JoeyBike

So you are admitting that a traffic signal color is no indication of your (or my) safety. You are saying that it is UP TO US to be safe regardless of the color of the light. Am I right here?

Well...this is EXACTLY what I have been preaching all along. Look BOTH WAYS before crossing the street. The color of the pretty lights is irrelevant, due to the fact, as you admit - people will run red lights.

The moral of this story is A) Crossing on a green is not necessarily safe, and B) Crossing on a red is not necessarily suicide.
.
.
.

Yan 

Not wearing a condom while boning a hooker is not necessarily suicide, but it's highly recommended.

And stop with this rhetorical crap about me admitting this or that. There is a system in place to ensure the safety of road users. If everyone followed the system exactly, there would be zero accidents. Unfortunately, until 100% of vehicles are operated by robots, there will be people who, accidentally or intentionally, operate against the system and cause collisions.

When you willfully choose to disregard the system, you increase your chances of being involved in a collision. You may be fine for years. You may never be involved in an accident. Nevertheless, statistically, your risk goes up. As we all know, nobody has perfect judgement 100% of the time. The traffic system is in place to increase your margin of safety. When you disregard lights, you give up this safety buffer and fall back completely on yourself. If you are comfortable with accepting this risk, then by all means run red lights at your pleasure. Fortunately for other road users your bicycle is too light to cause major damage (outside of the very rare pedestrian fatality).

I am by no means a safety nanny. I ice climb. Every November I unpack my axes and ice screws out of the closet and wonder if I'll be alive by next spring. Every March I give myself a pat on the back for making it. I have enough danger and excitement in my life and I don't need to be running red lights to get more. Frankly if I died in such a lame way as running a red light, it would be utterly embarrassing.

Leisesturm

Fixed it for you. There is something sad (lame?) about someone getting their snark on in open forum and blowing it up with a clumsy turn of phrase. I can't even call your gaffe a typo. Tsk. Tsk. And, really, are we being schooled on risk avoidance by someone who admits to hanging his hoo hoo over 4,000 foot crevasses with only an ice axe and crampons for company? JMJ, barebacking Lot Lizards cannot be as risky as Ice Climbing! Neither is habitual red light running. I get that you feel personally overdrawn at the Celestial Bank of Good Fortune, but that's on you bro. Far be it from me to look askance at anyone who enjoys extreme sports, but I personally avoid anything riskier than riding a bicycle in traffic. I even wear a helmet most trips. I've really heard it all now. BTW, your Dad's house cleaner... although a Child of God...s/he is a lying sack of soybean meal. Peoples abdomens do not become grossly distended from bleeding out. They distend because putrefying bacteria fill the abdominal cavity with hydrogen sulfide gas. It takes days, not seconds or minutes. You're right, dying in an intersection even with a rock hard six-pack abdomen would suck rocks, yes, embarrassing to use your word, but falling into a crevasse that no one is ever going to come and get you out of would surely suck worse? You think you have the high road (see what I did there?) here? Think again.

JoeyBike

This is where we have a fundamental difference of opinion. Selectively and carefully running red lights actually decreases my chances of getting hit by a car. I believe that minimizing my exposure to large moving objects controlled by distracted or inebriated humans is the KEY to my safety. If I obeyed the traffic signals on my old commute, I would be passed by 100+ cars/trucks. If I run the red lights properly, and cycle in the empty spaces created by those red lights, I might get to work only overtaken 5 to 10 times and sometimes ZERO.

So what do you think is safer? Carefully and deliberately crossing all the streets against red lights and having the road to myself, or stopping and giving 100+ cars a shot at me STANDING STILL as well as moving? Plus my travel time on the roads are doubled if I stop at reds which doubles my exposure to everything. For the life of me I can not fathom how some folks here ever get across a street that is not "protected" by a traffic signal.

I am happy you are an ice climber! When you go out, don't you check all of your equipment for damage and wear before even leaving the house? Then carefully select the sheet of ice or frozen falls to attack? While climbing, do you ever set protection that is "iffy" on purpose? Do you climb long pitches without setting a piton or screw or do you try to minimize the distance you might fall? Or do you jump on any slab of ice and just scramble up the thing? I have a feeling, since you are still alive, that you take precautions. Climbing can be made fairly safe assuming you are knowledgeable, in good condition, and take precautions. Sure the slab could break loose like in a Roadrunner cartoon but that is only slightly more probable than being struck by a meteor (not trying to detract from the skills and nads of steel you must have).

I don't run red lights with my eyes closed either. The dangers are vastly overrated inside your head. Picture climbing a giant frozen waterfall that God told you will not break with you on it. You would be so much more at ease knowing that it is all on YOU to be safe. The danger of running a red light with due diligence is less dangerous than ice climbing without speaking to God, because no way is any ice going to give way on me. The risk is as much or as little as I want it to be. Properly running a red light is BORING. If it is exciting, you are doing it WAY wrong. I just don't know what else to say here.
.
.
.

Yan 

Interesting rant. You must be popular at parties.

And here's a post worth responding to.

