Many/most states have a statute that states a defective light can be treated like a stop sign. Many loop sensors are defective because they won’t trip for a bicycle because the sensitivity isn’t set right. Therefore, stopping & then going is 100% legal. I have been told by PD in multiple depts (in my state) that these lights to not apply to cyclists. You should not have been ticketed for this.
Even if this is true (wasn’t true for my state until fairly recently), you will still have motorists get angry when they see a cyclist do it. It is legal in ID to treat a red light as a stop sign and a stop sign as a yield sign but motorists complain of bicyclists “blowing stop signs” routinely.
This was 25 years ago, I rather doubt this state had such an exception – in fact, I looked at state law fairly recently (within the last three years), there is nothing of the sort in there. Yes, I think the ticket was unjustified, but when a cop wants to be a prick, you just kind of have to deal with it.
Bike lanes are about as dangerous as sidewalks. They simply should not exist, anywhere. I have seen them in the door zone, which is ridiculous. I have seen them crossing right-turn lanes, which is nutty. But the biggest problem with them is that they are not in drivers’ field of view. If bikes do not use them, it is because they prefer not to be killed by driver-inattention; sidewalks are not much safer, but at least they offer a slight fraction of a second of extra time to react to cars crossing them. Really, if the bikers want to survive, they should be out riding in the street, where the cars cannot avoid seeing them.
I recall a case from some years ago:
Dude rides his bike to a bar.
Gets moderately drunk.
Decides to walk his bike home, on the sidewalk.
Gets arrested for DUI.
The verdict: Yes, even though he was walking it, he was still the operator of a vehicle in control of that vehicle. Guilty. There was also something in there about the fact that, simply by making the decision to not ride his bike while he was drunk, he was DUI because he wasn’t even competent (being drunk) to be making that decision.
What next? If I get drunk at home, and make the decision to stay home reading The Straight Dope instead of going joy-riding, am I guilty of DUI even while sitting in my living room? Because, while drunk and not competent to make the decision to drive or not drive, I nevertheless made the decision to not drive?
But for Pedestrians, Sidewalks are not supposed to be dangerous, but with wild brake-less bikes careening down the fucking sidewalk, they are. Stay off the sidewalk, dammit.
And bike groups are always pushing bike lanes as safe, making cities spend mucho road funds on them.
“Can’t avoid seeing them?” Like if they ride in the dark, wearing black with no reflectors or lights? On Purpose!?!:dubious:
Nothing brings out the “theys” like cyclists.
Bicyclists should be on the sidewalk as often as is feasible.
I drove a bicycle every day for four years, in Tokyo, where bicycling is a common mode of commuting for millions of people. With stoplights, cars, and pedestrians, in a town or city, you’re not going to get going faster than a jogger, at most, and it’s not that hard to bicycle at a walking pace behind some people, while waiting for an opening to get around them. And a bicyclist is far more likely to be hurt and hurt seriously by a car than a pedestrian is going to be hurt by a bicyclist.
If you’re long-distancing it across the nation, in a race, or work as a professional courier, then by all means, get in the street and peddle like a mad-man. But if you’re just some guy going to work, ten blocks away, you should be in first gear, on the sidewalk.
Basically, where a bicyclist drives and how fast he rides should be based on common sense.
Sage Rat, I don’t think most people in this thread are thinking about Tokyo when they are discussing bicycle regulations, but since you brought it up:
While it is a traffic law that is poorly enforced and often ignored, cyclists are expected to ride on the road, except for on paths which are specifically marked for bicycle traffic. Note the popularly given explanation of: “自転車は「車と同類」です!!” (Bicycles are in the same class as cars!!) Special exceptions are made for children under the age of 13 and seniors over the age of 70, as well as for those with physical disabilities.
Granted, it is also excused on “streets where extremely high traffic conditions pose a danger,” (gotta love vaguely worded regulations) but many of the cyclists I’ve noticed on sidewalks (both in my town and when visiting Tokyo) have not been on particularly busy streets and many are probably just cycling on the wrong side of the road for convenience’s sake, not really caring that they are inconveniencing or even endangering pedestrians.
Also relevant to the OP:
In Japan, bicycles are generally treated like cars for legal purposes, although they still do not require licenses to operate and registration is required by law (although there is no punishment for operating an unregistered bicycle).
