If you've ever driven or biked in San Francisco (or I'm assuming any other marginally bike-friendly city) you'll quickly understand that for bicyclists, stop signs are yields and red lights are stop signs. You're just going to have to get used to that, at least on low-volume, low-speed streets.

That of course is not what the law says, and many people (especially drivers and people who don't like bicycles) will disagree. However, it's a cultural norm which, when ignored, leads to far more frustrating four-way encounters. e.g. "law-abiding" cyclist approaches stop sign at the same time a car on the right has already arrived. Car, expecting cyclist to enter intersection (because that's what every other cyclist does) waits. Other cars approach intersection. Cyclist, wanting to abide by the law, slows so that first car can proceed through the intersection. Car waits, expecting cyclist to go through. Other cars wait. Law-abiding cyclist comes to complete stop. Well-meaning (but wrong) car motions cyclist to proceed, ceding right of way. Other cars seethe. Precious seconds wasted.

Sometimes as a cyclist it's better to just run that stop sign and save everybody the hassle. As a cyclist in SF, that's what I do, if there isn't already a car stopped at the intersection and/or very clearly arriving there before me. If there's a car starting to cross in front of me, I go behind it. If I'm coming up behind a car who has the right away as they proceed into the intersection, I'm going to piggyback through the intersection with them rather than stopping myself. I feel I'm abiding the spirit of right-of-way if not the letter of the traffic laws.

Also I notice that most drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians don't understand right of way to begin with, to the point of making weird and dangerous decisions: drivers stopping midway through an intersection trying to be "nice" to some pedestrian or cyclist whose turn it might not be. Dont do it! Take right of way when you have it. Pedestrians doing the same to motion cars through intersections even as they are in the middle of a crosswalk. Ack!

And no the conserving momentum thing is not BS. It's inherent to that mode of transportation. Watch how cyclists navigate stop signs some time. Even when they're more or less obeying the law, very few are coming to a complete stop. Starting and stopping a bike takes much more physical effort than it does a car. Combine that with the vast differences in kinetic energy between them, and I am so much more sympathetic to the cyclist cruising through the stop sign than the car who does the same (and again, actually take note sometime -- cars are as bad about not stopping at stop signs as bikes are).

Finally, as a car owner and driver, to other drivers: get over yourselves! You don't need to be in such a hurry. So what if a pedestrian crosses your path or a bike cruises through a stop sign? You have thousands of pounds of heavy machinery at your command. Be happy about that, pat yourself on the back,etc. You've already got a lot to be pleased with. If you need to stop more quickly than you would have liked, all you have to do is press down on that lever on the floor and you're back up to speed. Life is too short to get your blood pressure up about this sort of stuff. And if it does really get to you, maybe you should gasp park it and go for a walk.

> Life is too short to get your blood pressure up about this sort of stuff.

Likewise next time you see a car cut in front of your bike, just let it roll and don't let the rage get to you.

Inconvenience vs peril. One thing is annoying while another is potentially deadly. Different reactions seem justified, don't you think?

It's about bikers running red light and stop sign. It is definitely perilous, not merely inconvenience.

  > Since you want to be reckless and ignore safety
  > rules, others would have less regard for your safety.

Does that mean that I can treat people that ignore safety in cars the same way? Or does this 'if you even step an inch over the line, I will run you over' attitude only extend to bikers?

Reckless behavior endangering others are looked on dimly, regardless it's a biker or driver.

No to the extreme exaggeration 'if you even step an inch over the line, I will run you over.' It's more like 'if you run a red light or stop sign, I might accidentally run you over.'

It's my experience that a lot of people will get more pissed off at "someone using <vehicle> did <unsafe thing>" when <vehicle> is a bike. Maybe it's just that they've become numb to people doing dangerous things in cars because it happens so much more often?

I have never ever ever heard someone say that it's ok for a car to just blow through a red light. Just now, equalarrow made the implication that it is ok for bikes to go through red lights at their personal discretion.

Do you have an example of "someone using <vehicle> did <unsafe thing>" where it wouldn't be considered way more egregious if someone did it in a car than a bike?

I think it's possible you have a flawed perception because everyone accepts that it's absolutely not ok with cars, while tons of people argue that the same things are ok for bikes, then there is significantly more people complaining about bikes because most people that run red lights don't go around talking about how they know better than the law.

> Do you have an example of "someone using <vehicle> did <unsafe thing>" where it wouldn't be considered way more egregious if someone did it in a car than a bike?

Speeding, for one.

Talking on the phone or texting while driving, for another.

These things are responsible for countless preventable deaths on the roadways, and yet they're completely tolerated by most drivers.

