Originally Posted by
hairytoes
It's my experience that drivers treat you like you treat them - ride aggressively, and you get aggression back. There is a big difference between being aggressive and being assertive. Heck, I've had taxi drivers slow down and drive in front of me so I could draft them.
Never ridden in New York, just cities in UK, France, Germany and Australia, so what do I know?
+++1. Behave like traffic, drivers will usually treat you like traffic. I've ridden through the downtown rush hour in Calgary for amost 30 years, off an on, and never had a problem. I don't run red lights, crawl into people's blind spots to pass them on the right as they're making a right-hand turn, or try to do left turns from the wrong side or the road.
I find that I can trip most light sensors by laying the bike over almost flat on top of them. As long as it's a metal, not carbon fiber, frame, it should be enough to trip it. There are a few that don't work this way, admittedly.