slvoid

Going to work this morning, queens blvd is all backed up, cars are literally at a stand still, and of course no one wants to get caught at the intersection when the light changes, so people leave a little bit of a gap before they enter the intersection.
This moron in a corvette decides to run the light and snake through the gap (thus saving him a whopping 30-45 seconds). Just as he makes it halfway through the traffic, *WHOOP WHOOP!*. The black ford crown vic behind him flashes its sirens. I did stop for a bit and watch the cops take their sweet time getting out of their car and walking over to the guy.

ModoVincere

run light cops nab

kylecrispin

I'm glad the guy was in a vette and not on a bike.

icedmocha 

I LOVE being able to hop off my bike and push it through a red. I have a few ong lights near me.

MMACH 5

Do they fine you less for jay-walking than they do for running a red light?

jyossarian

I thought this was gonna be about slvoid getting pulled over for running a red.

oboeguy

No kidding, I'm disappointed. I was wondering if they'd find the Glock stuffed in his bibs.

Scorer75

Do bikers in NY stop for red lights?

I'm sorry if this offends any of you, but I treat red lights on a bike as a stop sign.

vrkelley

Best storry of the week! Seattle Cops could make ton of easy money following that example. It's way easier than chasing crack-heads, puts money in the dpt cookie jar, saves gas

legot73

Stories like this make me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Mchaz

Don't forget the J.D.'s

mihlbach

I think most NYC cyclists treat red lights as green lights...

sukram

I do. Then I start again.

Seriously, it all depends on where I am and what cross traffic looks like. I don't have a death wish and I don't have super powers like messengers or those delivery guys. I'm just a plucky dumb [fill in the blank].

banerjek

My favorite experience with the police was actually in a car. We were following a cop on a 2 lane road doing 55. Because most of the drivers on that road go considerably faster, I was soon at the front of a line of about 15 cars.

Some guy in a camaro decided to take the entire line. I watched him in my rearview mirror as he accelerated rapidly with the throttle wide open. Just as he was passing the car behind me (he was easily doing 100+ by this time), he realized that the car at the front was a cop. He hit the brakes to slow down to the speed limit -- it looked like he may have been down to about 90 by the time he cleared the patrol car which had already lit up....

mastershake916

it was either NY or SF, but I watched this one thing on a bicycle messenger that's just crazy.
Eventually I might end up like that also, but then it was just shocking.

marqueemoon

I've seen that too.

2manybikes

That's tomorrow.

vrkelley

Neva!!!!!!!!!

slvoid

I think most cyclists in NYC ignore red lights if there aren't cars around, it just makes sense.

2manybikes

I just took out two words for you. Now it's more accurate.

How's the shin today ?

LóFarkas

A bit more modification to make the sentence fit me

Tom Bombadil

As a stop sign??

In Madison, WI, bikers treat stop signs as a place to slightly slow down to take a quick glance to make sure they are not going to be creamed by a car.

I drive to work (ya, I know ... boo! this is a commuters forum) and my route home is down a city street that has 6 stop signs. I've been driving it for 15 years, to and from work. So I've probably driven it over 5000 times. I think I've seen a biker stop at a stop sign maybe 20-25 times over that entire period. This is vs maybe 10,000 times I've seen bikers run the stop signs. I've seen 1 biker get hit and three-four others that would have been hit had it not be for some good driving by people in cars. Probably a few hundred times where the bikers failed to properly yield the right of way to a car. Those invariably lead to the cars honking at the bikers and then the biker giving the car the finger.

Mind you this is just off of the Univ of Wisconsin-Madison campus, so nearly all of the bikers are college students. Collectively, they sure give a bad rep to bikers.

Daily Commute

I don't ignore red lights when there aren't cars in sight, but I will sometimes treat them as yield signs, slowing enough to look both ways and to stop if I see cars coming. That usually only happens when I'm commuting before 6:00 a.m. Of course, if a cop sees me, I'll have to pay the ticket.

There are also a couple loop-sensored lights on my route that I know I can't trigger. If there are no cars to trigger the light, I treat those as yield signs.

And I almost forgot: Nice story slvoid.

superted

I always stop at lights, cyclists should respect traffic laws otherwise we cant expect to get treated well by other traffic. I even stop at lights which are just for peds to cross over...

threephi

To be truthful, how I treat a red in the city depends on how early/late for work I am. Usually I'll slow down to get a good look both ways on the cross street to see if anything's coming, then blow through. If I'm running behind though, I'll delay the slowing down part until I spot something that might hit me which I can't zip past

Unless there's a cop car on the block. Then I do a full stop and wait it out. I was ticketed on Broadway once about 20 years ago for running a red on my bike, so I guess I'm still a bit gunshy.