Why I hate RLJ, pavement cyclists etc

[magnatom]

Hi Folks,

As you probably know I have been having a 'discussion' with some bus drivers on another forum. I gave up a while back as they didn't want to listen to reasoned argument. I've been keeping an eye on the thread though and this was just posted:

Magnatom. Your representations to bus companies RE: operation "show cyclists more respect" is admirable, but flawed. If you are the type of cyclist who rides a well maintained vehicle, wears reflective clothing, abides by the highway code etc. You have every right to flag up the errors of motorists round about you who don't.

However, MOST cyclists that we bus drivers see on the road every day have downright contempt for the highway code, and therefore, it is very difficult for the "good" cyclist to demand greater respect from us on the road. If more cyclists show that they are making an effort, then those around them may do likewise.

This makes for some interesting reading:
http://www.yes-but.net/cycling_is_1dangerous.html

Oh dear. We have no chance with attitudes like this. It would appear that this confirms that we do all get tarred with the same brush and that RLJ's etc do have an effect on us all. Is there a way to counter this attitude? Why should I have to suffer because of idiots who don't obey the rules.

Of course it is a misrepresentation as cyclists are probably no more likely to flout the rules of the road than any other road user. For example how many cars keep to the speed limit? (I can't claim the high ground here!) How many jump red lights, drive without insurance etc. Yet cyclists still get the most stick. I think the CTC need to hire some serious PR agents!!

And I am not even going to mention anything about the web site he has directed me too

 

[magnatom]

Admin,

I realise that this thread might be better elsewhere i.e. soapbox, however, the people that would be interested in this frequent commuting and it is related to a few other threads here. However, if you want to move it I would understand

 

[Tynan]

if it's red lights then cyclists are far far worse, I see a dozen cyclists all roll through the safer big crossroads at junctions like Nags Head every day, and they're very very visible to a lot of people when it happens

that's why it gets so much irritation I think, it's just a blatant and calculated breaking of the law highway code in a way that speeding isn't

everyone speeds a bit, very very very few drivers jump a red light in cold blood, bombing through on the end of the yellow doesn't count

 

[BentMikey]

everyone speeds a bit, very very very few drivers jump a red light in cold blood, bombing through on the end of the yellow doesn't count

It absolutely does count - in the last couple of years I've twice observed an amber gambler car almost wipe out another cyclist who pedalled off without looking when our lights turned green. It is fcukwittery of the first degree, and sadly buses seem to do more RLJing even than cyclists on my commute.

 

[Twenty Inch]

if it's red lights then cyclists are far far worse, I see a dozen cyclists all roll through the safer big crossroads at junctions like Nags Head every day, and they're very very visible to a lot of people when it happens

that's why it gets so much irritation I think, it's just a blatant and calculated breaking of the law highway code in a way that speeding isn't

Another cager apologist. Speeding is every bit as blatant and usually as calculating, as well as being far more likely to cause serious damage to others. Or is it OK when only really experienced drivers who are fully in control of their cars do it?

everyone speeds a bit, very very very few drivers jump a red light in cold blood, bombing through on the end of the yellow doesn't count

Yes it does count. A yellow is to tell you to prepare to stop, not blat through. I've seen too many near-accidents at yellows with pricks thinking that they are different and special.

Back to the OP.

Magnatom, cyclists are the outgroup on the roads. We can behave as well as we like - we'll still get accused of poisoning the wells, putting a murrain on the cattle, casting the evil eye at pregnant women and stealing babies to use in our secret cycling rituals. If it comes to a daily decision about my safety at a dangerous junction, and how "cyclists" are perceived by "motorists", I'll go through the red.

 

[BentMikey]

If it comes to a daily decision about my safety at a dangerous junction, and how "cyclists" are perceived by "motorists", I'll go through the red.

You're not another stegers are you? Because that logic is screwed up and wrong.

