RLJ This isn't particularly good news

[pjclinch]

However, videos of London cyclists seem to convey a picture of general lawlessness. Perhaps that is what happens when the bicycle becomes the dominant travel mode.

No, it's what happens when the infrastructure fails to live up to reality.

Or rather when traffic signalling designed for (and in dense urban spaces with heavy traffic required for) a rather unmanoeuvrable, space inefficient device is imposed on everything else.

Here's a video on showing a junction in Groningen that switches between motor-mode and bike-mode, with the motor phases alternating green red across different directions (because otherwise gridlock) while the bike phase is green for everyone at the same time. And it works, because the bikes don't take up much space, the riders can easily communicate and they're manoeuvrable to a degree approaching foot traffic.



In London that might "convey a picture of general lawlessness" but that's motornormativity for you: in Groningen it's official designed-in traffic management.

Pete.

[axel_knutt]

Somebody on Twitter pointed out to me a couple of days ago that whilst pedestrian injuries caused by motors are in decline, pedestrian injuries caused by bicycles are on the rise. They've gone up about 100% over the last 19 years, compared to a 50% increase in cycling activity in that period.

(Edited to clarify it's pedestrian injuries)

[drossall]

I wonder whether they are categorising illegal e-bikes as cycles or as motorbikes? They are the most obvious source of an increase.

Also, is this a one-year result? And are there enough bike-related injuries to be statistically significant? Otherwise, we might expect substantial variations year-on-year for no change in behaviour.

[jgurney]

videos of London cyclists seem to convey a picture of general lawlessness. Perhaps that is what happens when the bicycle becomes the dominant travel mode.

Cycling is very far from being the dominant travel mode in London.

[toontra]

videos of London cyclists seem to convey a picture of general lawlessness. Perhaps that is what happens when the bicycle becomes the dominant travel mode.

Cycling is very far from being the dominant travel mode in London.

Not in my experience (commuting in central London). I'd say it approaches 50/50, particularly at rush hour. Outside of peak times there's a steady flow of delivery e-bikes.

[rareposter]

Cycling is very far from being the dominant travel mode in London.

Depends on the location. Places like Blackfriars Bridge, cycling accounts for about 70% of people movements across the bridge. In the City of London, cycling makes up about 56% of all traffic at peak times.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgxek18z5eo

[awavey]

As vulnerable road users we have a particular interest in traffic laws being followed and enforced. That case is forever being undermined when cycling advocates act as apologists for rule breaking when the scofflaw in question happens to be riding a bike.

If you look at the ITV video - and imagine that instead of a pedestrian crossing of a cycleway we were looking at a toucan crossing on a busy road where 75% of the motor traffic was simply ignoring the red light - not just amber gambling and going through a fraction of a second after the lights change - but completely disregarding the light and blasting across even when cyclists were on the crossing.

its the thing that bugs me the most about the topic, given even a cursory time spent in central London observing things thesedays, its very clear it happens alot, and its not so much a RLJ issue so much as a just completely ignoring red lights issue.

and instead of just acknowledging that it happens, we get diverted down these endless whataboutery comebacks about well vehicles do more harm, and theres no increase in reported incidents, and its bad infra (seriously is that the latest excuse bad infra made me ride straight through a red light ?!?).

I always think those making those excuses should have a 15stone rider on an ebike ride into them at about 5-10mph, just so they can feel what its like, because I can assure you it hurts alot even if you dont end up being knocked over.

[pjclinch]

There's (at least) two sides to the "whataboutery".

One, which I have no time for either, is "A is much worse than B so B doesn't matter". I have no time for it because it excuses everything bar the worst possible behaviour.

For the second, think of it as a chief of police in a town with a couple of gangs whose members have taken to shooting at random people. One uses assault rifles and the other uses air guns. You need to stop both of them, but are you really going to give equal priority to stopping the air guns as you do the assault rifles? In "red light jumping" discourse we are actually at the point where many people are more worried about the air guns than the assault rifles, because we go out of our way to make excuses for drivers (motornormativity, which has now made its way into published peer reviewed scientific study).

And when it comes to addressing lawlessness at traffic controls part of it comes down to the design of traffic controls. Where they're all about motors and account for other modes as a grudging extra (e.g., pedestrians always having to wait a very long turn, crossing half a street to an island, waiting another long turn, and then crossing the rest) then it's not the biggest of surprises that the least patient will start bending the rules, which tends to lead to others bending the rules and so on and on. But if, as in NL, you treat other modes as equally important you seem to get a much higher level of conformance.

