I have to swerve across the double yellow into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting them.
swerve across the double yellow into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting them.
I wonder what you would do if your mother, father, daughter or son was riding that same "bicycle in the margin". Would you be just as blasé about their life and limb?
Umm... these roads often go on for several miles without a pull off. Literally nobody does what you're saying, that's ridiculous. I've never seen a car trailing a bike in the margin going 20-30 mph below the speed limit for miles "Jeepers"
> Would you be just as blasé about their life and limb
How is it "blasé" that I'm putting myself in danger to pass wide and protect the bicyclist?
Automobile drivers who swerve (sudden steering input) in such a situation should give more attention to what lies ahead or, if visibility is poor, reduce speed. A relative speed of 20-30 mph with any hazard or obstacle should not require sudden inputs, but rather should be within the driver's control via smooth application of vehicle controls that are less likely to cause undesired behavior such as brake lock, and which also will not surprise other motorists.
Of course, the proliferation of cell phone use while driving vehicles of all sorts contributes to this sort of unpredictable behavior, since drivers who split time between observing the road and observing a cell phone's display will have reduced reaction time.
And when you get home, advocate for better cycling routes in your area.
The law for passing cyclists should be to stay behind the cyclist until it is safe to pass. Just because you're in a car doesn't mean you have some immutable right to drive the speed limit regardless of circumstances. Of course when there's frequently cyclists on high speed roads that quickly becomes untenable, but for that situation re-read the first half of my comment.
This is infeasible in Amish country, where there are lots of long stretches of straight roads with high speed limits.
You’re entirely correct about what the law should be, and at least in PA, that is what the law is. Those of us in Amish country are also used to sharing the road with larger slow-moving vehicles like buggies and farm tractors. I treat a cyclist the same way: follow at a safe distance until I can pass in the opposite lane, like the law says. It’s unfortunate that enough people are failing to do so that as often as not I get a friendly wave, when I eventually pass, for simply being a responsible driver.
I'm sure that the Amish have all the technology needed to build cycle paths if they so desired.
> It’s unfortunate that enough people are failing to do so that as often as not I get a friendly wave, when I eventually pass, for simply being a responsible driver.
Even in a bicycle friendly place like the Netherlands you'll often enough see cars trying to squeeze past cyclists in dangerous ways. Changing human nature is hard, changing infrastructure not so much.
It also says that when the lanes are too narrow, the bicyclist is supposed to "take the lane" but that never happens.
However the roads that are 40-50 mph are much wider than people think.
The same as any other slow moving vehicle on the edge of a road that doesn’t let you pass in the lane; I’ve run into that issue a lot more often with farm equipment than bicycles.
As a driver you should already know what the law is in that scenario
But biking, especially electric assisted biking, is loads more efficient in both space and energy. If a place refuses to build bike infrastructure, this helps make roads better for cyclists.
I live in sort of the urban shoulder of Seattle, and my bike rides go through a mix of trails, protected lanes, and suburban streets filled with stop signs. Compared to driving, and accounting for parking time, biking is generally faster than driving for short trips.
Class 1 bikes only assist when the rider pedals. They make sustaining speeds and climbing hills easier. They are generally allowed wherever bikers are, and have speed limiters.
Class 2 bikes use a throttle, and do not require peddling, and are generally considered a motorized vehicle.
Class 3 bikes are fuzzier. They operate like class 1 bikes (pedal to get power) but they can get motor assistance up to 28 mph. These bikes are generally allowed to operate like class 1 bikes as long as they stay under 20mph, but may be banned from some mixed use areas.
I've been a cyclist in many cities. Never once seen a cop cite someone for this. I'm guessing if you got into a bad accident things would go poorly for you after it was discovered what you did, but has anyone here actually seen something come of people riding these bikes where they are banned?
It's great to have for residential streets though, because I can generally sustain the 25 mph that cars do AND can treat stops as yields.
I couldn't find what I was looking for though, IIRC it was very much a rule of tonnage and pedestrians would originally be expected not to imped the progress of another person in a public throughway (i.e. move or be hit).
Obviously not, but it still behooves cyclists and pedestrians to wait at the crossing guard until the train passes.
There are certain physical momentum differences that the laws are trying to balance.
People that drive cars pay taxes on gas and their vehicle to fund and maintain streets but city councils around the country are expropriating lanes for cyclist use.
Cyclists should be required to financially support the infrastructure they’re using in some way. Perhaps a flat tax on bicycle sales in a municipality would do it.
