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Traffic Optimization: Cyclists Should Roll Past Stop Signs, Pause At Red Lights
Lasrick writes: "Joseph Stromberg at Vox makes a good case for changing traffic rules for bicyclists so that the 'Idaho stop' is legal. The Idaho stop allows cyclists to treat stop signs as yields and red lights as stop signs, and has created a safer ride for both cyclists and pedestrians. 'Public health researcher Jason Meggs found that after Idaho started allowing bikers to do this in 1982, injuries resulting from bicycle accidents dropped. When he compared recent census data from Boise to Bakersfield and Sacramento, California — relatively similar-sized cities with comparable percentages of bikers, topographies, precipitation patterns, and street layouts — he found that Boise had 30.5 percent fewer accidents per bike commuter than Sacramento and 150 percent fewer than Bakersfield.' Oregon was considering a similar law in 2009, and they made a nice video illustrating the Idaho Stop that is embedded in this article."
"Boise... 150 percent fewer than Bakersfield." How'd they manage that?
.....rolling through a stop sign in front of my car than if he stopped.....
Sure, that makes perfect sense.
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IAAC (I Am A Cyclist). However I think that people who treat riding a bike as if they own the road are asking for trouble.
It doesn't matter if you SHOULD have right of way. It matters if someone will see you and stop (and not run you over). When you come up to any dangerous intersection (or any intersection) you should slow down, look to make sure you're not going to get plowed into, and THEN go.
As a cyclist, you might be going 30 KPH easily, but you're much easier to miss for a motorist because you are so small, and you might come at an odd direction (most people aren't used to making sure there's no cyclists on the shoulder).
How 'bout ticketing the jerks who disrupt traffic by rolling through intersections, break up the 30-bike pelotons, and otherwise make them actually obey the law? Maybe they wouldn't have so mny accidents if the riders weren't abnoxious.
If it had been motorcyclists, rather than bicyclists that tailgated the SoCal guy and hit him when he stopped, there would never have been the travesty of justice as his murder conviction.
Stop sign: Slow down, low both/all ways, proceed if clear. Otherwise follow normal traffic rules.
Yellow light: Stop unless you're already in the intersection
Red light: Stop and don't go until your turn in normal traffic
Outliers: Crosswalk: Proceed unless there is a walker. Stop then proceed otherwise.
Flashing yellow: Slow down, low both/all ways, proceed if clear
Flashing red: treat like stop sign.
Pretend like you are new to a bike and you will be much safer and people will hate you so much less. One thing you can do, unless you are a very serious cyclist, is avoid getting the pedals which require cycling shoes. If one is not clipped in, imo, one is less likely to break laws and be a douche about existing ones. For people riding 50+ miles a week, I can understand why they want them. However those are not the people who cause problems for everyone else (in my experience).
As a pedestrian, I fail to see why having two-wheeled idiots blasting through red lights is safer for me. Especially since their view (if they were looking) and mine are likely to be obstructed by the cars & vans they're overtaking (usually on the wrong side).
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Clicking through to the actual study, I found this quote: "Boise was 150%-252% safer (2.05-2.52 times safer)." Looks 150% correct to me.
safer != fewer. 150% safer would be 1.5x safer which I buy. 150% fewer would be 1.5x fewer which is impossible.
I use a bicycle as my primary means of transport year-round, in Sweden.
The main issue I have is that I often have to slow down not just to compensate for road conditions as such but also for motorists who don't realize that even with studded tires a cyclist might not want to ride as aggressively in winter as they do in summer (by "aggressively" I mean more "trusting others not to run you down after they've clearly seen you" than "break the law", in summer my brakes work flawlessly and if Mrs Soccer Mom or Mr Middle Management in their late-model Volvo decide to suddenly try to bully me out of the way I can hit the brakes or accelerate quickly, in winter such aggressive moves will cause me to fall and get run over by the idiot in question so I ride much more defensively which seems to annoy a lot of motorists).
FYI, I tend to stick to bicycle paths when possible but some have been taken over by pedestrians (who have the right of way on bike paths here in Sweden, "yay") to the point where it's faster and mostly safer to ride on a parallel street than zigzag between pedestrians who are walking four abreast and paying no attention to cyclists and other times the bike paths were clearly laid out by someone who doesn't cycle him-/herself and doesn't realize that looping a bike path around an entire city block is likely to be an unpopular move.
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"When I'm biking it takes me significantly longer to get up to speed, and my top speed is still well below that of the vast, vast majority of cars."
Not if I drive you over because you deliberatly cut in front of me. I see that happening frequently.
"I'll attempt to time my passage such that I'll cross near my maximum speed"
And likely fail.
Also its not about energy conservation -its about you not being bothered to follow the traffic law.
How about this: the rules of the road, are the rules of the road. They apply for everyone, not just the other guy or what they happen to be in/on: car, bicycle, motorcycle, horse-drawn carriage. Make sense?
How about instead of a 3rd set of rules for the road, cyclists just pick one and fucking stick to it?
You're implying that there's only 2 sets of existing road rules. As a multiple license holder I assure you it's quite normal and reasonable to have different rules for different classes of vehicles. I have 4 different classes of license, all with different rules. Perhaps instead of getting all angry you should accept that the current rules aren't working (by the simple fact that you are clearly already all angry about cyclists in relation to the current rule set), therefore the only logical conclusion is for some changes to be implemented?
He already admitted he drives a pick up truck.