Should Cyclists be Allowed to Blow Go Through Stop Signs?

Good luck pedestrians!

I once came VERY close to hitting a cyclist I didn't see with my car because he ran a stop light on Broadway in NYC at night. I felt awful, and was the recipient of an impressive display of lewd gestures from the biker as he rode alongside me for few moments.

It was only after running through the incident in my head a few times that I began to forgive myself as I realized that not only was he blowing right through a stop light on an extremely busy street, but he was doing so at night, without any sort of light to alert me to his presence. Then I got a bit miffed at his x-rated sign language.

The point: as long as bicyclists and cars have to share roads in cities, they should have to follow the same rules for the safety of everyone involved.

In no way are bicycles pedestrians. They are vehicles, and must follow the rules of the road, whatever they are. This is the ONLY WAY for cyclists to be safe on the road, is to behave predictably. I say all this as a regular bicycle commuter.

Being able to blow through red lights in NYC is one of the best feelings. Either way, it's breaking the law whether it's a pedestrian jaywalking / cross-against-the-crosswalk or a vehicular moving violation. It's not enforced at all though -- maybe because the cops don't know how to treat it or they have better things to do.

With stop signs, it's a bit of a gray area. I see no problem and I think bikes should be able to blow through stop signs. Essentially, bikes should be treated as vehicles sometimes and as pedestrians other times. It's a bit of a double standard, but they deserve it with the lack of bike paths everywhere and republican congressmen calling it a 19th century technology and all.

Perhaps we could redefine stopping of a bicycle as bicyclist stops pedalling and looks both ways and yields if a vehicle is allready taking the intersection. I commute 10 miles a day in SF on a bike and if I had to come to a complete stop at every intersection, I would add a painful hour to my commute.

i agree with *rolling* through stop signs, but not blowing through them. as far as stop lights go. I follow traffic laws as a commuter, but if there is no traffic, i'll go through it. but then, that is the law here in Idaho, so I'm in line...

I live in a semi-urban, beach neighborhood, and cyclists here ride on and off sidewalks, ignore stop signs and traffic lights, ride down alleys, and basically use any paved area as a bike path, The result? People driving cars, or even people walking, are constantly trying to guess how to avoid colliding with them.

I wish there were clear, enforceable rules about cyclists so that all of us could better ensure their safety and our own.

If bicyclists, horses, pedestrians, ot any other "traveler" are using public roads, the same rules should apply. People are not permitted to leave theri excrement on the road, then why are horses? Cars travelling at dangerously low speeds, impedeing traffic are pulled over and ticketed, but not horse riders, bicyclists, or roller-skiiers. All the while, only motorists are paying for the new roads all these travelers use. I respoect communties who invest parks and recreation dollares into road and traffic improvements that encourage responsible use of roads by non-motorists, and hope that the trends are followed by other communities and respected for use by all.

Consider the example of a red light. I think it is safer for the cyclist, upon seeing that the intersection is clear, to start crossing the intersection through a red light, and get out in front of traffic where they are visible. If they wait for the green light, then they are trying to accelerate at the same time as the rest of the automobile traffic, which accelerate much faster, and this is a more dangerous situation in my opinion. I think this is sort of the idea of the green bike boxes they're putting in Portland, so the bikes can get out in front of traffic and be seen. Of course, blindly running a red light without looking for cross-traffic is a dangerous mistake, but if it is clear then I think it is safer for the cyclists to be allowed to go through a red.

Same idea with stop signs; they should be treated as yields. As long as you check for cross-traffic first, it is safer to maintain a steady speed that is closer to that of the regular traffic flow than to be constantly stopping and accelerating.

Austin and stradric :

exactly. I live in Boulder, and I've seen a few too many cyclists run through a red light and almost cause accidents. It's cyclists like that that give the rest of us a bad name. But Stop signs are a different matter.

On my commute is an all way stop where a very small suburban road Ts with a larger road. Stopping there would be meaningless, and I never do. I just always hope that the car i hear behind me when I run it isn't a police car...

One of the biggest things that needs to be considered here is who benefits from stop signs, and for what purpose?

I would argue that a STOP sign was installed at intersections primarily for the benefit of motor vehicle traffic safety. If roads were designed for bicycles, I would contend that there would be far fewer STOP signs about, due mainly to the relatively slower speed that most cyclists ride at and the relatively much greater effort needed to get a bicycle starting from a stationary position. Due to these reasons, I feel that laws should reflect the different physical limitations placed on bicycles than motor vehicles, and allow cyclists to move through a STOP sign without stopping, so long as they are not recklessly endangering anyone else.