Reducing the number of car passing you is one of the arguments often used to justify red light running. If you truly do live in such a remarkable area that the difference between obeying and running lights can mean 100+ vs zero cars passing you over your entire commute, then it may well be worth running the red lights. I live in a city of 24 million people and the cars passing me on every ride numbers in the thousands. Running red lights makes zero difference in the total number of cars passing me, over the average of my entire commute.

Furthermore you probably know, through survey data which frequently gets posted on these forums, that accidents in which cyclists are hit from behind are statistically exceedingly rare. The great majority of collisions occur with intersecting vehicles. By running red lights in an attempt to reduce the number of overtaking vehicles, you are increasing your exposure to the most common category of accidents in an attempt to avoid the rarest category of accidents. A dubious trade off. Nevertheless, I don't know your area.

I don't want to get too deep into discussing climbing safety, as it's not particularly relevant and it's a much more exhaustive topic than cycling safety. I will simply say that if you make a mistake when cycling you will probably end up with some road rash, perhaps a sprain, and at worst a broken arm in 99% of circumstances. On the other hand if you make a mistake when climbing at any distance above the ground, you will immediately die absolutely without a doubt 100% of the time. Consequently all climbers care about safety. The goal of climbing safety is to eliminate subjective hazards originating from the climber himself (bad knot), and reduce where possible exposure to objective hazards originating from points outside the climber's control (rock fall).

Running red lights is creating a subjective hazard. Being hit out of the blue from behind is an objective hazard. You have to make an evaluation of the risk of each and make a decision to balance both. Having looked at the accident type statistics, I have little taste for intentionally sabotaging my own riding behaviour in the vague hope of avoiding a bad driver who (data shows) exists only in my imagination. Keep in mind also that it doesn't have to be black and white. I run lights too, though I assume much less than you, and most importantly I do it as an exception and not as a rule.

Ice screws are absolutely worthless, they are psychological protection only. I have never fallen on to an ice screw. Many professional ice climbers go their entire careers never having fallen onto an ice screw. When you realize you are struggling, you down climb to your last screw and lower your weight onto it gently. No ice screws are ever placed on free standing ice columns because being attached to a collapsing ice fall greatly increases your chance of death. These features are climbed without protection. If your hands get tired, you die. The majority of ice climbers are not this talented or confident, so we stay away from icicles and stick to well formed waterfalls. Despite of what I just said about free standing ice, well attached ice almost never collapses. Nearly all ice climbing accidents occur when the climber fails to retreat and rips out ice screws in falls.

That applies to the great majority of mountaineering as well. Contrary to popular portrayal, mountaineers are seldom roped when climbing on lethal terrain. When I say lethal, I don't mean difficult. I mean places where you can walk normally but if you trip you will fall 1000 metres to your death. You can imagine that after walking multiple hours in such a scenario, the stress starts to accumulate. Most of the time there is no means to fix the rope on to the mountain, and there is no point in dragging all your friends to death when you trip. If you talk to most mountaineers you will form the impression that they are a bunch of statistic crunching robots who walk toward death with total sangfroid. In reality, they care a great deal about their lives. Those who make safety decisions based on emotion have no place in the sport.

I said I wouldn't talk about climbing and ended up writing a ton about it. Sorry. It's a great topic.

RidesaJapanese

What makes me mad is when I stop at a stop sign because a vehicle is approaching, and I could have rolled through it if they'd used their turn signal.

JoeyBike

Just last week I stopped to let a car go by on a weird cross street where nobody is going to turn my way unless they screwed up at the last intersection. Literally I have seen TWO cars turn my way in 50 years at that spot. So I wait for the car to cross past me. He stops. We both stand there looking at each other. He waves me to go. I wave him to go. He starts frantically waving me to go and pointing in the direction he wants to go with his friggin' FINGER. So I go across in front of him and turn left noticing his driver-side window is down. Man driving, woman in the passenger seat. I said "Why not use the TURN SIGNAL built into the car???" He puts the car in park and jumps out. I keep on keeping on.

Idiots.

If you want to change the world for the better INSTANTLY....use your #@%&*#@ turn signals.
.
.
.

JoeyBike

One street in particular, about 6 miles long, passing two universities, a hospital, and the straightest route into the Central Business District for commuters of all kinds. LOTS of traffic signals. Maybe 20, i never counted them. 20mph school zones at several high schools and middle schools. Most signals are at small cross streets. About 5 are at larger intersections. The lights were timed by an evil genius (actually, there is no timer - all random). School zones crack me up - I have NEVER seen a kid walking other than the universities. What looks like Saddam Hussein's entourage of urban assault vehicles deliver the kiddies to school adding about a million cars to the commute route - TWICE.

This is my best example. Some others not so good for beating the traffic with the red light trick.

Funny that most of the "Another Cyclist Dead" posts around here are about cyclists, sometimes entire groups, steamrolled from behind. And we all know how accurate survey data is from city to city. Unless the cyclist gets KILLED i do not believe many incidents get counted at all. So I am saying....I do not believe that claim.

Yan 

It's fine. I believe you.

Pelotons getting steamrolled from behind does generate the most outrage. Plane crashes are in the news all the time, despite planes being by far the safest mode of travel.

