Speedo

I've never been to Copenhagen, but I have been to Amsterdam. Amsterdam is pretty structured. Cycling in the Netherlands is pretty structured. I was never in doubt as to what the rules were, and (in what was a limited experience there) it seemed like everyone followed the rules.

Speedo

apricissimus 

He's repeatedly said that he wouldn't ride the same way on other types of roads, like the high speed arterials. He knows this particular style doesn't work everywhere. (Who would want to watch such videos anyway? Does that sound entertaining to you?)

And why are you trying to puff him up like he's some kind of wannabe badass? He's never made such claims. That's all in your head, not in anything that he's written.

nvincent

That was a really good video. I try to ride the same way and hit the gaps when I see them. The problem is, a lot of drivers are overly cautious and will slow down when they see a speeding bicyclist approaching an intersection, even if the driver has the light. This really throws off my timing because the gap I planned to hit is contingent upon the drivers maintaining their current speed. I'm still learning how to make those quick adjustments. That football QB analogy you used is a very good one. Eventually you learn to read traffic like opposing defenses.

Speedo

If JoeyBike just claimed to be a wannabe badass no one would have a problem with him. My problem is his claim to be a model for safe biking! That's not in our heads, it's why he started this thread!

Speedo

Benjamin11

Rhyming is fun.

apricissimus 

Just addressing Bek's accusation.

apricissimus 

What's unsafe about his riding, btw?

yoder

It is fairly orderly in Netherlands, but it is quite different from Copenhagen as well. While people generally follow the rules, there will be 10X more folks going against traffic, on sidewalks, running red lights, etc in Amsterdam (and you hear Marie making a brief comment about that in the video). There is great infrastructure in Amsterdam, but it is nothing like Copenhagen's. That's why you see so much more sharing of space between the peds and cyclist, as well as cars and cyclists, as you can see in the video. There are just a fraction of lights in Amsterdam compared to Copenhagen. The lights are all made for bikes in Copenhagen, so that there is a separate signal for bikes that goes before the cars, and bikes stop a little ahead of the cars at the intersection as well. The bike lane is more likely to be completely outside and raised from the car road, and separate from the pedestrian walkway. When the cyclist turns left in Copenhagen, s/he doesn't get in the car lane, but crosses over in the bike lane on the right, and then turns left on the intersecting bike lane, following the bike signals (sort of like how a pedestrian will turn at busy intersections). In the Netherlands many of the lights are friendly to cyclists in that if you go a certain reasonable cycling speed, you will generally hit the greens, but in Copenhagen they have it down to a science with their "Green Wave."

Speedo

Running red lights and stop signs is risky, but only to himself. Recommending this as a model for safe biking makes him dangerous.

Speedo

apricissimus 

Not if you do it in a sensible way. Actually there's this video online that you can watch that tells you what to look out for. PM me and I'll send you the link

degnaw

I was thinking 4:00 - 5:10 or so in https://www.vimeo.com/1918279

Not a very good example (not much traffic), but i'm sure theres other videos i don't know about.

EDIT: starting 5:20 or so in https://www.vimeo.com/1979877 ?

Speedo

I know the sensible way. Don't do it.

Speedo

aMull

Some people actually can run a red without causing problems for anyone, if you find that so hard tto do stick to your own advice i guess, fine with me.

JoeyBike

Videos featuring other riders are sped up x1.25 (or 25 percent). By myself I usually push the speed up to x1.5 or 50 percent faster. Some of my vids are sped up way more, like x2 or x3 to keep them to a reasonable length. I try to keep them between 6 or 7 minutes in length at most - one or two songs worth.

The nature of my camera lens is pretty much 1:1 - meaning it is not a wide angle. What gives your eyes a sense of speed is your peripheral vision. My camera has no peripheral vision. To demonstrate this, ride in the passenger seat of a car and look through the windshield with a pair of binoculars at the horizon. Even a 70 miles per hour it will appear that you are walking down the freeway. My camera has the same illusion. At regular speed, it looks like I am walking.

When I am splitting lanes or riding the double yellow my speed is probably 15 mph. Open stretches up to 25. I try to never ride faster than my stopping capability.

