[theanarcrist]

I take issue with the idea of "giving bicyclists any special treatment above the behavior of cars." Bicycles are not cars and treating them as such creates perverse incentives that make both biking and driving more inconvenient and dangerous. The law should align with best practices of bike - and it should not be changed only on contingent that a group of users meet some moral code.

I imagine if the bike laws in SF were updated to the proposal in the articles SF cops would be more empowered to ticket bicyclists cutting off pedestrians at red lights.

[aroch]

Bicyclists can injure pedestrians. Bicyclists can kill pedestrians.

How exactly does making bicyclists follow the laws of the road make things more dangerous?

Who decides what these "best practices" are?

Should cars be allowed to treat stop signs as yields in the absence of other traffic?

What's the point of signage if you create a broad exemption from following them?

[malandrew]

Can you point me to the bicycle-pedestrians injuries and deaths per capita versus car-pedestrians injuries and deaths per capita?

Don't have those numbers on hand any more (the former figure is so low that it's almost impossible to find), but per mile traveled within a city, there is no contest that cars are the biggest threat all other things being equal.

What I do have is that 12% of pedestrian injuries are motor vehicle related (3rd leading cause of pedestrian injuries) and that bikes don't even register in the top 6. 3 out of 4 of these accidents were in urban areas. For bicyclists, motor vehicles are the number one cause at 29% of injuries.[0]

I'm pretty sure that if we we doing this the smart way, we'd start with statistics when deciding what rules to create and which ones to enforce. The goal should be minimization of injuries and deaths. Cars majorly fail in this respect.

When a pedestrian gets killed by a cyclist it is news. We rarely even report motor vehicle pedestrian deaths unless it is notable in some way (like the Uber incident). I don't remember who said it, but the definition of news is something that happens so infrequently that it is notable enough to report on. (I think Bruce Schneier but can't find the quote right now)

[0] http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm

[shkkmo]

> Bicyclists can injure pedestrians. Bicyclists can kill pedestrians.

So can lightning and banana peels. Are you arguing that bicycles are as deadly as cars?

>How exactly does making bicyclists follow the laws of the road make things more dangerous?

From the article: > If the Idaho stop were legalized, it'd get cyclists off these faster streets and funnel the bikes on to safer, slower roads. The Idaho stop, if legalized and widely adopted, would also make bikes more predictable.

[aroch]

>From the article: > If the Idaho stop were legalized, it'd get cyclists off these faster streets and funnel the bikes on to safer, slower roads. The Idaho stop, if legalized and widely adopted, would also make bikes more predictable.

This is bullshit and speculation. You really think it'd get bicyclists to take the small streets? It won't. They use the "big streets" because they're the most efficient, they don't give a shit about road laws regardless of the size of the street.

[shkkmo]

> You really think it'd get bicyclists to take the small streets?

Yes, as I bicyclist who doesn't own a car, I do think that. I take back/small streets wherever the stop sign density is low enough (long blocks, lots of two way stops) and doesn't take me off course. It is far more safe and relaxing than blocking a lane of traffic on a high volume road.

> They use the "big streets" because they're the most efficient,

To a certain degree, yes. But that efficiency has a lot to do with having to stop at stop signs.

> they don't give a shit about road laws regardless of the size of the street.

Now you are just over-generalizing and projecting.

[Goladus]

I could take you around Boston and identify a number of scenarios where a bicycle following different rules makes things more dangerous. Here's one:

http://i.imgur.com/JRQCRG9.png

The Saint Mary's and Mountfort street intersection in Boston. There's a very long red light for cars traveling east. A portion of the light is for traffic coming out of St. Mary's street (which is usually only a single car or two), the rest is for pedestrians (primarily BU students), who tend to move efficiently and are easy to see and avoid if you are on a bike.

While the light is red, the entire area marked in green almost always empty (safe). The smartest, safest move for a bicycle is to approach the red light and slow down, making sure there are no cars coming from the north or south, then proceed through the intersection (slowly, avoiding pedestrians), through the green area and onto park drive by themselves, without having to compete with the cars that will be merging (and while oncoming traffic is also conveniently stopped).

What's the point of signage if you create a broad exemption from following them?

A broad exemption should coincide with a recognition that the rules and signage are inadequate and need to be updated where possible. For example there's a one-way street a short way from the picture I posted (Essex St, Brookline) which was recently amended to say "One-way (except bikes)." That is, the signs and laws were adjusted to accommodate the unique characteristics of bicycles.

There are a lot of one-way streets that can easily accommodate bicycles. Meanwhile there are some one-way streets that really should not be taken in the wrong direction by either bikes or cars. But until the signage adequately distinguishes between the two, bikes are just going to ignore signs if they can get away with it. (And it does happen-- I forget which street but there's a street near Harvard Square that is clearly marked "NO BIKES THIS DIRECTION, USE <street> INSTEAD"

[Fishkins]

I totally agree with this. In the US (and probably most other countries) bike laws and infrastructure at at best an afterthought shoehorned into the existing automobile/pedestrian setup. Lots of cyclists are reckless and inconsiderate, and they should be held accountable for that. However, I think the only real way to fix the problem is to address the underlying systemic deficiencies.

[akiselev]

Bicycles are not multi-ton hunks of plastic and steel and treating them as though they have crumple zones creates perverse incentives that make both biking and driving more inconvenient and dangerous.