Cyclists and motorists need to stop demonizing each other. The problem is not with either of those groups, the problem is with indecisive, inconsistent enforcement of the law.<p>A cyclist knows that there is most likely no consequence for running a stop sign, so even if it is technically illegal, there's no incentive for them to stop. If motorists could get away with running stop signs just as easily, they would do the same. It's unreasonable to expect people to act contrary to their incentives.<p>We need to agree on what the law is, and enforce it accordingly. Maybe it doesn't make sense for cyclists to obey the same set of traffic signals as motorists; if that is the case then we need to explicitly say so.<p>This business where some people obey traffic signals and other don't needs to stop. That is the responsibility of city government and law enforcement.
This was a well written article.<p>I'm a commuter cyclist (in San Francisco) and I admit to taking actions that I'm sure piss off some pedestrians. I always feel bad about it and am working on it. The one thing is that 99% of my focus is on dealing with the 1-ton boxes of death metal traveling at 60KM/h and not on the 150lb squishy humans going 5KM/h.<p>The new bike lans going up in the city are awesome though. I'm sure if you looked at biker<->pedestrian conflicts on a street like Folsom before and after the huge bike lane they put up, you would (hopefully!) see a marked decrease.
As a european biker my theory on the aggressiveness in the debate about bikers in the USA is simply that, due to how traffic laws over there are structured, bikers are much more endangered and have to respond with much more aggressiveness.<p>As an example: In Germany a biker legally has to keep a minimum distance from parked cars. This often means riding in the middle of the lane, something which german bikers are not only, as in this minimum distance case, forced to, but generally allowed to in every case.<p>From what friends in the USA tell me, trying to do that is a very quick trip to a hospital.
Those in cars getting angry at cyclists are most often doing it because they believe the cyclist to be slowing them down. There are plenty of valid reasons as well, but by and large, this is the reason when you boil it down. We have an unrealistic expectation of speed on city streets because our highway speed limits are so disproportionately high compared to urban ones, that travelling at the true speed limit is frustrating if one doesn't constantly do it.<p>Yield to those at greater risk than you, and never assume your travel time is more important than anothers safety, and all other laws/rules enforcement arguments go out the window, in my book.<p>If there was one thing that would greatly improve cyclist-pedestrian incidents, in my mind, it would be heavily enforcing the stop sign parking distance laws. Too often I see cars (especially delivery vehicles) parked in such a way that a cyclist doesn't even see a pedestrian about to cross or vice versa until the last minute, because the pedestrian side of the crosswalk is obstructed from view by an illegally parked vehicle upon approach. This stops the "Idaho Stop" philosophy from working well here in Chicago.
Say what you will about the relative dangers of autos vs. cyclists, but my closest call to death in SF traffic (as a pedestrian) was due to a cyclist, not a car: I was about to cross an otherwise-empty intersection legally, when a bicyclist shot through against the light at high speed, missing me by centimeters. Had I been hit by the guy I'd have been severely injured, if not killed.<p>Moreover, riders around here don't seem to pay much attention to pedestrians -- they're so focused on cars that they routinely do things to endanger the rest of us (I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I've had to dodge bikes on crowded sidewalks, even though it's illegal to ride on sidewalks here.)<p>There's a certain type of "activist" rider here who has made flaunting the law a badge of honor. I don't own a car and I do ride a bike, but at this point, I have a lot of sympathy for the people who criticize cyclists -- the entitlement is a little out of control.<p>(edit: thanks for the downvotes, folks. you're definitely changing my mind on this issue.)
The problem has already been solved a long time ago, but Americans just don't like the answer.<p>Driving a car means driving a vehicle that can easily murder an entire family in a split second. Drivers should have a greater amount of responsibility for traffic safety and that responsibility should be enshrined in the laws.<p>It's so hypocritical that Americans do apply that logic to guns and use it to justify responsible gun ownership, but any 16 year old can wield a car like it's toy and get away with it.<p>Amsterdam cyclist all act like anti-social a-holes, but over here that is <i>not considered an excuse to just fucking run them over with your car</i>. Period.<p>It's a pointless argument. Unprotected cyclists and pedestrians should not be held to the same standards as drivers because the consequences are wildly different.<p>It's like saying because people are hitting me with fluffy cotton balls it's okay for me to fire live rounds at them if nobody stops them. Insane.
