Bicycles

[prog]

It may seem strange, given the reasons for it, but recent events have led me to read, write, and think more about bicycling, and I've decided that it's now not entirely unlikely that I will obtain a bike sometime in the nearish future.

An increasing number of friends have taken up cycling as an urban commute alternative over the last couple of years. And I used to do this same thing, way back in Florida, biking to school and around town every day, and I always enjoyed it. When I returned to New England for college (and all that came after) I just never thought of it again, even though I wouldn't start driving for another three years. Your guess is as good as mine. At any rate, I've lately become increasingly aware of all the time I spend walking, and as much as I love walking it'd be nice to be able to go a little faster when I wanted to.

I've started paying more attention to the (many!) cyclists I see every day as I walk around. I responded with skepticism when karlvonl commented earlier that most cyclists ignore traffic signals, but now the anecdotal evidence does seem to be mounting up. The majority of the cyclists I see seem to act as if they're just speedy pedestrians, looking both ways at intersections but then crossing at opportunity, no matter what color the light. I've never really noticed before, and I wonder if this is because most people expect cyclists to act thus.

For the life of me, I can't remember how I myself treated traffic signals back in high school. (I do recall that I rocked the manual turn signals something fierce, and this too is something I see many cyclists not bothering with around here.) I assume that all this stuff may be technically illegal but seldom enforced. The page on the topic at massbike.org basically takes the attutude "Aw, c'mon guys, you really should," and cites silly reasons for stopping (It gives you a chance to rest! If you blow through reds on your bike, you'll start doing it in your car!!).

Anyway, this isn't anything I'm gonna start tomorrow, but it's something interesting.

Comments

[rserocki.livejournal.com]

I see some bicyclists behaving okay and some cruise on ahead through a red light...

The most personally irritating thing I can think of is the time I was walking along a crosswalk at a stop sign intersection and a bicyclist called out to me to watch out as he careened past the crosswalk in front of me in about the middle of the street and sped past a stop sign to make a right hand turn without slowing down.

[keimel.livejournal.com]

a bicyclist called out to me to watch out as he careened past the crosswalk in front of me in about the middle of the street and sped past a stop sign to make a right hand turn without slowing down.

one outstretched hand. Don't hit the bike, hit the body.

Personally, I don't care when a car comes to a complete slow at a stop sign. For the loss of momentum stopping, cars lose that much fuel. I've started doing this myself. I stop when I have to though. But cyclists, they gotta obey the rules too.

I remember being in the cambridge area one evening when the hundreds of cyclists were out taking a midnight ride. Hundreds. One woman with her child on the back was bitching at some person driving his car in some manner (no lights? Dunno) but then every single cyclist, including the whiny woman, completely blew through a red light and then two subsequent stop signs.

"Let us be powerful cyclists and take back the roads. We will flaunt all traffic laws which will really prove our point"

I'm all for cycling. We should encourage it. Bike lanes, bike paths, bike awareness, etc, but there's a good lot of cyclists who just ride like assholes out there. And yes, they do ruin it for the rest of the cyclists. Your own example proves that out.

I find the majority of a**hole cyclists use clips (pedal clips, or straps), the normal ones don't. Any cyclist without a helmet is immediately suspect and I usually think they're either a former driver who got a DUI or someone who has their skateboard in the repair shop. There's too much stupid (from cars, cycles and peds) to not wear a helmet.


If I were commuting by cycle, I'd be in neon yellow or orange and have red strobes all over, day or night. And a whistle. And a loud horn. And a sidearm ;)

(j/k on the sidearm)

[dougo.livejournal.com]

it'd be nice to be able to go a little faster when I wanted to.

When you get rich you should get a Segway!

[nuns.livejournal.com]

I am happy to admit that there are a lot of morons riding bikes (just as there are a lot of morons driving and walking and rollerblading etc) nowadays, and that moronitude is probably the prevailing reason why cyclists blow through lights with a LookBothWays rather than a Stop.

