The Chainlink

Stop sign sting

I saw one of the stop sign stings for bikers this morning on Wells Street.  It was pretty obvious as to what it was, but people were still blowing through the stop sign.

 

Anyone here get caught?  Any thoughts on this?

 

One thing that I thought was funny was this girl who passed me while I was stopping, and then was flagged over and still tried to go.  The police stepped in front of her...it looked like she was going to make a break for it, but she ended up stopping.

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Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on August 18, 2010 at 9:50pm
I'm not all that interested in the success or failure of some "movement" built around the concept of anarchism, but I will second that anarchy is just a system of organization that does not rely on hierarchy.
I love it when it seems to work, as it often does for brief flashes on CCM, and reject the use of the term anarchy to describe disorder and chaos-- just not accurate.

Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer! said:
(SORT OF OFF TOPIC) Dug,

I'm not sure if you know this but Anarchism has a long history of being a legitimate non-authoritarian truly democratic model for political organizating. The lack of law is not Anarchism. For further explanation click the links or watch this:


And it has actually existed as a model in our history most dramatically in the 1936 Spainish Revolution where there was a real Anarchist soceity,

They don't cover this in the video but the reason the Anarchists revolution was crushed wasn't due to an internal failure. In fact the new model of organization ended up being far more productive than anywhere else Europe at the time. Rather than ending by internal failure the revolution was subverted by an agreement between the Capitalists and Communists to no longer supply the Catalonia region with steel for bullets. When they cut of the supply they put a nose around the neck of the revolution.
Permalink Reply by Vondo on August 18, 2010 at 11:22pm
I have a hard time being convinced that in an all-bike or mostly-bike city, fewer road controls would be needed. IMO, the basic need for traffic control would carry over from cars to bikes; unsafe, irresponsible operators.

I'm sure many of us here have witnessed cyclists at bike-centric events like CCM and Bike the Drive operating their bikes irresponsibly and unsafely. There are always those who choose to ride their own personal TT, weave unpredictably, pass too close or without warning etc. Without the threat of potentially colliding with an automobile, I can only imagine these types of riders pushing it even more.

Also I think it is a weak argument to say bikes do less damage. Break a leg or an arm or sustain a head injury in a bike on bike collision, and you might be sidelined for weeks or worse. How, in an all-bike city, would you conduct your business with a broken limb and no busses or cars to get around on?
Permalink Reply by payton on August 18, 2010 at 11:57pm
Word. Stop signs didn't even exist until there were so many cars that they ended up running into each other.

Every single pedestrian in every single crosswalk now is a moving STOP sign. When is that going to get enforced?

Eddie said:
Cars suck, and if there weren't so many, we wouldn't need all these stop signs.
Permalink Reply by payton on August 19, 2010 at 1:10am
America's traffic death rates are three to four times higher than in Denmark or the Netherlands, and urban cycling rates there are 30 or 40 times higher -- but stop signs are incredibly rare in both countries. Stoplights, in my experience, are comparatively rare and yield signs are commonplace. I described cycling across Copenhagen recently as "an effortless revelation" since you really don't think all that much about stopping. The big streets are timed for bike travel, and there isn't very much car traffic to yield for since everyone's on a bike and taking that much less space. The mass transit network is plush but not at all frequent and kind of underutilized.

This has nothing to do with having exceptionally law-abiding and polite societies, either; per capita, more total crimes are actually reported to the police in either country than in the USA. Nor are these theoretical constructs: they're functioning places (Danes are the world's happiest people!) that are just about as rich as us, it's just that they're much less likely to violently die. Why do Americans continue to put up with this bloodshed?

Vando said:
I have a hard time being convinced that in an all-bike or mostly-bike city, fewer road controls would be needed. IMO, the basic need for traffic control would carry over from cars to bikes; unsafe, irresponsible operators.
Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on August 19, 2010 at 1:21am

Permalink Reply by Dan Korn on August 19, 2010 at 2:16am
Tank-Ridin' Ryan said:
A minor fender bender for a motorist can result in death for a bicyclist.
Sorry, I'm really not trying to be sarcastic, but - WTF are you talking about? What is a "minor fender bender" on a bicycle, and how would it kill anyone? Unless you're talking about a collision WITH A CAR, which I would call a car crash. I certainly wouldn't call a fatal crash a "fender bender."

Yes, cyclists and pedestrians get killed in car crashes all the time. Car crashes kill over 40,000 Americans every year, and they are the number one killer of children in the U.S. But it's exceedingly rare to have a fatality in a bicycle-on-bicycle crash, or in a bicycle-on-pedestrian crash.

