| 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" |