Except text messaging, perhaps. In that case, it's always the asshole on their cell phone in the _other_ car doing something stupid. Of course, you never notice the dozens of times that _you're_ the asshole, because you're trying to fire off that quick text.

The thing about speeding and texting is that they are both incredibly difficult to do on a bike. I take your point though.

  > most people that run red lights don't go around
  > talking about how they know better than the law.

You've obviously never been pulled over for performing a 'rolling stop' at a stop sign. Most people that are pulled over for such things will complaint to high hell about them.

There is large area between running a red light at 90mph without even batting an eye, and coming to an almost (but technically not complete) stop before continuing through an intersection with a stop sign.

And there is a huge difference between rolling through a stop sign and rolling through a red light. I don't think the former is that big of a deal for both bicycles and cars, and I think the latter is a big deal for both bicycles and cars. I rarely see cars just decide to not stop for a red light, and I see bicycles do it on a weekly basis. I'm not talking about stop at a red light, look and see that no one is there, I'm talking about just go straight through a red light without slowing down.

Then you have your head in the sand.

Read ww520 comment, he mentions drivers taking cyclists seriously. This is a typical bias, and the implication is clear. He is a driver, he already takes drivers seriously, because he is one.

Whatever it means to 'take someone seriously', I am hoping he does not mean avoid running of the road.

I don't know what you are trying to interpret my words.

I take all participants on the road seriously, drivers, bikers, and pedestrians. I pay special attention to bikers to slow down, to get around them, or to yield to them when making turn since they are in a slower vehicle. I myself bike from time to time.

What I don't agree is the prevalent bikers mentality of ok'ing blowing redlight and stop sign, and the hypocrisy coming from the bikers to justify doing it.

Traffic laws are there so that participants of the road can share it SAFELY.

Bullshit.

Simply by choosing to ride a bike, a cyclist makes the roads so much safer (comparatively) for everyone else, they could cycle backwards through the streets while blindfolded and it would _still_ likely be a net benefit to the safety of others on the road (nothing claimed about the cyclist him- or her-self).

And this is before you consider the notion that the vast majority of drivers speed (speed limits are seen as the _lower_ limit by many), and many tailgate, roll through stoplights, turn and change lanes without signaling, and send text messages while doing all of the above.

The safety numbers are so overwhelmingly in favor of cycling, talking about the "endangerment of others" in this context is, quite frankly, laughable.

It's interesting to see how far bikers would twist the truth to justify running red light and stop sign.

Or, alternatively, how oblivious drivers are to the true human cost to their mode of transportation.

Let's take New York, since it wasn't too hard to find relevant data. Data can be found at:

  http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/Statistics/2010NYSAccSummary.pdf
  http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/Statistics/2010BicycleAccSummary.pdf
  http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/Statistics/2010PedestrianAccSummary.pdf
  http://gruskinfoundation.org/pdfs/Pedestrian-Cyclist-Accidents_3-1.pdf

In 2010, there were: 311 pedestrians and 36 cyclists killed by motor vehicle drivers. On top of this, there were 16,090 pedestrians and 6,058 cyclists injured by collisions with motor vehicles. 4,898 of the injuries (of pedestrians alone) were considered moderate or serious.

On the flip side, we have the comprehensive statistics on pedestrian/cyclist injuries compiled at Hunter University. In 2010, 927 pedestrians were treated for injuries involving cyclists. Of those, 84 received inpatient treatment, indicating a moderate or severe injury. Note that they count zero deaths.

Let's compile what we've got:

  Cars : 347 deaths, 4898 moderate or severe injuries, 17,250 minor injuries
  Bikes:   0 deaths,   84 moderate or severe injuries,    843 minor injuries

Now let's involve the WHO. Long story short, cars cause over twice as many deaths due to emissions as they do from accidents. No joke. We'll make it an even 2x, just to be generous. And we won't even attempt to estimate the "injuries" in the form of asthma and bronchitis they cause.

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/369169.stm

  Cars : 1,041 deaths, 4898 moderate or severe injuries, 17,250 minor injuries
  Bikes:     0 deaths,   84 moderate or severe injuries,    843 minor injuries

Draw conclusions as you will. Unfortunately, it's somewhat impossible to reconcile the numbers at this point. Cars drive many more miles annually than bikes do, but cyclists also tend to live closer to their destinations, greatly reducing the number of miles they require traveling. Most estimates peg cycling traffic at around 2% of automobile traffic, give or take.

At that rate of comparison, cyclists would be expected to have caused 20.8 deaths, 97 moderate or severe injuries, and 345 minor injuries. If it were up to me, I'd opt for the higher number of minor injuries and greatly reduced number of deaths any day.

