Some worry that New York City’s crackdown on unsafe cyclists leaves them facing greater consequences than drivers, even though cars cause more fatalities.
Some worry that New York City’s crackdown on unsafe cyclists leaves them facing greater consequences than drivers, even though cars cause more fatalities.
FWIW this is not how it works in Philadelphia. Here, a lot of cyclists just sail through red lights and stop intersections without stopping first and without even looking to see if there’s any cross-traffic first. As an avid cyclist myself, it absolutely blows my mind how often they do this and somehow avoid dying. There are a lot of bike fatalities here, but it’s almost always the result of large trucks turning right across bike lanes and flattening somebody they never saw.
That’s normal. Coasting through at low speed uses much less energy than coming to a stop and good bike infrastructure takes that into account. Cars and pedestrians can stop and start easily, bikes, very much not so, so you design intersections, any conflict point, such that bikes merely slow down. The Dutch are brilliant at this with traffic lights which can actually detect who’s coming.
My personal approach to cycling is that I never expect anyone to notice me, a result of decades of practice with semi-sensible German bike infrastructure. Yes I’m going to cross on red but noone will have to change their behaviour, react to me in any way. Be like water.
Yep don’t be there. Even if they’re looking out for pedestrians those are slow, you are fast(er), which means that in the time between them looking and them turning you can make it from invisible to the danger zone.
Side note right turns should not be allowed on red, at least not without a sign specifically allowing it at a particular intersection. In 99.9% of cases it’s unsafe.
Sure, there are those crazy bike messenger types blowing through red lights at full speed
But thats not the majority of offenders. And still nowhere NEAR the danger of cars doing the same thing, even at lower speeds.