Sin bin for red light jumping cyclists

[icowden]

2: Self preservation. I was on two wheels, I'd claimed the lane on the approach to the lights, and I was uncertain how the driver of the car behind would react when the ambulance reached them. So I went through, past the railings and took the bike off the road.

I think that moving off the road as a cyclist is very different from driving through a red light as a motorist. For a start, as soon as you dismount from your bike, you are a pedestrian and thus are not limited by the red light in any way.

 

[SteveH80]

I think that moving off the road as a cyclist is very different from driving through a red light as a motorist. For a start, as soon as you dismount from your bike, you are a pedestrian and thus are not limited by the red light in any way.

Thank god for some sense at last, this thread has started getting stupid 🙂

 

[classic33]

I think that moving off the road as a cyclist is very different from driving through a red light as a motorist. For a start, as soon as you dismount from your bike, you are a pedestrian and thus are not limited by the red light in any way.

To be able to get the bike off the road, I'd to go through the red light. Get clear of the railings at the roadside.

 

[mjr]

For a start, as soon as you dismount from your bike, you are a pedestrian and thus are not limited by the red light in any way.

Surprisingly, as covered at length in the past, this actually isn't true and a pedestrian pushing a vehicle past a red light, including a bike or a car, still commits an offence, as would getting a horse or donkey to pull a carriage past. But it's not clear if there's any penalty for pedestrians at the moment.

(I know Mr Bean pushed a car past, but that was still breaking the law.)

 

[mjr]

What a ridiculous post. If you are the first car at the lights you should be stopping right at the stop line. It is there to indicate the point at which you should stop.

No, it isn't. You've got that reversed. Please look at the highway code or underlying law and remind yourself what the white line means.

It is not in any way incompetent driving to not leave a car length between the stop line and the front of your car. In fact it could be argued it is incompetent to leave that much space.

And that's part of why road use behaviour in this country is in the toilet: some people vehemently believe driving correctly is incompetent.

In some countries, if you drive and stop with front wheels on the white line, as common in the UK, you won't even be able to see the lights. It's a simple and practical way to stop many types of red light jumping, including crossing creepers, but it's rare in the UK.

And suggesting it only needs less than a car length to be able to move out of the way is also rather silly unless you know the particular junction. It may not be possible to move sideways at all until beyond the stop line, if there are railings present.

I should have put "usually" in there, so that's fair. There are some shockingly poor junction layouts.