JoeyBike

No? Have you seen THIS?

daven1986

I have now, and it seems a lot more dodgy than your calculated manouvers. They also hit pedestrians and made cars stop. However I stand corrected, some techniques can be used

genec

Couple of things I noticed about the video... First... there were bikes everywhere. Parked, being ridden, they were just everywhere. Second, it appeared quite flat there. Easy cycling. And last... at one point Marie is on a path and just rides right out in front of a stopped car... something one would hesitate to do in the US. Yet there, there was no problem, there was no sense of "who has ROW." I did not notice a stop sign... so apparently the motorist chose to stop for the bike path. Certainly Marie and the other guy had no hesitation about just riding on past the stopped car. Amazing.

The bikes everywhere... What can I say.

StrangeWill

Not really, the fact that you ignore the importance of traffic structure is a lack of sensibility.

It can be well thought out and planned, but is far from "safe".

apricissimus 

You've got it exactly backwards. I totally understand the "law and order" argument for not running red lights. It's logical and consistent, though I also think it's needlessly black-and-white.

But if I come up to a red light, and I can see that there are no cars that might hit me if I run it, then there is literally no danger, and it is totally safe. How can it be unsafe when there's nothing in my way, and I'm not in the way of anything else?

Arguing against running red lights because it is necessarily unsafe in all circumstances is am argument you can't win.

yoder

Yep. Good observations. That's a good example of the style there as well. In my opinion, you see a lot more "dangerous" or distracted riding in Amsterdam: talking on cell phones while riding, having a passenger or two on the back rack while riding and conversing, riding with an empty bike being held up/towed with one hand, etc. (And you have the interviewer from Amsterdam in the video holding in one hand and shooting with a hand-held video camera the whole time they are riding around). You see this type of thing in Copenhagen too, much more than the US, but I think it is a little more common in the Netherlands. Copenhagen cyclists are a little more conservative with that. (Although I've seen people in Copenhagen tow their rolling suitcases on a bike, which is indicative that is still another world than the US). But despite the more rules, better infrastructure, and more conservative cyclists in Copenhagen, there are fewer serious accidents/km traveled in Amsterdam than in Copenhagen, although both are many times safer than the US. In the Netherlands, everyone just accepts that the bike is king on the roads, but in Copenhagen they focused more on trying to make the system that favors the cyclist. Also, cycling may be in a period of slight decline in Copenhagen (where there is a higher perception of cycling danger than the real statistics which show a declining already minimal danger), while it is still growing in the Netherlands.

As the traffic culture becomes too rule-focused, it will lead to its people being less aware of their surrounding more often. The safest places for cyclists are where there are lots of cyclists, and the car drivers are also cyclists. Humans (and technology) will not ever be completely predictable or aware, so a culture where that is basically understood as an axiom, rather than having some illusion of a safe order through rule-following, leads to the safest, if not most efficient/fastest, traffic system.

Speedo

I can agree with that statement. I can't say that if you arrive at a red light at 3:00 AM, there isn't a car or pedestrian within miles, that there is a safety issue about rolling right through. From an enforcement point of view a LEO watching you would probably let it go. But you know that that situation is not what we are arguing about.

I see it as a matter of attitude, perhaps a matter of philosophy. People probably have attitudes about this that are on a continuum from "I always follow the letter of the rules of the road" to "I do what I think is best for me at the moment, the hell with the rules of the road". By "people" I mean everyone using the road from pedestrians to 18 wheel truck drivers. Is it practical to expect that every road user will, by some miracle, move to the "I always follow the letter of the rules of the road" camp? No, because there are cases like the 3:00 AM ghost town. People are going to find their own place in this continuum. My point is that it would be better for everyone, if we were all huddling down near the law and order end.

Specifically, for you, I don't know. Make a movie. But let's parse your statement a bit. You come up to a red light you see there are no cars (and let's say peds as well) so you go. So this safety is based on your observations and your judgment. Are your observations and judgments never flawed? How many times do cars strike cyclists and the driver of the car says that they didn't see the cyclist? As far as the observation and judgment of the driver was concerned there was no risk to the behavior that ended up clobbering the cyclist. Certainly there are plenty of cases where cyclists clobber pedestrians, and cyclists running stops and reds are clobbered by cars. In those cases the observations and judgments of some of the parties were flawed and there were consequences.

The point of following the rules of the road is that some of the risks based on flawed observations and judgment are removed. It works because there is an agreement with other road users that we will all follow the same rules. Consequently, there is less left to chance. Less left to a judgment call, that may be flawed which is based on an observation, that may also be flawed.