In summary, if you want non-motoring modes to behave like adults stop treating them like children with second (or worse) class infrastructure added as an afterthought where they are prone to cheat to get on, and if you want to improve road safety generally you need to start with the most danger-prone modes to show you're serious about safety rather than playing to the crowd.

Pete.

[Jdsk]

...
its the thing that bugs me the most about the topic, given even a cursory time spent in central London observing things thesedays, its very clear it happens alot, and its not so much a RLJ issue so much as a just completely ignoring red lights issue.

and instead of just acknowledging that it happens, we get diverted down these endless whataboutery comebacks about well vehicles do more harm, and theres no increase in reported incidents, and its bad infra (seriously is that the latest excuse bad infra made me ride straight through a red light ?!?).
...

Yes, it's whataboutery. Does the forum have some sort of quota for logical fallacies? And did whataboutery win out over cherrypicking for this year's nomination?

Jonathan

[mjr]

and instead of just acknowledging that it happens, we get diverted down these endless whataboutery comebacks about well vehicles do more harm, and theres no increase in reported incidents, and its bad infra (seriously is that the latest excuse bad infra made me ride straight through a red light ?!?).
...

Yes, it's whataboutery. Does the forum have some sort of quota for logical fallacies? [...]

Whataboutery is misdirection, often deliberate, but not a logical fallacy.

Pointing out that infrastructure that rewards lawbreaking and penalises compliance results in increased lawbreaking and should be replaced is neither an excuse nor whataboutery. When that infrastructure also puts cyclists in more danger, it really ought to be pointed out.

It is simply ridiculous that, in some places, cycle traffic is expected to stop at four dumb red lights, often in a position at relatively high risk of errant drivers hitting them with a vehicle, while motorists have only one red light at most and that's often sensor-reactive, yet the highways authority claims to want to a shift from motoring to cycling. Well, clearly the junction designers don't! This avoidable contributing factor should not be allowed to be ignored by those who would rather demonise active travel.

[mattheus]

Yes, it's whataboutery. Does the forum have some sort of quota for logical fallacies? And did whataboutery win out over cherrypicking for this year's nomination?

Jonathan

If I say
"there are more important things in road-safety than RLJs and pavement riding by cylsits"
i am not saying:
"RLJs by cyclists are absolutely fine, in every cirrcumstance."

Clear?

[mjr]

If anyone would like to see modern traffic lights, here's an explainer, showing loads of features that I've never seen in the UK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knbVWXzL4-4

[Bmblbzzz]

Picking up on the last point in that video, the conversion of signalised junctions to roundabouts and other types, we're seeing both this trend and its opposite in the UK. For instance, a complicated gyratory system near Bristol Temple Meads station was converted to lights a few years ago, while about the same time, the lights in the middle of City Road were removed. The motivation for the former was to simplify traffic patterns and release building land – roundabouts are very space inefficient; for the latter, it was to reduce local air and noise pollution while improving pedestrian and cyclist safety – replacing the signals at a low-traffic junction (which had previously been a much busier road, hence the signals) with a design which reduces traffic speeds and gives clear priorities.

[Pete Owens]

If anyone would like to see modern traffic lights, here's an explainer, showing loads of features that I've never seen in the UK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knbVWXzL4-4

Getting back to the subject of the tread... In terms of cyclists contempt for pedestrian safety it seems that Dutch cyclists respect for the law is every bit as bad as Londoners.

While the narrator is banging on about the pedestrian friendliness of the traffic lights he fails to notice the zebra crossing across the cycleway in the foreground - which cyclists appear to pay as little attention to as the London cyclists pay to the signals in the ITV video. For example scroll to 6:30.

[Pete Owens]

The motivation for the former was to simplify traffic patterns and release building land – roundabouts are very space inefficient; for the latter,

This is not the case. Roundabouts are more efficient in terms of real estate required to keep a certain volume of traffic moving. Traffic lights are very inefficient because at any one instant most (or even all) of the approaches are held at red - meaning you have to increase the number of lanes approaching the junction to compensate for the fact that each lane is only in use for a fraction of the time.

The reason that some roundabouts get signalised or replaced by a conventional set of lights is that roundabouts work very badly once the capacity is exceeded. What tends to happen is that a dominant traffic flow can end up completely blocking traffic coming from other approaches (this is particularly bad if the dominant flow is turning right). Traffic lights will reduce the capacity of the junction, but allocate that capacity among the approaches so everyone gets a turn.