Originally Posted by
unterhausen
I'm getting less enamored of right turn on red laws as they are now observed by motorists. Few motorists give more than a cursory glance towards oncoming traffic, much less look at what is on the sidewalks. I have to say that I'm not sure how you are supposed to see an unlit cyclist in the dark. When I was younger, I rode fairly frequently without a front light, but you can't ride through many intersections at speed that way, that's asking for it.
For me the annoyance with right on red and bicyclists is that when preparing to make the right turn, there is often a bicyclist passing on the right, running the light.
I wrote this a whie ago about a particular light that was a constant annoyance for me when I was in grad school:
Back when I was in Grad school it used to drive me nuts when bicyclists did this. There were days that I had to ride my motorcycle in to school. I would almost always reach the turn to the motorcycle parking are just as the light would turn red.
So, I would stop, look both ways and start moving to make my turn while simultaneously looking in the mirror, or cyclists. It seemed that it was pretty inevitable that there would be a cyclist passing me on the right, at full speed, so that they could run the red light.
I once asked a guy I knew, who I saw doing this, why so many cyclists always pass on the right, at that point, and run that particular light. He answered, "no one ever turns there, it is just motorcycle parking ; so, it is safe to run that light."
same annoyance even when the light wasn't red, signal on, slow to make turn, glance in mirror; yep, cyclist passing on right. They just were not looking for motorcycles.
I think the reason that I didn't do that on my bicycle days was that I was so aware of the hazard cyclists passing on the right were, at that turn. Of course, I had cyclists, behind me, clearly express their annoyance when I did stop my bicycle at that light when it was red.
Really, all they needed to do, to make the turn easier for everyone, was to pass on the left. I never did hit any of them; but it was annoying. I think the root problem was two fold, the first was their being so in the habit of running that light that they never even looked. The second was that they were so conditioned to staying on the right that hey never looked to see if it was appropriate.
As I mentioned in the previous post, I think I was more aware of that particular light on my bicycle days because I saw it both as a bicyclist and as a motorcyclist.