The problem I have with people at the narcissistic "I do what I think is best for me at the moment, the hell with the rules of the road" end of the spectrum is that it's a slippery slope. Someone like JoeyBike, by his own admission, is all in favor of seeing everyone else follow the rules. It's unfortunate but he seems intent on encouraging others to ride in a similar scofflaw manner. The more people who do, the less anyone can rely on the the protections provided by the rules. It's a slippery slope from another point of view as well. For every JoeyBike, there are probably ten JoeyCars. If we collectively agree that rules of the road are merely suggestions for bicycles, should we be surprised when the JoeyCars see the rules of the road are only suggestions for themselves? There's probably a similar debate to this one going on in a parallel universe at a car site. We as cyclists get far more protection against cars from the rules of the road, then cars get protection from us.

I harbor no illusion that the JoeyBikes (and JoeyCars) of the world will ever change their ways. I just hope that a greater collective of vehicle drivers will recognize the protections afforded by the rules of the road, and keep their departures from them to a minimum.

Speedo

njkayaker

False dichotomy!! It clearly isn't one or the other! There are ample examples where bicycles are treated differently (without even considering bike lanes).

I suppose bicyclists should be required to get driver's licenses, just like other operators?

Anyway, Joey is not advocating that there should have one set of rules for both. Clearly, he's advocating quite the opposite!

=======================

And those places tend to have much more dangerous traffic.

=======================

This supports the requirement for operators to stop at stop signs.

Rules are for other people! This seems inconsistant with the idea that to "allow traffic in general to do whatever they want".

=======================

Yes. A major point of the traffic rules is to provide predictability of behavior for the participants. From the driver's perspective, Joey's behavior is irratic and unpredictable.

=======================

There can be rules (predictability) without signs.

droobieinop

As a point of reference... I live in Fl, which is one of if not the most inhospitable places in the union to ride. Here we have an optional helmet law for motorcycles, I'm not doing the research, but I do believe that the number of deaths have been on the rise since this has gone into affect.

Most of these were likely already "organ donors" to begin with, who drive their loud motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic like arrogant Aholes anyway. Thusly its their own fault, except for the woman who drove her corvette over her husband at a light. All the same, I do believe that it is against state law to share the lane with a car.

Bare with me there is a point... When I went to college in Ohio I noticed that the motorcycles often traveled in between lanes and were never stopped by police. Are there places where this is acceptable and if so what makes that any different from what joeybike and others of us are doing?

The way I see it, a bicycle is far less likely to do anyone else any harm, didn't that Hasselbeck lady from the view just get hit by a messenger? Isn't she pregnant? and isn't she fine and even joking about the speed of the delivery? However an car, truck or motorcycle has far more mass and is cappable of doing far more damage to others.

If I run a light and didn't see the car that hit me, it is my fault, not their's. And in j'ville it seems that no matter the circumstances a driver is never prosecuted for a bicycle related injury or death.

It is ultimately a matter of riding within your own limitations and with a consideration for your surroundings. For example there are a few lights in my hood that I will not roll through or run. They cross 6 and 4 lane roads with a 45 mph speed limit so I just wait and hope that a car comes along to trip the light or I turn with the next cycle. Stop signs on side streets, however, are another story.

True all the same, such behavior is missunderstood by many people. I didn't understand how the messengers did it all the time (and I'm not sure they have analized it like joey has), but now I understand. I also understand that it doesn't do much for our image if we don't expain our behavior to others.

But many are closed minded and will never accept any explanation, no matter how clear.

daven1986

@Speedo: we get more protection from cars because we are more vulnerable. I'm not saying that it is right to jump lights, but as has been said we pose much less danger to any other road user. The only problem would come from accidents caused by cyclists jumping red lights and mistiming it and causing a driver to swerve into another car. The laws are there to prevent things like this happening.

So on one hand I know I jump red lights on left turns (am in UK) and at pedestrian lights but only because I know I have looked and made sure nothing / no one is coming so I won't cause an accident. But on the other hand I worry about the cyclists out there that don't look / think about the consequences of their actions. Then again there are car drivers out there like that too, and there will always be people like that. The aim is to keep yourself and other road users safe and if it is safe to jump a light then that is fine by me.

StrangeWill

Except for places where it seems to not treat the bike as a vehicle, (must ride on sidewalk and other lame laws like that), what are you talking about?

Mind you, everything that falls under "vehicle" has a very basic set of rules of direction of traffic flow and following traffic flow infrastructure (signs/lights), for some reason people want bicycles to be the only ones that fall under "don't have to follow the rest of the world... because it's an inconvenience."