 

[Cab]

Its frustrating, but for some people 'some cyclists are bad so I can treat them all badly' is viewed as a valid statement. Its quite inflamatory to point this out, but if you replace 'cyclist' in that statement with a racial group of your choice then the statement would be almost universally viewed as abhorrent, yet thats the kind of mentality we're dealing with.

As for that website posted there... Words fail me. So much wrong with that. It isn't a parody, is it?

 

[John the Monkey]

Yes it does count. A yellow is to tell you to prepare to stop, not blat through. I've seen too many near-accidents at yellows with pricks thinking that they are different and special.

I went through one (amber) on the second day of my bike commute - at the start of a hill, without enough speed to clear the junction quickly :/ Fortunately I only injured my pride, as the driver waiting to turn right ahead of me was alert and waited for me to huff my way through... Never doing that again though .

With cars, my impression is that it tends to be the thing of them following each other regardless - if one goes through, it must be alright for the next two or three. You see it quite often in overtaking too, particularly going around slow/stationary vehicles.

 

[spindrift]

very very very few drivers jump a red light in cold blood, bombing through on the end of the yellow doesn't count

Sadly misinformed:

the M1 than as a result of some poor old dear on a bike with a basket.
A survey by the RAC found that, yes, a lot of cyclists run red lights.


It also found that one in ten drivers in Manchester and London crossed traffic lights more than three seconds after the lights turned red, and one in five bus drivers ran red lights.


There are ten thousand traffic light camera prosecutions annually in London alone, a small part of the 1.5 million prosecutions annually based on camera evidence (I don't know what proportion are speed versus red lights), in turn the tip of the iceberg of twelve million prosecutions and cautions for motoring offences by UK police forces in 2002.


Lawbreaking, then, is not restricted to bikes.


Motorists break the law in vast numbers.

Speeding, in particular , is rife, and despite the evidence that the faster you go the more likely you are to kill or be killed if you crash, when speed cameras are erected we don't laugh at the idiots who get caught, we rail against the "stealth tax" on motorists. Gatsos are a stealth tax on motorists in the same way that city centre video cameras are a stealth tax on muggers and DNA testing is a stealth tax on rapists. People will brake to 20mph when they see a Gatso in a 60 limit, because they haven't a clue what the limit is - they simply don't care enough to know. I drive a car, and I drive within the speed limit, which means for a start knowing what the limit is. I haven't always, and I've driven when too tired, and while talking on the phone, but I don't do that stuff any more because it's too bloody dangerous. When you wake up as you hit the rumble strips on the M3 at 135mph at 3am after a 44 hour shift you realise that life's too short for that kind of stupidity. The plain and obvious fact is that, however illegal the cyclists' behaviour may be, the likely consequences are trivial compared with the daily consequences of illegal behaviour we claim as a right as drivers.
Drivers also park illegally, causing danger and inconvenience. And they fail to observe box junctions (many drivers haven't a clue what these are anyway), they overtake on the inside, they hog the middle lane on motorways, they drive on the pavement and damage it, they use fog lights when it's not foggy or raining, they drive while drunk or stoned or smoking or talking on the phone, they drive with the stereo turned up too loud, they drive looking over their shoulders at screaming children, and they kill and injure over a quarter of a million people a year. And they seem to think that an annual payment of a hundred and fifty quid gives them a right to do this.


So on the matter of cyclists and illegal behaviour, I quote the well known words of John 8:7 - let he who is without sin cast the first stone.


http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/wiki/Bloody_cyclists

 

[magnatom]

very very very few drivers jump a red light in cold blood, bombing through on the end of the yellow doesn't count

Sadly misinformed:

the M1 than as a result of some poor old dear on a bike with a basket.
A survey by the RAC found that, yes, a lot of cyclists run red lights.


It also found that one in ten drivers in Manchester and London crossed traffic lights more than three seconds after the lights turned red, and one in five bus drivers ran red lights.


There are ten thousand traffic light camera prosecutions annually in London alone, a small part of the 1.5 million prosecutions annually based on camera evidence (I don't know what proportion are speed versus red lights), in turn the tip of the iceberg of twelve million prosecutions and cautions for motoring offences by UK police forces in 2002.