Not sure where you are, but where I am my property taxes go to road maintenance and gas taxes don't even come CLOSE to covering the cost of road/highway maintenance.
If anything, drivers are hugely subsidized by the state.
I can almost guarantee that your municipality doesn’t collect enough gas taxes to cover road maintenance.
Regardless, cars do significant more damage to roads than do bicycles and represent an infinitely larger proportion of usage. The cost of maintaining bicycle infrastructure is infinitesimal in comparison.
Also has it occurred to you that most cyclists are also drivers?
Or better yet, make cyclists go through the same process that vehicles go through to get tags. Any cyclist using a bike lane without a valid tag affixed to it should get a ticket, just like a driver would receive when driving an unregistered vehicle, or a vehicle found on the road containing dyed farm fuel.
It's amazing I have to keep pointing this out: bike lanes and infrastructure are NOT free. It doesn't matter how little damage they do to the pavement: the pavement was built and maintained using funds paid for by drivers. They are usually created by expropriating infrastructure from drivers, or by using funds designed to support new infrastructure for vehicles.
Cyclists who drive pay taxes on fuel and on their vehicle, so I'm not sure why it would matter if a cyclist is also a driver. By definition, if they're driving a car legally, they've paid to use the roads, unlike when they use their bicycle in the bike lane.
Okay, let's play the measuring game.
I have paid over $200,000 in income taxes this year so far, as well as another massive heap in property taxes. I also own two cars on which I pay various taxes.
What's you income and property tax bill to date?
Regarding gas specifically:
1. There are zero states where gas taxes pay for all road construction and maintenance. Zero. None.
2. More importantly, motorists generally have no sense of how much their gas is subsidized. For example, a huge portion of that $200K of income taxes goes towards our military, who spend a lot of money to kill people and/or maintain the threat of killing people. That violence and/or threat of violence is absolutely necessary for you to maintain your petroleum-dependent lifestyle. (Of course, my taxes are trivial compared to other costs, such as those to the victims of the violence necessary to maintain US energy needs.) And that's before other issues like the environment and climate change (separately), the SPR, etc. etc.
If the US didn't use gas for personal transport or pleasure vehicles, its domestic supply would be more than sufficient.
>domestic supply
Interestingly, US has been a net exporter of petroleum for the past 2 years. Even including use of 'pleasure vehicles' like those that take grandma to the doctor from her country home so she doesn't die.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
A high quality segregated cycle lane requires effectively no maintenance. It won’t develop potholes, it won’t need resurfacing, it just needs cleaning. A standard road will need regular maintenance and resurfacing for its entire life.
You could make cyclists cover the full cost of their infrastructure usage, but you would spend far more on collecting the money, than would actually collect. Off normal road, cycle damage is measured in cents/pence per year.
> cyclists increase traffic congestion
So you think putting that person in car is going to reduce congestion? Cyclists are people too, many of them cycle to go somewhere, if they didn’t cycle they would drive.
> People that drive cars pay taxes on gas and their vehicle to fund and maintain streets but city councils around the country are expropriating lanes for cyclist use.
No municipality in world makes drivers pay the full cost of externalities they create. Most municipalities don’t even make drivers cover the cost of road building and maintenance, zero make them cover the costs created from the pollution and environmental damage they cause.
And yes, bicycle lanes increase traffic congestion for cars. A bicycle lane is one less lane that vehicles can use. They impose costs on drivers by forcing them to interact with cyclists who have much slower acceleration rates and slower speeds. Again, I don't think this is controversial.
I'm not arguing against bike lanes or cyclists. I'm arguing against them receiving the benefits of dedicated lanes and preferential traffic rules without bearing any of the costs. Both drivers and cyclists should pay for their usage. The fact that drivers don't currently pay all of those costs doesn't mean that cyclists should pay none of those costs.
Counterintuitively reducing lanes doesn’t generally increase congestion, it normally lowers it. Equally adding lanes also doesn’t decrease congestion, instead it frequently increases.
Of course there are situations where this doesn’t hold true, but for most cities today it does. Ultimately adding lanes just creates more capacity for traffic, it doesn’t increase flow rate, because the bottlenecks at junctions etc cause congestion long before the width of the road does. Making a road wider won’t change that.
Add a cycle lane does improve things for drivers. By making it possible for people to cycle rather than drive (cyclist don’t spring from nowhere) you reduce the number of cars on the road. A cycle lane can move substantially more people than a single lane of traffic. In most cities building out good cycle infrastructure, the cycles lanes move substantially more people per hour at rush hour than the car lanes ever have. Every single one of those bikes being one less car in car lanes.
