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 Anne Alt on August 20, 2010 at 12:08pm
We need this in Illinois and in many other states. It makes a LOT more sense than how things work (or don't work) now.

Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer! said:

This is the only sane way for a bicycle to operate and obey the laws.
Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on August 20, 2010 at 12:20pm
PS. If any of you are interested in assisting me in pressuring the ATA to put the Rolling Stop into their 2011 Legislative Agenda please email me at me [at] spencerthayer.com or private message me.
Chicago is huge and the ATA is tiny-- why would you put your effort into "pressuring" them for anything?
They need your support, not another in a long list of adversaries.
A reasonable next step IMO would be to contact them and find out where they stand on it at the moment.
I've been party to similar discussions about such things as dooring and the 3-foot law in the past only to find out they had already been hard at work pushing it through.
Permalink Reply by Doug Haynes on August 20, 2010 at 12:25pm
The fussiness, for me, is because I feel strongly about accepting responsibility for your actions and respecting other road users. I ride how I ride and accept the consequences and others can ride how they ride as long as they accept the consequences and aren't putting anyone in danger.

I do not feel strongly one way or the other regarding rolling stop laws but think they make sense.

Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer! said:
Spencer you really need to read less into stuff...

Hmm... Really? Apparently my problem is that I seem to take y'all too seriously and assume that because you are using malicious and venomous language you're very passionate about a given issue. But it seems that those who have been responsible for shouting and degrading the quality of the discussion are also violators of the stop sign laws and don't really have a problem with something like the Idaho Stop. Seriously? Pfft. Then why the hell all the fussiness? What are the 10 pages of mostly crap really about? I am left to assume that all the vile rhetoric was more to do with personality conflicts than a reasoned and impassioned stance on the subject. I respect people who get angry when arguing over something they believe in but find people with personal issue they are trying to work out online to be nothing short of the worst kind of boring.

But at least I've gotten what I needed from this thread; an opportunity to flesh out my argument for the Rolling Stop in the here in the city. Even if I was more or less just talking to myself it was still quite useful. I'm un-following this discussion now and have no interest any further debate with any of you. If you feel you have a truly challenging point, question regarding the proposal or you have discovered some conflict in reasoning please feel free to private message me.

In the future when I see the usual suspects trolling around the discussion boards I'll simply ignore them. It's too bad y'all have to be this way but I guess my expectations to find well reasoned cogent and challenging debate on a message board about biking is too high. I'll stick to topics about mechanics and activity from here on out.

Cordially in your face-
but still cordially,

Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer!

PS. If any of you are interested in assisting me in pressuring the ATA to put the Rolling Stop into their 2011 Legislative Agenda please email me at me [at] spencerthayer.com or private message me.
Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on August 20, 2010 at 12:28pm
OK, how about this then:
"A city that's interested in being a cleaner, safer place to live should discourage automobile proliferation and offer incentives to those who choose a lower-impact means of travel. Thus, laws governing the operation of bicycles in the roadway should not limit their ease of adoption and use, and should reflect that different modes of travel have inherently different levels of risk to other traffic users; each individual mode of travel should not be restricted beyond what's necessary to assure public safety."

Michael Perz said:
. . . but please mount a better argument than simply "cycling is hard" because it smacks of bitchy self-entitlement.
Permalink Reply by Michael Perz on August 20, 2010 at 12:58pm
See? That's better. If I was some mid-level bureaucrat tasked with entertaining such proposals I'd give that argument far more consideration because it avoids making obvious reference to special interest. You could even completely strike the part about discouraging automobile use from the statement because encouraging bicycle use would achieve that simultaneously. Remember; I'm not attacking the proposal. I just feel that its justification is pretty shaky in comparison to that of legislative measures intended to increase cyclist safety, so extra effort should be made in how it is presented if it is to be presented at all.

