queerpunk

that may be, but the Liveable Streets movement has a lot, lot, lot to offer bikers. Killing you is a bad idea; logic would follow that good ideas would include getting more cars off the street, traffic calming measures to make existing auto traffic safer, trying to reduce air pollution so neither you nor the entire populations of whole ****ing neighborhoods have chronic asthma...

wroomwroomoops

Sometimes, being the law-abiding citizen that I am, as I wait at a red light, see a cyclist cross the street at the red light, passing me by. That infuriates me (here I completely agree with your feelings about guys who make it hard for the rest of us). So when it gets green, the adrenaline produced by the rage propels me forward and I always overtake the ****er, and yell at him (sometimes her) "So, was it really worth crossing at the red light, huh? Are you any further in your life, for it, huh?" and then I fly forward and leave him/her behind in their cloud of shame and inadequacy. That always makes my day.

scoober

Not necessarily disagreeing with you, and my post is directed at giving my rationale for how I cycle rather than being prescriptive, but Im not sure you caught my point.

To use an analogy, suppose I drove. I might feel 100% sure that I could drive 10mph over the speed limit safely on a given stretch of road. Now one day, I kill a child. At least, had I been obeying the law, it would be some consolation to think that I had been doing everything right.

The same idea strikes me as compelling when I am cycling. Suppose I run a red, causing a car to swerve and kill a child. Im going to feel a lot worse then if I was doing everything right and obeying the law.

Granted, I'm not sure this is going to happen to many cyclists. But I will bet that a large proportion of traffic accidents are caused by people being 100% sure it was safe for them to break the rules (because according to some, being able to drive/cycle fast/recklessly and get away with it makes them a good driver). I dont want that guy to be me.

kemmer

Wow, you're pretty pathetic. First, because you get angry when someone doesn't agree with you on something like what to do at a red light while riding a bike and second because riding your bicycle faster than someone else makes you feel better about yourself.

And yes, it is worth it. I have to stop at approximately 15 lights on my 20 mile commute and I always proceed with caution when the traffic flow permits it. If I waited 30 seconds more at each light it would cost me 7 1/2 minutes. Running reds on my ride means I get to hit the snooze button one more time. I cherish my 7 1/2 minutes laying it bed, don't try to take that away form me.

dirtyphotons

yeah, i think we agree in principle and only differ slightly in practice. i agree that i would be completely destroyed if in doing something illegal, i was the cause of someone getting hurt.

kemmer

I see what you're saying and I think it's true to some degree but I don't think that a very many accidents are caused by people breaking the rules thinking it's safe to do so. The number one cause of accidents is inattentiveness, not rule breaking. Besides, I'm thinking that most accidents caused by people breaking the rules happen when people know that what they are doing is dangerous but they don't care.

EDIT- OP: post this crap in A&S next time.

LóFarkas

Ya see, that's not me being all up in their face.
All I ask is that people do not endanger me intentionally, and I never endanger others intentionally or block their path on purpose for that matter. Live and let live, without being too deeply interested in what the rulebook says, that's my philosophy.
Yeah, I split lanes... WTF should any driver care that I got in front of them, I don't take the lane and they're gonna go past me without much drama if they catch up with me again.

Morgie

in cities like Boston driving is rarely faster than cycling... and a parking spot costs $1000 a month where I live... so there are numerous reason why when in a hurry you can't "just drive".

I commonly break traffic laws because they aren't really designed for our safety and because cars often times don't realize or respect our right to the road and therefore there are cases when it is safest to use your own judgment... of instance at some intersections here it is safest and the most beneficial for both cars, cyclist, and peds for me to go when the lights is at a four way Red for Pedestrians to cross, this gives be a chance to get through the intersection and then get over to the right before the next pack of cars catches up with me...

Adagio Corse

The problem with irresponsible bike riding is that it is more fuel for the legislature/city council to pass laws that specifically make it harder for us as bikers. In the end, all bikers pay for the irresponsible riding of the shortsighted few. How do I know? I participated at the state assembly meetings all the time as both an intern and observer, and it's amazing how people's ignorance of the biking community is based purely on personal anecdotes and urban myths.

franklen

+1, that's exactly what I thought when reading the first post in this thread "this is why critical mass doesn't work!"

lima_bean

cry more noob.

wroomwroomoops

Do you have any reference to support any of these statements, or did you just pull them all from your butt, to support your sistematic breaking of the law?

mascher

Yes, yes, and yes. No dis to other posters here, but this can of worms is opened every fifteen minutes. QP, yr getting me to finally get around to writing up the "right" way to be a good, safe and law-abiding biker while respecting other bikers, and drivers, and how to blow lights/stops/ride on the left side of the road etc. I wanted to do this in particular in Montreal, where they're doing all of this "bike friendly" stuff again now that it's spring, that they told me all about in a flyer (not in the language of the majority of the population) printed by the city that was given to me by a city employee standing in the middle of the bike lane on a narrow street, keeping bicycle traffic from passing.

willypilgrim

Seriously, if anything, I'm way more attentive when I'm doing something illegal,like running a red light. I'm simultaneously checking for cops, other cyclists, pedestrians,and most importantly, cars that could kill me. If it looks super busy at an interesection, I stop, and wait to proceed until I have a break in traffic I can safely make.

