bellinghman | Usually it's the other way round

A few weeks ago, I was waiting on the road from Horningsea to turn onto the A14. There was one car stationary behind me, then a 16 year-old lad on a scooter drove straight into the back of that car. He seemed a bit bashed up, hurt his leg, but was still conscious (I hung around until I'd given details as a witness and the ambulance turned up). His bike was a wreck though.

I think the problem must have been inattention and the sun being straight in his eyes.

Some years ago,

bellingwoman and I visited Amsterdam.

One evening, we went out for a walk. We were walking along a road (a main one, with wide verges and pavements, not a city street overshadowed with buildings) and a car was waiting to pull out. It stuck its nose out, and a short while later a moped crashed into it.

Three whole seconds later, a second moped joined the first.

Later on we reached the canals area, only to witness a third moped coming a cropper, although in this case it was just cornering too hard on wet cobbles and falling over.

Thereafter on that trip, we were extremely nervous anywhere near a moped.

My younger sister once cycled into the back of a stationary bright red post office van... she didn't live it down for quite a while! In her defence, it was hammering down with rain so she was in "head down" mode, but even so *LOL*.

Ex-husband cycled into the back of a stationary van too. He was in the lane, rather than in the gutter, and didn't spot that the white van ahead had stopped. In his defence, snowing a blizzard...

It's easier than you might think. Don't forget that cycling in towns is a very high-concentration exercise - if you're in a car, for instance, people generally don't pull out in front of you (too often), but if you're on a bike people will often do things like starting to pull out before you've gone past because "hey, a bike is only narrow", or pulling out of parking spaces, or whatever. This is very distracting, and while distracted by someone dicking around in a BMW and pulling out of a parking space I ran into the back of a Smart stopped at a zebra crossing a while ago. No damage done, but it can easily happen. People sometimes forget that a bike can be doing 30 or 40 kph quite easily, and assume they're able to stop within 1 metre.

And yes, I stop religiously at red lights. No, I don't ride on the pavement. No, I don't ride the wrong way down one way streets. Or do any of the other things drivers seem to use as an excuse to spread the hatin'.

Edited 2008-04-03 11:55 (UTC)

I ran into the back of a Smart stopped at a zebra crossing

If the Smart hadn't been there, would you have overrun the crossing, though? Judging by the lack of damage, I'd guess not, which distinguishes you from this cyclist.

if you're in a car, for instance, people generally don't pull out in front of you (too often),

Pretty much a daily thing in my experience, my default condition when driving is "assume the other road users have no brain and are actively trying to make me claim on my insurance".

Most of the time it's "can't be arsed to wait" or (this is a mini-roundabout special) "what!!! You're going round it rather than straight across, commie!!!"

The red lights thing is particularly odd given that drivers run lights all the time - at a busy junction practically every change of the lights is accompanied by at least one car disregarding it. But apparently that's different somehow.

The difference I see is that when a car does it, it's (almost always) going through on the change. When cyclists do it, they seem to go through at any point of the cycle.

(Observational bias here - I don't live where you do.)

This means that the time you are most at risk from a rogue car is when the lights have just changed. As you don't usually know exactly when the opposing lights do change, you are already paying attention to the ends of the lines of traffic crossing, and since you won't be moving off before they have cleared, the effect is usually that you get delayed a bit.

By comparison, a car going through when the lights have been red for a while is incredibly dangerous. A cyclist going through at the same point is plain suicidal.

The modern road system being designed for cars, with pavements for pedestrians, cyclists do get a raw deal. As a motorist, I do try to give plenty of room, and I'm lucky to live somewhere where there don't seem to be hordes of insane cyclists.

Yes, quite. When cars do it, they are doing it at a point when the cross traffic is about to change state - it's a leap of faith in a heavy vehicle moving at high speed. When cyclists do it the state of the junction is not about to change, there's a much better opportunity to exercise judgement; and if they do get it wrong their vehicles are much less dangerous. So one wonders why the cyclists get the public opprobium?

It's obviously not plain suicidal, since London couriers do it all the time and, while their KSI rates are high, most of them get away with it all career. In particular a turn left on red is (I gather, I don't do it myself) not really dangerous at all, presumably why (in a rare episode of lucidity) Boris would like to legalise them.

