Safer to jump red lights? - Times article

[Bigsharn]

There are two red lights I'll admit to jumping. One doesn't recognise bikes (it's a sensor in the road, to detect 6+ ton buses), and I jump to get onto the shared use path before the junction it's protecting. It's questionable in the eyes of the law, but I'm sure I wouldn't get screamed at if someone noticed

The other is more about getting out of the way before green. It's on a hill and hillstarts have never been my forté. I stop for red, wait until the green man disappears from the pedestrian crossing and take a sharp left (where most go straight on).

In short, I can see where he's coming from on the safety aspect of jumping red.

 

[Bicycle]

It singles out cyclists as provoking other road users, not road users provoking other road users.

I read your response slowly, then even more slowly. Then I read all the posts it refers to. Then I read it all again.

I must be much duller than I thought I was (and I really did think I was dull). The newspaper piece in the OP is about cyclists jumping lights. Loother does not appear to single out cyclists. I am amused (very) by what we sometimes see in the words of others.

As a road user myself (car and bicycle), I simply do not get the touchiness of some other road users on the matter of road users not behaving as they should towards their fellow road users and the perceived disrespect shown by some road users by singling out particular groups of road users to the exception of other groups of road users.

 

[Red Light]

As a road user myself (car and bicycle), I simply do not get the touchiness of some other road users on the matter of road users not behaving as they should towards their fellow road users and the perceived disrespect shown by some road users by singling out particular groups of road users to the exception of other groups of road users.

Its all in TRL549. Plus the fact that motorists have killed many thousands of cyclists but its extremely rare for a cyclist to kill a motorist. That imbalance alone is good reason for the imbalance in sensitivity.

 

[gaz]

Its all in TRL549. Plus the fact that motorists have killed many thousands of cyclists but its extremely rare for a cyclist to kill a motorist. That imbalance alone is good reason for the imbalance in sensitivity.

Has a cyclist ever killed a motorist? In just a collision sense (ignoring the ones where a motorist nearly doors a cyclist and then another cyclist strangles him.)

 

[BentMikey]

Not all of them. Some more than others though.

Funnily enough most of the riders I see jumping lights are tools wearing helmets.

 

[BlackPanther]

Yes there is. You could report it to the Council Highways Authority as a non-working traffic light and get them to fix it. Then you won't have to keep jumping it and explaining yourself.

Good one. Oh are you being serious?

I've reported an un-rideable 100 metre section of road twice to Donny council (and to 'fill that hole') to no response, so a traffic light that works for all but 0.1% of traffic (bicycles) would be a waste of the skin on my typing fingers. Plus, I've just got to level 25 on Modern Warfare 3, so my gun now has rapid fire......I'm far too busy.

 

[Bicycle]

Its all in TRL549. Plus the fact that motorists have killed many thousands of cyclists but its extremely rare for a cyclist to kill a motorist. That imbalance alone is good reason for the imbalance in sensitivity.

Indeed. I don't doubt that for a moment. But I fail to see where Loother singles out cyclists. It was Loother's post that you replied to, asking "So why do you consider that the cyclists are being downright provocative but motorists aren't?"

I was just querying that statement. I didn't ask about TRL549.

I think we may be in very different places on this topic. All i was doing was querying the above question in bold, which you asked of Loother. From my reading of what Loother wrote, there was no suggestion of that point be made explicitly or by implication.

I feel that you do not love cars, but my question was about your use of language, not TRL549.

 

[benb]

Not all of them. Some more than others though.

Care to elaborate?

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I can honestly say that I have never ever jumped a red light that was installed to protect any road user from a danger presented by cyclists. I suspect that this applies to 100% of cyclists in the UK.

 

[wheres_my_beard]

Not particularly.

Care to elaborate?

Well some people who don't wear helmets are not complete tools. The ones that are, though, are more of a tool than some, especially the ones that are not.

Not being a complete tool is not mutually exclusive with non-helmet wearing. I might also go as far as to suggest that some people who do wear helmets may actually be complete tools, but I'm not sure as whether the two things are related.

 

[Bicycle]

Care to elaborate?

Yeah, Where's My beard!

I'd like you to elaborate too! How dare you say "Not all of them"? Which more than others and if not, why not?

How dare you! Or how don't dare you? Indeed how dare you not dare to write, say or do those things you did or didn't write, say or do?

I see the stirrings of a helmet thread here and I smell blood.

Probably the blood of someone who was foolish enough to ride without a helmet, but that's not the point.

 

[wheres_my_beard]

I always ride with a helmet as it happens.

But I never wear it.

Booyah.

That's how I roll.

Edit: Sorry if I am going off OP.

 

[Red Light]

Has a cyclist ever killed a motorist? In just a collision sense (ignoring the ones where a motorist nearly doors a cyclist and then another cyclist strangles him.)

The latter is the only one I can think of. But I expect someone will vision a hypothetical accident in which a cyclist causes a car to swerve hitting a fuel tanker which crashes into an infant school and incinerates hundred of kids as a reason.

 

[Red Light]

Good one. Oh are you being serious?

I've reported an un-rideable 100 metre section of road twice to Donny council (and to 'fill that hole') to no response, so a traffic light that works for all but 0.1% of traffic (bicycles) would be a waste of the skin on my typing fingers. Plus, I've just got to level 25 on Modern Warfare 3, so my gun now has rapid fire......I'm far too busy.

Seems to work for quite a few people here with traffic lights. Pot holes are another matter entirely. And far more effective for your safety than spraying virtual bullets all over the place.

 

[Red Light]

But I fail to see where Loother singles out cyclists.

other road users in this country would see the [cyclist's] "jump" as risky at best and downright provocative at worse.