turbo1889

Well, I must be not the normal then since I continue to pedal even when going downhill until I run out of gears and am spooled out and can't pedal fast enough to keep up. So even on the downhill I at least know that I'm going faster then my top gear even if I don't know exactly where I'm at.

As you might imagine I used to really burn up some pavement on the downhills my now totaled out road-bike with a 52t big chain-ring in the front and a 11t high gear in the rear. I'll let you figure the math on that one yourself:

27" old standard tires with 110-115 RPM cadence (just barely less then two full rotations a second on the pedals) being my total top out that is as fast as I could pedal in the highest gear going down a good enough hill and actually pushing into the pedals and not just spinning them.

Yah, that would be worth a ticket in a school zone, no doubt in my mind on that one.

I-Like-To-Bike

Easy, a sensible cyclist will just slow down and not be a dumbbell in a school zone, otherwise, a cop may pull the speed boy cyclist over, then the cyclist will know exactly.

dougmc

As long as you're pedalling and not coasting the same math applies. (And yes, I do realize that maybe they were coasting.)

In any event, the old adage still applies -- "Ignorance of the law is no excuse". (Sure, you know the law, but not your speed -- effectively the same difference.)

Not wanting to equip your bike with a speedometer and therefore being ignorant of your speed doesn't excuse your speeding.

daihard 

Except that the elementary school in the article is very hard to see. I commute on Fremont Ave (the street mentioned in the article) from time to time. I never knew there was a school there until I read the article.

Oh, and FWIW, I am the cyclist who "stopped and asked if the man was OK."

dougmc

No school zone signs?

If you have no way of knowing it's a school zone, you ought to be able to have the ticket dismissed. I don't know the laws in Washington, but here in Texas clearly visible signs are required for a reduced-speed school zone and if there's not signs it's not a reduced-speed school zone. And if this did happen, that a ticket was dismissed because there really wasn't appropriate signage -- the signs would go up very quickly afterwards.

Looking the area up on Google Street View, there are indeed school zone signs on Fremont that look almost exactly like the ones here -- very clear, with lights on them (presumably the lights are on while the school zone is in effect.)

Chris516

Never speed through a school zone.

CB HI

And your cadence count speed calculation is still going to lag behind your actual speed because gravity down the hill is also adding acceleration.

daihard 

You probably mean this?



I don't know. The sign is there, but it doesn't stand out all that much. Not to defend myself, but I usually notice school zone signs when they are there. I will ride that route tomorrow morning to double-check. Chances are, the trees around it may have more leaves now than when this street view picture was taken.

kjmillig

Still a school zone. Just like a stop sign obscured by trees is still a stop sign. MAYBE one can argue it in court, but I don't want to be that one.

HonestOne

Around here, speed limit is 25mph by schools "while kids are present" or something like that. What's annoying is that they don't tell you when they are or are not present, or what time they get out of school... Aside from "safety", this just seems like another attempt for the PD to generate some new revenue.
And if some of you are going to try and use that logic of "if you are breaking the law, then you deserve a ticket", then you should tell Law Enforcement Officers that they must stop using the "spirit of the law". In other words, they can choose when to enforce laws and when not to, using your logic, they should always enforce the law and always give tickets, I doubt many of you are in support of that...

turbo1889

Usually I'm not the one to disagree strongly with you CB HI since we tend to be on the same page a lot. But your wrong about the "acceleration leading" thing. So long as your keeping the chain tight and putting force into the pedals the pedals rotation speed is directly related through the gearing rotation to the rear wheel rotation speed which provided its in static rolling contact with the ground is directly relative to speed.

You are correct that once you run out of gears and you are going so fast down the hill that you cannot pedal fast enough to keep up and keep the chain tight and be pushing into the pedals and adding your own power of acceleration to the acceleration the hill is providing that you no longer can judge your specific speed by pedal cadence and gearing. But even then you at least know your going faster then you top gear at your maximum pedal cadence and unless your top gear is rather low and/or you have some physical limitation that prevents you from doing 100+ RPM on your cadence your going to be up to at least 25-mph-ish or better and that is with low mountain bike type gearing, road bike gearing can often get you in the high 30's or beyond in top gear at maximum pedal cadence and some people can even do it on the flat (not me, I can break out over the 20 barrier on the flat, how far over depends on the bike and how good I'm feeling that day but I can't break over the 30 barrier without a good down hill or very strong tail wind. If I had too to save my life in a "fight or flight" adrenaline rush I might be able to pull it off but not under normal circumstances unless I've got a hill and then I can really have some fun.

