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We apply very draconian rules to motorists, and then people get upset when those same kind of rules are not applied to other users. It is very inconsistent and that makes people angry. But this ignores the fact that motor vehicles are exceptional in terms of the harm they can cause simply due to weight and speed. That is why we need draconian and annoying laws, but only for motor vehicles. The risk posed by bikes and pedestrians is so small that strictly enforced rules would be authoritarian and restrict freedom to an unacceptable degree.

I do agree that cyclists should follow rules. But the magnitutde of danger caused by rule breaking is massively lower and that should be acknowledged. A dangerous driver is committing a worse crime than a careless cyclist.

Also, cyclists are not some homogeneous group. The person complaining about dangerous drivers is not neccessarily the person going through a red light.

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> The risk posed by bikes and pedestrians is so small that strictly enforced rules would be authoritarian and restrict freedom to an unacceptable degree.

Rubbish. Having cyclists stop at red lights when people are crossing the road does not restrict their freedom "to an unacceptable degree". And even though I'm not likely to be killed by a cyclist running into me, I'd still much rather that they didn't.

I say this as someone who doesn't have a driving license, so I'm not "pro car". I'm just anti getting whomped out of nowhere by a bike.

I thoroughly agree. I live in Oxford, UK, well known for being bike-friendly, and it's incredibly rare that cyclists stop at lights here. It's a historic city with narrow streets and restricted visibility in some places. More than once I've gone to pull away from lights and a cyclist has zoomed through a red, forcing me to swerve. I've also encountered the 3-abreast thing and it's infuriating as a driver. Many ignore the fact there's a car behind them and force me to overtake dangerously rather than going to single-file.

Now don't get me wrong, it's frustrating, but I'm also a cyclist. I appreciate Oxford's bike-friendliness. I cycle more than I drive. In fact, I've encountered more of the 3-abreast problem when I'm riding - groups having a chat at a slow speed while I'm trying to get to work. I stop at lights for my own safety while others completely ignore them. I never ride without a helmet. And when I'm on the road, I try to keep as close to the kerb as I can without hitting drains.

It's frustrating, for sure, but the internet breeds hatred from frustration. There's a nice little graphic showing it as a distillation process. Facebook is phenomenally bad at this, by design, since it groups and sorts these kinds of people together. This DFROC group has one advantage though - it could be turned into a private group and then this pool of cess would never need to leak out to the rest of the internet. So long as it stays there, this hatred can continue to fester without hurting anyone, but as we know by now, it always leaks back into real life. The minority may give the majority a bad name, but the boiling hatred from these echo chambers eventually convinces somebody that their feelings are justified and go do something they will regret.

The internet is not a healthy place, but it does have its distant basis in facts.

Mildly chaotic behaviour is a perfectly normal thing for a densley populated urban area. And that chaotic behaviour is true of absolutely everyone. Drunk pedestrians walking into the road. Kids wobbling on their bikes or walking out into the street without looking. Getting cut up at roundabouts when someone is in a hurry. All these things are perfectly normal and suprisingly safe, except when you add cars the the mix. Then suddenly you need hundreds of rules to do the most basic things. And Oxford is a perfect example of a city centre that is completely inappropriate for cars. The roads are simply not designed for it, and there are thousands of chaotic normal people in close proximity. That is what causes the conflict and frustration.

>That is what causes the conflict and frustration.

So if a cyclist runs a red light and nearly knocks me over, it's not the cyclist causing that, even if they could easily have just stopped at the light?

> So if a cyclist runs a red light and nearly knocks me over, it's not the cyclist causing that, even if they could easily have just stopped at the light?

Sounds like it's the light that's causing it, given how much you're focusing on the light in your comments. Take the light out of the picture (which probably requires taking cars off of that road) and what would happen?

That would make it worse, since the issue is that you often can't see the bike coming. (Bikes are quiet and quite difficult to detect in peripheral vision.) When there's a convention that everyone stops at certain times to let pedestrians cross the road, you don't have to worry too much about that -- if people actually follow the rules.

I've never seen a no-motor-traffic intersection that used or needed lights. Somehow cyclists and pedestrians manage to negotiate priority at junctions on paths, cycleways, and in pedestrianized town centers just fine, human-to-human, even blind corners.

