Cycling UK Forum

Gisen wrote:Rosa Parks broke the law, was she wrong?

I think you'll find she was upholding her rights as a human being.
Somehow RLJing doesn't seem to come into the same category.

David - Birching would be a better alternative surely especially if carried out on the spot by my attractive and polite policewoman.

Isn't this encouragement (for some) rather than a punishment.............................?

MY problem with RLJs etc is that it is a breach of trust!


Much of the interaction on th road is based on exactly that "Trust"

I trust the vehicle at the junction to stop because it has a solid white line and not drive straigt out in front of me. I trust the driver ofthe vehicle overtaking to do so sensibly.

Fine - this may be misplaced in some cases, and you do need some caution, but flagrant repeated breaches are unacceptable.

The RLJer knowingly and deliberately undermines this status quo, and it is the edge of a slippery slope. If we accept RLJing for a cyslist, do we accept the same judgement for a car or van?

No - I trust thatwhen the light changes you will stop, giving me my due access to the junction. Breach thattrust and you are simply and irrevoacbly WRONG!

Cunobelin wrote:

Much of the interaction on th road is based on exactly that "Trust" ... (edited for space) .... Breach thattrust and you are simply and irrevoacbly WRONG!

for me your counter argument to my position on RLJ'ing started well but went downhill and ended up a bit ranty.

I would contend that the covenant of "trust" that you refer to was only maintained in the past by vigilant and stringent enforcement by the police. As traffic density has gone up and the chances of any of us getting pulled for an offence has gone down driving standards have declined. As a result the covenant of trust has been eroded to the point where, in my view, for all practical purposes it no longer exists today.

Why else would I practise defensive driving/riding when in car or on motorbike or indeed a bicycle? I cannot and do not trust other road users to be sober, awake, alert, not on the 'phone, or law abiding or even just averagely good at driving. Someone who rides a motorbike, like I do, and trusts a car driver to stop at a stop or give way line is normally called a 'casualty' fairly quickly thereafter.

If flagrant breaches of this trust are unacceptable why the general backlash against speed camera's, why are speed limits routinely ignored by many, most even, drivers on all classes of roads, why are amber lights routinely driven through? Clearly these breaches are acceptable to the vast majority of road users even though if you asked them the would probably say something different. Many of us talk one talk but walk a different walk.

I think your point of view is a noble one and in many ways admirable. I also think it is wrong and not grounded in the lived experience of sharing road space with other people.

If I breach that trust on my bicycle someone will be pissed off, if a car driver breaches that trust someone may welll be simply and irrevocably DEAD. I do not ever intend that someone to be me.

Personally, I think anyone who decides the law does not or should not apply to them is wrong.

You can excuse yourselves as much as you like doing so, but the fact is you are always going to be in the wrong.

If you are only going to recognise it as wrong if/when caught, more fool you, and perhaps the penalties should reflect the fact that you may only get caught once or twice out of the thousands of offences.

Doing something that many might do does not make doing it right, it just means many are doing it wrong.

If on a bike and you are a person that persistently ignores the laws of the road, you are no cyclist. You are a POB. If in a car and you do similar, you are no driver, you are a person directing a weapon. I wouldn't want either as a friend.

From a campaigning point of view, I used to find it very difficult to promote cycling and provision for it when cyclists were daubed as law-breakers. Yes, the same can be said for motorists but if we don't take the moral high-ground and obey the law (and highway code), then our position will continue to undermined.

I don't really understand why all these discussions seem to end in polarised views.

I filter through traffic - I'll always filter through traffic, it's one of the benefits of cycles (and motorcycles).

In filtering I invariably end up at the front of a set of lights, sometimes the layout of the junction is bike friendly, sometimes not.

To me the whole point is to make a decision when I get there based on MY safety.

Under normal conditions I very rarely 'RLJ' there's just no need, but occasionally I end up in a situation (sometimes forced on me by other road users) which in my view makes it safer to 'bend' the rules slightly. This might be RLJ, it might be a short cut across a pavement, I may even simply dismount and use a pedestrian crossing. But whatever I do it's based on the current situation and my safety.

I don't believe anyone can reasonably claim safety should be secondary to obeying traffic rules (rules which are designed to promote safety under NORMAL conditions).

Lets not forget one of the most common types of accidents at junctions is a cyclist being taken out by a left turning vehicle.

Safety first.
Rules second.

Lots of interesting points here, many I hadn't considered. This is how I feel about a few raised:

1) The RLJers on this thread seem to me be often framing their reasoning around it increasing their safety somehow. I'm sorry but I just don't buy that arguement.

2) If you want to say that you do it becuase you think you know better, fine - I can't argue with you on that. A reasoned arguement will never overcome ego (please note, I refer to the physchoanalyitcal ego - I am not accusing you of being egotistical ).

3) I also can buy into the arguement that bikes and cars are different and therefore our behaviour can, and should, be held to a different standard.

However, none of these arguements make a dent in the point Wildduck makes.