A lot of my riding is done at hours when few cars are on the road. Take the last 24 hours for instance. I rode half an hour to uptown minneapolis, through downtown at around 6:30, and istopped at almost all the roadlights whilst in downtown because there were cars and cops everywhere. When I came home at 12:30am, there were almost no cars, so I ran most of the lights, and I also rode no handed most of the ride, a mixture of it being comfortable, and I think it's helpful for improving my balance.

This morning, I woke up at 6am to ride to work, which is always at 4 or 6am for me, and then I had the same situation. Few to no cars on most roads, no handed relaxed pace riding when i felt like it, cranking and mashing when i felt like it. My commute home? Back to the more cautious red light approach.

The other day, I made a move at a red light in which I put 0 people in danger, and was through the intersection without so much as causing a need for any driver anywhere to have to think about braking. Some fat ******* I was waiting next to at the light for a moment(i HAD come to a stop to check things out, as it was a hard intersection to read from where i was coming from) in a suburban felt he needed to catch up to me on the street i turned onto, pace me, roll his window down, and stutter out "Maybe you should follow the laws of the road" to which I laughed at him and said "maybe..." (though in retrospect, I wish i would have made fun of him for being fat). Was he driving safely by concerning himself with pacing and talking to a cyclist while he drove? No. Did I put him in harms way? No. He was just pissed off that he couldn't turn at the intersection and I did.

Trust me, as a driver and a cyclist, most drivers are ****ing horrible and don't follow traffic laws. Why should cyclists be expected to be so much holier than drivers, especially considering that we have, in most cases, much more time to make a snap judgement than a motorist does.

wroomwroomoops

Because people who invent all sorts of excuses why laws don't apply to them, are twats.

lima_bean

the laws still apply, I wont fight any ticket I am given.

But the laws are changing, they arnt going to stay this way for bikes forever, having one set that applies equally to cars and bikes just doesn't make sense.

Look at Iowa, where bicycles dont need to stop at stop signs if there is no traffic, these laws will spread.

chunts

bicycles are not cars and its silly to try and treat them that way. in the eyes of the law, it's the best solution (that doesn't require thought or any work) that they have come up with, bud it's not adequate. the general rule of cars is "follow all the laws correctly and you wont get into an accident". the general rule for cyclists is "watch the **** out, because you are entirely responsible for your own welfare whether you follow the laws or not". sometimes these ideologies intersect, often they do not.

the short version: it would be a double standard if it weren't apples and oranges.

chunts

not any more than people who dogmatically believe in a system of laws that doesn't support their safety or welfare, for no other reason than "its the law".

dirtyphotons

i'm sorry your that world is this black and white. or maybe i'm happy for you, i'm not sure.

wroomwroomoops

Look, break the law if you have to, but don't hide behind some half-assed excuses. Own it, say it as it is, it's breaking the law. Maybe you don't like that law, maybe you think it's unfair, but don't ****ing kid yourself that it doesn't apply to you. It does.

mander

Dirtyphotons do you think it should be legal for cyclists to run red lights when it is safe to do so?

kemmer

There is plenty of evidence to support my theory, but determining the cause of accidents can be difficult since there are many things that are factors in a collision and these factors are not always know or reported. For example, the cause of many collisions may be listed as "failure to yield right of way" when really the problem was that one or more of the drivers was not paying attention. In this study it was found that a the three major factors in fatal accidents where somebody either failed to yield or failed to obey at a traffic control devices were alcohol, speeding, and inattention for these kinds of crashes. Alcohol was the leading cause in single vehicle accidents followed by speed and inattention. Inattention was the second leading cause of multi vehicle fatal crashes at intersections after racing. I would consider racing (the #1 cause) to be something people know is dangerous, not something people consider 100% safe. Inattention comes in at #2. So no, I'm not pulling this out of my butt.

Do you have any facts to support your fury toward scofflaw cyclists, or just a vague suspicion that we give you a bad name?

wroomwroomoops

Allright - taken into consideration, thanks.

wroomwroomoops

(For the record, I did not edit that out from your post in my previous reply, but it was you who edited it in afterwards.)

I don't have facts, just a strongly-founded suspicion, based on comments from non-cyclists about cyclists.

dirtyphotons

fair enough. the law does indeed apply to me and when i break the law i do so knowingly and intentionally. if i am punished for it i'll know i had it coming. if i feel i'm being safer by doing so then in my mind it's justified, consequences and all.