"Cyclists seem to be where the educational focus needs to go,"

[The Straight Story]

600 cyclists pulled over since start of crackdown

"I never obey a single law," Murphy said flippantly, balancing his black Schwinn fixed-gear near 16th and Walnut streets. "I'm not worried."

...

A traffic-enforcement team of bike cops stopped 803 cyclists and motorists from its May 16 launch through Thursday. Of those, 600 were cyclists, according to statistics from the Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities.

"Cyclists seem to be where the educational focus needs to go," said Capt. Alan Clark, who leads the patrol out of the Police Department's Center City District substation. He added that motorists received more tickets, while cyclists were mostly issued warnings.

" don't need education. If they ran a red light, they know what they did," he said.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20110718_600_cyclists_pulled_over_since_start_of_crackdown.html?cmpid=124488459

[mike_c]

1. as a lifelong cyclist and bike commuter I have to agree....

I live in a university town, and it makes me crazy to see the number of riders who don't even try to obey traffic laws, blow through stop signs and traffic lights, make illegal turns, etc. And I don't want to keep bikes off the road-- just the opposite, I want more people riding bikes every day. But the only way to achieve that is to make it safer, and while automobile drivers must do better at seeing and yielding to sometimes annoyingly slow-- but completely legal-- bike traffic, cyclists must do MUCH better at fitting themselves into the vehicular ebb and flow on roadways. Including obeying traffic laws: stopping at stop signs, commanding their lane when need be, yielding when they don't have the right-of-way, etc.

Oh, and for pete's sake keep bikes on the street and off the sidewalks! Cyclists are NOT pedestrians!

Ride as much as possible, but be safe! On the road, all vehicles obey the same laws, including the ones we pedal!

[kestrel91316]

2. Here in Los Angeles if you ride on a major thoroughfare that doesn't have bike lanes,

you are courting certain, swift death. I ride my bike cautiously on the sidewalk down Ventura Blvd, as do all cyclists not riding in groups. The police actually prefer it this way. They know they will be scraping us up if we don't.

I have tried riding right on the Boulevard. During weekday rush hour there are large numbers of people who resent cyclists and will blatantly TRY TO HIT YOU while honking and screaming out their window. And yes, I do obey all traffic laws.

[brianwash]

7. totally agreed.

I totally agree with you mike_c.

Part of the problem for the poor reputation with cyclists is that everyone remembers the biker who ran the red light going the wrong way, dodging pedestrians in the crosswalk. Nobody remembers the other cyclist who stopped at the red, and calmly resumed when the light turned green. Just like, as a cyclist, I'll remember the car that failed to yield and pulled out directly in front of me, not the cars that passed courteously when it was safe to do so.

Bicycles are the same as vehicles and obey the same rules of the road (with some exceptions). I've been a cycling fan for more than 15 years now, and far as it matters to me, I think mass ticketing of both cyclists and drivers is probably more a good thing than it is a bad thing.

[JVS]

8. Welcome to DU

[mike_c]

12. true story-- another rider cursed at me a few months ago...

...for stopping at a stop sign at a busy intersection-- and thereby blocking the bike lane (neither of us was turning) with my stopped bike. He almost ran into me from behind, darted out into traffic around me, yelling at me to "move my ass," and of course never stopped. I don't think he had the slightest clue that he was SUPPOSED to stop.

Sheesh.

Welcome to DU, BTW!

[a la izquierda]

9. You must live in my town...

I can't tell you how many times I've yelled at students (while I'm in my riding gear) that their actions on bikes get folks like you and I hit, injured, or killed.
Drives me crazy.

[WatsonT]

10. No kidding

I guess people assume that because it's a bike they can do whatever they want with it.

I wish more people would ride bikes and that car drivers acted more intelligently around them. However cyclists need to get their own population in order as well.

[snagglepuss]

15. I too am a lifelong cyclist and bike commuter and see the same things.

Lately I've been teed off with cyclists passing me on the right, absolutlely infuriating. E-bikes have also become a menace as I've seen them blowing through stops signs, riding on sidewalks and riding near the curb where bikes are, as they are so silent it is impossible to know when they come from behind.

[gratuitous]

3. Cyclists often do need educating, but there's a cooperative process

If cyclists are in danger of getting run over in the street and the city doesn't stripe for bike lanes or enforce laws against motorists who refuse to share the road, then the city itself is encouraging a lawless atmosphere. It takes time, but it's well invested, to educate cyclists about obeying the rules of the road and motorists that the roads are not their exclusive province. Coexistence is possible.

All that being said, fixies are tools of Satan.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

4. If my city (Chicago) wanted to solve its revenue problems they could just ...

... start enforcing bicyclists traffic regulations.

I can't even count the close calls I've had in the last couple years. Several times, I've had idiots dart out of one-way side-streets going the wrong way. Or, while trying to exit a parallel parking spot, almost hit some asshole riding the wrong way close to parked cars. Or trying to pass on the right between me and parked cars while I'm turning right - that just happened yesterday. Why would you squeeze between parked cars and a turning truck with big signals flashing?

[Yavin4]

5. In NYC, They Are A Menance To Pedestrians

A cyclist, going the wrong way on a one way street, hit this lady's dog. That accident would have happened if she was pushing a baby carriage.

[Robb]

6. I think that's addressing a little less than half the problem.

The bigger issue is that traffic rules for bicycles seem nonsensical and unhelpful, and designed as "behave like a car as much as physically possible" instead of as a much-needed bike/car interface that is necessary going forward.

The easy example: a bicyclist coming to a complete stop in most situations is more fraught with danger than a motorist doing the same thing, simply because they're on two wheels and often clipped in. More attention needs to be paid to rules -- and frankly roads -- that address what happens when bikes and cars interact, because the existing ones are foolhardy at best and do little to actually protect cyclists.

People don't tend to break traffic laws that genuinely look after their best interest. You don't see a lot of people driving their cars between two lanes for miles and miles, for example; they stay in their lane, because it's actually safest for them to do so, and they know it. I doubt cyclists are rolling stop signs out of any scofflaw tendencies, but rather out of interest in their own safety. :shrug:

[Hassin Bin Sober]

11. You must deal with a different breed of biker.

Here (Chicago), most people aren't "clipped in". Most of the scofflaws I observe aren't even wearing helmets.

The "road bikers" you seem to describe seem to be more conscientious than the flip-flop wearing hipsters pedaling their vintage bikes.

There's NO WAY having bikes blow through four-way stops is safer than observing the rules. Especially when they do it from cover behind a vehicle that IS stopping.

[mike_c]

13. I disagree-- multiple standards CAUSE problems, not solve them....

I learned a long time ago that motorists-- myself included when I'm behind the wheel-- respond instinctively to obstructions and other vehicles once they've practiced long enough, and in our car culture nearly everyone obtains practice pretty fast. The best way to avoid problems is to fit cyclists into those practiced responses, and the best way to do that is to hold all vehicles on the road to a single set of laws.

And really, come on-- it's no effort at all to unclip and put a foot down if a trackstand won't do, and equally little effort to clip back in again-- especially with clipless pedals. Or at least it is with my SPDs. Most fellow cyclists I talk to will ultimately admit that they just don't LIKE having to stop at stop signs, etc, so they just don't.

[Robb]

14. Eh. I agree, under the current set-up.

But you're talking about a cultural response, a learned behavior that we motorists have picked up over a lifetime of driving with one or two bicycles in our daily lives (I almost said "in our paths," but backed off ;) ). It doesn't hold up when there are a ton of bicycles, and there will probably be more, not less, in our future. I think the only way we'll find "peace" is when everyone's expectations out there shift.

Bike riders, too, I expect, are reacting to a situation that doesn't work well. Maybe some are reacting with the "scofflaw" bit. Perfectly natural.

I've likened the situation to what we saw out West with multiple-use trails, e.g. jeeps and horses and motorcycles sharing the same real estate. Most of these trails (roads, really, but dirt) historically only saw one kind of user on them, until outdoor stuff got more popular (and lucrative for Western states). Suddenly there were a lot of different kinds of people on 'em, and the newcomers were always the problem. A jeep driver creeping over a rocky path at 2-3 mph thinks the motorcyclist is insane for going 30 -- until someone explains he's more stable at speed. The horse riders get waaaaaay off the trail when they hear motors coming if they're on a skittish horse -- and the motorcyclist thinks they're being snooty.

Ultimately it was the benefits each group brought that led the others to educate one another -- "getting along" on trails meant increased revenue in those states, and ultimately more trails being maintained, or outhouses dug, or what-have-you. Motorbikers told each other to pull in the clutch when they saw a horse, to keep the noise down. Jeepers told each other to let motorbikers go around at higher speeds. Everyone learned the same hand signals. It was a cultural change as much as any regulations that did it.

I'm not entirely sure, however, what benefit motorists will see in more bicycles on the road. But (despite the way-too-many words above) I haven't thought about it as deeply as I should.