That said: it's a simple fact that in certain circumstances it's safer for the bike to cross against the light than to wait. And it is in most cases possible to identify those circumstances by looking both ways without stopping. For example, if the cyclist has a red light and there is no crossing traffic, but there IS a motorist waiting at the red light to turn, it is demonstrably safer to go through the intersection while that motorist is stationary then to wait and cross in competition with the motorist.

I just want to make explicit the position that traffic law in many cases actually ENDANGERS cyclists, and that in those circumstances the issue of safety should supercede obedience to traffic law when identifying "correct" cycling behavior.

I can't think of any excuse for the behavior of the cyclist who hassled a pedestrian on the crosswalk, cited in another comment here, though. That's just stupid behavior.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

That said: it's a simple fact that in certain circumstances it's safer for the bike to cross against the light than to wait.

This claim strikes me as implausible, but I've learned that reality doesn't care what I find plausible. Can you point me at evidence for it?

I treat a bike like a car. I obey the rules of the road, I signal, I stop--albeit momentarily if there is no traffic. So far as I know this is both the legal and the safe thing to do.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

I should be clear that when I say I stop momentarily on no traffic, I mean stop signs, not red lights, which I stop at and wait for them to change.

[nuns.livejournal.com]

Well, the example I cite is pretty self-evident. One is always less likely to be hit by a car when there are no moving cars present than when there are moving cars present. If you cross the intersection when no one is moving, you are safer than if you wait for the light and cross at the same time as a vehicle that is waiting for the same light.

I will say this to mediate my opinion about situational obedience to traffic law: At least in theory, traffic law IS designed to protect us (even if in some circumstances it fails catastrophically to do so). In cases where a cyclist decides to defy traffic regulations in the name of safety, in my opinion it becomes primarily the cyclist's responsibility if an accident does happen. That is, if when I assess a red light, I believe there is no one coming from any direction and I run the light, if I was wrong and I get hit by a bus I have no one to blame but myself.

Another example is one-way streets. It's pretty clear that my bike takes up the same amount of street no matter which direction I am heading in. If I am going in the approved direction, I am forced to hope that any cars sharing the street with me will see me. If I am riding the wrong way, I take the same amount of space (so I inconvenience no one), and now I can see any cars even in the unlikely event they don't see me. Two sets of vigilant eyes are more likely to prevent collisions than one set.

In this case, if I DO collide with an oncoming car, I consider it to be my fault, unless the driver was drunk or blindfolded or something equally unlikely. A more likely problem about which I would feel profound guilt, is if I ram into some unsuspecting pedestrian looked only in the direction from which traffic was expected, who then stepped in front of my bike.

I have no patience for cyclists (or anyone else) who run red lights without looking, or who run them despite the presence of competing traffic. I feel pretty strongly that in most circumstances, bikes should stay off the damn sidewalk.

In general, I think there are circumstances under which it's safer to deviate from traffic law, but in doing so, the cyclist assumes a much-increased burden of responsibility for any accidents that should happen during the deviation.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the long and considered responses. We disagree on the self-evidency of the situation you cite. As I see it, the contingency tree looks like this:

Situation 1) Cyclist runs red light after having made visual inspection and...
a) with probability P1a cyclist was right and all is well
b) with probability P1b cyclist was wrong and bad things happen due to collision with or avoidance by an unexpected car moving at relatively high speed

Situation 2) Cyclist waits at light and crosses while car is also crossing (or turning into cyclist's path.) There is some probability P2 that something bad will happen in this case.

It is not obvious to me that P1b is less than P2. There is no situation in reality where P1b goes to zero, so it is always a matter of comparing "cyclist blows through light with some probability of getting hit by a fast-moving car they don't know is there" vs "cyclist stops at light with some probability of getting hit by a slow-moving car they do know is there."

Ergo, in both cases there is always risk, and particularly given the respective speeds of the cars involved it seems to me self-evident that the overall risk of death or serious injury is higher in situation 1 than situation 2.