On the other hand, I would argue that a full traffic signal should be respected by cyclists, since these are usually found on major intersections and the mentality of vehicular drivers seems to be not to pay close attention to the possibility of someone crossing in front of their green light passage. However, I would contend that blinking reds should be treated as STOP signs above.

Of course, it would just be great if cities closed off certain streets for exclusive use of bikes and pedestrians (with obvious delineations segregating the two, coupled with strict enforcement of both sets of people to follow the rules).

I think "blow through" implies going through an intersection without slowing or looking.

The law would merely transform stop signs into yield signs and red lights into stop signs for cyclists. As a cyclist, I already do this, legal or not.

Heck, I even do this in my vehicle if no one is around.

In order for the system to work.. everyone needs to adhere to the same rules.

I personally saw a biker almost get nailed today due to this exact thing. The simply proceeded straight through a red light... the cross lanes where clear... not the right turn lane with a green arrow. They cut off a car turning right.

I really don't understand why it is that bicyclist do this. It seems arrogant in my opinion.

Having been a long time biker, driver, and pedestrian; I'm totally frustrated by any people who feel the rules of the road don't apply to them. In Boston and Cambridge there seems to be a group of pedestrians who want to test their invincibility by just wandering in to traffic without looking. YES the have the right of way, I know. It's just that this lack of respect gets reflected back and fourth between the car drivers and the unfortunate victims.

When I bike to work I stop, or almost stop, at lights and check for crossing traffic. If the road is clear I will proceed. More and more, I'm seeing bikers breeze through intersections just in front of moving cars. If they get hit while running a red light, first I will stop and provide whatever first aid help I can for the victim, then I will provide an accurate report of what happened.

I grew up in NYC, and before I was allowed to roam around the city on my own, I had to learn that crossing the street was hazardous. Taxis in particular drove at speeds that gave no margin for inattentiveness or arrogance. When I bicycled to my grade school, up and down Broadway, the thing that kept me alive was respect for the rules of the road, and tongue in cheek belief that every car was aiming to hit me.

Be safe...

I actually got pulled over by a cop last week for slowly rolling through a stop sign on my bike. At a pedestrian crosswalk behind a school. On a Sunday. With no pedestrians around for a quarter mile in any direction. Sometimes it's hard not to talk back to cops.

I would echo Andrew’s sentiments exactly, as I read the above post about San Francisco, no is proposing or advocating letting bikes run through red lights. The suggestion involves stop signs. I think we could be rational about it and choose which stop signs bikes could blow through, such as allowing it in residential neighborhoods (with additional explicit signage on the stop signs) but forbidding it where neighborhood streets cross busier arteries.

I hope the cops (maybe bicycle cops!) crack down on the scofflaw bicyclists in Kimba’s neighborhood. More and more people are going to start commuting by bicycle, so the stupid kids are going to have to grow up and learn to obey the laws. The rest of us don’t want to be blamed for your mistakes (hey you kids, get off of my lawn).

Heck no this should be law

I am sick of the bike riders who can't make up their minds whether to follow traffic or padestrian rules of the road.
I almost hit one biker myself when they suddenly decided they were a padestrian and pulled out infront of me when I was already turning (legally from a stop with indicators going and having checked and seen a stationary bike) on a red light.

Lets make it one way or another and make it law. Right now it puts everyone in danger when bike riders change their minds

Heck no this should be law

I am sick of the bike riders who can't make up their minds whether to follow traffic or padestrian rules of the road.
I almost hit one biker myself when they suddenly decided they were a padestrian and pulled out infront of me when I was already turning (legally from a stop with indicators going and having checked and seen a stationary bike) on a red light.

Lets make it one way or another and make it law. Right now it puts everyone in danger when bike riders change their minds

Superbad,

I got a written warning on Mass Ave. in Cambridge for not completely stopping at a light. I was a couple of blocks from work and there were no cars coming from the side street so I went through.

I didn't mind because just three weeks earlier I saw a helmetless guy on a track bike cut off a car in this exact spot. He was inches from a wrecked bike and a few bruises. I think there were complaints about this spot, and it's one block from a police station, so I'm not surprised the police were there.

No way - as a pedestrian in SF, I come close to being blindsided every single day by cyclists blowing through lights and stop signs. Shouldn't our safety count for something too?

A really poor sensational headline, Treehugger. Save such headlines for US Today.

