Drivers Who Run Red Lights Get Tickets. E-Bike Riders Get Court Dates.
Drivers Who Run Red Lights Get Tickets. E-Bike Riders Get Court Dates.
Some worry that New York City’s crackdown on unsafe cyclists leaves them facing greater consequences than drivers, even though cars cause more fatalities.
Unpopular opinion, both sides should stop running fucking red lights.
Cars running red lights = driver slamming on the gas trying to beat the yellow. 3000kg of steel and glass travelling at 60+km/hr in a crowded city
Bikes "running" red lights = riders looking both ways and coasting through when it's clear... 100kg of flesh and aluminium going 10km/hr
These are not even remotely close to the same levels of danger...
So while everyone should follow the rules, enforcement should focus on those with the potential to do the most damage
Bikes “running” red lights = riders looking both ways and coasting through when it’s clear
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.
These are E-bikes we're talking about. They can be quite fast. Some can do 50-60 even. Killing people is certainly possible. Requiring both to obey traffic signals, isn't unreasonable.
Yes, if we compare the most dangerous example of a driver running a red light with the safest example of a cyclist doing so, the driver looks worse.
Obviously cars running red lights is more dangerous but this is pretty disingenuous way to frame it.
10 kph is about 6 mph, which is walking speed. Cycling would be closer to twice that, or more.
Then lights should turn green for my bike, instead of me having to wait for a car to active the sensor on order to cross.
Some sensors in my city detect my bike, some only detect it if I tilt it almost right against the ground, and some don't detect it at all.
You bet I'll gladly run a red light if it won't ever turn green for me.
In my city, I can trigger a traffic signal on my bike by going on the coil that senses the car. This is probably intentional given that the city also puts markings to show that bikes can trigger the sensor, though it does not appear to be any sort of special sensor. No idea if it's natural that the coil can detect my bike or whether my city specifically tubed the system to detect bikes.
So brave.
I doubt that's unpopular.
It should be, because it’s actually less safe for bikes to come to a full stop at red lights and stop signs.
Name one person who thinks the opposite
Next you're going to say #AllLivesMatter
Indeed all lives matter, but the All Lives Matter is a strawman movement that misses the point
Shit, problem solved. Sometimes we need a genius idea to figure things out
Commenters here are missing the reason police are issuing court summons:
Some advocates for delivery workers say that the increased scrutiny of cyclists weighs especially heavily on an already vulnerable group. Many people who ride electric bikes in New York are undocumented migrants working for restaurants and food delivery apps, said Ligia Guallpa, the executive director of Los Deliveristas Unidos, which represents delivery workers. The crackdown on electric bikes and scooters comes in the midst of the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement of immigration law.
Sal Cohen is among the immigrants who received a pink court summons connected to the increased enforcement effort. Originally from Turkey, and in the United States on a conditional green card, Mr. Cohen had not heard about the push when he rolled through a red light at the intersection of Grand Street and Union Avenue in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood on his way home from the gym this month.
A squad car pulled up alongside him and he was issued a summons.
A week and a half later, Mr. Cohen, 28, stood in line outside Courtroom No. 3, on the 16th floor of the municipal building, worried that ICE agents might appear.
“I’m here legally, but you never know,” he said. “I’m nervous.”
Still it also hurts working cyclists who are documented.
Just like in the example.
that's a bonus. just transphobic bills having a bonus effect against women. it's all good!
So, new edition of the "war on drugs" I see.
Everyone should read the words of one of Nixon's top aides regarding why they started the war on drugs:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.
“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
And yet the wikipedia entry for the war on drugs starts like this:
The war on drugs is a global anti-narcotics campaign led by the United States federal government, including drug prohibition, foreign assistance, military intervention, and counterterrorism, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the US.
Emphasis added. I would say that is flat out false. It may be the openly stated aim, but it is not the true aim, and they've admitted it. Just another reminder that these fascists know exactly what the fuck they're doing and that wikipedia is subject to propaganda influences.
Running them, or using the Idaho Stop? Huge difference.
But even still, if the consequences for cyclists are greater than those for drivers, then something is seriously messed up.
Right-turn on red is enough to get a ticket, even if both streets have bike lanes. Don't ask me how I know....
This is car culture logic. Here in the UK cyclists are regarded with the same vengeful attitude by drivers. Red lights are primarily a traffic control feature and it's dangerous to drive through them as a car driver. This isn't the case with a bicycle, due to the visibility a cyclist has and its light weight. It's also a non issue to ride one way streets because a bike is much smaller and more manoeuvreable. Cyclists should be celebrated for reducing traffic, emissions, particulate and noise pollution but the opposite is true, everywhere people speak English because this is a mental disease afflicting anglophones. They are addicted to cars.
There should be a process where the rider can accept blame and pay a fine without spending a day in court. That also sounds like a waste of court resources, to be honest.
The bicycle infrastructure is decades behind the Europeans, especially the Netherlands and the large cities in Germany. For example, there are traffic signals controlling bicycle traffic. The other problem, the lawyers can defend an idiot running red lights on a bicycle.
especially [...] the large cities in Germany
Laughing and crying in Berlin here after just three near death experiences on my way to work.
