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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>My experience as a cyclist contradicts that: many motorists will still (riskily) overtake you just to reach the red light sooner. Some people apparently just can't stand to have anyone driving before them.

???

Seems like the far more plausible reason is that drivers don't want to be held up by a cyclist traveling at 10mph in front of them? Moreover if it's really true that lights only turn from red once a car reached them, then it makes sense to maintain speed (including overtaking any bicycles), because getting to the light faster means it turns to green sooner.

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Sibling commenter covered most of what I have to say but the other reason this is wrong is because many bicycles can go 20-30mph, and I'm just going to leapfrog you anyway at the red light you're racing me to wait at.

Other times cars try to kill me to save themselves a few seconds:

1. turning right into a parking lot ahead of me

2. turning right out of the parking lot ahead of me

3. rushing to open their driver's side door right in front of me so they can get out and get to their destination faster

I've had a crash for #1 and #3, so this isn't theoretical. Watch for bicycles.

>Sibling commenter covered most of what I have to say but the other reason this is wrong is because many bicycles can go 20-30mph, and I'm just going to leapfrog you anyway at the red light you're racing me to wait at.

Right, but the whole premise of this thread is that the lights only turn green after a car approaches. If you overtake the bicycle so you can get there 5s faster, then the light will turn green 5s faster. Sure, whether risking an overtake to save 5s might be questionable, but is at least a more understandable reason than "Some people apparently just can't stand to have anyone driving before them", which makes it sound like the driver can't stand being #2.

You are not held up by a cyclist riding at 10mph if your average speed is at 5mph because of the traffic lights.

Besides there is a good chance you are the one holding up the cyclists creating a mini traffic jam with fellow drivers at every traffic lights.

>You are not held up by a cyclist riding at 10mph if your average speed is at 5mph because of the traffic lights.

At a normal traffic light, maybe. But the whole premise of this thread is that the lights that only turn green when a car is approaching.

>Besides there is a good chance you are the one holding up the cyclists creating a mini traffic jam with fellow drivers at every traffic lights.

???

the original statement was that drivers do it all the time, wether the traffic light might pass green or not.

Many cyclists slow down when they see a traffic light being red with a lane of stopped car in front. Because cyclists understand physics and drivers are generally bad at anticipating events.. Almost universally a driver try a quick pass to brake check the cyclists and stop in front of the cyclist while it would be more efficient for both of them to gently slow down instead of stopping so they still have speed when the light go green.

> Seems like the far more plausible reason is that drivers don't want to be held up by a cyclist traveling at 10mph in front of them?

You sound like one of thos drivers who believe it's OK to put other people at risk to save themselves a couple of seconds.

I see this all the time in my large truck that I'm very good at coasting into red lights. Even when there are already vehicles stopped at the light, people will not only stay on the gas way later than necessary and then brake unnecessarily hard but will also pass me to be sitting one car length further ahead at that light. Often it is done dangerously, without turn signals or proper blind spot checks. I know this because I've also almost been hit repeatedly on my motorcycle by cars doing this.

>You sound like one of thos drivers who believe it's OK to put other people at risk to save themselves a couple of seconds.

See my other comment. My point isn't that it's suddenly okay to overtake because the driver can shave off 5s, just that the cartoonishly evil caricature of the driver's reasoning that OP dreamed up isn't accurate. Unfortunately, judging by the downvotes it seems like people are interpreting my opposition to OP's claim that "Some people apparently just can't stand to have anyone driving before them" as me arguing that it's fine for drivers to mow down cyclists to save 5s.

> just that the cartoonishly evil caricature of the driver's reasoning that OP dreamed up isn't accurate

"Cartoonishly evil"?!?

I'm pretty sure it is accurate for some subset of the driving population, which was the claim.

> Unfortunately, judging by the downvotes it seems like people are interpreting my opposition to OP's claim that "Some people apparently just can't stand to have anyone driving before them" as me arguing that it's fine for drivers to mow down cyclists to save 5s.

You didn't actually provide any evidence or argument to dispute that claim and completely ignored the key "risky" part of comment.

The way it reads is that you had your feelings hurt by having your bad behavior called out and felt a need to rationalize that behavior.

>I'm pretty sure it is accurate for some subset of the driving population, which was the claim.

It might be true, but that's not the same as "accurate". Let's imagine the same thing but for cyclists:

"I saw a cyclist run a red light and I had to brake to avoid T-boning him. Apparently some cyclists hate motorists and want inconvenience them as much as possible."

I'm sure there's probably "some" radical cyclists that utterly despise motorists (think /r/fuckcars) and want to go out of their to inconvenience them, but only mentioning that as a possible reason for the behavior is at best an act of omission. There's probably some far more innocuous explanation out there, like that the cyclist thought the way was clear (because there were no cars in sight).

>You didn't actually provide any evidence or argument to dispute that claim and completely ignored the key "risky" part of comment.

It's totally fair game to criticize one aspect of a comment even if you agree with the point broadly. For instance, I might not like what facebook's privacy record, but still object to comments that claim that facebook is bad for privacy because it's surreptitiously listening on people's phones.

> It might be true, but that's not the same as "accurate". Let's imagine the same thing but for cyclists:

I don't understand the disctinction you are trying to draw here. The statement itself is both accurate and true? At best the implication might be slightly hyperbolic but definitely not a "cartoonishly evil caricature."

> There's probably some far more innocuous explanation out there, like that the cyclist thought the way was clear (because there were no cars in sight).

Except your explanation is also not innocuous. Not wanting to be behind a bicycle is non an excuse for dangerous passing and especially when you are approaching a red light. The fact that you think this is an acceptable reasoning for that behavior is why you're being called out and downvoted. None of your excuses for how this might cause a light cycle to trigger sooner make this acceptable behavior.

> Seems like the far more plausible reason is that drivers don't want to be held up by a cyclist traveling at 10mph in front of them?

Their reasoning is as follows:

see cyclist -> cyclist always slow -> must always overtake cyclist

Empirically, 99% of drivers act according to this simplistic model. They do not take the situation at hand into consideration at all, they simply always try to overtake cyclists.

The speed the cyclist is going at doesn't matter, the upcoming intersection/roundabout/traffic jam does not matter, the minimum legal (and safe!) distance from the cyclist while overtaking does not matter.

Oops, I forgot something: This is all assuming good faith. Alternative scenario:

"How DARE that cyclist slow ME down! Get off the road!" -> punish pass / coal rolling on purpose

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