Please also take note that in this comparison, I was very generous to cars. We didn't add data on injuries and fatalities caused by car-on-car crashes versus bicycle-on-bicycle crashes, which I'm sure we can both agree would have come out far in favor of the cyclists. We also didn't consider non-fatal health effects of car emissions, and we rounded down fatal health effects. We also haven't even begun to talk about the year-over-year decrease in cyclist-related pedestrian fatalities in New York even though cycling participation has been increasing by double digits (as high as 26%) yearly.

And the cars _still_ came out looking bad.

What do all these have to do with bikers blowing through red light and stop sign?

On the flip side, these causalities reinforce the requirement of ALL road participants to follow the traffic laws. If the bikers stop at red and stop sign, don't you think the biker injures would go down?

Funny you should mention that. In the UK, at least, women are at greater risk of death while cycling precisely because they follow this exact traffic law.

  http://www.metro.co.uk/news/46427-women-cyclists-more-at-risk-of-death

And the numbers emphasize exactly the point I made earlier. Cycling is less dangerous than driving. So much so that nitpicking stupid crap like cyclists running lights with no oncoming traffic is idiotic. Even with behavior like this, they're _still_ safer than cars.

Daily, we put up with drivers who speed, talk on their cell phones, drive while drunk, tailgate, dart between lanes without signaling, roll through stop signs, pollute the air we breathe, burn through our limited reserves of fossil fuels, injure forty million people per year, and kill one and a half million people per year, and you're hung up on the, what, _tens_ of deaths caused by cyclists per year due to running red lights? If that?

While you're at it, why not join the crusade against the grave threat we face from children running with scissors?

Get. A. Fucking. Grip.

Funny you picked that story. The study was for woman cyclists having higher fatal collision with trucks than men. The study doesn't say cyclists stopped at traffic light having a higher chance of fatal collision with trucks. The news report picked two collisions and twisted the study's conclusion. Looks to me pretty bad reporting.

> Get. A. Fucking. Grip.

Nice way to live up to the angry biker image. Calm down.

  > Nice way to live up to the angry biker image. Calm down.

That's the fun thing about stereotypes. If a biker gets angry, he/she is 'living up to the angry biker image.' If a car driver gets angry, that's just 'normal.'

I'd argue running red lights is stepping several feet over the line.

Yeah, it's more like miles over the line.

While breezing through a stop without even looking or slowing down may be 'miles over the line,' coming to a rolling stop, situation dependent, is in more of a grey area.

You might want to qualify that statement before someone asks you about an empty, well-lit intersection with sweet sight lines at 2 am on a Tuesday night.

If you think car drivers disrespect cyclists for safety reasons (e.g. running red lights) and not for inconveniencing car drivers (e.g. by momentarily slowing traffic flow in one lane) you're fucking deluded.

While I agree with your point, I downvoted you because of your language. As long as you are on HN, please, stay civil. We don't need nor want this kind of discussion here.

>If you want car drivers to respect bikers, stop running red lights and stop signs.

As a cyclist who doesn't run red lights and stop signs, I haven't noticed any improvement in people's attitudes toward me when I tell them I'm a commuter cyclist. And why should I? I do it to get from A-to-B safely. I'm not some sort of cycling ambassador.

When a car behaves dangerously, that guy is an asshole. When a biker behaves dangerously, bikers are assholes. Let's hold everyone to the same standard, shall we? (relevant xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/385/)

> If you want car drivers to respect bikers, stop running red lights and stop signs.

Sometimes this is true, but often it's not. Often, the person in the car is just jealous and angry that the cyclist breaking rules and getting away with it.

I ran a red light a few months ago, and as I did I heard a guy in a truck yelling angrily "Red light! Red light! Red light!" I ignored him because I've been through this intersection hundreds of times and it's infinitely safer for me to cautiously ride through the light and ride the next 50-100 yards on a clear road than it is to wait for the light and try to stay with the flow of traffic, which faces a simultaneous sharp curve and lane merge. These conditions are ripe for road rage, which can be fatal to cyclists.

If I ever get ticketed there for doing that, I will pay the fine and keep doing it. I don't think that will happen, though, since any time an officer is there I just give him a quick glance and he waves me through.

I do get irritated at cyclists who ride too fast on the sidewalk, though, and blow by pedestrians ringing their bells and such.

Also, cyclists could definitely apply some patience and courtesy (eg don't ride all the way to the front of a line of cars stopped at a stoplight and then take the lane as soon as the light turns green, forcing them all to wait for you.) It's not technically illegal and there aren't really any safety concerns, it's just a dick move. Have a some pity for the motorists. They are trapped in huge boxes of steel and forced to communicate with monotone honks and crude signals.

If you want bikers to respect car drivers, stop speeding and blowing yellows. Virtually all car drivers don't respect these two laws, yet they get upset at the large minority of bikers that blow reds and stop signs.