This is why I wondered about data--there could well be some out there, from red light cameras or something. When opposing conclusions seem equally obvious to intelligent people, the only way to decide the issue sensibly is to appeal to the evidence. We can wave our hands about the plausibility of different scenarios as long as we like and I think it unlikely either of us will convince the other of anything. Data, though, I could be convinced by.

I'm fortunate that where I live there is almost always the option of waiting until the intersection is clear of cars, and then crossing. I appreciate that in a busy urban area this won't in general be possible, though.

[nuns.livejournal.com]

Yes, I see what you mean. I think a large part of my position is based on a personal preference that if I am going to be injured, I would prefer it be MY fault.

I'm not aware of any data - in fact, I doubt there is any data, because too many of us consider our positions to be self-evident. Opinions are strong enough, and rationalizable enough (I made up the word rationalizable just now - for the moment I am pretty proud of it) to make research seem unnecessary. Of course, research is NOT unnecessary. I would love to see some data, if we could convince the relevant agencies to gather it.

Unfortunately, too many people in positions of power consider cyclists to be at best expendable and sometimes actually targets. Once in Pittsburgh (and to stave off the question, at the time I was actually conforming exactly to traffic law in that city), I was sideswiped by a bus. Pedestrians applauded the bus driver, because the general perception is that all cyclists deserve to be hit by buses. This perception hinders pretty much every aspect of traffic-relations as they intersect with cycling. Including, I suspect, the willingness to fund research.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I see where you're coming from. My experience as a cyclist hasn't been nearly so bad. I've had more bad experiences as a pedestrian than as a cyclist, although that's probably simply due to the higher mobility a bike gives you, so you can dodge out of the way of cars nosing out into intersections and the like.

On the red light thing, I found this article fascinating: he advises everything, up to and including lying your bike down on the sensor to activate a green light. But he never once suggests that you pedestrianize, which is what I always do in these situations, and which seems to me entirely reasonable.

I also think it's weird that the cyclists in the first picture are all clustered in the turning lane, rather than lined up in single file along the right edge of the through lane, where they belong. I guess in an environment where cyclists are harassed by drivers, they will tend to adopt avoidance strategies that implicitly cede the road to cars. Which sucks.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

Doesn't address the red light issue, but has some interesting data and results. That there is no sex difference in cycling risk is surprising. It's also interesting that riding on the sidewalk is high-risk compared to on the road.

[nuns.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, Massachusetts traffic law views bikes as vehicles in the same category as cars -- except where it doesn't.

On the whole, I think that's actually reasonable, but in the end, traffic law is designed to protect motorists from each other, and to protect pedestrians from motorists. For the most part, viewing bikes as cars does protect cyclists as well, but there are some exceptions, and in those exceptional circumstances, I think it's appropriate to carefully deviate from traffic law.

The trouble is, most such deviation is not careful, which results in a lot of sweeping "everyone has to obey the same laws" rhetoric that lumps the careful people into the same moron category as the actual morons.

Another angle on the bikes-and-traffic-law discussion

[nuns.livejournal.com]

There's a VERY common situation in which neither cyclists nor motorists obey the stated traffic laws (This assumes we are correct that MA traffic law considers bikes to be vehicles like cars):

On no-passing-zone roads with one lane on either side of the double yellow lines, motorists expect cyclists to remain on the right side of the road, and for the most part, cyclists expect to remain there. To conform strictly to the law, the cyclist should, as a vehicle, take the lane and cars behind the cyclist pretty much just have to suck it up.

But no one actually wants that. I haven't ever heard anyone argue that no-passing regulations should be enforced in these circumstances. It's generally considered acceptable for cars to pass cyclists on these roads. When a lane of cars is waiting at a red light on such a road, it's generally considered acceptable for the cyclist to pass the cars on the right.

It's pretty clear in this circumstance, that bikes are (at least in terms of common usage and expectation) not the same as cars.

I'm not entirely certain where I'm going with this, but I think it's an important situation to point out, because it's pretty clearly a place where no one actually believes bikes are the same as cars, despite the (I believe) official state position that they ARE the same.