Here is a compilation of bicycle related statistics. There is an overwhelming amount of information, should you wish to go through it. On the first page: "89% of crashes occurred at or near intersections". The study this particular data point is pull from is "Bicyclist Fatalities in NYC, 1996-2005". Back when I used to bike in downtown Toronto, which is quite similar to NYC in many places, my biggest fear was always getting doored. We can see from this data that my fear was completely unfounded (or at least that getting doored rarely kills you). It remains possible that part of the 89% consists of cyclists passing through intersections being randomly struck down by cars coming from behind, but when I think of an intersection accident that's not the first scenario which comes to mind.

https://www.sharetheroad.ca/files/Cyc...2012_12_05.pdf

JoeyBike

If intersections are so dangerous, wouldn't it make sense to cycle through all the intersections you can while everybody in motor vehicles are STOPPED or NOT THERE at all? Would you really want to LINGER in the most dangerous place on the road? Should I wait for the intersection to fill up, then proceed - to the annoyance of the motorists behind me and added risk to me?

BTW...I can't argue that intersections are dangerous places to be.


Thanks for the info. I will check it out right now. Cheers!

Leisesturm

Intersections are indeed dangerous and it is where the majority of cyclists and pedestrians are hurt or killed and the number of them that were scofflaw at the time of their demise is a small, a really small fraction of the total. Trying to shame red light runners is a total FAIL move. Its being a predictable sitting duck that gets you nailed. Good luck with shaming people into becoming statistics. Really, good luck with that!

Yan 

Please, the grownups are trying to have a conversation here. I get enough Trump in the news.

You can run a red light when there are no cars in the perpendicular direction, and get away with it most of the time, until one day when there is a car and you fail to notice it:

a) There is an obstruction at the corner of the intersection which blocks your view
b) The vehicle is moving at extreme speed
c) You are tired, distracted, or impaired
d) Visibility is poor due to time of day or weather
e) The vehicle is a silent plug in hybrid

To name a few. B and C are probably the most likely, and probably it will be a combination of multiple causes. In any case, I'm smart enough to admit that I'm not infallible. Of course there will be cases where there is nothing moving in the entire horizon and it would be absurd to stand around, but these situations are the exception, not the rule. I doubt there is one person here who has never run a red light; but, that's not the same as actively advocating running red lights during commuting (assume rush hour time?).

JoeyBike

Look both ways before you cross the street. If you can't see...you can't go. - A motto to live by, scofflaw or not.

I will confess what will likely kill me. My Kryptonite so to speak: If I am running a red light on a larger cross street and a parallel parked car on the opposite side of the intersection shoots out of his/her parking spot into the gap I plan on hitting. If anything gets me, it will be this scenario. I always look into those parked cars but with tinted glass these days, maybe I will miss one some day.

Other that ^this, I can not imagine a scenario where a car hits me while I am running a red light - unless it fell from a military transport airplane.
.
.
.

Hypno Toad

Shaina followed a group of riders through a red light during Babes in Bikeland (an alleycat I volunteer for; and my wife & daughter race):

The Current volunteer suffers severe head injury in bike accident | City Pages

https://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/201...nas-road-back/

3 years later, Shaina still uses a wheel chair and is not able to speak https://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/201...hanges-a-life/

Leisesturm

Man you fight dirty. Be ashamed.

79pmooney

Stop sign, not a red light. Organized ride that was very well run. 5 miles form the finish a rider ran the stop sign on the side street of the route and was tagged and tossed 25' by a car that had been traveling 50, the speed limit of the street were were crossing. I watched this as I approached that intersection. The rider was extremely lucky that the driver did a superb job shutting her speed down so the rider almost made it. I'm guessing just a few broken bones.

Sorry, Leisesturm, it took me several days to recall this.

Ben

Leisesturm

A couple of times this fall I have been about to turn left in a gap in the flow of cars towards me. It's dark, its raining, its Portland, suddenly I realize that what I thought was a gap is really some #&$%! running lights out! That's the scenario that wakes me up some nights. That I will roll out of my track stand into some lights out cager speeding through the stale yellow, or worse, blowing the red.

Hypno Toad

meh

jeichelberg87

Evidently, she failed to follow safety guidelines.

lostarchitect 

She didn't look where she was going. If she had looked, she would have seen the car and stopped. After the car passed, she could have gone through the red light with no issues. The problem here is not rolling the red light, it's not paying attention. I always look for cars at intersections, even when the light is green.

Rollfast

Circle gets the square.

Rollfast

Truth is ugly, never dirty.

Rollfast

Quite frankly, I am shooting for a massive heart attack in my own bed in the middle of the night.

SHBR

I find it rather amusing that the other poster who resides in Shanghai fails to realize that many if not most accidents are likely to happen when the light is green and you have the right of way. I don't run lights either, mostly because I'd rather not be caught out setting a bad example. I'm under no illusions that the color of the traffic light will protect me.

jeichelberg87

Well, yeah...does not matter to me if the light is green or red...what matters to me if there is traffic present and what that traffic is doing. Until I am reasonably sure of the traffic flow and intended direction of travel, I am not moving.


Those are the guidelines to which I am referring. "Ride your own ride."