H3N3 said:
OK, how about this then:
"A city that's interested in being a cleaner, safer place to live should discourage automobile proliferation and offer incentives to those who choose a lower-impact means of travel. Thus, laws governing the operation of bicycles in the roadway should not limit their ease of adoption and use, and should reflect that different modes of travel have inherently different levels of risk to other traffic users; each individual mode of travel should not be restricted beyond what's necessary to assure public safety." Michael Perz said:
. . . but please mount a better argument than simply "cycling is hard" because it smacks of bitchy self-entitlement.
Permalink Reply by Duppie on August 20, 2010 at 1:23pm
Spencer, I agree with you that laws are not static. They should reflect society’s reality and priorities. So you make the argument that we should implement the Idaho stop, because it is the “way of life” in Chicago.

Let’s look at a few other examples in daily traffic:
1. Speed limits. On most roads in Chicago, the speed limit is 30 mph. I’ve read statements that the actual average speed is 6-11 mph above that (from my own occasional driving I’d say that is not too far off the mark).
2. Cell phone usage while driving. With few exceptions using your cell phone in a moving vehicle is against the law. My own (admittedly unscientific) observation says that about 1 in 4 drivers is using their cell-phone while driving

Two examples where traffic laws do not reflect the reality. Taking your point to a logic conclusion means that we need to raise the speed limit to 35 or 40 mph, and we need to do away with cell-phone laws.
Yet, that is not the trend (thank God!). Why? Because both activities are scientifically proven to increase accident rates. Government bodies and insurance companies track causes of car accidents in detail for obvious reasons.

Therein lies the problem with the Idaho stop: I’ve yet to see any solid research that indicates that implementation of an Idaho stop improves safety for all users (bicyclists, pedestrians, and cars alike). Reading books about cycling culture and advocacy, I’ve come to understand that there simply is a lot less data available about bicycling related accidents.

The argument that you roll through stop signs in a safe and responsible manner is not a good argument. Read back some of the previous posts. I’ve not seen a single person admitting that they make mistakes (except maybe Eddie, who promptly go vilified for admitting that). Instead everybody brags about how good they handle themselves in traffic. When I look around me on my daily commute, I see a lot of folks displaying very little bike handling skills. Are all members of CL better than average riders? Or do we ignore them in this discussion? Either way, they are out there.

I look forward to you publishing here some solid data on the safety improvements that can be achieved for all traffic users by implementing the Idaho stop. Until then, I am not convinced that an Idaho stop is a good idea
Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on August 20, 2010 at 8:18pm
I would think that the Idaho-style Stop->Yield clarification would benefit ALL the riders and motorized vehicles sharing the road.

Time spent in one of the most dangerous kill-zones a bicyclist needs to clear should be minimized as much as possible. The less time a bicyclist spends in an intersection, as he rolls through with some speed rather than starting from a dead stop, the better. A bike that rolls through a stop sign (after yielding to other vehicles and pedestrians) rather than coming to a complete stop and needing to accelerate to a speed where it doesn't take him a dozen seconds to clear the danger zone is safer than one that has to crawl back up to speed and be in the intersection as a sitting duck for 2-3 times as long.

Not only is it safer for a rider to minimize his time in a dangerous intersection but it also behooves the cars to let us roll through rather than have to wait an extra few seconds for us to slowly get going and wobble by them until we get up to a safe and stable speed. A bicyclist who is labor to get back up to speed is distracted by trying to get the bike stabilized those first few seconds and has less attention to spend to watching for cars that might miss the stop sign and fail to yield to the pedal-powered vehicle who was there first (but who came to a complete stop).

If we get out of their way faster it will only help traffic flow more smoothly. We can get out their way faster so they can get going again rather than waiting for us to crawl by. I don't know why any car-driver would rather have us spend 2-3 more seconds holding them up as we get going from a complete stop instead of getting out of their way faster.