Who said anything about no-motor-traffic intersections? I'm talking about cyclists in London. Regardless, it's pretty eccentric to suggest that traffic lights are responsible for collisions caused by people who ignore them. However safe a particular intersection currently is, removing traffic lights from it will make it less safe than that. That might be tolerable in a scenario where there's no motor traffic. But there is, obviously, motor traffic in London.

> Who said anything about no-motor-traffic intersections? I'm talking about cyclists in London.

You seemed to imply that safety at intersections between cyclists and pedestrians needed or was helped by traffic lights. I don't think that's true.

> Regardless, it's pretty eccentric to suggest that traffic lights are responsible for collisions caused by people who ignore them. However safe a particular intersection currently is, removing traffic lights from it will make it less safe than that.

There's an increasingly mainstream view that just the opposite is true, see e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/04/remova...

>You seemed to imply that safety at intersections between cyclists and pedestrians needed or was helped by traffic lights. I don't think that's true.

Safety is helped in London, in the real world, when people don't run red lights. You seemed to be saying that this wouldn't be the case if there were no cars, which is totally irrelevant.

>There's an increasingly mainstream view that just the opposite is true

Try crossing a busy road which doesn't have any lights. I have one of those on my walk back from work, and it's by far the most dangerous crossing.

> Safety is helped in London, in the real world, when people don't run red lights.

Maybe. If stricter enforcement of red lights leads to fewer people cycling, it might lead to more deaths overall.

> You seemed to be saying that this wouldn't be the case if there were no cars, which is totally irrelevant.

You asked about who or what was "causing" the issue.

> Try crossing a busy road which doesn't have any lights. I have one of those on my walk back from work, and it's by far the most dangerous crossing.

It's dangerous if cars are driving fast. Other changes (e.g. narrower streets, speed limits) can make it very safe. Look at the article's example: crossing Exhibition Road, without lights, feels safer than light-based crossings IME.

>If stricter enforcement of red lights leads to fewer people cycling, it might lead to more deaths overall.

I did not call for stricter enforcement. Cyclists could choose to stop running red lights without any changes in the law or how it is enforced.

>You asked about who or what was "causing" the issue.

You seem in effect to be saying that we can’t blame cyclists for running red lights here in the real world because you can imagine some kind of cycletopia where lights wouldn’t necessary. If a cyclist runs a red light and consequently crashes into me while I'm crossing the road, the cause of that accident is, obviously, the cyclist and not the light. Removing the light isn't going to make bikes any easier to see, or cyclists any more careful. (Those of a careful disposition wouldn't be running red lights at pedestrian crossings in the first place.)

Cyclists are free to argue for different traffic regulations and infrastructure, but in the mean time, they should follow the rules and stop endangering others.

> Cyclists could choose to stop running red lights without any changes in the law or how it is enforced.

True, but that would carry a similar risk of leading them to cycle less.

> After all, the accident would have happened just the same if the light wasn't there.

Disagree; you would likely have acted differently if the light wasn't there. If you were right, we'd see cyclists colliding with pedestrians at no-motor-traffic junctions all the time, since none of them have lights. But we don't.

>True, but that would carry a similar risk of leading them to cycle less.

Nonsense.

>you would likely have acted differently if the light wasn't there.

I don't act differently when there are no lights, since I know that most cyclists ignore the lights anyway!

>If you were right, we'd see cyclists colliding with pedestrians at no-motor-traffic junctions all the time, since none of them have lights. But we don't.

Cyclists are harder to see when there are cars on the road, so that's an irrelevant comparison.

In any case, cyclists do collide with pedestrians in the absence of motor vehicles. The canal tow paths in London are particularly bad for this, for example:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/oct/03/transport.cycling...

> I don't act differently when there are no lights, since I know that most cyclists ignore the lights anyway!

Then it sounds like cyclists ignoring the lights aren't putting you in any real danger, and that "cyclists choosing to stop running red lights" as you suggest would do you very little good.

> In any case, cyclists do collide with pedestrians in the absence of motor vehicles.

They do, occasionally. But notice how no-one in that article even mentions the possibility of introducing traffic lights, because they're so obviously not a solution to anything.

>Then it sounds like cyclists ignoring the lights aren't putting you in any real dange

That is simply a non sequitur.

>"cyclists choosing to stop running red lights" as you suggest would do you very little good.