The most important result of this system is that in Japan not only can you be cited for driving while under the influence if you attempt to ride a bicycle after drinking alcohol, the punishment is just as severe as it is when driving a car (and the laws regarding DUI in Japan are quite severe).
The only time I ever saw people on the road and not on the sidewalk, was when there was no sidewalk. If there was a law to the contrary, none of my local kobans seemed to care (and there were often lots of nice parking spaces around the kobans - on the sidewalk).
Like I said, it’s poorly enforced and poorly followed. Police officers are much more likely to stop cyclists for riding two to a bike or for using an umbrella or cell phone.
As for the sidewalk parking, you’re going to see that most often on sidewalks that are already marked for bicycle traffic. The sidewalk in front of my town’s ekimae koban has such a spot, but you are expected to get off your bicycle and walk it to parking area.
Of course, many people tend to illegally park their bicycles along any open space of sidewalk. Those people need to be punched in the dick.
What about this thing with these “Critical mass” rides where groups of bicyclists take up a whole road and terrorize people?
“Terrorize people”? They ride in a large group with the aim of asserting their right to be in the street. The “terrorism” occurs very rarely, typically in response to a driver acting like an asshole (or like a motorist). Most critical mass rides involve no violence or terror, just some inconvenience for a few people in cars.
Where and when? I never heard of this. I hope I never see such a thing, but, if I do, I’ll just slow way down and try to get out of the middle of it.
Well, for every 100 drivers or bike haters who complain or bring up critical mass, maybe 1 of them has actually encountered and been inconvenienced by a CM.
Most complaining over critical mass I hear comes from cyclists - CM has not been about cycling for years. It’s embarrassing to see such a shower of ineffectual dickheads be linked with cycling advocacy.
You’re probably right, but for a long while the cyclist hating cry of ‘critical mass!!!’ was their attempt at a trump card when argued into a corner.
Critical Mass rides typically take place on the last Friday of every month, most often in large cities, where it is easier to form a large assemblage of cyclists. They basically just try to fill the streets with bikers – in some cases, they have been known to “cork” intersections, blocking the cross-street so that the mass can ride through a red light.
In many thousands of CM rides, there have been maybe a handful of incidents of violence against motorists. It seems as though it takes a single instance, which gets publicized, to color the event as a mob of terrorists.
And why is this OK?
Well, it can be scary to be surrounded by a group of cyclists, and you can’t move.
They also break traffic laws with impunity, urinate in public, drink and drive, walk en masse into convenience stores and walk out with unpaid merchandise, and play music loud. Here are a few comments from Yelp on the San Jose Bike Party- which is generally recognized as better behaved that Critical Mass.
“The “Bike Party” invaded our little neighborhood in Santa Clara on January 17, 2014 and proceeded to play loud music, interrupt traffic, drink in public (open container) and scream profanities over a PA system”
*"I live in the neighbor hood that you terrorized. It was my dumb luck that I stopped at the 7-11 on Gish and N First Street. Just as I was purchasing my items at the front of the store the first wave of drunken morons enter the store. Roughly thirty people fill the store, with a large majority of them grabbing whatever alcoholic beverage they could get. Many of the other participants were grabbing various smallish items and sg them in their ps! Time for me to leave.
I get in my truck and is stuck in the parking structure for about twenty minutes because none of you people were nice enough to let people out!"*
“Those few bad apples are really bad apples. Running red lights. Taking over whole lanes of traffic. Riding against traffic. Playing horrible music. I’m just trying to do my job/drive, but what you are doing is naively putting your lives in the hands of me, who can barely see you. AND it’s my fault if I hit you. HA!”
"Keep in mind it’s around midnight in our quiet WG neighborhood and we have to deal with hundreds of bicyclists taking over the streets with many that are yelling/cussing, drinking alcohol, smoking pot and blasting music from boom boxes on their handlebars. "
"*Well, it seems like another fun thing that is going to be spoiled by a few bad apples.
Way too many cyclists:
being drunk
deliberately blocking traffic
no lights or reflectors
playing loud music
urinating in public
weaving through traffic like you are daring cars to hit you
Folks, as long as you let the minority get away with these sorts of activities, then you are not “building community through bicycling” you are giving the rest of the citizenry the idea that ALL of you are rude obnoxious scofflaws."*
and so forth. “just some inconvenience for a few people in cars.” Riiiight.:rolleyes: