I am a bike rider and a car driver and I 100% agree with this. Everyone needs to follow the rules. When I’m driving, I let a bike go even if I think I have right of way. It adds 10 seconds to my day. Same thing with Bike. I give people the right of way and stop at light and stop signs looking both ways.
I’ve been the car driver who nearly made jam out of the cyclist in the last panel. I’ve also been the cyclist hit by a car which was driving in the cycle lane.
Bad road users are everywhere and they use all sorts of transportation. Let’s stop with the division and generalisation.
one has a lot more power and uses a lot more space than the other
And we can still encourage both to obey the rules! Amazing!
rules aren’t neutral or grown out of the void. people with biases and maybe even ambitions create them for specific purposes
EDIT: To quote Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
Rules governing bike traffic are generally quite reasonable though. It’s not like the enlightened traffic planners in the Netherlands went “you know what, cyclists don’t have to obey red lights” for example. So I’m not seeing the biases you’re talking about, at least in this example.
Comparing running red lights to sleeping under bridges or steal for survival seems, at best, hyperbolic. In any case I don’t think that quote supports the view that the law is intentionally biased
The lights often automatically changes to cyclists priority in many places in the Netherlands, and often provide underpasses to avoid conflict points in the first place. It is not a comparable situation. Traffic laws and infrastructure in the USA, for instance, are incredibly biased in favor of cars, so their comment is absolutely relevant.
When I bike in the USA often the safest time for me to cross an intersection is unrelated to whether I have a green light, but more related to if anyone else at the intersection does. The safest time for me to go is when no one else at the light has a green light, not when I do.
This thread is doing a great job of explaining why tribalism around forms of transportation is not constructive.
Personally I think it’s absolutely batshit insane that people ride their bicycles on the roads with cars, if I ride a bike I’m doing it on the fucking sidewalk.
Personally I think it’s absolutely batshit insane that people walk on the sidewalk with bikes, if I walk I’m doing it on the… uhm…
Idk boss I think bikes are closer to pedestrians than a 2 ton truck.
Give cyclists lanes, so they wouldn’t have to stand in a half metre gap between an 18-wheeler and a traffic barrier covered in mix of 19th century soot and souls of the damned. Then they’ll follow the rules, case in point: entire Denmark.
In UK cities where there is extensive cycling and infrastructure, cyclists still run red lights quite often. As a cyclist I don’t obey every traffic law either.
On my old way to work there was a traffic light controlling the entrance to a car park from the main road, but entering traffic was so infrequent that it was always very tempting to dart across. On the same route, a cut across pavement for 25 metres saved negotiating a large roundabout or dismounting.
Neither place could really have had better infrastructure: the junction had poor visibility so you couldn’t see if a car was coming if you did chance it. Backing up the main road wouldn’t have been sensible so both of these mean it couldn’t have been a simple give-way. The section of pavement is narrow and on a bend, so to cycle it safely you must go slow enough to stop. Putting a cycle lane in there would have invited people to go too fast.
boomer ass take
That would be your mum’s standards.
Build bicycle infrastructure.
It already exists even in burbs and is commonly referred to as a sidewalk.
No, that’s atrocious.
You don’t solve one endangerment by causing another.
The pavement is for pedestrians, the road is for cars. Between the road and the pavement you need to build a dedicated cycling path, at the expense of the road if necessary.
The Netherlands has shown how this infrastructure makes cities and towns safer and more livable.
There is no excuse.
Ah yes because every driver obeys every law all the time. It’s only the cyclists that break laws! No driver would ever consider speeding, rolling through a stop sign, or being aggressive!
Won’t someone think of the poor drivers!!
Almost all bikers are drivers but not all drivers are bikers. I think pointing fingers elsewhere is less than helpful.
Then what is helpful? Not this fucking comic.
Who can forget the time a cyclist ran a red light and killed sixteen people?
The Telegraph and LBC are both right-wing propaganda mills.
Case in point:
In 2022, Hilda Griffiths, 81, died after Brian Fitzgerald, a Credit Suisse director and member of the Muswell Hill Peloton cycling club, collided with her while riding with other members at about 29mph in the 20mph zone.
Police could not prosecute Mr Fitzgerald because “there were no criminal Acts” which could be applied to cyclists who speed, the elderly lady’s inquest heard.
That’s pure horseshit.
Still lacking context here. Vision Zero says no one should get killed by vehicles.
In my state they changed the rules where a cyclist can treat a stop sign like a yeild sign, and a stop light like a stop sign.
the reasoning is this will encourage cyclists to ride through neighborhoods rather than on busier main streets. cyclists need to maintain momentum when riding, and stopping every couple blocks for a stop sign is a huge momentum killer.
obviously cyclists run a much higher risk of injury in a traffic accident than a driver. also cyclists dont really have blind spots the way cars do. so generally if a cyclist runs a stop, they have already checked for oncoming traffic. yes, there are idiots out there both driving and cycling, but typically if you saw a cyclist run a stop sign, he knows youre there and went when it was safe.
That’s a great law. That’s basically how I use them (with lots of care, obviously).
Which state?
Idaho was the first to do this. Not sure which other states have followed suit, but i think i remember 1 or 2 doing so
Washington State made this change about 5 years ago.