The net effect of the above is that adding cycle lanes, and making cycling safe and attractive creates a net increase in available road space for those that must drive.
The interesting conclusion here:
1) Semis / tractor-trailer and delivery vehicles are then vastly underpaying for their externalities as their gas tax and vehicle-specific charges don't tend to be square of weight.
2) By vastly underpaying, the clients of those buying goods transported by these vehicles are vastly underpaying for these externalities.
3) Exclusive pedestrians/bicyclists, who are highly dependent on large delivery vehicles to take goods from point of manufacture to places they can access via walking/biking, are vastly underpaying for these externalities.
> 3) Exclusive pedestrians/bicyclists, who are highly dependent on large delivery vehicles to take goods from point of manufacture to places they can access via walking/biking, are vastly underpaying for these externalities.
Are you honestly trying to say that all, or the majority of, HGVs on the road are exclusively delivering items for pedestrians and cyclists? Or that if you drive a car, your local supermarket no longer needs HGVs for delivery? Or that moving those goods in hundreds of private cars is more efficient than moving them in a single HGV?
https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...
Before you were born. Maintained, expanded, resurfaced, etc.? Sure. Almost entirely because of damage due to cars and weather.
Also: hi, neighbor! Fewer that half of the dollars spent on roads in our commonwealth come from gas taxes [1]. If you're paying fewer than $200K in income taxes and/or don't pay massive property taxes, I'm almost certainly subsidizing your driving.
And, even if you have, there are a huge number of MA drivers who don't make that much and benefit from spending on roads made possible by my contributions to the state's general funds.
You're welcome :)
> Seems a bit callow to me.
Says the guy who's angry with people who find alternatives to consumption of a researouce whose current levels of consumption necessitate massive amounts of geopolitical violence.
[1] https://pirg.org/massachusetts/resources/who-pays-for-roads/
Mostly weather, which doesn't care whether you're in a car or on a bike.
> I'm almost certainly subsidizing your driving.
I doubt that you've paid more in taxes than I have myself, so no.
> Says the guy who's angry with people who find alternative
I'm angry about no such thing, and it's not even reasonable to impute that from what I have said. The only thing angering me is fallacious reasoning and personal attacks.
Everyone pays taxes. Not every drives everywhere. And gas taxes/fees don't even come close to covering the total cost of our roads. Hell, I'd be surprised if gas taxes even cover the cost of petroleum dependency.
You're welcome for the subsidy.
> Grow the hell up
Pot, meet kettle.
Cracks and potholes only form due to heavy vehicles driving over them and deforming the surface. Something a cyclist isn’t heavy enough to cause. Without cracks and potholes, weather damage is basically zero.
While we’re at, why don’t we make pedestrians pay for the sidewalks and pavements? They get to use those without paying a cent, if they refuse to pay, rip the damn things up, they’re taking up valuable space for more car lanes.
In most places where the weather is nice enough for biking to be popular enough to matter tax-wise (most of the highest percentage American biking cities are on the west coast), I doubt that, but feel free to source your claims
[0]: https://media.indebuurt.nl/enschede/2019/01/10155835/2019011...
[1]: https://www.verkeersnet.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/fietse...
Seems dangerous to get a 'cross' / 'walk' signal when there's still traffic.
In many U.S. cities the Idaho Stop, while not technically legal is already what most cyclists do, myself included. Either the crossing volume is low enough that it is trivially easy and safe to find a gap to fit through, or high enough that you simply wait for an opening, or dismount and squeeze through on foot.
Big difference is being hit by a 90kg human on a 10kg bike going 15mph is much less likely to kill you than a 2000kg SUV doing 20mph.
Additionally bike still have to yield to pedestrians, not to mention a bike is only 50-90cm wide, compared to 1500cm-2000cm for a car. Makes it much easier for both bikes and pedestrians to evade each other, should one or the other be behaving irresponsibly.
Sure, it's not a car crash but this is still equivalent to someone throwing a full bodyweight punch which can easily knock you unconscious and kill you when your head bounces off the pavement.
Something to consider, in the UK, a pedestrian is killed once every year or two by bikes, and it’s front page news with public outrage. a pedestrian is killed once everyday, on average, by cars (it’s actual a little higher, but close enough), but it’s never news, and there’s never outrage.