It would stop them frequently nearly crashing into me, which would certainly be good from my perspective.

>But notice how no-one in that article even mentions the possibility of introducing traffic lights

Erm, because it wouldn't be possible to add traffic lights on a canal tow path. The point is that ignoring traffic lights is dangerous, not that traffic lights should be put everywhere.

https://www.gasholder.london/2017/02/09/cyclists-vs-pedestri...

> It would stop them frequently nearly crashing into me, which would certainly be good from my perspective.

I don't advocate crashing into pedestrians. But the best way to avoid crashing into pedestrians is to pay attention to pedestrians, not to lights.

> Erm, because it wouldn't be possible to add traffic lights on a canal tow path. The point is that ignoring traffic lights is dangerous

None of your articles seems to think that traffic lights are helpful.

I am talking about what causes the conflict and frustration. That is based on perception and emotion. It has nothing to do with assigning blame or responsbilitiy in a collision.

There's 'chaotic' and 'absolutely suicidal' when steaming down St. Aldates towards Folley Island, where there's a T-junction with traffic lights, and a number of regular buses.

I live near Oxford and although there are a lot of cyclists I wouldn't describe it as bike-friendly. Every time I cycle down the Botley road I feel like I'm putting my life in my hands.

>Many ignore the fact there's a car behind them and force me to overtake dangerously rather than going to single-file. //

FWIW cyclists are allowed to ride 2 abreast in the UK (occupying the full lane), the correct procedure as with any slow moving traffic in front of you is to be patient and wait for a safe place to pass.

A cyclist riding close to the kerb increases danger, you invite cars to pass at higher speed and you leave no margin for error then - one wiggle and you're toast.

Yes, I absoultely agree that cyclists should stop at red lights. But it is not morally equivalent to dangerous driving and we should be more relxed about it in comparison and resist an over zealous response.

More generally we should design urban communities so that things like pedestrian crossings are not even neccessary.

> The risk posed by bikes and pedestrians is so small

I don't know... cars stay on the road where I live. Cyclists will happily ride on the pavement and justify it with 'the road's too dangerous to cycle on'. They seem to consciously be happy with endangering people more vulnerable than themselves in order to keep themselves safe... which is what they criticise car drivers with.

I'm more concerned in practice about my three-year old daughter being hit by a cyclist on the pavement, than by a car on the road.

As a daily cyclist I commonly see parents with strollers on the bike road. For my bike road to work there is a down slope followed by a sharp turn, and there the city planners have made a temporary combined bike road and pavement for the last couple of years during construction. It is very common to see strollers during there, people in wheelchairs or groups of small children.

The city seems happy with endangering people. Parents seems happy with endangering babies there. No one has ever been charged with endangering of children, and I have never seen anyone stopping a parent with a stroller and telling them that they are endangering their child by walking on a bike road. If anything I also see an increase of strollers during the time when the road is full of ice. The order in which the city clear out snow and ice is roads > bike roads > pavement, and parents with strollers do not want to walk in snow. Given the alternative most seems to pick the bike road.

Other fun participants I have seen on exclusive bike roads is 4-5 year olds learning to bike with training wheels. Just like with strollers I always give them a bit extra distance when passing them, which might explain why there has been zero deaths or injuries from bike hitting strollers or young children even through those are common sights on bike roads. If one wonder the cause of that I think one just need to check the average speed of bikes in a city and the reaction and braking speed.

I am sure if a parent would take a stroller and walk on the road against car traffic then social service would have a very strong opinion about it. That would actually be unsafe behavior and traffic records support in every way that bikes are safe and cars are not. Being more concerned about a three-year old being hit by a cyclist on the pavement than by a car on the road is flying against statistics, and I would say actual behavior. Would you honestly say that your reaction to a parent walking with a stroller on a bike road would be identical to a parent walking with a stroller against car traffic on the road?

I think it is great that the parent feels safe enough to do that. Cyclists should yield to pedestrians if need be and not get upset about it.

This might sound odd but I agree. It is good that it is safe for bike and pedestrians to be on the same road, and a common rule of thumb for cooperation is that whoever is faster should yield to those who are slower. That is true for boats and planes, often true for cars and trucks.