Well in the last year alone
I've been hit by a cyclist barging thru a red light
My daughter was hit by a cyclist barging thru a red light
Witnessed a mother and child boarding a bus being hit by a cyclist who was between the bus and the footpath
Witnessed a cyclist almost go under a bus turning left at a junction which the cyclist tried to cross (while on the footpath)

In my experience many (not all) cyclists do not obey the rules of the road. It's very common place to see them going thru red lights at any time.
And yes there also many bad drivers as well.

One last word - I was driving thru Phoenix Park in Dublin one day, and on the radio was a talk about cyclist bad road behaviour. On each side of the main road there is a dedicated cycle lane - seperated from the road by about 12 ft, with a seperate foot path between. All with a large grass margin. I passed 7 cyclists on the road - not one was using the cycle paths.

I don't know about the Republic of Ireland, but in the UK cyclists are perfectly free to use the road if they choose and it is in no sense bad behaviour to do so.

"there also many bad drivers as well" and one of these groups of people kills thousands of people annually and injures tens of thousands in the UK alone. One does not. So why is the former group an afterthought here in your comment, I wonder?

Cyclists are obliged to use the cycle path is one is there so it is illegal for them to use the road in those circumstances.

It was not an afterthought, merely a comment that not all dangerous behaviour on the roads is down to cyclists, and yes I agree more people are killed by cars.

Mmm. I'm not surprised that people are unwilling to be shuffled onto what are invariably inferior and more dangerous facilities, of course - just gently appalled when the motoring lobby manages to pass such a self-serving law.

Certainly when the choice here has been between legal and safe I know what I've done - as, until recently, when only filament bulb rear lamps were permissible, never mind the enormously superior reliability of LEDs.

I think the reason that cyclists who cross against the light or do other things that risk their lives get so much schtik is because the automobile drivers know that they would never be able to live with themselves if they killed someone with their car, even if it *was* the victim's own fault.

As for turning left on red - it's legal in most states in the US to turn right on red after stopping, which is the same thing as turning left here. It does help traffic flow.

I certainly wouldn't want to live with myself after killing someone driving (although that is basically trivial next to the victim's lot) - not least because it would always partly be my fault because I would have chosen to drive - and I can think of only one means to be sure of not doing so; it's one reason I don't drive.

I know about right-on-red in the USA (IME it varies from "harmless" to "watch out, peds!" by state) but Boris' proposal for left-on-red is bicycles only, which might be a _bit_ less alarming...

In particular a turn left on red is (I gather, I don't do it myself) not really dangerous at all,

To cars, not really, but it's a very hostile thing to pedestrians. The US has almost universal right-on-red (since we drive on the right side) and what I've seen.

1) Nobody actually stops to make a right on red, as required. Indeed, they glance to see if a car is coming, then whip into the turn, occasionally hitting a pedestrian or cyclist who was finishing a green crossing.

2) The most ignored traffic control sign in the US is "Speed Limit XX." The second most is "No Right on Red." So, you now have people turning into protected crossings.

3) In dense traffic environments, you end up double feeding a section of road -- all the traffic on the green during turning right *and* all the traffic turning right on red. If the next section of road can't handle the extra flow, you get grid lock.

It might work, if drivers paid attention and followed the rules. In the US, these are two staggeringly bad assumptions.

Right-on-red really didn't buy us much in terms of safety or traffic flow.

Again - I'm talking about _bicycles_, which are also what Boris proposes to legalise right on left for. Not motor cars doing it.

Well, as a cyclist, I'm against it, because I know many cyclist's regard for traffic law. There will be places where a no-left-on-red will be validly post it, and they'll ignore it.

Of course, they ignore it now, but the answer there is simple enforcement. You are a wheeled vehicle, act like one. We'll all get along better if we all follow the same rules.

One problem here in the US is there is a large minority of drivers who are very hostile to cyclists. This, of course, leads to a large minority of cyclists being very hostile to drivers -- see things like Critical Mass.

I don't have a good answer here.

Cycles don't mix well with motor vehicles. Nor do pedestrians.

And pedestrians don't mix all that wonderfully with cyclists.

Pedestrians have specific places where motor vehicles don't go (well, excepting backstreets of Japanese cities when you get a white painted line rather than a kerb). Separate paths for cyclists and noone else would be the answer, if there's enough space to put them.

There rarely is.

Absent that, no, I don't see a good answer either.

"You are a wheeled vehicle, act like one."