The only relevant question here is, if you run a stop sign, are you more likely to kill someone if you do it while riding a bicycle or while driving a car?

In the absence of cars, hardly any bicycle crash will result in a fatality or serious injury. It's the addition of cars into the mix that makes things dangerous for everyone. That's why the enforcement has to be focused on their drivers.

Yes, I know that it's just as illegal to blow a stop sign on a bike as it is in a car. But that's not relevant to my point.
Permalink Reply by Doug Haynes on August 19, 2010 at 8:36am
I'm aware of much of this; I just don't like it.

I'm a fan of the playful despot or benevolent dictator political models.

Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer! said:
(SORT OF OFF TOPIC) Dug,

I'm not sure if you know this but Anarchism has a long history of being a legitimate non-authoritarian truly democratic model for political organizating. The lack of law is not Anarchism. For further explanation click the links or watch this:


And it has actually existed as a model in our history most dramatically in the 1936 Spainish Revolution where there was a real Anarchist soceity,

They don't cover this in the video but the reason the Anarchists revolution was crushed wasn't due to an internal failure. In fact the new model of organization ended up being far more productive than anywhere else Europe at the time. Rather than ending by internal failure the revolution was subverted by an agreement between the Capitalists and Communists to no longer supply the Catalonia region with steel for bullets. When they cut of the supply they put a nose around the neck of the revolution.

And finally this nice music break...
Permalink Reply by Doug Haynes on August 19, 2010 at 8:48am
Sometimes I am ignorant.

If you do not think that anti-bike people read forums like this you need to think again. I have been involved in land use advocacy movements where the material used against us came directly from message boards like this one. You would be surprised how what seems like a insignificant comment on a forum like this can become the center of an argument against you.

I feel the need to carry on with stuff like this because I am an advocate of compromise and the middle ground. I feel that extremist views only make practical solutions more difficult to achieve for a variety of reasons. Not only that but as a driver and somebody who auto enthusiast it ticks me off when I see generalizations and harsh words because I'm a driver and that is ME you are talking about... Oh, I know it is not me specifically but it upsets me just as much when I see somebody who is anti-bike generalize about cyclists as well.

I would not put a smiley face because I am not a smiley person; maybe I'll bring back pimpin' Redd Foxx and see if all of a sudden everyone loves me.

It seems out of place coming from me but if people stopped being so full of hate and were willing to give a little ground, compromise and have realistic expectations of what changes can actually be made right now it would be easier to enact change. Things would go smoother if we looked at stuff in a more positive light as well; the police enforcing the stop sign for bikes could be seen as a acknowledgment of bikes as traffic by the police and the interaction could be viewed as a opportunity to talk to an officer about how they could make our lives better by enforcing other laws for cars such as bike lane parking and such...

H3N3 said:
notoriousDUG said:
There will be less but they still need to be there and I am just taking it to an extreme to make a point.
I support the bicycle rolling stop for side streets, stop signs and the like as well as treating signals like stop signs or a yield. It is an issue of city planning and the cities have already been planned and society has been programed and if we want to change the standard plan in the future and update societies programing the 'CARS SUCK!' 'FUCK THE COPS!' 'YOUR EVIL IF YOU DRIVE!' rhetoric needs to stop, people need to respect drivers and otherwise put goodwill out there to help convert people.

I think you're confusing communication within a relatively like-minded community with an advocacy effort (this is where I'm supposed to use the word "ignorant" by your protocol, I think, but I don't think you are). Just because someone expresses here that cars need to go away, are the root of many of our problems, adversely affect the quality of life in our city, should come with a cost for use adequate to offset the cost to society etc., doesn't mean they're going to make a similar announcement in the lunch line at work, or at their family picnic. In fact, most of us don't have the freedom to do so in such situations, so one of the things we participate in a message board like this for is to be able to express such views without being bullied into submission.
Why not try to be a little more tolerant of the message that cars NTGA? Why is it so threatening to you? Why do you feel such a strong need to take this forum away from us?
What would happen if you swapped Mr. Yuck out for a smiley face? Can we try it, just for one day at least?
Permalink Reply by Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer! on August 19, 2010 at 9:47am

Arguing on the internet is pointless and I am sick of seeing this same conversation over and over again.

So let's man up and change the conversation to something more productive like, "What can be done?" If you're on the side of the argument that says the laws should be changed to account for the unique characteristics of bicycle riding then the first step would be to determine which organizations already exist in Illinois who are like minded or are actively trying to implement something like the Idaho Stop. Once that is determined those of us who have the gumption should then create a committee to try and change the bicycling laws in Illinois to be more reasonable. To do this we would have to either integrate or align ourselves with the various organizations already determined. We'll have to raise money and begin lobbying politicians. This isn't an unreasonable proposal either, after all, we are talking about bike law. It's do-able. So who wants to change some laws?

