Why cyclists should be able to roll through stop signs, ride through red lights

Why cyclists should be able to roll through stop signs, ride through red lights
vox.com

I think an actually safer thing to do would be to give cyclists the right of way. Then drivers could at least take for granted that cyclists are going to not stop for red lights or stop signs.

I live in London too. As a pedestrian, irresponsible cyclists have really pissed me off to no end.

Many cyclists have an attitude of entitledness, which makes them a great danger to the rest of us pedestrians.

Not all cyclists are like this mind you, but it's enough of a population that I second-guess most cyclists wil follow rules of the road.

To put into perspective - when you're driving and you have a green light, you generally assume cars approaching the red light orthogonally will slow down and respect the stop signal. Now imagine the situation where you cannot assume this and at every intersection you go through, you assume a car will ignore their traffic light. That's what it feels like to be a pedestrian around cyclists in London.

Quite too often cyclists will plow through zebra crossings (crosswalks for you USA folks, where pedestrians have full right of way). Even if you're in the middle already.

A cyclist once came at full speed within inches of my daughter's pushchair (stroller) when we were in the middle of the zebra crossing, and when I loudly said "what the heck" at the guy. He turned back and screamed very loudly "Fuck You", in front of my daughter.

Similarly just the other day a cyclist came through a zebra crossing at full speed about a foot away from me. I again said "what the heck" and he responded loudly "oh, Fuck Off".

A few intersections have cyclists that regularly come through when pedestrians have the green man signal.

It's pretty ridiculous.

Slowing down as you approach the stop sign, scanning the full 360 degrees around the intersection (which, unlike cars, cyclists are able to do easily and quickly), being prepared to stop if necessary, but continuing on through if there's no reason to do so, is perfectly safe.

I'd make the analogy thusly: as a cyclist coming to a stop sign, I've got to come to a stop, get off my seat and set foot on the ground, remount, then get going again from a standstill. When you're doing this every few blocks--which is not at all uncommon when biking in the city--it gets extremely frustrating. As a car driver, imagine if you had to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, turn off the ignition, then restart the car and continue on your way. It feels like the same thing. (edit: used more clear terminology)

For an experienced, physically fit cyclist, riding in good conditions? Perhaps.

For a younger and less experienced cyclist, with less strength, riding in a noisy area while it's raining? Not so much.

There is always a danger in discussions about road traffic laws of assuming -- consciously or otherwise -- ideal conditions and skillful drivers/riders. However, those people were much less likely to have an accident already.

I'd make the analogy thusly: as a cyclist coming to a stop sign, I've got to come to a stop, dismount, remount, then get going again from a standstill.

What kind of bike are you riding if you have to dismount every time you stop?!

Maybe it's a national or cultural thing, but to me (based in cycle-filled Cambridge, UK) that idea is crazy and any bike where it was true would be very bad for riding on the road.

There is certainly a real problem with road design that causes stop-start behaviour for cyclists. We most often see this here when looking at shared use cycle paths along pavements (sidewalks) set back from the road: it's an idea that sounds cycle-friendly, but in reality those paths don't have priority at junctions with side roads while the main road does, meaning for any cyclist competent and confident enough to ride at closer to normal traffic speeds, the shared use paths are not a useful alternative to on-road cycling.

However, I think this article is far too quick to gloss over legitimate concerns about whether cyclists really can judge when it's safe to traverse a junction against a red light or stop line. Again, it's possible that the uses for these tools are different here in the UK -- we use stop lines quite rarely for example, often precisely because a junction doesn't give a sufficient view on approach to enter it without stopping to check first. But I see examples almost daily of cyclists running red lights and in doing so causing disruption to pedestrians and other road users who were trying to cross the junction properly. And yes, tragically, sometimes cyclists do get seriously injured or killed doing so.

I also think the article was too quick to gloss over the argument that on the same road, the same rules should apply to everyone. Of course it can't literally be true in cases like road space reserved for certain classes of traffic. However, I would argue that creating a "them and us" culture between cyclists and motor traffic is dangerous, because in reality, breeding resentment for cyclists who ride as if they own the road does make a significant number of motor vehicle drivers more aggressive toward them. I think the roads are safer places when road users respect each other and act courteously -- when people voluntarily give way (yield) to help someone else make progress, slow down and give more space around vulnerable road users, and so on. If you lose that culture, then however in the right a cyclist might be legally, they're still going to be the one who ends up in hospital or worse if their riding antagonises people driving several tonnes of fast-moving metal who then get frustrated and make a mistake or simply don't yield when a cyclist expected them to as a courtesy but the law doesn't actually require it.

None of this is to say that current laws are ideal or we shouldn't change them if the data warrants it. I strongly believe that road safety policy should be evidence-based. I'm just not sure this article has made that case, at least not in a way that would apply on the roads around here.