firemanrob

What is it with "cyclists" and stop signs? I work in an extremely high traffic area for cyclists and I have only seen about 10% at best obey traffic laws (Stops signs, passing laws, and even speeding!). Bicyclists should police themselves since Law enforcement apparently won't do it. You (the lawbreaking element of cycling) drive me to the point of cheering when I get dispatched to a "cyclist down". Very frustrating. If you leave your sense of entitlement at home, I may do the same. See you on the pavement.

nova

Im one of the 10% who do obey laws. I doubt its that extream probably the opisit is true. Your just human and more apt to notice thoose who run lights stop signs etc. As for speeding depending on the conditions its kind of hard not to. I hit about 35+ (guesstament) going down the fairly large or long grade hills here where i live. To obey a 25mph speed limit such as in silver creek park would mean riding my breaks down the hill.

This is not a good idea on a bike as you get alot of break fade and if you should need your breaks to come to a stop before they can cool down they would be alot less effective. Also remember speed limits are set based on a 1 to 2 ton car truck etc based on distance needed to come to a full stop. A bike doing 35 or even 45 mph can stop in as short a distance as a car doing 25 or 30. We got alot less mass to stop than a typical car. Not saying a cyclist should speed if its avoidable but that they should not try to keep at or under the limit if it might cause us to get hurt.
Ive had my breaks get to the point where i could not stop at all. It felt like I had no pads left at all.

firemanrob

Nice excuses.

Sounds like if your vehicle (bike) cannot safely obey the traffic laws such as "speed limits", without suffering some sort of mechanical failure, then your vehicle is not safe for the road. I will concede that bikes can stop faster than cars, but the mass issue is arguable. Vehicles with more mass simply have larger braking surfaces. This is not an excuse to disobey traffic laws. And, the 90% thing--yeah I'm right about that. We have a stop sign outside the window and I just counted nine out of ten cyclists not stopping.

Az B

Do you get this riled up about people that have 11 items in the express lane? While there is a basis to your arguments, your attitude towards "downed bikers" is pathetic. You have no idea what the circumstances are, but you allow yourself a moment of pleasure at the expense of the pain of another human being based simply on your self righteous indignation.

Good job. I'm glad most firemen are not like you.

Az

CommuterRun

I don't stop at every Stop sign anymore. I used to when I was riding in Okinawa and cars were everywhere, but now all my riding is done on the rural highways of north Florida. There are many times when you can pull up to an intersection and not have a car in sight in any direction, and sometimes when you do see one he's so far away the Stop sign is irrelevent. So I ask you. What is the point in stopping under these circumstances?

If you are finding pleasure in the pain of others I suggest seeking professional help. The stress of your job may be getting to you.

nova

Speed limits need to be modified to reflect all types of vehicals instead of just cars and trucks. We all know a semi can not stop in same distance as a car and the highway speed limits in some areas asign them a lower limit do to this. It only makes sence to me that the same considerations be applied to cyclists and infact to a lesser degree motor cycles that also have far less mass than a car. Say 5 mph more than cars for motorcycles and 10 for bikes.

Lets remember something here speed limits are ment to increase our safty. As cyclists a to low speed limit on a hill increases our chances of accidents. Same is true to a lesser extent for motorcyles. They can also experiance a great deal of brake fade if they must ride their breaks (lesser degree as they use disk breaks and metalic pads that bleed heat off and are less effected by heat build up).

As for the original poster he will carry the lable of troll motorist un till he proves other wise..

Clues to this his reg date is today and his first post and secound are both anti bike. Most likly some one who likes to harrass cyclists and thinks its a sport to do so.
In my many years as moderator for both games and forums ive become quite good at profiling such people

Just ignore my grammer mistakes and spelling errors heh

nova

Want to know how many jackass motorists ive watched tare through stop signs and lights or pass to close to other vehicals bikes and cars included?