But that kind of fun is for the open road with good visibility on a road that is built for cars to go even faster, it isn't a safe or sane thing to do in a school zone with kids around for sure.

rydabent

Once again here the reason for this is not safety, it is to collect money for the city. It is looked at as a revenue stream.

However it is the law, and if the word gets out to cyclist, they need to slow down.

As I am typing this a question comes to mind. What if the cyclist is a 12 year old that has no money? Will the city jail him for not paying their blood money?

dynodonn 

Mom and dad will be subject to pay the fine. If there is any time to be served in lieu of not paying the fine, it will probably be in the form of community service.

dynodonn 

It's amazing to see that the fine for cyclists is nearly the same as a motorist, whereas a motorist is capable of inflicting injury many more times greater in a collision than a cyclist. One would think that city officials would want an even greater deterrent to keep motorist from speeding, or less of a deterrent for cycling.

spivonious

Fines aren't based on potential damage, they're based on deterring the violation.

I'm glad they're ticketing everyone on that road, and I hope they start doing it elsewhere. If you don't enforce the speed limit, then it's a waste of a sign.

daihard 

Yes, I agree. I didn't bring up the potentially obstructed view of the sign in order to justify speeding in a school zone. I just believe that the signs should be made highly visible for the safety of the students. After all, that's what the school zone signs are for.

Now about the school zone sign above... I rode through the area this morning to check how visible the sign was. Surprisingly, it stood out fairly well, better than shown in the street view picture above, largely because the leaves had fallen off. So there, I don't think I'd be able to convince the judge if I were caught speeding there.

genec

+100... Agreed... one doesn't have to know exact speed to know enough to slow down.

CB HI

If you count your cadence for ten seconds and say your speed it 20 mph based on cadence, that calculated speed is lower than the instantaneous speed at the end of the 10 seconds the cop reads on his laser unit because of the acceleration added by gravity on the down hill. If the cops are handing out tickets for 2 or even 3 mph over, that could be enough to snag you.

Do you have some method of instantaneously counting your cadence in the same amount of time a laser speed gun measures your speed?

CB HI

Not true everywhere. Many locations have graduated fines based on how fast over the speed limit one is traveling because of the greater damage that the higher speed causes.

ItsJustMe

It's not the responsibility of the municipality to provide you with the means to determine if you're obeying the law. Not having a speedo doesn't exempt you from being required to follow the law. If you think you might be going fast enough to break the law, then you should get the equipment you need or take a different route.

Consularrider

From the photo it looks like there are attached yellow lights that should be flashing when the reduced speed is in effect and those lights are not obscured. There also appears to be a bunch of verbage under the numbers that can't be read from the photo which may set that out.

B. Carfree

I would much prefer that law enforcement always enforce the law and write tickets for every violation they encounter. I briefly lived in a small city whose police department did just that and it was awesome. I've never been on such safe roads and it was no coincidence that this community became the bike capital of the world (while the enforcement lasted).

daihard 

Yes, the lights were flashing clearly this morning. Weird thing is, I didn't notice them yesterday either. I may just need to pay more attention!

dougmc

If it's really that difficult for you to estimate your speed on a hill, I'd suggest either 1) getting a cyclocomputer or 2) slowing way down so you're sure you're not exceeding the speed limit when you encounter a school zone.

If you want an *exact* speed at all times, get that computer. (Even that averages it over each rotation of your wheel, but it's close enough.) If you just need to estimate your speed from time to time, you generally get a feel for it (especially if you normally ride with a cyclocomputer and can compare how fast it feels that you're going to how fast you're really going) and while that feeling won't give you exact figures, it'll let you tell the difference between 20 and 25 mph. Personally I'd say that calculating your speed from your estimated cadence and gear ratio is more trouble than it's worth, but certainly the idea is sound, and it'll work any time you're pedalling and keeping the chain tight, hill or not.

And yes, if your speed changes during the period that you're counting your revolutions, it'll come up with an average speed over that interval rather than an instantaneous speed.

In any event, any even semi-experienced rider who actually cares about not breaking the speed limit in a school zone can generally keep their speed down low enough to not get a ticket if they bother, even if there's a hill. If they get a ticket, it's generally because they didn't care (or know) about the speed limit and were explicitly trying to go as fast as possible.

dynaryder

Not going to put real effort into this,but a few seconds Googling found this:

"Mopeds are required to have two mirrors, horn, brakes on all wheels, speedometer/odometer,"

If mopeds need them,pretty sure cars need them as well. I do know they checked your speedo during inspections in PA.

Between traffic,peds,and road conditions,I have way too many things to pay attention to than how fast I'm pedaling and what gear I'm in(esp given the pool of bikes I own). I really have zero need to know exactly how fast I'm going.