Surely it'll get better now that modal filters across residential streets were declared illegal.
I sympathise with the message but cycle infrastructure in German cities is bad to the extent there are parody songs about it
If they can catch me, nyoom.
Paywalled link
No? It's a gift article.
You are right. Maybe I did not notice. Or maybe the link changed.
Jokes on you I got both on an e-bike
Can't comment on NYC, but a huge chunk of cyclists in my area are genuinely reckless, Ebikes or not. I can understand that bikes are less dangerous than cars, but that doesn't mean bikes can't kill or injure anyone.
but that doesn’t mean bikes can’t kill or injure anyone.
Who claimed the opposite?
I think cyclists should be treated the same as drivers in so far as possible. And that includes obeying traffic signs, issuing of tickets and so on. I've almost been run over by cyclists who run red lights or go the wrong way up one way streets. It's small consolation that a bike is "lighter" than a car if it still means some 120kg asshole slams into you because rules are for other people.
Really? Bikes just as bad as cars? You see no difference in a bike hitting someone and a 3ton vehicle? Wow. Did you look at data, how many people get injured or killed by cars - and then compare it to data on Bikes?
And of course, who did not hear about terrorist attacks with bikes driving into crowds?
Where did I write they were directly equivalent or as bad when I didn't? Such an idiotic response quite honestly. At least address what I actually wrote not what you imagine I did.
This not a tough concept - the legal consequences for road users of varying types should be similar. Assholes on bikes are a thing and they should suffer the through the same legal framework as their vehicle brethren.
Good. As someone who is all for biking and public transit infrastructure, the number of idiot cyclists running red lights in my town is entirely unacceptable, and far outnumbers the cars I see running lights. They're going to get themselves killed, and get some innocent driver thrown in prison for their own stupid mistakes in the process.
Cyclists have an incredibly dangerous, toxic culture when it comes to ignoring traffic laws (in the US at least), and it's really satisfying seeing them actually face the consequences of their actions for once.
Cyclists have an incredibly dangerous, toxic culture when it comes to ignoring traffic laws,
motorists have an incredibly dangerous, GAS POWERED, MULTI TON WEAPON that is regularly used to harass and threaten cyclists. It would be really satisfying to see them get punished for all the anti-cyclist hate and violence.
Are you agreeing with the person you responded too, and then adding more to it? Or are you saying cars are worse, so bicycles shouldn't have to follow any laws? I'm just a little confused on where you are going with this, because your post seems strangely aggressive when the person you responded too said very clearly that they are for biking and public transit infrastructure, things which drastically lessen reliance on cars.
As a cyclist I agree. So many want to be whatever is most convenient for them at the moment. Pedestrian, vehicle, whatever, I'm sick of it too.
But there's an obvious difference between a car running a red light and a bike running a red light. Namely, that in the second case the only bodily risk is to the miscreant.
That's an important difference that your argument elides.
Can't they face the consequences through DMV fines on threat of arrest instead of court appearances that just go the same way?
They could, but if it's anything like the sheer epidemic of bikes running red lights here, I absolutely think it makes sense to send a message to curb the dangerous behavior.
Then again, if it's actually just an excuse to harass and possibly detain immigrants as mentioned in another comment, then as usual the cops can go fuck themselves.
Cyclists are the most obnoxious and entitled participants in traffic. They behave like everything belongs to them, they always fly through crosswalks at supersonic speeds looking at the ground because looking up fucks their aerodynamics like they are in some fucking championship (even though in my country you need to step down as you cross the roads or at least fucking slow down and look left and right if you ignore the law that much). Oh and red lights? They don't seem to apply to them.
Damn, that sounds a lot more annoying than slamming into a pedestrian with a two ton vehicle and killing them.
Gee, a 2 ton vehicle wouldn't hit them if they weren't darting across crosswalks without showing any intention they are about to cross or even without looking, running red lights (not the cross walk one, the main intersection red light!) and just having no fucking regard for anything else in traffic. They behave like entire world has to pay attention to them and they can give zero fucks about anyone else. Yes, large majority of cyclists are like that.
It pisses me off because I drive a car and I also ride a bicycle. Just because you're the weaker one in traffic doesn't mean sole responsibility for your safety is on others. That's why I'm so pissed about it.
I'm sorry to hear that's how it is in your country. Where I am, cyclists nearly walk through crosswalks for safety and commuters do not have supersonic muscles nor endurance. And IIRC you've better aero looking up because the helmets are designed that way.
We need to fight back again oppression of bike riders. Electric bikes are genuine revolution in transportation, more so than electric cars even.
Imagine if people started using ebikes to get around their town/hood...
All the lostr profits for the car and oil industry 🤡
And the Gym industry, and the Healthcare industry, and the Tow Truck industry....
So many losses.
This is exactly what's happening in Western Europe, from Sweden to small islands in Italy, from Paris to the country side in Brittany, habits are changing. It's slower than I'd hope for but bike lanes are being setup, electric batteries are charged from solar panels on roofs, elderly get autonomy again. There is no need to imagine, we're doing it! :D