Now that's a very curious thing to say, not that I haven't heard it before. Why should wheels be the determining factor, not mass and speed? Should skateboarders also behave like motor cars? Children with those stupid rolly things in their shoes? A horse moving at a gallop - no wheels, so I guess it should charge down the pavement?

There are already many cases here - like contraflow cycle lanes, or the mere fact that it is legal to cycle on a path not adjacent to a road where not explicitly forbidden - which treat bicycles and motor cars differently; a different rule for turning left would not be in any way unprecedented.

I certainly cannot understand why "the same people who now turn left on red everywhere will keep turning left where not permitted" is an argument for not permitting it in some places (it's not like we're making things _worse_ where it continues to be prohibited) - nor do I believe, with the current danger posed by driving, that traffic police should spend more time on cycling offences.

It's a shorthand, and not that clear, so in that, it fails. Bikes move much more like cars -- they take time to brake and to reach full speed, turning radii and rates drop as speeds increase, etc, and inertia vs. drag is very high -- so a bike or a car will coast a long time with no power or brakes applied.

Pedestrians are very different. They can stop very quickly, reach full speed in very short order, and can basically turn in any direction at any time (see a runner in American Football or Rugby for how dramatically a runner at full speed can change direction.)

So, the statement "You're a wheeled vehicle, act like one" means "You move like a car, not a person. Act like your driving a car, not walking on the sidewalk. And *don't* ride on the sidewalk"

The problem with going from no-left-on red anywhere to yes-left-on-red generally is that the public as a whole changes the default from no-left-on-red to yes-left-on-red, and thus, they're primed to make the turn, even when explicitly barred. It doesn't change those who make the turn regardless, but it will cause many more people to make the turn in the cases where they are explicitly barred.

The right answer to left-on-red in the occasional case is an explicit signal that tells you to go left on red. The problem in the US is the several states. In some states, an explicit right arrow automatically negates right on red, in others, it doesn't unless a sign is posted.

I was tempted to make a smart remark about moonwalking bears, but then I clicked through and saw the cyclist had actually died, poor bastard.

Indeed he did.

If the van hadn't been in the way, then there'd a pretty good chance that he'd have killed or badly injured whoever was on the crossing.

Since in an average year bike/ped collisions kill one person, why do you think that?

Simply that he managed to kill himself. There was enough energy in the collision to do so, and it was all in him. If he'd struck the pedestrian (who I presume to have existed, since the van was stopped), then even partitioning that energy equally, there could esily have been serious injury.

Assuming you are correct in your statement of statistics, we already know that such injuries do happen.

If you're unlucky enough a straight fall from bike height will kill you, so it is certainly not a given that he was travelling particularly quickly; and conversely it's very hard to get enough energy in to make killing a human _likely_ - consider that cars, with their much greater mass, flip from "death unlikely" to "death likely" between 20 and 30mph.

And indeed that a pedestrian existed (of course many pedestrian phases operate without human intervention) and was on the path that a narrow vehicle would have taken over the junction - well, not a safe assumption at all.

flip from "death unlikely" to "death likely" between 20 and 30mph.

At the risk of sounding a bit pedantic, that's actually between 30 and 40mph. I used to be a firefighter/paramedic, so that's one of the things that I do know a bit about. I have also actually witnessed a couple of people being struck by cars. It's an amazing sight.

Thank you. That's a convenient correction, because it supports the idea that getting enough kinetic energy into a bike to make it likely to kill someone is extremely unlikely.

What kills you isn't the speed, it's the fall -- you can't curl up and protect the head/neck when you're on a bike -- you're wrapped around a frame. So, bike falls often end up with a direct impact of the head on pavement.

This is why you *must* wear a helmet when you're cycling. There are way to many accidents that end in "and then your head hits the ground from a five foot fall." Without some cushioning to reduce the acceleration, you get hurt, badly.

A helmet won't save you from all accidents -- if you get Kiefered¹, you're probably toast regardless, but the vast majority of serious cycling accidents and deaths are because someone did something at moderate speed, the bike fell over, and they slammed their skull into the concrete or asphalt.

1) Kiefered. Getting hit by a large car at 60mph. RIP, Ken.

But being hit suddenly and unexpectedly by a fast moving cyclist is also likely to knock you over. If you don't expect the impact (and the quietness of bikes is a problem in that area), then you don't have much reaction time.

It's also very unusual for pedestrians to wear helmets.

Usually it's the other way round

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