Cycling in Waterloo Region

[zanate]

I know the "Idaho stop" includes treating red lights as yields as well as stop signs. I'm not so comfortable about this. Stop signs, on the one hand, are often used as traffic calming on the very streets that are good cycling routes, which makes them particularly obnoxious to someone on a bike who works for their own momentum. Having an Idaho Stop rule in effect for stop signs makes sense, so long as it's not treated as a carte blanche to blow through them-- you always need to be prepared to stop because you don't gain right of way.

But traffic lights are just not negotiable like that in my mind.

(Though that does leave unsolved the problem of traffic lights with loop detectors you can't find or trigger on a bike.)

[Spokes]

Should cyclists be allowed to run red lights?

Cyclists in Paris are now allowed to ride through red lights, and San Francisco is mulling a similar move. With the four main candidates for mayor considering just such a radical rewriting of the rulebook, could London be next?

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/o...-francisco

Makes sense to me.

Until someone runs a red light assuming they have the right of way and they get hit.

[Canard]

Absolutely, they should be able to run red lights. Why follow rules? Just let them do whatever the hell they want and screw everyone else. Perfectly reasonable.

[plam]

Should cyclists be allowed to run red lights?

Cyclists in Paris are now allowed to ride through red lights, and San Francisco is mulling a similar move. With the four main candidates for mayor considering just such a radical rewriting of the rulebook, could London be next?

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/o...-francisco

There are different rules in different cities, although the common denominator is that if there's a red light, the cyclist does not have priority. In Idaho the person on a bike is supposed to stop and then proceed, while it looks like there is no obligation to stop in Paris. However, a person on a bike can only proceed through a red at intersections where there is a sign.

Absolutely, they should be able to run red lights. Why follow rules? Just let them do whatever the hell they want and screw everyone else. Perfectly reasonable.

Facts, please? Paris did a trial run and found that the accident rate did not increase.

As we've mentioned before, a one-tonne vehicle is a lot less maneuverable and can cause a lot more damage than a 80-kg bicycle.

[MidTowner]

Absolutely, they should be able to run red lights. Why follow rules? Just let them do whatever the hell they want and screw everyone else. Perfectly reasonable.

Actually, what's being discussed is changing the rules for cyclists. Nothing to do with following or not following rules.

Spokes, in reply to your comment, I think adults are able to understand the concept of having permission to do something when safe, but not having the right of way. People on foot are permitted to cross streets anywhere they like, but they do not have the right of way anywhere and, where they don't, they can't impede someone else. That's logical. If you're a cyclist waiting to go through a red light (that may in some cases never be activated by your presence), it's a minimal risk (to you or others) for you to look, wait for a safe gap in traffic, and proceed.

[notmyfriends]

Absolutely, they should be able to run red lights. Why follow rules? Just let them do whatever the hell they want and screw everyone else. Perfectly reasonable.

Actually, what's being discussed is changing the rules for cyclists. Nothing to do with following or not following rules.

Spokes, in reply to your comment, I think adults are able to understand the concept of having permission to do something when safe, but not having the right of way. People on foot are permitted to cross streets anywhere they like, but they do not have the right of way anywhere and, where they don't, they can't impede someone else. That's logical. If you're a cyclist waiting to go through a red light (that may in some cases never be activated by your presence), it's a minimal risk (to you or others) for you to look, wait for a safe gap in traffic, and proceed.

So should pedestrians be allowed to cross at a red light as well?

[MidTowner]

So should pedestrians be allowed to cross at a red light as well?

That's interesting. And I'd be really curious to find out how many citations have been given to people on foot crossing against a red light where no traffic was impeded...

I think, if you walk around, you'll find that it's almost more common to see someone crossing against a red, than waiting for a green, when there's no car traffic.

[Canard]

Doesn't make it right.

[MidTowner]

Doesn't make it right.

Changing the rule would make it legal. We're discussing changing a rule to allow cyclists to do something, or continuing to make it illegal and invest scarce resources enforcing it even though it doesn't appreciably increase the risk to any road users.

Strictly-speaking, no one on foot should cross against a red light at any time. If it's 7:30 on a Saturday morning in August, and you know the light takes forever, you should still wait. But is it a good idea to have that rule? Is it making anyone safer?

[Canard]

Same goes for a car then. Does it make sense to have a car sitting there idling, wasting fuel, at a red light when no one else is around?

[zanate]

Same goes for a car then. Does it make sense to have a car sitting there idling, wasting fuel, at a red light when no one else is around?

Trucks have a higher level of regulation than cars for a reason (nobody's measuring your car's weight per axle or restricting you from engine breaking or forcing you to get an A-Z license for the family Nissan for a reason.) And yet trucks use the same roads.

So let's go easy on the false equivalencies. There are rules that apply to trucks that don't apply to cars. There are already rules that apply to cars that don't apply to bikes. This is simply a discussion about whether there should be another such variance.

Clearly you don't think so. That's fine. But maybe ease up on the false equivalencies?

[MidTowner]

Same goes for a car then. Does it make sense to have a car sitting there idling, wasting fuel, at a red light when no one else is around?

It really rubs me the wrong way when motorists start claiming that slowing them down causes pollution. At the worst of times, it feels like a threat: "You better not put anything else in our way, 'cause it's just going to result in more pollution and wasted fuel."

If you're asserting that we should have no red lights because sometimes cars are made to stop at them needlessly, you might have a point: shared spaces can work, I think, and there's a lot of evidence of that in other places. But part of shared spaces with eased traffic rules is that car traffic has to travel at human speeds: you can not expect to travel at fifty kilometres per hour in a heavy vehicle, and still have no traffic signs.

If you're just saying that you don't feel like you should be treated differently when behind the wheel of a car than someone on a bicycle is, that's bunk. A car is different than a bike. That's just a fact.

[Viewfromthe42]

The basic key difference between cars and humans/bikes is that if the former pushes through a red light when it should not have, and someone with the right of way hits/is hit by it as a result, the consequences are either roughly equal (when the latter hits another vehicle) or punish the person with the true right of way (when the latter hits a cyclist or pedestrian).

If the latter pushes through a red light when it should not have, and someone with the right of way hits/is hit as a result, the consequences are devastating on the cyclist/pedestrian who went without the right of way, but not the same level of consequence on any vehicle striking them.

I've been at red lights and seen cars go straight through them, mostly at odd hours, and occasionally with them near-missing myself or a pedestrian. I always feel anger towards the driver, risking hurting someone else for their choice. I've also seen cyclists and pedestrians go against lights and get injured, or worse. I feel frustration at them in making that choice, but they risked themselves disproportionately to others.

[Osiris]

Infuriatingly relevant.

[MidTowner]

Infuriatingly relevant.

What point are you trying to make? We've all readily admitted that some users of all forms of transportation occasionally do unsafe or illegal things.