As somewhat hinted in Steve's post, there are a lot of different areas of the city, from areas with extreme density of intersections, to areas more desolate than suburbia, to expressways. Most of the enforcement (of everything) is going to happen in the dense areas where the people are.

Those are also the areas where fully complying with the law while cycling is the most frustrating. They're also the areas where the opportunity to commit a moving violation with a motor vehicle is reduced - you can't really speed or go through a red light if there's another vehicle in front of you.

That's indeed a very serious and officially neglected safety issue overdue to be taken seriously (the cops habitually do it themselves), but parking violations are not moving violations. Regardless who is writing the ticket, it's going to go under a different total. Fun fact: the city actually has a deal with fleet companies where in return for not contesting parking tickets, they only have to pay a fraction of them.

People tend to forget that truck routes are through truck routes. Except where there are clearance or load issues, trucks can legally use other streets to get to their local destination. That doesn't mean things aren't done illegally, but it does mean that to enforce an off-route truck you have to recognize a pattern or be investigating subsequent to something else which exposes the actual purposes of the trip.

What is widely neglected and easy to spot are full length 18-wheelers, which are illegal in the city. But most of the carnage seems to be box trucks and especially private garbage trucks.

The garbage trucks are really the only motor vehicles you'll regularly see committing violations of the traffic laws as they are written in dense parts of the city at the same habitual rate as cyclists - and probably for similar reasons of trying to do something that doesn't really fit the usual traffic flow.

Not sure exactly what you mean, but again you generally have to be first in line to commit a violation with a motor vechicle, since shoaling doesn't really work with large boxes. The reality is that motor vehicles honor red lights the overwhelming majority of the time, while daily observation would suggest that cyclists violate them a simple majority of the time. And as much as motor vehicles like deeply orange "yellows", there will often be a bike coming through still later.

Only in specific times and places is there the physical opportunity to speed. Since trucks aren't allowed on most of the parkways, those would generally be the main stretches through more auto-centric or still industrial parts of the city. And indeed some of those are problematic. Progress is being made in school zones with camera enforcement, but those tickets fall in a different statistical (and legal) category than manually written ones.

No no no no no!

THROUGH Truck Routes in NYC are for travel THROUGH a borough if the point of origin is outside the borough and the destination is outside the borough. These MUST be used by commercial operators while transiting a borough.

LOCAL Truck Routes in NYC may be used if your point of origin or destination is inside a borough.

Finally, commerical operators may ONLY leave designated truck routes at the origin or destination, and ONLY THEN from the nearest intersection on the truck route to the destination, take the MOST DIRECT route to the destination, and then proceed by the MOST DIRECT route to the NEAREST designated truck route.


This isn't rocket science. But what it is is nearly completely unenforced!

-mr. bill

Yes, that's exactly what I was referring to.

It's not easy to determine by sight that a truck spotted elsewhere is there illegally. You'd either have to follow it, recognize a pattern of behavior, or stop it and interrogate the driver. But hey, if we can put GPS in the taxis, why not trucks? (one obvious answer is because with key exceptions trucks aren't specifically licensed by the municipality the way taxis are)

Ultimately, I think what worries you most depends on what you personally encounter the most. So for example, it's the illegal parking that I'd most like to see dealt with. Most of where I go trucks are not out of place (one could almost argue that among motorized vehicles, trucks second only to busses have the most legitimate reason to be present), speeding isn't that possible, and brazenly driving through red lights is still rare enough to be notable when seen. If I lived worked or otherwise was frequently in an area (even within NYC) with a more typical of the US mix of auto-dominated commercial strips and suburban streets, I'd probably have different priorities of concern.

Yeah, you are right. It's simply not practical to have an officer at 9th and 26th, 8th and 26th, and 7th and 26th. Can't possibly stop commerical vehicle operators who travel through without stopping at a destination, because?

Much easier to stop people on bikes after a bus operator kills someone on a Citibike. Which is exactly what the NYPD did.

p.s. You might not be worried about commerical operators. But in NYC they out-kill and out-injure everyone else.

-mr. bill

Indeed, it is in fact not practical to routinely do that. Given the connectivity is by one way avenues you'd need to monitor a stretch of three blocks. Maybe as a once in a while thing. It's unclear that infrequent stings would have any more effect on driver behavior than they do on cyclist behavior - unless there's a high expectation of getting caught, people tend to keep doing it and categorize any enforcement they do encounter as bad luck and unfair.

Something with cameras might work.

Let's be realistic about what that street is, too: it's a wide (at least without the parking) fairly commercial one-way, not some residential neighborhood with kids playing ball in the street. It's not the kind of place where you would be surprised at all to see commercial vehicles or expect them to be banned.

The video of that death is sobering to watch. And the bus drivers was convicted - but mostly of how they were driving.

That said, comparing the possibly passable right side lane position used by the deceased cyclist to the more obstructionist and left side position (similar to official lanes on those streets) used by others who rode through just before is instructive, too.

And wearing headphones while riding is illegal and unsafe - no, a cyclist does not have to yield to an overtaking bus as the driver's lawyer absurdly tried to propose in a failed argument, but in practice, hearing that someone is about to run you down when entering a chokepoint is probably useful compared to riding along unaware of your surroundings.

Also worth noting the contribution of the parked van - although it is not in a bike lane and by all appearances parked legally, it's a good illustration of why blocking them is so dangerous.

“That street” is not a truck or bus route. But I guess crossing Manhattan on a bike is verboten?

It is not practical to routinely sting people on bikes. And yet, radar guns in Central Park.

But you are right. Yet another NYPD v Hizoner means it’s back to arresting people with cameras and people on bikes.

As far as your blame the victim stuff....

-mr. bill

It's quite simple, really: don't bring incidents up in a discussion unless you are open to considering all of the factors and behaviors present.

Winning a conviction in court (and rightly so!) is important, but it is not a riding strategy effective for survival.

---



Oh, it's quite practical, it's just not very useful - punitive enforcement only really works where the expectation of getting caught is high enough to function as a deterrent.

Steep fines rarely applied just get interpreted as bad luck. A loosing $1000 lottery ticket doesn't change behavior of others, while a $1 toll for every light rolled would - it would be effective, but not practical to impose.

Just wondering what roads UniChris has ever ridden on a bicycle in Manhattan.

Let alone crosstown.

(Not really wondering. So many “experts”.)

-mr. bill

Rather ironic as what that video so clearly and educationally demonstrates is how more experienced cyclists handled the same situation.

Taking the lane and controlling the flow of traffic around you is an effective strategy for the bold.

Staying out of a singular traffic lane except to use it to pass an obstruction on a shoulder or parking lane after checking that it is clear is an effective strategy for the timid.

Just doing your own thing and ignoring everyone else may be legal, but it is not effective for survival.

When it's your own life on the line, be the one who makes the decision about what is or isn't enough space to safely pass, don't delegate that to others.

We had someone who took the lane and was blamed that their white helmet blended in with the white hood in front of the CDL’s face.

So, yeah, “expert” cyclists should wear a helmet that doesn’t blend in with the hood in front of their killer.

What is this topic about again? Oh, yeah, blame people on bikes.

p.s. It doesn’t matter WHERE someone rides, SOME “expert” here will explain that they rode in the wrong spot. Too left, too right, too center, too sunny, too dark, too on the road, too off the road, too....

....would never happen to me, because I am too....

....”expert”....

-mr. bill

I think it's pretty clear at this point that there's a lot of people on A&S who are just reassuring themselves that none of this can happen to them by "analyzing" the riding of the person who got hit.