Anyway, cyclists should be allowed to proceed through stop signs without stopping if they first check for and yield to traffic that has the right of way. This is the behaviour of most cyclists anyway and is perfectly safe if cyclists watch for and yield to the traffic.

Doing this safes cyclists energy and allows them to go further and faster with less physical effort and sweat which is critical for encouraging more people to cycle.

bob - those pedestrians in Somerville seem to have no respect for drivers on the road! I completely agree with you - it's the bikers responsibility to yield for their own safety. If they go through an intersection without stopping they subject themselves to being just another squirrel crossing the road.

It should be the biker's priority to be seen. This can be as easy as making eye contact with a driver or using hand signals to show which direction they are heading. It seems to be more scary driving and being alert for bikers on the road than it is to be a biker looking out for cars.

Bikers at night should be required to wear LED lamps. There are far too many accidents and near misses from not being able to see a biker on the road.

Very timely, here is a report from today's Portland Oregonian (portland is one of the West Coast's most pro-biking communities) about the interpretation of which rules bicycles have to follow - leading to blows between parties, and a mob of cyclists teaming up on one of their own. Worth a look.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/07/angry_bicyclists_gang_up_on_th.html

Might as well make it legal since they already do it and the cops never bother to write them tickets. I lost track of the number of times I saw cyclists in SF run stop signs right in front of the SFPD. Laws should only exist if the police have the resources and willingness to enforce them and prosecutors are willing to take the cases. Otherwise they're completely pointless.

Fix your headline, please. When did Treehugger go the way of the supermarket tabloid?

No one is arguing that cyclists should be allowed to "blow through" stop signs as your headline implies. That would be a very dangerous practice indeed. The proposed simply exempts cyclists from coming to a full and complete stop as currently required. Most cars don't even do this.

Why must it be so black-and-white between pedestrians and vehicles? There are already places where bicycles can go that motor vehicles cannot (bike paths) and vice versa (freeways). An exemption here would hardly be unprecedented.

I fully support this bill as long as it explicitly states what constitutes a safe crossing (say, when there is no cross traffic and at a speed of no more than 10mph, for example). Maybe then the SFPD would actually enforce the law and ticket cyclists who really do blow through intersections at unsafe speeds.

It reminds me of one (politically incorrect!) joke from Soviet Union:
Soviet Government passed new benefit for retired people: Retired people are now allowed to cross the street on the Red light.

As an experienced cyclist of over 25 years, I know that cycling is a very dangerous sport and means of transportation. Cycling has always topped the list of sports fatalities, far above other dangerous sports like hang gliding, rock climbing, sky diving, scuba, etc.

I live in Austin, which has a large community of cyclists. I am always reading about yet another local cyclist killed in the news. An experienced cyclist was just killed a few days ago by a woman in a minivan who claimed the sun was in her eyes when she ran him over from behind.

The point is when you are sharing a road with distracted drivers, there are never enough precautions to keep you safe. Reducing any of these precautions is extremely foolish. If anything, cyclists should be held to a higher level of safety instead of allowing them to ignore laws written for their own safety. I say ticket those idiots and make them go through a safety training similar to defensive driving.

Bicyclists should follow the same rules and be ticketed for violating them. I've already had too many near hits with bicyclists blowing through stop signs.

cyclocross:

You are totally right about enforcement. My neighborhood (Pacific Beach, CA) has signs posted everywhere explicitly excluding cyclists from the sidewalk, and the police completely ignore violators. Why bother posting hundreds of signs if the law isn't going to be enforced?

I warn visitors when they come - look for cyclists everywhere. It makes driving here in the summer a challenge.

I realize that drunk beach-goers aren't representative of all cyclists, btw - a point my husband, a very conscientious cyclist, would be quick to make.

Your supposed to stop at stop signs when your on a bike? hahaha!

Well, considering that I currently abide by those rules anyway, and the cops i run red lights in front of don't seem to care less, we might as well make it official...

As a bike commuter I follow the rules of the road as if I'm driving a car. I think it should remain that way. The closest thing I do to running stop lights is occasionally one of the stop lights on my way home does not sense when I am there. If no cars are infront of me or do not pull up behind me I have ridden through the light. I probably should walk my bike across the street instead though.

The problem with bikes running through stop signs at multi-way stops is that, to car drivers, it's unexpected behavior. And doing the unexpected is what causes accidents. And any time a two-wheeled vehicle, human-powered or otherwise, goes up against a car in an accident, the two-wheeler loses big-time.