As long as the rider treats the stop sign as a proper yield sign and doesn't violate the right of way to other vehicles and pedestrians it is a WIN-WIN situation for every road user. It means less congestion and less waiting for everyone. And it even wastes less fuel as there will be fewer seconds of wasted idling for every vehicle waiting in traffic/in line to get through the stop sign themselves.
Permalink Reply by Jerome Hughes on August 21, 2010 at 12:42am
last night was riding eastbound on Harrison approaching a stale red light at Clark and as slowed pulling up to it, saw to my left 3 officers on bikes waiting to go southbound on Clark as the forced-to-turn-by-the-one-way-southbound-ahead northbounders currently had the green

the officers were talking to one another, seemed they were enjoying a pleasant evening as were plenty of peds and cyclists around there who were not on the job

then a northbound driver made a left onto westbound Harrison while talking on their phone, and one of the three officers stayed put, but pulled away from the conversation long enough to yell "get off the phone" at the driver of the car, who had one or more windows open

as my light turned green and the driver went past me (so they were not just talking on the phone, but also distractedly and unsafely blowing through a yellow turning red) it was clear that the driver had heard the officer and only then realized that these three cyclists were officers (perhaps because they were paying more attention to their phone conversation?)

I watched the look of surprise and then horror on the driver's face as they lowered the phone and drove on, expecting to be cited under law(s) they clearly were both aware of and breaking

the officers sat stationary waiting for the red light and continued their conversation as I rolled through the intersection, while myself and some of the peds silently shared WTF looks about them not pursuing the offense, calling in a patrol car if needed, etc.

guess they thought in this case scaring the driver was plenty good enough

imo the city sure could use to get the message out that drivers are getting those sorts of tickets, which eventually would make us all safer (even the drivers "protected" in their machines)

----

the drivers who often annoy me at stop signs (and are especially plentiful out here in the 'burbs) do the passive aggressive full stop when they see me coming that they will _never_ do if nobody was there, or even if I were replaced by a driver in a car, cause then they're "there first" and they assume the other car will stop, as they have the right of way

when I say it's passive aggressive, I mean that while some of them are genuinely trying to be "helpful" in misguided ways, many others of them are really acting out "I'm angry about cyclists and so I'm gonna make you stop and not just efficiently slow while traffic clears, then cycle on when it's clear and you actually have the right of way" but it's often very difficult at first to quickly tell what sort the one currently blocking my way actually is

they sit and wait for me to get to the intersection (when they have the right of way after they stop and could just drive through before I arrive, while I'm slowing to be sure I'm safe) like they think they're in danger of me going kamikaze style into the side of their car as they pull into the intersection

often they're waving me through in front of them, "trying to help out" while also taking my right of way away from me

don't want to ride in front of someone who waited like that, and who knows what other hazard might appear once take their invitation

used to just look at this behavior as them "surrendering their right of way" and take their invitation to cross before them, but it's come to bother me enough that now will just quietly come to a complete stop and wait, putting a foot down to reassure them that I'm not one of those "crazy dangerous cyclists"

many of them drive on (some shaking their head as they don't get it) when they see the foot go down, but others start to jaw at this point, wave more frantically, etc.

as have come to desire less and less to be ordered around by unthinking imbeciles, my response to such behavior is now just to say "no, thank you" and if they persist or escalate to wave a hand in the direction they're going and say... "please move your junk out of the way"

another subspecies that doesn't even require a stop sign is the oncoming driver turning right when I'm signaling to turn left into the same street who wants to slow/stop/wait and wave me past in front of them, but can't seem to think deeply enough to understand that going past in front of them would be foolish at best, as a) I have no idea who they are and what sort of driver they really are and b) it sets me up to immediately be passed, possibly too closely, by someone I don't need to have passing me if they'd just exercise their right of way

for these I slow and motion that they should go first and then stop, put my foot down, and wait them out if they don't - they give up and drive on before too long

imo part of this behavior does come understandably from their experiences with (and especially anger at) children who ride recklessly without regard for their own safety, some of whom look suspiciously like adults

would be great to be able to believe that these drivers' brains were actually working and that they were actually thinking about what they're doing when behind the wheel of a large machine that could easily kill me, but much experience has shown me that many of them are not in the least thinking about what they are doing, instead they have it in their head that "all cyclists are dangerous" and "all drivers can be trusted, they're like me!"