A lot of tensions and unnecessary fear would be resolved if we just applied common sense and speed limits to roads. Have pavement and most bike roads like today but put a speed limit to that of a running person (around 15km/h (9mph)). At those speed and lower there is no safety concerns and tolerance between cyclists and pedestrians should be encourage. Then we have fast bike lanes with a max speed of 30km/h (18mph) and city car roads with the more common 40km/h (24mph) and 50km/h (31mph), both which pedestrian use should be discouraged because of the danger from increased reaction, braking and stopping time. If two roads of different speed cross then the lower speed limit should be used and who ever is faster should yield, and if accidents still happens then traffic lights, speed bumps, cameras and other methods to reduce speed should be applied.

By focusing on reaction, braking and stopping time you get a fairly decent prediction model of accident rates. This is what our assessment about what is dangerous should be based on.

I don't know. When I was cycling, I was scared almost everyday on the road, it's very difficult to describe how fragile you can feel sharing the road with cars. I stopped commuting by bike after my second accident. As a pedestrian now, I might be scared like once every two month by a teen cycling on the pavement, but I don't feel that my life is in danger whatsoever. Although I very much understand you concern about your daughter safety. The problem is that cities were/are designed for pedestrians and cars. The truth is bikes clearly don't belong to pavement and I'd like to say they can share the road with cars but it's never the feeling I had.

The dream for cyclists is a dedicated lane with clear separation from the road. This is almost utopia atm.

> I don't know... cars stay on the road where I live. Cyclists will happily ride on the pavement and justify it with 'the road's too dangerous to cycle on'.

That sounds bad. I would not do that and would not support any cyclist who did. It's not something I see happening where I live.

> I'm more concerned in practice about my three-year old daughter being hit by a cyclist on the pavement, than by a car on the road.

Have you looked at the statistics for how often those things actually happen, and how bad the consequences are when they do?

Why do Cyclists get to be special? Where I live, the same rules apply for cyclists as for drivers up to loosing your drivers license for biking drunk (including biking ban).

A bike can do a lot of damage and harm once it goes beyond walking speed and even at walking speed it can be quite dangerous.

I get that not every cyclists runs the red lights but those that do are a clear danger to traffic safety.

You could also have a rule that bans drunk pedestrians. Because they could cause an accident by making a car swerve. They are also more dangerous in terms of committing other crimes. The difference is that pedestrians and cyclists don't weigh several tonnes and are able to move at very high speeds.

I am not suggesting that bad behaviour should be legal. Merely that it is not morally comparable to dangerous driving.

Lots of places do have laws that ban people from being intoxicated in public.

They often aren't severe, more so police are able to remove extremely intoxicated people from a public location.

That is also somewhat the case. If someone is sufficiently drunk walking about instead of getting a safer ride home, they may receive a temporary driving ban (I haven't heard of anything longer than a week in that case) and if you endanger traffic then you can loose your drivers license.

The difference is that pedestrian and cyclists don't weigh tons but can still severely endanger others and themselves.

> If someone is sufficiently drunk walking about instead of getting a safer ride home, they may receive a temporary driving ban (I haven't heard of anything longer than a week in that case)

Why a driving ban rather than a walking ban? Doesn't the same logic suggest giving cyclists a driving ban rather than a cycling ban?

A driving ban because if you endanger traffic while drunk then how can we trust you not to endanger traffic while drunk when you're allowed to drive a car?

You don't get a cyclist ban, to my knowledge, since it isn't licensed. This is mostly about deriving how responsible you are with a car from how responsible you behave in traffic when you're not a car.

A car is not a bike. Whatever happened to the concept of context?

If you flatten a pedestrian I doubt they care whether it was with a car or a bike. And the court won't care much if you were drunk.

The road is supposed to be used responsibly, driving or cycling drunk shows you don't care about that. Everyone here uses Taxi, public transport or friends for transport if drunk.

> If you flatten a pedestrian I doubt they care whether it was with a car or a bike.

The pedestrian absolutely notices whether they were hit by a tonne of metal going 40mph or 20kg going at 20mph. Regulation should be proportionate to how much risk you impose on others. Given how many more people get killed by car drivers than by cyclists, we should be looking to make driving tests much stricter before we even begin to worry about regulating cycling.

Of course the risk is taken into account but in the end, if you hurt someone while driving or cycling drunk, you have thoroughly demonstrated your lack of understanding of traffic rules and shouldn't handle a car.

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