I realize bicyclists want to conserve their momentum. With current gas prices, so do car drivers. If we could spare the land, we should convert 'em all to roundabouts, IMHO (though this requires training for the majority of drivers who've never seen one).

I'm getting a little sick and tired of UBERcyclists and ranting car-haters wanting stuff both ways for cyclists.

I fully recognize that cyclists have a much scarier time on any road, because they're naturally less visible and less protected than any of the cars they're coming up against, but at the same time, there's this collective voice out there that seems to be asking to be protected and exempted from responsibility at the same time.

Hazards in the road (be it a stray dog, a car door, a pothole, or my errant child) are things cyclists have to watch out for, not every other human being WITH a dog/car/child, JUST in case a cyclist is nearby.

I'm not saying that I don't have a responsibility to look before entering an intersection, or making sure my kid doesn't run in front of a bike (any more than a car), but a cyclist has to be just as responsible for choosing a less "safe" method of transportation, and recognizing that it means they have to be MORE careful.

And you can't say "give me access to roads" and then "I'm not a vehicle". Pick one or the other.

A comment for Charlene Johnson above,

Although motorist user fees (fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees) fund most (but not all) interstate highway expenses, funding for local roads (the roads pedestrians and cyclists use) originates mainly from general taxes.

Since pedestrians and cyclists don't do as much damage to the roads as a car, arguably these nonmotorists are paying more for their share of the roadway.

I am with Umlud. Our road system is designed for the convenience of cars. As we transition to transportation infrastructure that is designed for all users, some of the rules will need to change. Cyclists selectively ignoring stop signs is part of the transition to a more effective transport system.

I think there's a huge difference between blowing a stop sign, and yielding at a stop sign. A lot of cyclists I see blowing stop signs are going as much as 50km/h and don't even look. I've almost been hit by other bikes while biking through a 4 way. I think it would be difficult to have a law like this, even though I go through stop signs without stopping (very carefully, and I do slow down, and yield when necessary). If you make it law, expect people to push it even further. I've seen quite a few accidents where the bike is at fault due to blowing stop signs.

I think there's a huge difference between blowing a stop sign, and yielding at a stop sign. A lot of cyclists I see blowing stop signs are going as much as 50km/h and don't even look. I've almost been hit by other bikes while biking through a 4 way. I think it would be difficult to have a law like this, even though I go through stop signs without stopping (very carefully, and I do slow down, and yield when necessary). If you make it law, expect people to push it even further. I've seen quite a few accidents where the bike is at fault due to blowing stop signs.

As a regular bicycle rider, I find cyclists who can't be bothered to hit the brakes really rather frightening. In Eugene, we recently had a death that could have been prevented if the cyclist had followed the rules of the road (that apply to any vehicle -- in Oregon, bicycles are considered vehicles).

http://blogs.eugeneweekly.com/taxonomy/term/1491

I have been pondering whether or not I should be allowed to start cycling on a red light when there is no traffic, and often I'm behind another cyclist at a light and they chose to proceed and I don't. At this point, if I'm at the light and sitting by a car, I wait... I don't want to make that driver think that all bicyclists are not law abiding. But if I'm at a desserted intersection I'll go ahead after coming to a complete stop. It's really not that hard to get going again, and in the case of the video in SF, that bicyclist was going DOWNHILL! For crying out loud... use your legs, get a little resistance training workout and stop feeling so freakin' special that you're riding a bicycle. When I see cyclists ignore the rules and put pedestrians or themselves and vehicles in danger it really makes me sad because I think cyclists should be ambassadors of this form of transportation, not moving demonstrations of "what not to do."

Bicyclists are not pedestrians! I can't count how many times I've nearly been nailed by a bicyclist speeding through a stop sign or red light while I'm trying to cross the street on a walk signal. My friend, an avid runner, was sent to the ER after a careless bicyclist collided with her because he was biking on the sidewalk.

If bicyclists want to be able to legally drive through red lights and stop signs, drivers with a green light/the right of way should not be held responsible for colliding with them when they inevitably do so. Newsflash--Cars can come out of nowhere and tend to accelerate to catch green lights.

With or without a law, you makes your choices and you takes your chances. It's risk vs benefit.

I bicycle commute everyday and I think this is a horrible idea.

Most of the bicyclist killed, are killed running stopsines. Leagalizing it would not make this any better.

I think it would be unfair to other road uses if bikes were granted this.

If you want to promote bikeing,