Running a stop on a bicycle is perfectly safe when there is nobody around. You can be sure that nobody is around because, first of all you're not in a cabin, and nothing blocks your vision: you have a 360 view of the situation, and you can hear well also. A driver's vision is blocked by window posts, the rear-view mirror, and additional things like object hanging from the mirror and passenger's heads. These objects can occlude an entire pedestrian or three. Secondly, on a bicycle, you will rarely go faster than 30 km/h. If you sustain 30 km/h on flat pavement in the absence of wind, you're pretty fit and going at it quite hard. The higher speeds are achieved when going down hill or in a tailwind. 30 km/h is in the ballpark of what cars slow down to when running stops. Drivers don't even consider that running because they believe they really slowed down and looked very well; it's called "rolling" through a stop, or making a "taxi stop".<p>If you still runs stops at full speed on your bicycle when going downhill at 50-60 or more, or barging into intersections where visibility is poor, then you're crazy.<p>Obeying traffic rules to the letter is not a substitute for knowing the limitations of the machine, accounting for weather conditions, being "radar aware" of everything that is going on as far as your eye can see, and predicting the possible thing that drivers are going to do several moves into the future. Oh, and being properly clothed and lit for visibility at night! If you're doing all that, then reward yourself by rolling through a few stop signs.<p>Being vigilant for drivers swinging their doors open into traffic will pay off a lot more than coming to a full stop at stop signs. Cyclists are often killed in "dooring" accidents.
I have no idea why this is on HN. In any case, he's absolutely right. It's not overgeneralization when everyone sees it day-in and day-out in every major American city. This article simply seems to be shocked that anyone would criticize bicyclists for doing what they do every single day. Source: I cycle myself.
A few thoughts...<p>1) Current US roads infrastructure is not designed for bicycles. If we are serious about getting people to use bikes, then we have to re-think how we design roads and re-build the ones we currently have. Same goes to the traffic laws.<p>2) Personally I feel that not stopping on a red light or a stop sign is far more dangerous than going over speed limit in the flow of traffic on 280. I do understand why bicyclists don't want to stop. We should re-think the roads and traffic laws to fix this instead of accepting the fact.<p>3) While this is true that the number of deaths from bike is not even close to the number of deaths from cars, this comparison is not fare. We should look at the total number of accidents with death or a hospital stay and factor in the number of bikes/cars on the road. Not sure if this kind of research exists.<p>4) Lastly, the bikers on public roads need to be regulated. Right now there is an implicit assumption that all bikers are also car drivers and they know the rules. However, it is not really the case anymore. Moreover, bike rules ARE different.
I've done both biking in the city and driving. City governments need to push both parties to be better on the road.<p>In Toronto, bikes are considered slow motor vehicles. We have these kinds of problems. I think from a biker's perspective, it's dangerous because their life is on the line. But from a car's perspective, bikers are a danger to them finacially.<p>The problems IMO is asymetrical. Bikers put themselves on the line, but it's low cost (realatively) and no pre-requesite knowlege on how to behave on roads (no bike exam vs driver exam). A Car has low risk to themselves on the road, but it's costly (car cost + insurance + maintenance), and they have to past an exam on how to behave on the road.<p>To a driver: Bikers pretty much break the rules of the road and there isn't much consequence execpt an accident. I've never seen a cop pull over a bike for behaving badly. Bikes also have this thing where they can behave like cars sometimes, then behave like pedestrians when convienient. To me this needs to stop. Cities need to police bad bikers, and maybe have some training course/licensing for cyclists. There is a right way to behave on the road and I've seen alot of good cyclists, they just have to be more of them.<p>To a cyclist: Drivers need to be punished for dangerous actions against cyclists. Like not checking your mirrors before opening doors, or changing lanes. There needs to be civic campagins from the government urging drivers in the cities to be aware of cyclists and to remind drivers how to co-exists with cyclists.<p>I've thought of both sides of the arguement, I've changed the way I drive and cycle. Driving rules are pretty clear, but when I cycle, I just pretty much act likes a car with my hazzard lights on and hand signal like my blinkers are broken. I take up a lane and people can pass me when they can do so safely. Does it imped traffic? Yes, but I don't see anyone complaining about heavy trucks on the road.
The core problem is nobody gives a shit. The traffic designers, the urban planners, the cyclists, the drivers, the pedestrians, the cops, the government. Everyone cheats, everyone makes excuses, it's someone else's fault, yadda yadda.<p>It makes perfect sense for cyclists to obey the effing law but they don't. They'll rattle off an infinite number of excuses, ranging from it doesn't make sense, to everybody does it why should I be the good rider, to laws of physics: it is hard to stop a bike and then restart at an intersection so I will just race right through, yadda yadda yadda. It's lazy, cheater thinking.<p>Everyone out for themselves. No empathy anywhere in sight.
