I disagree about the chances being “about the same.” If you are paying marginally enough attention that you don’t drive off the road, I think you are far more likely to spot an obstacle in the direct path of your vehicle than something on the sidewalk.
Also, a cyclist on a sidewalk is in danger at every side street, parking lot exit and driveway. Not just major intersections. Driveways are particularly nasty because cars tend to back out of them, and often the driver can’t see further than a few ft down the sidewalk until the car is already straddling the sidewalk.
Now, I guess I see people here run lights that turn yellow and pretty regularly see them run them even thought they turn red. I don’t see people “blow” through stop signs though. I see the whole “roll then go,” but I don’t think that classifies as “blowing through” even if it does classify as not stopping properly.
I’m not saying you are lying or even that you are wrong, but here? Nope. It may happen regularly where you live, but if you try and say it happens regularly here, I will have to say you are wrong, even if you saw it once or twice when visiting. I LIVE here and don’t see it. Been here a couple years now and haven’t seen anybody but cyclists run the stop signs. And 99% of em are on campus and were probably students.
As for assurances based on numbers of cars vs bikes… Not buying it. In fact, I tend to disbelieve anybody that tries to offer “assurances” without any cites other than some vague hand waving about numbers of drivers vs bikers.
It was one of the examples you used. If you didn’t mean it, you shouldn’t have chosen that example.
What if said eating one grape in a grocery store without paying for it was like murder and taking a pen from a bank. And then you said, “No, it’s not like murder”. And then I said, “Oh, I just knew you’d pick that example.” That would be stupid, wouldn’t it?
When you were a kid, which of these did your mother tell you:
“Look both ways before you cross the street.”
or
“Look both ways before you cross the sidewalk.”
Cyclists are at greater risk on sidewalks because nobody, pedestrian or motorist, is as careful about where they’re going on sidewalks and driveways as they are in the street.
Where I live, people bike on the road, and it’s just not safe for them to do that in a lot of the places where I’ve seen them.
I’m not talking about city streets with stoplights at every block, or suburbs with speed limits of 35 mph. I’m talking about some of the rural, windy, two-lane (one in each direction) roads that have a 12" paved shoulder before the unpaved berm.
One particular stretch of road like this is on a very steep hill nearly a half mile long, and three quarters of the way up this hill there is a blind turn. There’s nothing on either side of the road but trees and guide rail, and the speed limit for this stretch of road is 50 mph. This windy, twisty, hilly road with its 50 mph speed limit goes 10 miles before reaching a town and dropping to a 45, then 35 mph speed limit. It’s a moderately busy road, often traveled by tractor trailers and by tri-axle trucks carrying stone or coal.
Those on bicycles may legally have the right to bicycle that road, but I’d still consider that road a place that bicycles don’t belong. A vehicle that doesn’t keep anywhere close to the speed of traffic will be, on most parts of that road, hard to see in time to avoid, and in some places nearly impossible.
Doesn’t stop them from crawling up those hills at a snail’s pace while the car drivers who are traveling 50 mph have to slam their brakes on to avoid hitting the bike and or swerving into oncoming traffic.
I really doubt it. Drivers have a tendency to only see where they are going. Why else are there so many accidents at intersections? Sidewalks are not part of the road, and not where they usually keep their eyes on.
One is where the driver expects the traffic to be, the other is not. In most cases, the 3 ft is the difference between 2 ft in front of the bumper of the stopped car, and 1 ft behind it.
If you can’t see an obstacle on the road and stop in time, you’re driving too fast for that road. Even if there were no cyclists allowed on this road, it doesn’t make it safer to take this turn at 50mph - there may be a pothole or road debris there. Perhaps you should thank the cyclists for reminding you to drive at a safe speed.
When last I was there, it was right off of 70, I stayed in the Holiday Inn. There are a couple of stop signs there that I watched people drive right through. They looked to determine that the way was clear, but it definitely happened. I remember remarking on it to a fellow convention-goer. So yeah, it happens. Blowing through. Now, to be fair, it happens here in KC, too. And I ran a couple of stop signs on my ride to work this morn. Just like the drivers I see, I checked to verify that the way was clear, but I did it. Ran a left turn arrow, as well. Usually I try to hit the pads so that I can trip them, but I sometimes miss the sweet spot.
Doesn’t matter if you “buy it” or no. Simple math tells you that there are more motorists than cyclists.
And my hand waving was emphatic. Vague is something I simply don’t do.
The speed limit is set at 50 mph because the state has determined that it is safe to travel that road at 50 mph. Some self-entitled asshole on a bike who can’t even manage 5 mph up that hill is not ‘reminding’ me to drive at a ‘safe speed’. They’re creating a hazard by being on that road traveling significantly slower than all of the traffic on it. If you’re taking 10 minutes to climb a half mile long hill, that’s 1 mile every 20 minutes or 3 miles an hour. And some of these bike riders are going slower than that.
Or do you really think that speeds of under 5 mph are reasonable in a zone where the state has set the speed limit at 50 mph?
“Simple math” has nothing to do with it. It doesn’t matter if there are 10 bikers and 10000 car drivers, if 100% of bikers run stop signs, but only 0.01% of drivers do so, then more bikers run stop signs than drivers.
Provide me a fucking site that says a higher percentage of drivers run stop signs than bikers, and I will believe your explanation. Otherwise, you are waving your hands and bullshitting based on a small sample size. The fact that there are more cars on the road than bikers has fuck shit to do with anything.
I don’t think that a ten mile stretch of road a couple hundred miles away from Harrsiburg was specifically considered when deciding that bicycles are vehicles. Now, going along with that, vehicles that travel significantly below the speed of general traffic are expected to pull off the road and allow others to pass.
State law requires that slow moving vehicles not impede the flow of traffic, which means a bike going 3 mph should not be on the road with traffic that flows at 50 mph.
No, I got that you were trying to be funny, but your joke didn’t work because you choose a stupid example. If running a red light really were as innocuous as reading a magazine in a store, your joke would have been funny. Since those things aren’t the same at all, your joke engenders a WTF??? reaction rather than a “ha, ha” reaction. Sorry, better luck next time.