PS. Nothing wins an Internet fight like actually doing something in the real world to affect change. It pisses your naysayers off far more than anything you could possibly do online. It's possibly the number two reason I am so politically active. ; )

Permalink Reply by Duppie on August 19, 2010 at 9:52am
You are on to something.
I did grow up in a town of about 6000 people in the Netherlands and the general lack of traffic signs is enlightening. Last time I visited the town I do not remember seeing a single stop sign.
To put this in perspective: This town is nothing like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, or any of the other big European cities that often get mentioned (and often are held up as a beacon, but in reality are so far above Chicago that striving to emulate them is naive at best). I think (no real proof here) that cycling rates are well below 20%. There is not a single bike specific piece of traffic infrastructure in the entire town.

So to say that high cycling rates caused the decline in stop signs is not necessarily correct. Western European countries have been able to remove stop signs by a consistently applying right of way laws. If you come from the right, you do get the right of way, whether you are a car, a bike or pretty much any other mode of transportation. So if no traffic is coming from the right, a car can move through the intersection at 30 mph (the max speed in most residential areas in the Netherlands) Couple that with:
• rigid enforcement (In the Netherlands drivers do get ticketed for moving violations on average once a year. Even as bicyclists you didn’t ignore red lights, since the risk is too high),
• a traffic style that I think is a lot more aggressive than in Chicago (you have the right of way? You take it, damn it, even if that means cutting of the other traffic),
• and a much better drivers education system that here in the US (I had to take the theoretical test twice and the practical exam three times, and I was about average),
• road design that channels car traffic onto major streets, thereby making residential areas low traffic areas
and it leads to a traffic situation that is a lot more predictable and better flowing

This would be a hard thing to pull off in the US and in Chicago specifically, since generally our traffic design isn’t based on right-has-the-right-of-way. On top of that we as bicyclists would have to stop acting as the outlaws that we pretend to be, and give that car coming from the right the right of way. That last part might be hard


payton said:
America's traffic death rates are three to four times higher than in Denmark or the Netherlands, and urban cycling rates there are 30 or 40 times higher -- but stop signs are incredibly rare in both countries. Stoplights, in my experience, are comparatively rare and yield signs are commonplace. I described cycling across Copenhagen recently as "an effortless revelation" since you really don't think all that much about stopping. The big streets are timed for bike travel, and there isn't very much car traffic to yield for since everyone's on a bike and taking that much less space. The mass transit network is plush but not at all frequent and kind of underutilized.
This has nothing to do with having exceptionally law-abiding and polite societies, either; per capita, more total crimes are actually reported to the police in either country than in the USA. Nor are these theoretical constructs: they're functioning places (Danes are the world's happiest people!) that are just about as rich as us, it's just that they're much less likely to violently die. Why do Americans continue to put up with this bloodshed?
Vando said:
I have a hard time being convinced that in an all-bike or mostly-bike city, fewer road controls would be needed. IMO, the basic need for traffic control would carry over from cars to bikes; unsafe, irresponsible operators.
Permalink Reply by Duppie on August 19, 2010 at 9:57am
That's a good point you make there, Dug. It's too bad that you don't apply this mantra too yourself. I've repeatedly seen posts from you that are so full of profanity and personal attacks that hate doesn't even begin to describe it.

If you really think that the hate needs to stop on this forum, maybe you can start by setting the good example that others can follow?

notoriousDUG said:
It seems out of place coming from me but if people stopped being so full of hate and were willing to give a little ground, compromise and have realistic expectations of what changes can actually be made right now it would be easier to enact change.
Permalink Reply by Jack on August 19, 2010 at 10:19am
JaminMaria: Thanks for the heads up on the stop sign sting thing. It seems that these days no one can post a topic without everyone forcing "issues" on one another.

In a utopian world, there would be no need for cars or they would run on water and "pollute" with rainbows out the tailpipe, everyone would have a sweet bike and accidents wouldn't happen.

Calling drivers universally lazy is an unwarrented and uneducated statement. Thinking that cyclists are perfect examples of great behavior or perfect examples of disregarding the law is equally dumb.

Can we get a forum topic that doesn't blow up into a giant peeing contest to see who can force their views on others the most dramatic way? Seriously, the Chainlink wasn't designed to see who can bicker the most.

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