I imagine if the bike laws in SF were updated to the proposal in the articles SF cops would be more empowered to ticket bicyclists cutting off pedestrians at red lights.
How exactly does making bicyclists follow the laws of the road make things more dangerous?
Who decides what these "best practices" are?
Should cars be allowed to treat stop signs as yields in the absence of other traffic?
What's the point of signage if you create a broad exemption from following them?
Don't have those numbers on hand any more (the former figure is so low that it's almost impossible to find), but per mile traveled within a city, there is no contest that cars are the biggest threat all other things being equal.
What I do have is that 12% of pedestrian injuries are motor vehicle related (3rd leading cause of pedestrian injuries) and that bikes don't even register in the top 6. 3 out of 4 of these accidents were in urban areas. For bicyclists, motor vehicles are the number one cause at 29% of injuries.[0]
I'm pretty sure that if we we doing this the smart way, we'd start with statistics when deciding what rules to create and which ones to enforce. The goal should be minimization of injuries and deaths. Cars majorly fail in this respect.
When a pedestrian gets killed by a cyclist it is news. We rarely even report motor vehicle pedestrian deaths unless it is notable in some way (like the Uber incident). I don't remember who said it, but the definition of news is something that happens so infrequently that it is notable enough to report on. (I think Bruce Schneier but can't find the quote right now)
So can lightning and banana peels. Are you arguing that bicycles are as deadly as cars?
>How exactly does making bicyclists follow the laws of the road make things more dangerous?
From the article: > If the Idaho stop were legalized, it'd get cyclists off these faster streets and funnel the bikes on to safer, slower roads. The Idaho stop, if legalized and widely adopted, would also make bikes more predictable.
This is bullshit and speculation. You really think it'd get bicyclists to take the small streets? It won't. They use the "big streets" because they're the most efficient, they don't give a shit about road laws regardless of the size of the street.
Yes, as I bicyclist who doesn't own a car, I do think that. I take back/small streets wherever the stop sign density is low enough (long blocks, lots of two way stops) and doesn't take me off course. It is far more safe and relaxing than blocking a lane of traffic on a high volume road.
> They use the "big streets" because they're the most efficient,
To a certain degree, yes. But that efficiency has a lot to do with having to stop at stop signs.
> they don't give a shit about road laws regardless of the size of the street.
Now you are just over-generalizing and projecting.
http://i.imgur.com/JRQCRG9.png
The Saint Mary's and Mountfort street intersection in Boston. There's a very long red light for cars traveling east. A portion of the light is for traffic coming out of St. Mary's street (which is usually only a single car or two), the rest is for pedestrians (primarily BU students), who tend to move efficiently and are easy to see and avoid if you are on a bike.
While the light is red, the entire area marked in green almost always empty (safe). The smartest, safest move for a bicycle is to approach the red light and slow down, making sure there are no cars coming from the north or south, then proceed through the intersection (slowly, avoiding pedestrians), through the green area and onto park drive by themselves, without having to compete with the cars that will be merging (and while oncoming traffic is also conveniently stopped).
What's the point of signage if you create a broad exemption from following them?
A broad exemption should coincide with a recognition that the rules and signage are inadequate and need to be updated where possible. For example there's a one-way street a short way from the picture I posted (Essex St, Brookline) which was recently amended to say "One-way (except bikes)." That is, the signs and laws were adjusted to accommodate the unique characteristics of bicycles.
There are a lot of one-way streets that can easily accommodate bicycles. Meanwhile there are some one-way streets that really should not be taken in the wrong direction by either bikes or cars. But until the signage adequately distinguishes between the two, bikes are just going to ignore signs if they can get away with it. (And it does happen-- I forget which street but there's a street near Harvard Square that is clearly marked "NO BIKES THIS DIRECTION, USE <street> INSTEAD"
I do agree with a lot of this article about the uselessness of enforcing outdated road rules to cyclists. I personally will rarely completely stop at stop sign. I find the danger much higher to try to immobilize the bike, un-clip the shoe and start again with a very slow speed (potentially exposing myself for a much longer period of time in that dangerous crossing zone).
To solve accidents between all of these actors, I think there should be a simple rule of giving the slowest vehicle always the right of way, which is what courteous people do. A pedestrians should always have priority over a cyclist and or a motorist. If accident happen, the cyclist/motorist should take the full responsibility for it. Likewise a cyclist should have priority over a motorist. The person at fault should be proven guilty unless proven innocent of some unpredictable situation.
It is a bit the same on the water, where motor boats have to give way to wind powered boat for the same logical reasons.
And you can't apply your courteous rule for traffic in places with many elder pedestrians like China: other people and vehicles would never move.
I think, however, that removing rules and applying common sense could work if we could use a communication network inspired from biological patterns.
The equivalent in the cycling example would be that trains have to give way to cyclists which was not my point.
As a cyclist, I would happily exchange the cyclist privileges the OP described in exchange for a city that cracks down heavily on drivers who flaunt the laws. More cars off the road the better.
This city is headed in the same messed up direction as São Paulo and Beijing (lived in both, only cycled in SP). The city is past the point where cars make sense, and is unwilling to jump the gulf to making walking, public transportation and biking the safest and most effective forms of transportation.