believe that putting my foot down and waiting in such situations does at least get some percentage of the percentage that exhibit such behaviors to think about it at least a little bit

and am going fast enough while rolling that waiting a second or two stopped for them to realize I'm not interested in their "gift" doesn't really matter to me

--Jerome

ps as good and clear as that Idaho stop video is at explaining the efficiency issue related to full stops, can you imagine many drivers watching 4 minutes of it (imo needs editing to get same things across in much less time) and coming to understand the concepts in it if they're not also actual cyclists (and not the faux "I'm a biker too!" sort) ?
Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on August 21, 2010 at 7:05am
Response from LIB:
We've talked about it at an LIB board meeting. Besides the fact that there would likely be much opposition to it from police groups and probably others, I'm opposed to it and the board agrees - both for safety reasons and its contradiction of the "Share the Road: Same Rights, Same Rules"
philosophy.
Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on August 21, 2010 at 9:16am
I was thinking of joining LIB.

Now I'm NOT!

H3N3 said:
Response from LIB:
We've talked about it at an LIB board meeting. Besides the fact that there would likely be much opposition to it from police groups and probably others, I'm opposed to it and the board agrees - both for safety reasons and its contradiction of the "Share the Road: Same Rights, Same Rules"
philosophy.
Permalink Reply by Jester on August 21, 2010 at 2:22pm
This is not all negative. Sometimes we need a little reality check as well (or at least I do).
Permalink Reply by Tank-Ridin' Ryan on August 22, 2010 at 12:08pm
Interesting.

Referring to riding with automobile traffic like it's a war zone that you were dropped into with your bicycle after being kidnapped isn't a valid comparison. You choose to ride your bike, right? As for the feeling you project of motorists being out to get you, if that were the case, there would be a LOT of dead cyclists all over the roads of Chicago.

The "I don't know why any car-driver would rather have us spend 2-3 more seconds holding them up" argument is commendable, if you are really that concerned about the motorists' time? Are you?

If so, aren't pedestrians something that motorists have to stop for as well? If cyclists can do rolling stops to get out of intersections more quickly, by the same logic, shouldn't all pedestrians be required to cross the street as at least a jogging pace when a car is approaching?

James Baum said:
I would think that the Idaho-style Stop->Yield clarification would benefit ALL the riders and motorized vehicles sharing the road.
Time spent in one of the most dangerous kill-zones a bicyclist needs to clear should be minimized as much as possible. The less time a bicyclist spends in an intersection, as he rolls through with some speed rather than starting from a dead stop, the better. A bike that rolls through a stop sign (after yielding to other vehicles and pedestrians) rather than coming to a complete stop and needing to accelerate to a speed where it doesn't take him a dozen seconds to clear the danger zone is safer than one that has to crawl back up to speed and be in the intersection as a sitting duck for 2-3 times as long. Not only is it safer for a rider to minimize his time in a dangerous intersection but it also behooves the cars to let us roll through rather than have to wait an extra few seconds for us to slowly get going and wobble by them until we get up to a safe and stable speed. A bicyclist who is labor to get back up to speed is distracted by trying to get the bike stabilized those first few seconds and has less attention to spend to watching for cars that might miss the stop sign and fail to yield to the pedal-powered vehicle who was there first (but who came to a complete stop).

If we get out of their way faster it will only help traffic flow more smoothly. We can get out their way faster so they can get going again rather than waiting for us to crawl by. I don't know why any car-driver would rather have us spend 2-3 more seconds holding them up as we get going from a complete stop instead of getting out of their way faster.

As long as the rider treats the stop sign as a proper yield sign and doesn't violate the right of way to other vehicles and pedestrians it is a WIN-WIN situation for every road user. It means less congestion and less waiting for everyone. And it even wastes less fuel as there will be fewer seconds of wasted idling for every vehicle waiting in traffic/in line to get through the stop sign themselves.

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