Today moron in red work pick up with a tool box cap blew on by me about 6 inches from me took a turn to fast nearly putting it in a ditch took his secound turn to fast again nearly in a ditch took his 3rd to fast and did put it in a ditch. Results truck heading to junk yard landed upside down and me well i colected some tools strewn about on the road between first turn and after crash. Got me a nice set of allen keys (snap on full set x 2 one folding one t handled a set of craftsment renches metric ones and a partial set of standard. Also got me a realy nice partial socket set a matco with the right sizes for my crank) He was to busy cussing out the person whos yard and ditch he ruined like it was their fault.

Im going back in the morning to see what other goodies are left behind.....

CB HI

I've seen alot of Honolulu fireman and police breaking traffic laws. I had to sue the City to stop fireman from illegally doing group runs on the bike path.

Do you think I should cheer each time I hear of a fireman or police officer being injured?

nova

Na he dont only if they are a bike cop or something.......

ItsJustMe

I obey all the traffic rules whether on bike or car, other than a couple of stop signs that are on always-deserted areas where I can see 1/2 mile down the crossroad and I don't want to lose momentum. Even there I'd stop if there were any traffic.

I'd like to point out however, that I don't think I could find even 1 out of 10 CARS that obey the traffic laws. In my car, when I'm sticking to the speed limit, I get a lineup of 20 cars behind me in very short order. If I actually stop completely at stop signs, I nearly get rearended if there's anyone anywhere near my tail, and I often get honked at. If I go the speed limit on the expressway, I get cars flowing around me like water around a rock in a stream, and if I have to pass someone, I'll have 50 cars behind me, pissed off, before I can get around one semi. It's not uncommon to look in my rearview and have a car approaching me at 20mph or more faster than I'm going.

Not saying it's an excuse, I'm just saying that I don't think there are more than 10% of drivers of ANY kind of vehicles (except maybe school busses) that actually obey they traffic laws.

Look at the wheels of the cars as they go through that stop sign. I bet they hardly ever stop turning. At least half the cars I see going through stop signs don't even slow to less than 10 mph, and the only time I *EVER* see the wheels actually stop turning is if there's cross traffic present.

oboeguy

Which one of these are you?

Little Darwin

I stop at lights and signs on my bike, but have to concentrate to do it in a car.

Sit at an intersection and watch the cars. You could sit for an hour and not see one come to a complete stop. although many will get close...

And as far as someone's suggestion of different speed limits for different vehicles... No thanks, it is bad enough out there already.

John Wilke

Cyclists? Make that PEOPLE.

I just sat by the window and counted 50 cars going through the 4 way residential stop on my corner. *ONE* car came to a full stop, fourty nine rolled through at various speeds irregardless of how many cars were in the intersection at the time.

Gee, I wonder how many stuck to the 25mph speed limit???

John Wilke
Milwaukee

Halfstep

I totally concur with ItsJustMe's comments. Everyone who knows me says I'm anal retentive (I prefer fastidious and precise but my wife says this only confirms everyone's original assessment). I routinely see a line of cars building up behind me as I pass (at 70mph) a slower vehicle and always watch my rearview mirror at a stop sign to make sure the person behind me is paying attention. These observations lead to the obvious question: WHAT'S THE HURRY!?! Trust me, if you're driving as fast as you can so you're not late to wherever it is your going, you're still going to be late, just not as late as you would be otherwise.

Now, that's not to say there aren't time savings to be had. Let's look at an example: a five mile drive across the city (maybe to a soccer game, maybe to a lunch meeting, who cares). Travelling an average of 40mph, it will take more than seven minutes, and that doesn't even take into account the time it takes to come to a complete stop at the stop signs. If you can increase your speed by even 5mph, you can shave a whole fifty seconds off your trip. Roll through some stop signs, and you might even shave off several more seconds. Of course, the real trick to saving time when driving through town is to catch the traffic lights just right, or if you can't, to follow the advice of the Starman, "Green means go. Red means stop. Yellow means go very fast."

Saving time driving through town is all well and good, but to really spend less time in your car you have to commit to high speeds on the highway. Let's use another example: a 100 mile trip to grandma's (yes, this time it does matter where we're going, grandma misses us). At 60mph, you will travel 60 miles every hour or one mile every minute. So, your 100 mile trip to see grandma will take 100 minutes, or 1 hour and 40 minutes. At 70mph, you will travel one mile approximately every 51 seconds. So, grandma will only have to wait 1 hour and 25 minutes. You just saved grandma 15 minutes of worrying!