Oh, and @Gisen - I think thats a rather cheap comparison. Rosa Parks stood up (or rather sat down!) for the rights of an oppressed minority. This is NOT the same.

I'm sure this must be posted on here somewhere, perhaps it's time to post it again.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-450353/Women-cyclists-risk-death-dont-jump-red-lights.html

Another piece of quality journalism from the Mail Group

Dean wrote:Another piece of quality journalism from the Mail Group

Yep, but it's the research that's important rather than the dressing - perhaps someone can find it online???

Traffic law can be obeyed at the same time as applying common sense.

Filtering up by the side of any vehicle (legal practice) must be temepred with ensuring that you are visible and the driver of that vehicle is aware that you are there. Filtering up to the side of a lorry at lights is just asking for trouble.

Good cyclecraft is expecting drivers not to see you and expecting them to make horrendous errors; only in anticipating these will you avoid the majority of accidents (and all of the deadly ones).

I'd be surprised if reading the report led you to the same conclusions.

One direct reference to the TfL report is: "86% of women cyclists killed in London between 1999 and 2004 were in collision with a lorry. This compares with 47% for men". No mention of red lights there. The article goes on to detail the very sad deaths of several women cyclists in London, and indirectly quotes the study: "pedestrian guard railings may have contributed to three deaths as they leave cyclists with no escape route". Again, no mention of red lights.

Based solely upon this article, I don't think anyone could conclude that jumping red lights is safer than not doing so. You may conclude that HGVs are dangerous things to cycle around, and going by the mention of pedestrian guard railings, you could reasonably argue that undertaking is A Bad Idea. But that is as far as it goes.

If you want to justify running red lights on any other grounds than selfishness, you'll have to find better evidence than that.

Wildduck wrote:Traffic law can be obeyed at the same time as applying common sense.

Filtering up by the side of any vehicle (legal practice) must be temepred with ensuring that you are visible and the driver of that vehicle is aware that you are there. Filtering up to the side of a lorry at lights is just asking for trouble.

Good cyclecraft is expecting drivers not to see you and expecting them to make horrendous errors; only in anticipating these will you avoid the majority of accidents (and all of the deadly ones).

And if a lorry/van/car stops at the side of you? (because you're already there) The left turn you're intending to make is 3 or 4 meters away, they pull off and then pull across you to make their left turn (it's happened to me).

My point remains there are times when the safest option isn't the legal one.

I very rarely cycle 'through' a red light, but I nearly always wait several feet ahead of the lights to stop the type of scenario I outlined above. Technically I'm breaking the law, but I've never been pulled for it (even when the lead car is a police car).

kwackers wrote:

Wildduck wrote:Traffic law can be obeyed at the same time as applying common sense.

Filtering up by the side of any vehicle (legal practice) must be temepred with ensuring that you are visible and the driver of that vehicle is aware that you are there. Filtering up to the side of a lorry at lights is just asking for trouble.

Good cyclecraft is expecting drivers not to see you and expecting them to make horrendous errors; only in anticipating these will you avoid the majority of accidents (and all of the deadly ones).

And if a lorry/van/car stops at the side of you? (because you're already there) The left turn you're intending to make is 3 or 4 meters away, they pull off and then pull across you to make their left turn (it's happened to me).

Doesn't happen to me. I hold an assertive position on the road and vehicles (or rather the drivers) get the message. And if they don't, my position is such that htey couldn't get around me without crossing lanes.

You don't need to run a red light, yuo just need to nkow how to cycle safely.

The whole safety thing is an excuse for people who don't want to obey the rules of the road.

My point remains there are times when the safest option isn't the legal one.

kwackers wrote:
I very rarely cycle 'through' a red light, but I nearly always wait several feet ahead of the lights to stop the type of scenario I outlined above. Technically I'm breaking the law, but I've never been pulled for it (even when the lead car is a police car).

With you on this bit.

Not only are you preventing cars from getting ahead of you to turn across you (I assum you take the promary riding position in these cases) but you are visible to all lanes of traffic and not hidden amongst cars who might be ready to change lanes at the slightest gap (even if you are occupying the gap at the time).

A win/win?

You might have technicly broken the law, but the spirit of the law remains intact. You haven't crossed the junction (even if you have crossed the white line). I don't think anyone has the right to moan about that one

Gazza

workhard wrote:

Sares wrote:A lot of the bikes I see could use an MOT!

I like to see a well maintain bike but would you make it a mandatory annual test?

I don't think it would be cost-effective, but considering those riding bikes with no brakes etc., a mandatory inspection would improve safety.

With regard to RLJing, I think the reason it isn't appropriate is because the system here is based on predictability to ensure safety. There are other possibilities which don't depend so much on predictability (Hans Mondermann's Shared Spaces) which can also work but that is not what we have for the most part. Many road-users do not observe it as well as they should, but as I see it, that is what the various laws are there to uphold. There are lots of circumstances where you shouldn't trust others to be predictable in order to keep yourself safe, but by being unpredictable (not following the rules that others expect you to) you too are reducing the overall safety of the system.