Well, not to necessarily defend running red lights, and it’s of course illegal no matter what kind of vehicle, but I think there is a pretty clear difference: If a bicyclist screws up running the light, they’re hurt or killed; if a motorist screws up running the red light, someone else may be hurt or killed.
from the standpoint of bike runs light vrs car runs light its definitly safer all the way around for a cyclist to do so. a helmet doesnt affect your hearing or line of sight so as a general rule more people on bikes feel safer (as in “I can see and hear traffic better on a bike than in my car”) doing so.
On a bike it’s much easier to judge whether there’s any traffic coming through an intersection in the other direction. Your sight and hearing is unobstructed in all directions, you can go closer before you decide whether to run the red light or come to a stop, if you misjudge you can turn and get out of the way quicker and with less hassle than in a car.
That said, a lot of bikists run red lights because they’re assholes who rely on nervousness and quick reflexes of motorists. Bicycle messengers and young boys on mountainbikes are the worst in my opinion.
About the stoplights that don’t switch for bikes: I have one of these on my commute and it drives me absolutely insane (I’m usually a religious sign-and-light-stopper on my bike). At certain times of the day this light doesn’t change for pedestrians hitting the cross button, either. So it is legal most places to proceed through this?
I don’t cycle especially frequently, but i draw a similar distinction to Mr Bus Guy. I stop at red lights, but i often coast through stop signs, making sure to look carefully not only for cars, but for pedestrians as well.
I find that sometimes a good way to coast through four-way stop signs is to do it next to a car. I often use this technique when cycling out in the area around the avenues in San Francisco. On Clement Street, for example, there are plenty of four-way stop signs. If there is a bit of traffic, it means that i can usually time my arrival at the stop sign to coincide with a car that is going the same way, and i just hitch a ride through next to or just behind the car.
Actually, laws regarding bicycle use on public roadways vary from state to state.
As an avid cyclist (I had no other means of transportation for more than 15 years after high school), I can tell you that in Florida, a bicycle is considered a vehicle, and must obey all the traffic laws just as any other vehicle. It also means that bicycles cannot be denied access to drive-thru bank tellers and restaurants.
When I moved to Nevada, however, a bicycle was specifically designated as not a vehicle, and as such a person riding a bicycle was only charged with using due diligence and care when using the public roads. This meant that it was not legal to speed thru an intersection and cause an accident, but it was legal to slow down at a red light, verify that you could safely cross, and then continue on even if the light was still red. Ditto for making your way thru an intersection that had a stop sign. The catch was that if anything went wrong as a result of your poor judgement, the onus would be on you just the same as it would be on a motorist who caused a mishap.
This has changed slightly in Nevada, and although bicycles are still not considered vehicles, those who utilize the public roadways must obey all the laws just as a motorist would. Drive-thru businesses are not obliged to accept people on bicycles, however (altho the vast majority of them will). cite and cite
I love cycling, and encourage others to take up the activity as either a recreational sport or as a means of transportation. If you choose to use a bicycle on public roadways, please make yourself knowledgable about your rights and responsibilities. MassBike is an excellent place to start finding pertinent information.
I’m a cyclist and a motorist, and I always stop at red lights, as both (I will admit to not being quite so law-abiding as a pedestrian sometimes though).
And as a cyclist and a motorist, I know the road rules are the same for everybody, but I’m firmly of the opinion that they shouldn’t be. The off-the-shelf road rules don’t fit bikes perfectly.
I think bikes should be registered, and their riders licenced. A reasonble level would be a nominal registration fee (say 5% of a car’s), free licencing (or maybe ten bucks a year or something to cover costs), and you’d have to pass a road rules theory test first (but not a practical one). The test should include questions about obnoxious cyclist behaviour, and how to avoid doing it. Bikes should be prohibited from certain roads, or at certain times of day on certain roads.
In return for this, cyclists get some goodies in other areas:
- the right to legally run a red light after coming to a complete stop, unless prohibited by a sign at certain busy intersections.
- the right to treat a stop sign as a ‘give way’ or ‘yield’ sign. No need to come to a complete standstill.
- a gradual programme of re-engineering traffic lights with higher-sensitivity induction coils under the road.
- a metric buttload more dedicated cycleways, which the registration fees could help pay for. Pedestrians banned, and a decent width. It would be mandatory for the city to provide one close handy if they want to ban bicycles from a given stretch of road nearby.
- A massive motorists’ public education campaign, and a steep increase in fines for intimidating cyclists.
Well, that argument would be even stronger for the driver in a car – it will take much more energy to get that vehicle back into motion and up to speed!
So is that a reason to allow drivers in cars to run red lights? Not according to state traffic laws.
“Well, that argument would be even stronger for the driver in a car”
Stopping and starting in a car doesnt involve the physical effort that it does on a bike and you dont have to unclip your feet from pedals in order to put a foot down.
Inconvenience wise its not really comparable.
The only reason I ever run a light is the inductance thing though. Otherwise its not worth the risk in my view.
Otara
You mean those traffic detectors in the pavement detect metal? I thought they were pressure plates, and my bike and I were just too light. Huh. Learn something new every day!