To really get some time saving benefits on the highway, though, we have to enter the realm of exceeding the speed limit. Let's save grandma from more worrying. At 75mph, you'll travel one mile every 48 seconds, rushing you to grandma's house in just 1 hour and twenty minutes. Five more minutes of cheek-pinching fun! At 80mph, you'll travel one mile every 45 seconds, barreling down the road in 1 hour and 15 minutes. You can use the extra ten minutes to clean grandma's gutters.

So, while not exactly precise, one can see a five minute savings for every 5mph over the speed limit. But an exact time equals savings because time is money correlation can't be used across the board. Everyone's time is worth different amounts of money. At $9.00/hr, five minutes is only worth 75¢. At $10.00/hr, five minutes is worth 83¢ and at $11.00/hr, five minutes is worth 92¢. It isn't until $12.00/hr that we hit the $1.00 per five minute mark.

What does all this mean? It leads to only one possible conclusion: Drive faster. You'll get to your meeting on time, impress your boss, make more money, drive faster, get to your meeting early, impress the client, take their job offer, make more money, drive faster. Of course, none of this is real money. You'll put most of your increased earnings into a retirement account and you buy gas with a credit card. You'll still have that tenspot in your wallet.

Thank goodness. Now you can buy that king-extra-biggy sized "value" meal.

timmhaan

i will never stop at a stop sign unless there is traffic coming. i do feel entitled to do that no matter what the law says.

steve_wmn

Most will do what's called a "California Stop", where they almost but not quite stop, check both ways and then roll through and accelerate if the cross-street is clear. I do exactly the same thing on my bike. The problem is it's more noticable when a biker doesn't really stop since you're only slowing from 20 mph to 5mph instead of 45 to 5 mph like the cars.

Ritehsedad

So firemanrob, what bikes do you ride?

firemanrob

I'm sure you are still counting on recieving top notch patient care on that bike path too!

firemanrob

I'n not in any way releasing motorists from thier responsibility. We've all seen how bad it gets when a 3000 pound car runs a stop sign or red light.

noisebeam

Well your wrong on this. A modern car can stop faster than an upright bike when traveling at the same speed. Also speed limits are not set based on stopping distances, they are set on a number of factors including grades, curves, sightlines, lane widths, environment (i.e. residential, urban, rural)

Al

joejack951

Thank you for mentioning that. It always annoys me to hear people say a bike can stop faster than a car. The difference between bikes and cars is that all that mass in the car contributes to keeping the car on the ground and generates massive friction between the tires and the road. Cars won't do an endo because the front brakes locked either (longer wheelbase and lower center of gravity helps here too).

And I have to agree that if you can't stop at the bottom of a hill for a stop sign then you are going too fast. Either slow down or get better brakes for your bike.

Fireman is obviously just looking to cause trouble so it's probably best to divert this thread onto a new topic.

timmhaan

in an emergency, bikes have relatively poor stopping capabilities. at least with pull brakes.

Avatar

And a cyclist has to worry about flying off his bike when braking quickly.

PaulH

Quick calculation assuming 45 mph, zero reaction time, and constant deceleration . Sheldon Brown states that bikes can stop at .6 g; a quick look at road test results suggests thst .9 g is a good figure for a car.

Bike = 113 feet to stop
Car = 76 feet to stop

at 15 mph:

Bike = 13 feet to stop
Car = 9 feet to stop

None of this implies that we should be tolerant toward motorists who do fast rolling stops or blow lights. The car's greater mass and larger cross sectional area still make it a significant threat.

Paul

LittleBigMan

This is the kind of "public servant" we could do very well without.

I am a law-abiding cyclist who was attacked by a pedestrian an hit the pavement face-first. I find your comments heartless and foolish. I wonder if maybe you are really a teenager playing some kind of sick joke?

"Firemanrob," if you are indeed a real paramedic, you should consider a different line of work, perhaps working at McDonald's.