Pedestrian injuries and deaths by bikes are so low, government basically doesn’t really consider it worth the effort to collect the data. It’s far easier to derive bike caused pedestrian fatalities from counting news articles, than it is to use official stats, because the stats basically don’t exist.
A bike has less mass than a car, but I'd rather not be hit by a bike at all, to be honest. Let alone a child or someone more vulnerable.
We also have speed limits that are rarely followed because they are often set far below safe driving speed on a road, so without the stop signs many people have the impulse to drive 10+ mph over the speed limit.
E-bikes are changing this dynamic pretty quickly. And unpredictably. They can get from 0 to 20 faster than a car.
Interesting statement. Do you have some data? I’ve often mused anecdotally that the initial acceleration from the first pumps on the pedals give a pretty abrupt change in momentum.
Now that I think about it, it depends on a lot of factors. I don't know how the roads look in Idaho, but I assume they're much wider than where I live, which gives you more time to get up to speed. I haven't considered e-bikes either.
How cold is the sun? How shallow is the ocean? How dark is a light?
The question makes no sense when applied to an area the size of a state.
My ride from my house to downtown is about 10min. Car only saves me a couple minutes (if you don't count parking and/or accidents). Often, I can do a 30-45min ride around town without ever putting a foot down...but I have also been riding in this town for decades so take that as you will.
The only issue I have ever had using this method is more than once I have had a driver take time to pull up alongside me to "educate" me on how that is illegal. Every time I just refer them to the drivers manual.
Common sense has always been a big thing here, as well as self-reliance. Politics here is mostly about resources. R's generally vote to extract all ranching/timber/mining resources possible, while D's generally oppose all of that. Now with the tech sector influx, D's are at least as likely to look the other way when it comes to stuff like the loss of farmland to urban sprawl as R's. Idaho will probably be the last state to legalize drugs, not because we care, but because people want to keep things the same. Many of us look at Oregon with concerns about homelessness after its recent legalization, but people are easily confused, so blame the drugs instead of the fundamental causes of exploitation and the existential crisis of living under the profit motive in a post-scarcity information age that should have been automated 20 years ago. We tell it how it is.
Things are also changing. There's a huge influx right now of libertarian-minded folks who want to get away from central control. That's understandable, but growth and gentrification issues are heavy on everyone's mind. We're in a unique position of wanting everyone to be able to enjoy the natural heritage that we are grateful for, but having reservations about newcomers who don't practice our prime directive of leave no trace.
For better or worse, politics here are beginning to flip. It's not enough now to be a stanch this-or-that. If we vote wrong, our housing costs double, a forest gets leveled, we gain or lose thousands of jobs on the whim of a company's decision to build a plant here to dodge taxes. An R quickly becomes a fan of NIMBY when a billionaire buys and gates off their hunting grounds because the timber industry didn't given the land back when they were done with it, to be used as public land. A D becomes one as well to block a wind farm or housing development in the foothills surrounding their town. This stuff is hard.
Idaho stop? I had never heard that expression before, but sounds about right. We just ride our bikes through stops anyway, because trying to ticket everyone is unenforceable and ridiculous. But the older ones here know that the hard-won freedoms we take for granted require constant vigilance, or someone will take them away in the name of liberty or justice to divide us and make somebody rich at the expense of everyone else.
Are you also against using cars for commuting, since they kill pedestrians all the time?
In reality bicycles have extremely good maneuverability and visibility, combined with lower speeds and a small hitbox. As someone who frequently walks and cycles I feel that on foot, something might "feel" like a near miss when the rider was in fact in complete control the entire time or was able to avert a crash due to all the inherent advantages bikes have for reacting quickly and decisively.
No noise pollution. No air pollution. Requires only a fraction of the amount of public space cars do for mobility and storage. Massively improved visibility of surroundings w/r/t cars. Smaller hitbox with lower weights and lower speeds, translating into a massively reduced momentum differential in a collision, plus way more runway and maneuverability for avoiding the collision to start with.
The Idaho Stop improves safety for cyclists because maintaining speed and visibility through a junction while slowing down cars mitigates the risk of a right hook. Telling everyone that they should categorically expect this behavior and that it is legal improves safety for everyone. I as a pedestrian and cyclist in DC expect Idaho stops from other bicycle users and act accordingly, the same way I expect pedestrians to jaywalk anywhere and anytime they want and act accordingly, and it's all quite safe.