Lawbreaking, then, is not restricted to bikes.


Motorists break the law in vast numbers.

Speeding, in particular , is rife, and despite the evidence that the faster you go the more likely you are to kill or be killed if you crash, when speed cameras are erected we don't laugh at the idiots who get caught, we rail against the "stealth tax" on motorists. Gatsos are a stealth tax on motorists in the same way that city centre video cameras are a stealth tax on muggers and DNA testing is a stealth tax on rapists. People will brake to 20mph when they see a Gatso in a 60 limit, because they haven't a clue what the limit is - they simply don't care enough to know. I drive a car, and I drive within the speed limit, which means for a start knowing what the limit is. I haven't always, and I've driven when too tired, and while talking on the phone, but I don't do that stuff any more because it's too bloody dangerous. When you wake up as you hit the rumble strips on the M3 at 135mph at 3am after a 44 hour shift you realise that life's too short for that kind of stupidity. The plain and obvious fact is that, however illegal the cyclists' behaviour may be, the likely consequences are trivial compared with the daily consequences of illegal behaviour we claim as a right as drivers.
Drivers also park illegally, causing danger and inconvenience. And they fail to observe box junctions (many drivers haven't a clue what these are anyway), they overtake on the inside, they hog the middle lane on motorways, they drive on the pavement and damage it, they use fog lights when it's not foggy or raining, they drive while drunk or stoned or smoking or talking on the phone, they drive with the stereo turned up too loud, they drive looking over their shoulders at screaming children, and they kill and injure over a quarter of a million people a year. And they seem to think that an annual payment of a hundred and fifty quid gives them a right to do this.


So on the matter of cyclists and illegal behaviour, I quote the well known words of John 8:7 - let he who is without sin cast the first stone.


http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/wiki/Bloody_cyclists

Maybe you should post that on the bus forum

 

[Jacomus-rides-Gen]

That article has rendered me speechless. I will finish posting when I have got some metal capacity back!

 

[magnatom]

Actually. I'll post the link myself. Good link!

 

[Twenty Inch]

You're not another stegers are you? Because that logic is screwed up and wrong.

I don't know who stegers is.

I appreciate your efforts to make links with drivers and to educate the wider world. I also think that you have far more patience than I do.

However, what I said is not "logic". It's a daily choice that I face at a couple of junctions on my route every day. Not all of them and not all the time, but at one or two I am safer going through on a red light than I am waiting to mix it with the late, aggressive, lanechanging roadhogs that I share the road with. I choose to prioritise my safety over what other people think that other people may think of us.

 

[skwerl]

Go and spend some time at a busy junction. You'll be surprised.

far more cyclists than cars run reds though. My daily straw poll for my route through london runs at about 80% of cyclists jump reds. It's difficult to generate an average as some lights get jumped more than others. The junctions where there's heavy traffic get jumped lsss, obviously, so I use crossings and minor junctions for my poll. In those cases it's purely about calculated "phuck the lights" jumping and it's about 80%.
Of course it's harder for cars to jump reds if the car at the front of the queue stops so I can't really count those that stop vs those that don't. I s'pose that means the mechanics of light jumping is different for cars and bikes though. However, in 4 years I've probably seen <50 cars/buses deliberately pull away through, or just not stop for, a red light (it's mainly buses that do this) on an empty crossing/junction. I've seen hundereds of cyclists do just that though.

 

[Cab]

far more cyclists than cars run reds though. My daily straw poll for my route through london runs at about 80% of cyclists jump reds.

I'll wager that 80% of road users break rules that they perceive they will cause no harm in breaking and can get away with breaking. For cyclists its running red lights. What proportion of motorists would you think speed? Or dash through lights that they could otherwise stop at because they can just get through on yellow/red? Or park on double yellow lines 'just for a minute'? I'll bet you its more than 80%.