Yeah, this bothers me, too. What’s even worse is when I get there far enough ahead of the cyclist that I have to stop again in the middle of the intersection because he’s cruising right through. It’s like they know you’re going to stop for them so they just do it.
Downtown we have several streets that do not have stop signs for quite a distance. The perpendicular cross streets, however, do. They also have a sign which states, “Cross traffic does not stop”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to slam on my breaks for a cyclist who has blown through one of those intersections on a cross street.
One of my most awful memeries is looking this kid I almost killed straight in the eye. See, he came out from a cross street where he should have stopped at the stop sign. I was on the through street. I slammed on my breaks, he panicked and did the same thing. He came to a stop directly in front of my car. If I’d been seconds later applying my breaks he’d likely be dead. We just stared at each other for a few seconds before he realized he was in the middle of the street and rode off. I cried the whole way home. I came this close to killing someone because they couldn’t be bothered to stop at a stop sign. I see his face every time I go through that intersection.
Many intersections in the Bay Area have little bicycle symbols, to let cyclists know where to stop to trigger the sensors.
I see lots of cyclists running lights. I’m sure they feel it is there right, and I’m glad I haven’t seen anyone getting crunched. But not seeing any oncoming traffic is no excuse.
I’m confused - I’ve never seen a cyclist do a left hand turn with vehicles before. They’ll always do the across the crosswalk twice thing to get to that lane they want to get to, but not left turns.
It happens pretty frequently around here. We have a lot of hardcore bicycle commuters in our area. I’ve done it myself, but only on fairly uncrowded streets. If it’s really busy, I walk my bike across the two crosswalks.
I think Trunk was speaking about an intance where he is going straight through an intersection as opposed to turning (left). All he has to worry about is cars coming head on and crossing his lane to make their left turn.
From experience as a long time and reasonably able cyclist, turning left with traffic is actually pretty easy and better than doing the crosswalk thing you’re thinking about.
Back in university, I was pretty cavalier about breaking pretty much every traffic law there was. I even had an off duty cop pull me over in his minivan :eek: and after showing me his badge threaten to impound my bike. That was a bit of a shocker and it took some fast talking about being late for an exam to get him to let me go.
The real wake-up came when I ended up on the hood of a Pontiac. No permanent damage to me but the old guy in the Pontiac was pretty shaken, as was I. Fortunately he wasn’t moving as fast as he might have been when I came screaming the wrong way up a one way street. :smack:
Yeah, I smartened up real fast after that.
As for not stopping at red lights… I’m still guilty of that often enough. I take all the best precautions but admit that waiting for no visible traffic to pass at a red light is annoying in the extreme when I’m on a bike. Part of the issue is that when I’m no a bike I’m out for a training ride and I have a pace and distance in mind in a specific time which I’m always trying to improve. So there is that. Also, it’s the state of mind that comes with doing an endurace sort of exercise. You get into this zone, not unlike other endurance sports, and breaking stride is mentally distracting and actually takes away from the workout. It’s a bit like being woken from a good dream.
As a point of interest on a related topic. Last weekend, at the Paris-Roubaix race, two cyclists were disqualified for not stopping at a train crossing whose gates were down for an approaching train. So even in world championship races, some traffic laws are not negotiable.
The only time I run red lights is when there is very little to no traffic & I’ve sat at the light for a significant length of time and simply can’t get it to change.
If I see a car coming in front or behind me, I’ll wait for the car. I’ll also signal madly at any pedestrian to try to get them to hit the crosswalk sign (which often goes with the light). But if all other attempts have failed, and I still can’t get a green, and I can’t see cars coming, and I’m as sure as I can be that I’ll be safe, I’ll reluctantly run the light.
Provided you’re not just impatient, but you actually can’t trigger the semsor, and if the legal situation there is the same as it is here, no cop worth his badge will ticket you, and if he did, a judge would throw it out of court. The traffic light is deemed to be defective, and therefore you aren’t obliged to obey it.
If you want to argue that cyclists should be able to go through red lights, OK, but this “convenience” argument is just a smokescreen. The car is using energy while idling at the light vs. zero for a cyclist; the car is and adding to pollution while idling; the car uses hundreds of time as much energy for starting and stopping. The fact that the cyclist is using physical effort doesn’t wash. Biking is “inconvenient” to start with and requires physical effort to ride at all. Should hills be outlawed because of the physical effort and inconvenience? I ride frequently, though mostly on a well maintained bike path, so don’t ride much in traffic anymore. But I have ridden thousands of road miles in the last 30 years and I have never felt inconvenienced or physically taxed by stopping at a red light and starting again.
BTW I once got a traffic ticket in Ann Arbor in 1978 for riding through a stop sign in a residential area[sup]1[/sup]. It was a 4-way stop and visibility was such that I could see that there was no car within a block of the intersection. In A[sup]2[/sup], at least then, bikes were given great respect but also the same responsibilities as cars. I was pissed when I got the ticket but after mulling it over I decided that if I wanted cars to treat bikes like vehicles then I should ride it like a vehicle.
For anyone who cares, I was going on Hill Street towards Washtenaw, and ran the sign at the street before Lincoln, which may have been Church, I don’t remember.
Defective lights are supposed to be treated as four-way stops, so you are obeying the light, in a sense. In your scenario you’ve certainly come to a full stop.
