Going to work this morning, queens blvd is all backed up, cars are literally at a stand still, and of course no one wants to get caught at the intersection when the light changes, so people leave a little bit of a gap before they enter the intersection.
This moron in a corvette decides to run the light and snake through the gap (thus saving him a whopping 30-45 seconds). Just as he makes it halfway through the traffic, *WHOOP WHOOP!*. The black ford crown vic behind him flashes its sirens. I did stop for a bit and watch the cops take their sweet time getting out of their car and walking over to the guy.

run light cops nab

I'm glad the guy was in a vette and not on a bike.

I LOVE being able to hop off my bike and push it through a red. I have a few ong lights near me.

Do they fine you less for jay-walking than they do for running a red light?

I thought this was gonna be about slvoid getting pulled over for running a red.

No kidding, I'm disappointed. I was wondering if they'd find the Glock stuffed in his bibs.

Do bikers in NY stop for red lights?

I'm sorry if this offends any of you, but I treat red lights on a bike as a stop sign.

Best storry of the week! Seattle Cops could make ton of easy money following that example. It's way easier than chasing crack-heads, puts money in the dpt cookie jar, saves gas

Stories like this make me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Don't forget the J.D.'s

I think most NYC cyclists treat red lights as green lights...

I do. Then I start again.

Seriously, it all depends on where I am and what cross traffic looks like. I don't have a death wish and I don't have super powers like messengers or those delivery guys. I'm just a plucky dumb [fill in the blank].

My favorite experience with the police was actually in a car. We were following a cop on a 2 lane road doing 55. Because most of the drivers on that road go considerably faster, I was soon at the front of a line of about 15 cars.

Some guy in a camaro decided to take the entire line. I watched him in my rearview mirror as he accelerated rapidly with the throttle wide open. Just as he was passing the car behind me (he was easily doing 100+ by this time), he realized that the car at the front was a cop. He hit the brakes to slow down to the speed limit -- it looked like he may have been down to about 90 by the time he cleared the patrol car which had already lit up....

it was either NY or SF, but I watched this one thing on a bicycle messenger that's just crazy.
Eventually I might end up like that also, but then it was just shocking.

I've seen that too.

That's tomorrow.

Neva!!!!!!!!!

I think most cyclists in NYC ignore red lights if there aren't cars around, it just makes sense.

I just took out two words for you. Now it's more accurate.

How's the shin today ?

A bit more modification to make the sentence fit me

As a stop sign??

In Madison, WI, bikers treat stop signs as a place to slightly slow down to take a quick glance to make sure they are not going to be creamed by a car.

I drive to work (ya, I know ... boo! this is a commuters forum) and my route home is down a city street that has 6 stop signs. I've been driving it for 15 years, to and from work. So I've probably driven it over 5000 times. I think I've seen a biker stop at a stop sign maybe 20-25 times over that entire period. This is vs maybe 10,000 times I've seen bikers run the stop signs. I've seen 1 biker get hit and three-four others that would have been hit had it not be for some good driving by people in cars. Probably a few hundred times where the bikers failed to properly yield the right of way to a car. Those invariably lead to the cars honking at the bikers and then the biker giving the car the finger.

Mind you this is just off of the Univ of Wisconsin-Madison campus, so nearly all of the bikers are college students. Collectively, they sure give a bad rep to bikers.

I don't ignore red lights when there aren't cars in sight, but I will sometimes treat them as yield signs, slowing enough to look both ways and to stop if I see cars coming. That usually only happens when I'm commuting before 6:00 a.m. Of course, if a cop sees me, I'll have to pay the ticket.

There are also a couple loop-sensored lights on my route that I know I can't trigger. If there are no cars to trigger the light, I treat those as yield signs.

And I almost forgot: Nice story slvoid.

I always stop at lights, cyclists should respect traffic laws otherwise we cant expect to get treated well by other traffic. I even stop at lights which are just for peds to cross over...

To be truthful, how I treat a red in the city depends on how early/late for work I am. Usually I'll slow down to get a good look both ways on the cross street to see if anything's coming, then blow through. If I'm running behind though, I'll delay the slowing down part until I spot something that might hit me which I can't zip past

Unless there's a cop car on the block. Then I do a full stop and wait it out. I was ticketed on Broadway once about 20 years ago for running a red on my bike, so I guess I'm still a bit gunshy.