On the flip side:
I have lost count of the number of time I have stopped for pedestrians at crosswalks in Oakland, only to have a car blow past me, sometimes coming close to hitting pedestrians I had stopped for.
As a pedestrian on MLK, I have to be VERY careful of when crossing crosswalks because many cars are NOT paying attention.
Clearly there are many incompentent and thoughtless bicyclists and drivers.
> I spoke to an SFPD officer on Market and 2nd the other day, and he watched as five different cyclists ran a red light stopping vehicular traffic on Market. I asked him why he wasn't giving tickets to the cyclists, and he told me that he is specifically not allowed to. He reiterated to me that the official policy of the SFPD is not to enforce traffic violations by cyclists on Market Street.
So why don't we tie a law legalizing the Idaho Stop, with a law mandating cops enforce traffic laws against bicyclists?
On the other hand, I was living in a city of about 70,000, pretty small. I am sure it all depends on the city and its size.
Are you kidding? "Why should I have to stop? Vehicles run red lights!" I'm seriously struggling to determine if I'm unable to pick up on your sarcasm... but really, I know you're absolutely sincere.
"So why don't we tie a law legalizing the Idaho Stop, with a law mandating cops enforce traffic laws against bicyclists?"
Your sense of cause and effect is seriously damaged. Are you honestly proclaiming with any sincerity that cycling "radical" groups like Critical Mass, etc, will be suitably satiated by the legalization of the Idaho Stop that they'll feel that they now receive fair and equitable treatment (when in the past, that wasn't necessarily not the case, but rather, 'everyone harasses us')?
Oi.
-Completely ignore bicyclists. This may perhaps cause them abruptly stop and not like me. I don't care, because I have the right-of-way, and they are in the wrong.
-Beat the living piss out of any biker that collides with me. (As a result of their vehicular assault, which is what recklessly hitting me with your bike in the crosswalk represents. This includes throwing their bike into traffic where it hopefully gets run over, for good measure.)
Fortunately, I haven't had to do the last step yet. I've cut off plenty of bikers as they attempt to zip past me in a crosswalk and have had them curse at me and just give them a 'fuck you' smile. :)
Listen bikers, the rules are simple and have been around forever: when you're in the roadway, conduct yourself as a vehicle. This includes obeying all traffic signs and patterns. If you ultimately have problems hitting people, YOU ARE IN THE WRONG.
Everyone, no matter their means of transit, should try to prevent collisions. You're endangering yourself and others if you don't.
To that end, I still feel the biker is compelled (and actually is, legally so) to, ultimately, stop for the pedestrian striding out into the intersection on a green, if necessary. And I feel no sympathy for the biker, should he hit the pedestrian.
That said, I think it's entirely in-line for the biker to give a chewing out to the lackadaisical pedestrian who's disobeying traffic regulations.
They shouldn't be hitting you, but just the same, the law says you shouldn't be hitting them, except in situations where you are under some imminent threat. I doubt a cyclist that has just collided with a pedestrian has plans to continue the attack.
It helps when you can put a name on these things and auto-correct.
Aggressive assertion of one's legal rights isn't that.
You have literally been collided with by a guy on a bike?
Aggressive cyclists are a problem. Assertive cyclists are not, and there is a clear and important distinction between the two.
All cyclists should follow the law and follow predictive traffic behavior! It's pretty simple.
For your perusal:
http://nypost.com/2013/03/12/deadly-wipeout-van-jumps-curb-a... - "The driver was not charged with a crime"
http://nypost.com/2013/08/20/cabbie-fighting-with-cyclist-ju... - "the cabbie [..] was likely to be slapped with multiple summonses for the crash but not criminally charged"
As it turns out, unless you are hopelessly drunk or leave the scene, you can kill someone with your car (even with blatant recklessness) and you will not face charges of any kind. I think the fines don't even go above $1k. Oh, you'll be driving the day after.
Oh, Chris Bucchere got 3 years of probation. For killing a human being.
You seemed to be plenty enraged with Bucchere, when his case is an obvious outlier for the system as a whole.
This is why we discuss, to calibrate expectations and guide our understanding.
It is not obvious to me how you using italics in the term "outlier" makes his case an outlier.
I spoke to an SFPD officer on Market and 2nd the other day, and he watched as five different cyclists ran a red light stopping vehicular traffic on Market. I asked him why he wasn't giving tickets to the cyclists, and he told me that he is specifically not allowed to. He reiterated to me that the official policy of the SFPD is not to enforce traffic violations by cyclists on Market Street. He told me that this is because the SF Bike Coalition has run a campaign vilifying police officers and accusing them of harassing cyclists. This is all at the cost of pedestrian safety.
I'm not making this shit up, either. I've been hit by two bicyclists in the last year who were running red lights while I was legally crossing Market street on foot. And let's not forget all the cyclists riding on the sidewalk or against traffic.
SF is a zoo enough without people gleefully ignoring all traffic safety laws to suit their own convenience, and I don't think we should make it any easier on the people who do it.