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Old September 22nd 08, 01:11 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Peter Cole[_2_]
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Posts: 4,572
Default Maybe it's safer to run red lights than to wait for green lights.

SMS wrote:
This afternoon we pushed the button to activate the light on minor cross
street of a four lane road. The light changed, the traffic stopped, or
so we thought, and we proceed across. About half way across, a Toyota
Corolla blew through the red light at high speed, about 12 feet in front
of me. If I had been two seconds or so faster it'd have been the end.

So I was thinking that it really was much more dangerous to cross on the
green, trusting that the cross traffic would stop, than to simply wait
for a break in traffic and run the red light.

This is a map of the location in Cupertino:
"http://i34.tinypic.com/2n9etqs.jpg" and it's a heavily used crossing by
high school students.

I think the driver was focusing on the next traffic light, a few hundred
feet south, though the left lane of southbound traffic stopped and you'd
think she'd have wondered about why the traffic in the left lane wasn't
moving.


I'm not sure about the conclusion (safer to run), but given how little
protection a cyclist has in a MV collision, I think it's prudent to ride
more than defensively. One of my first lessons after moving to the big
city was to look both ways on one-way streets. I learned to assume that
traffic won't always be predictable (or lawful). A fender bender in a
car can easily be a fatality on a bike.

There are a few situations that I perceive to be riskier when complying
with the law. One is stopping in a mixed left/straight lane. I usually
won't wait for my left turn light, I'll just go ASAP, light or no, just
to get out of the kill zone.

I know of one particularly lethal crossing on a nearby bike path. The
cross traffic has a light, but also a yield sign for right turning.
Peds/cyclists in the crosswalk can easily assume that all traffic is
stopped for the light, but right turners can (and do) blow through
without even slowing. Since ped/cyclist traffic is crossing from the
right, motorists don't see them as they are looking left for merging
traffic (a common hazard in sidewalk cycling).

As a friend said when I complained about an oncoming driver not using
their turn signals: "I wouldn't have believed them anyway". Words to
live by.
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