[nuns.livejournal.com]

I should also clarify that when I say traffic law sometimes fails to protect (or even endangers) cyclists, I don't mean that traffic law doesn't provide LEGAL protections to cyclists. It totally does provide legal protections.

But the right to sue isn't going to make me feel better about being crippled by a motorist who turns right at an intersection without first making sure I wasn't crossing it on my bike. In this case, obedience to traffic law provides me legal protections, but not physical ones.

[jaq.livejournal.com]

I cycled to work the last couple of days. Between home and work there are no traffic lights, but one junction with an all-way-stop. I dithered about whether I should stop, but it feels safer to slow down and look around but not come to a complete halt. Otherwise I worry I'm going to get hidden behind a car, and I felt that drivers aren't going to expect me to take my turn going through either.

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

Some towns are more 'friendly' to biking than others. Madison is rather friendly to it due to the large number of trail, paths, and services. Plenty of businesses also have bike racks nearby. I've seen some places, however, that really aren't that friendly toward bicycles -- both via infrastructure and the other people on the road unwilling to give a cyclist some leeway (and some going out of their way to cause problems such as honking at a cyclist or throwing things out their window because "bicycles are for kids and shouldn't even be on 'our' streets")

In high school I did get stopped by a bike safety cop for running a red light on bicycle. They gave us (brother and I) warning tickets.

I stop at red lights more today out of sheer survival -- in fact, starting at GREEN LIGHTS also requires a bit of caution as well -- you'll sometimes get the motorist making a turn and not noticing a bicycle coming up from behind. Some lights, however, use weight/metal sensitive street sensors and simply won't detect a bicycle. Some times you just have to blow through those.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

Some lights, however, use weight/metal sensitive street sensors and simply won't detect a bicycle. Some times you just have to blow through those.

These are an incredible pain, but I'd recommend getting off your bike and pedestrianizing them, rather than riding through.

There's one intersection where I frequently make a left turn on one of these, and fortunately the traffic is high enough that generally a car comes along and triggers it, but it's something I find even more irritating than the lack of bike lanes and huge bike-gobbling potholes. I confess on one occasion experimenting with triggering it by riding in really tight circles over it, which worked, but is not exactly high on my list of safe riding practices.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I would occasionally get heckled and have stuff thrown at me at while cycling in Florida, mainly from members of the prominent Entitled Young Dickweed population. There was no bike-support culture there, and seeing anyone except a young child on a bike blew their minds.

That's nice to hear about Madison! It is the same here in Boston too.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

I try to obey road rules as best I can but I have to admit feeling pretty silly stopping at a stop and have three other guys breeze past.

Last time I was cycling to work regularly I locked my front wheel, flew over the handlebars and broke both arms. So don't do that.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

Speed is the big factor for me. I spent an hour running errands this morning that if I'd been in a hurry could have been done in fifteen minutes by bike.

On the downside, New England probably has a deal more rain than Florida. One my goals in the last bike I bought was to get one with fenders, as a bike without fenders is pretty much useless to anyone who bikes for utilitarian purposes. Number of bikes with fenders available in town: zero. The best I could do was find one that would take after-market fenders without too much trouble. But still.

[kyroraz.livejournal.com]

Somerville/Cambridge bicyclists piss me off for only one reason: So many of them choose to ride their bikes on the sidewalks even when there is heavy actual foot traffic. I understand their reasoning of perhaps not wanting to become road pizza, but I've had some close calls when walking home from work by bicyclists behind me zooming along the sidewalk.

I'm not even sure if riding on sidewalks is legal in these towns. I know some allow it, oddly.

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

I'm an occasional Cambridge/Somerville cyclist and I'm one of the few who obey the traffic lights. When I'm waiting at a red light there's usually a constant flurry of other cyclists zooming past me and into the intersection. I never ride on the sidewalk, I never go the wrong way on a one-way street, and so on. But this messes people up. For example, once I was waiting at a red light and a car driver started screaming at me that I should GO. I wasn't blocking anybody; it just blew their mind that I was waiting.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Did you respond in any way? I would have pointed up at the light. (Yes, with my index finger.)