I keep seeing this claim, but I rarely see it in reality. I've seen two cyclists go through red lights in the past decade. Cyclists ignoring or coming to a rolling stop at stop signs is more common, though those who do it are still in the minority.
Perhaps cyclists behave differently in my area. Perhaps it is because I am on the road during the commute, so I'm seeing more experience cyclists. Yet I find both excuses to be a bit of a stretch. Someone above said it well: the greatest risk to a cyclist is themselves. That is certainly true for interactions with automobiles. What a lot of people fail to realize is that's even true for interactions with pedestrians or even the road surface itself (e.g. if a cyclist hits a pedestrian, the risk of injury is about the same for both parties). Cyclists aren't motorists on two wheels. They only have minimal protection and have to acutely aware of their own safety when making decisions.
I probably saw it the day before. I expect to see it tomorrow. It’s like every bloody time.
Or maybe cyclists are immortal. I've certainly seen a few situations where I've seen a cyclist do something, then was wondering how they managed to survive. That said, I view it as a cyclist with a death with rather than something that cyclists do.
If you were a crappy driver that didn't "get" how traffic worked and thought everything on the roads should follow the law like a robot you would "see" these instances far more often because you would misidentify "perfectly fine and predictably but not technically legal" behavior as egregious violations.
In reality 99x/100 (probably more) a <anything> ignores a light it's done in a situation where that behavior is obviously fine. Your eyes may see it but you don't remember it as memorable because it fits your mental model of how traffic is expected to act.
And as a pedestrian (and bicyclist and motorcyclist and driver) I'd rather take my chances with a Giant-brand mountain bike versus a giant-sized Chevy Tahoe.
Is jaywalking as bad as murder?
I used to live in Bologna where for the first time in my life I saw a cyclist start crossing on a red light, going over a total of 4 lanes in high traffic.
Meanwhile in my current city the authorities appear to promote cycling because it draws attention away from the sorry state of public transport, with frequent tram derailings.
Unfortunately they occasionally lump cyclists and pedestrians together in the process, degrading my walking experience considerably.
That seems more than a little hyperbolic, no? Road rage is real, but I don’t think there are drivers who are actively and deliberately trying to maim or murder bicyclists.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_erro...
At any rate when they shout at you, roll coal, swerve to force you off the road their intentions are clearly not good.
Seems many drivers don’t see people on bikes a humans, and behave accordingly.
> A driver who told a cyclist “I’m going to kill you” before ramming him with his car has been jailed for 10 months after being found guilty of dangerous driving.
https://road.cc/content/news/driver-who-deliberately-rammed-...
> A CYCLIST with cancer who was cornered by a driver before being beaten for ‘no reason’ was left ‘furious’, saying: ‘I could have been killed.’
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/crime/hayling-island-cycli...
> This person passed a cyclist and then drove off the road intentionally onto the shoulder and into two other cyclists and possibly accelerated while doing that
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colorado-driver-accused-of-inte...
An older video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7oskFsHSMs
> The driver, Marshall Grant Neely III, who is the dean of students at University School of Nashville continues to deny his responsibility for slamming into the cyclist and sending him to hospital.
The video of him hitting the cyclist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfqthN_UjG0
> Neely responded “No there are bikes all over the place. I didn’t see him…I feel very badly for the gentleman who collided with me and I assume we’ll see each other in court,” he continued adding that he does not think he is a bad man.
https://www.granfondoguide.com/Contents/Index/2920/shocking-...
Seems like the introduction of the law got people to think about cyclists because lunatics will fly through stop signs and ignore yields. Now that they can do it legally, you have to be more mindful, leading to less accidents.
These laws are asinine. Cyclists are such a problem where I live. They believe they are entitled to the road like a 3000 pound car, they slow traffic down, they create jams at intersections, they don't pay attention and fly through cross walks, etc.
You should need to be licensed to use a bicycle. There are far too many stupid people. My favorite example of this from recent history was pulling out to take a right turn, stopping, and right as I'm rolling out to commence the turn a bicyclist FLIES past me such that 1" in any direction would've probably killed him.
Consider yourself fortunate if you don't live in an area where there are food delivery bikes perpetually narrowly missing (or not) pedestrians, zooming 20 mph over sidewalks and through intersections so their riders can make a living.
I can't count the number of times I was inches away from a hospital bed because of these guys. Often no headlight at night, sometimes dark clothes to boot. I've had family members hit. It's a real problem and for some reason, law enforcement in NYC that pops out of nowhere for parking tickets has 0 interest in addressing it.