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Comment by iron_ball | Hacker News Reader

As a sometime cyclist, I agree that cyclists should abide by traffic laws. I assume this was downvoted for tone. The premise is undeniable. Bicycles should obey the laws. Greater rule adherence means a more predictable, and thus safer, street.

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He's being downvoted for content, not tone. Opposing failsafe systems that can prevent tragedy until millions of people start behaving in a way that common sense shows people (whatever their mode of transport) are not likely to is:

a) monumentally callous, b) completely idiotic and c) a sadly all too common, stereotypical response.

Can you imagine someone saying "I'll support seatbelts when everyone stops drinking and driving". No, because it would be a stupid thing to think or say, just as it is to wish death and injury on large number of perfectly blameless cyclists because of the behavior of some.

Stopping at a stop sign in residential neighborhoods as a cyclist is frequently stupid. Idaho even has a law that lets cyclists treat stop signs as yield signs, which makes perfect sense. Cyclists aren't a large threat to other road users (pedestrians/cars/other cyclists) the way cars are.

Burlington, VT (last I knew, anyway) has a similar law -- stop signs are effectively yield signs, while red lights are stop signs, as far as cyclists are concerned.

Predictable is bad. It makes people lazy and inattentive.

Like the law to come to a full and complete stop at every stop sign, including the four ways that blanket every neighborhood? No thank you; cyclists treat stop signs as four-dimensional yields for some damn good reasons.

There's a lot of terrible bike-riders (riding on the left side of the road around a blind corner...), but there are also a lot of terrible laws and signage. Don't delude yourself into believing that strict adherence to rules will solve the world's problems.

Non-cyclists don't typically understand the very real cost of losing momentum at a stop sign/light. Cyclists don't tend to understand that unfairness aspect many drivers seem to feel when cyclists cheat.

That said, some states are starting to address the stop sign/stop-light problem for bicyclists (well, sort of). Virginia, for example, lets cyclists (including motorcycles) treat stop lights as stop signs after a certain amount of time/cycles. I'm sure most cyclists would prefer they be treated like flashing yellow or flashing red lights (yield sign and stop sign equivalent, respectively), but we've got a ways to go before that can happen.

I think we'll need to start licensing street riding and overhaul traffic law to include bicycles on the road before things get much better.

I understand that it is seen as unfair, but write that off as Stockholm syndrome. It does suck that cities are constantly erecting even more traffic signals (etc), but the appropriate response is to blame the job-justifying behavior of city hall, not to go zero-sum and get mad at the people who can better skirt them.

For what it's worth, I don't even really bike that much these days and certainly encounter my share of idiotic bikers when driving/walking. But that doesn't mean I'm going to give in to blowhard legality tropes when it's clear that the real nuisance bikers are doing things that are so stupid (against traffic, on sidewalk, left turn from right lane, texting) that they don't care about even bodily harm. Meanwhile there are plenty of actions that are illegal yet affect nobody else that can be performed prudently and thoughtfully.

Also, any observably-broken traffic light can and should be treated as a stop sign. What else do you do, strictly follow the narrow part of the law that you've been told and patiently wait for the police to hold your hand?

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