Anyway, whether or not I run a red light/stop sign depends on my intimate knowledge of my town’s traffic patterns (learned through 14 years of being a bicyclist/pedestrian - I don’t own a car). For the most part, I come to a complete stop for red lights, complete with one foot on the ground. Like somebody else said, the lights are in the high-traffic areas. At most stop signs, though, I’ll slow down, do a quick stop while balancing on my wheels, and immediately resume my forward motion when I see the coast is clear.
There is only one stop sign in town that I will consistently just blow through. It’s an extremely low-traffic T-intersection, and I can see quite a distance in either direction (North and South) as I approach it stop sign. It’s also an uphill stop, which would require considerable effort on my part to get moving again if I stopped. This particular intersection is actually more dangerous for me if I’m coming from North, which has no stop sign. The drivers coming up the hill have a tendency to pull all the way up before stopping, meaning the front of their cars poke right out into the lane of traffic. This is probably because there used to be a small building on the corner that blocked their view if they stopped at the big white line, so everybody got in the habit of pulling up farther so they could see around it. Now that the building is thankfully gone, people still haven’t broken the habit. I’ve nearly been creamed four times when I’m coming from the North on my bike.
Of course, I can think of one reason why some bicyclists might want to just fly through a red light. It’s natural on a bike to pull alongside the cars that are stopped at the light. When starting from a dead stop on a bike, there is usually a bit of wobbling/swerving from side to side until a certain amount of speed is built up. The last thing I want is to be wobbling and swerving while being pinched between a parked car on the right and a line of moving cars on the left. So by blowing through the light, a bicyclist might simply be trying to make sure he’s ahead of the cars when they start moving.
While I don’t run lights like that, I’ll usually be watching the lights on the cross street, and the instant that light turns yellow I have both feet on the pedals and I’m starting to move (watching the cross traffic, too, of course). I tend to have quicker acceleration than most cars, so most of the time I can be through the intersection and up to speed before the first car in the line catches up to me.
I used to work an early morning shift, and my route to work required me to cross all three of my town’s major streets. Two of these were three-lane, one-way streets, and until 6:00 AM, their lights were set to always-green. The only reason they would change was if the sensors detected a car on the cross streets. I would treat the red lights I faced as stop signs, just stopping, looking, and proceeding. I know cops saw me do this, and none of them ever stopped me.
Grr… I HATE the jerks who ride on the wrong side of the street. It’s nerve wracking enough to see one go past my passenger side-view mirror at a relative speed of 50-60MPH when I’m driving, but when I’m riding my bike in the bike lane on MY SIDE OF THE FREAKING ROAD, I should NOT have to dodge head-on traffic because these freaking MORONS don’t know which side of the road they should BE on in this country. :mad:
I’m seriously tempted to mount a foghorn on my bike handlebar, so I can blast it at people trying to head-butt me when I’m riding to class. :rolleyes:
Our forefathers didn’t spend years fighting the British so that those guys on bikes today could ride their bikes on the left side of the road! 
Here’s a trick for triggering the metal sensors:
Lie the bike down (or almost all the way down) across the loop. It puts more metal closer to the sensor and presents a larger profile for the sensor to catch.
And I frequently run red lights on my bike. Not without being careful and never without slowing for a good look. I’ve never had anything approaching a close call. The toeclips, the momentum, the perception of freedom, and maybe, just maybe, the sense that the cops could never catch me.
No it isn’t! That’s the most dangerous place you can be, because the car drivers beside you may not have seen you. Always get behind the cars.
Hey, hey. Bicycling is not a victimless crime like using drugs. Think a 16 year old teenager won’t be traumatized for the rest of his/her life having to carry around the mental image of splattered gore all over the front of his/her car? There’s also the suing aspect–sure, you may think, “I’m not going to sue someone for something that’s my own fault”, but you’re not faced with a 50K hospital bill with trial lawyers egging you on to sue.
That being said, I’m not coming down more strongly on one side or another. Drivers are just as bad as bicyclists, if not worse, at breaking laws.
In DC there is a class of bike messenger wannabe, who regularly run lights downtown. They are always cutting through crosswalks when pedestrians have the right of way. I wish they’d get tickets.
I wanted to mention my specific pet peeve, which I see on a fairly regular basis in my suburban area. I really, really hate it when I come to a four-way stop and make a full and complete stop, only to have a cyclist perpendicular to me arrive at the intersection after me and proceed to roll through without stopping because I actually made a full stop. Silly as it sounds, I feel as though I’ve been taken advantage of just because I chose to obey the law.
Yes, I had a pedestrian friend seriously injured when in a crosswalk by one of those bike messengers. Took several months physical therapy to be able to walk again.
Better than waiting for a ticket (which they never get, is just jamming something like a thick computer report into the spokes of their wheel when they shoot by you.
Moved to IMHO. Since there probably isn’t a single correct answer.
samclem
I think I saw that guy.
I swear, the biggest hazards I encounter on my bike are other cyclists.
Anyway, I don’t go through red lights. The buildings are always too densely packed to be sure that nothing’s coming the other way until you’re right at the edge and have to stop anyway.
Better in the sense of probably constituting assault, that is. :rolleyes: If the cyclist isn’t seriously injured in the ensuing crash, don’t be surprised if he comes back and beats about the head with his U-lock.