Before I moved to the DC-area, I was quite familiar with automobile assholes. They're everywhere. But, before I moved here, I had a pretty good impression of bikers - I always thought that they were a mellow bunch. But, DC introduced me to the biker asshole, a species that seems to flourish here, like mosquitoes.<p>While it's bad to generalize, like the journalist in the article did, I can see how he could become irritated after a while.
One (slightly off-topic comment):<p>I live in Santa Barbara, and the bikes going 30+MPH down Alameda Padre Serra at night with no lights on is a significant source of injury. That is a stretch where bicyclists are regularly hit by cars backing out of driveways.<p>Even a bike with the average headlamp is far less visible than a car with its lights on to a car backing up, and this is a <i>very</i> windy road. It is just not true that cars going 30 on this road at night are more dangerous (to the operator of the vehicle) than bicycles, as serious bicycle accidents are more regular there than serious car accidents. Of course, a car doing something unsafe is far more of a danger to others, but that's a universal truth.<p>I can't speak for the author's mother, but nearly everyone I know would agree that 40mph is far too fast for cars on that stretch of road (30mph speed limit, and most cars tend to go 25-35mph on it). I've even seen a resident there standing next to the road raising up rude signs to cars they feel are going too fast.<p>On another note, bicycling here is very frustrating as the roads are not safe for cycling (even where there are bike lanes, cars are often parked overlapping them), there are few dedicated bike paths, and bicycling on sidewalks has its own issue. It's particularly frustrating since the weather is amenable to year-round cycling.<p>For those interested, here's a streetview of the downhill stretch likely talked about:<p><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/181+Alameda+Padre+Serra/@34.428906,-119.674207,3a,75y,252.79h,76.97t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1srkOzRxDxp5xOilKwwHNTkg!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x80e9139f418bd513:0xf1b6ebb9f422c33e" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/maps/place/181+Alameda+Padre+Serra/@3...</a>
Zero fatalities per 15 million miles is not a great metric. For one thing, cars boast less than 0.3 fatalities per 15 million miles, so if anybody dies between now and 45 million bike miles that will not be a great statistic.<p>I'd wager that 1 million bike miles represent far more trips than 1 million car miles, though, since obviously bikes are (usually) used for shorter trips than cars.
I have to contribute to this because I have this deep pent up rage against most bicyclists in Sacramento...<p>>The few studies that look at specific violations have found that people on bikes do roll through stop signs about 15% more than drivers do (at least in Oregon), but also that drivers roll through them almost 80% of the time<p>This is the source of all my aggression. First off, this is an incredibly high percentage, basically confirming almost all bicyclists don't stop at stop signs. Looks like I have reason to generalize. This statistic is deceptive in that it doesn't compare speed through a stop sign. Most drivers roll through stop signs (no source but based on personal experience), they don't blow through them at full speed. Downtown/midtown Sacramento has hundreds of stop signs and I almost hit bicyclists on a weekly basis.<p>There were lots of statistical goofs in this article but this one made my eyes turn red.<p>rant over
I think zaccus and OmarIsmail are on the right track.<p>Re: zaccus - Google the "Idaho stop." The folks in Idaho got it right: cyclists should slow down at stop sign intersections and come to a full stop (with foot on ground) if a car got there first; otherwise proceed through with caution. As far as red lights in a crowded city like SF -- sorry you gotta stop like everyone else.<p>Re: OmarIsmail - We cyclists can do a better job. It's all about showing respect to everyone, ESPECIALLY pedestrians. Get off your bike and walk if necessary to not spook them.<p>Overall I would say that Scott Simon got a raw deal. There ARE a lot of jerks on bicycles and it is just plain honesty to say so.
I bought a cool rear-view mirror today: it clips onto the temple of your glasses rather than your helmet.<p>Off the bike, it doubles as a cubicle rear-view mirror.<p>If I turn my head about 45 degrees to the left, I see the "third quadrant" behind me, and if I turn a little bit more, I see directly backwards, all with a decently wide angle.
Bikes can go 20-30MPH = 10X what pedestrians can do. In comparison cards go 35-45 in city traffic - may 2X what cycles can do.<p>Bicycles and pedestrians do not belong on the same path. I know we WISH they could, or that they could just get along somehow, but the math says it isn't going to happen.