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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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer! on
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Howard, that's why I deleted it shortly after posting. ; ) You're free to delete too.
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Permalink Reply by Doug Haynes on
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I've never had need to out run the cops on my bike because I'm not out breaking laws which, by some definitions, does make me less of a 'man.'
Eddie said:You must be a slow biker to not be able to outrun the Dunkin Donut stuffed cops in Chicago. And a radio; what, the cops going to be able to pinpoint me out of any other biker? Sounds to me like you've never had the balls to outrun the cops on your bike...I smell a pu$$y.
notoriousDUG said:1. Not very many cars have 500hp.
2. You can;t out run the radio.
Eddie said:I hate to say it but dude, do the math; a 2000lb car with 500hp VS a 20lb bike with 0.5hp? Which needs more rules to keep safe? Which is more dangerous? And what is the incentive for motorists to get on a bike, and out of their cars? If keeping the rules the same for bikes and cars, then that's one less worry for the lazy driver to get off his/her a$$ and be a cleaner, better looking part of society. Again, I say f'k the stop signs and the cops who try to enforce them. They can't catch me anyway, HAHA!!
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.
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?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Perz on
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That's an impressive non-sequitur, but this is a discussion about cyclists blowing stop signs.
Eddie said:That's a good point. It should be a requirement. And pedestrians should have insurance also? I mean; 99 times out of 100, it's the biker that gets hurt most. All it takes is a pedestrian to hit your handlebars, and your off to playing superman, except the ground doesn't give when you hit it.
Michael Perz said:Hey, let's try something just for fun. Suppose I'm walking to wherever it is I'm walking to and am about to cross a controlled intersection at the clearly marked pedestrian crosswalk. I step off the curb and suddenly find myself sprawled out on the pavement with multiple lacerations, and broken nose and what appear to be two new places where my arm hadn't been able to bend before after being clobbered by somebody that couldn't be bothered to put their foot down for a precious few seconds. Should I hope that they were thoughtful enough to take out basic liability coverage on that shiny new Madone? Does something like that even exist? Come to think of it, should that be a requirement?
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"If there weren't cars, we wouldn't need stop signs," says Andy Thornley of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "They're not there for bicycles."
If you click you will see he follows it up with a shopworn favorite...
Bikers can safely slow down, look both ways, and proceed without sacrificing the momentum necessary to keep cycling, says Thornley.
IF YOU ARE INCONVENIENCED BY THE EFFORT NECESSARY TO ACHIEVE MOMENTUM ON A BICYCLE, THEN PERHAPS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER CHOOSING A MODE OF TRANSPORTATION THAT DOESN'T REQUIRE AS MUCH EFFORT.
LIKE A CAR OR SOMETHING.
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First off if you had put everything in the language you used here you would not have been 'attacked.' I use quotes because it is less that you were 'attacked' and more that you were called out on presenting your point of view like a ignorant and selfish child.
Please explain how stopping, or not stopping, at a stop sign is an issue of morality?
Please explain how and why you feel bikes should not have to stop or yield the right of way but cars and pedestrians should? You want pedestrians held liable for jaywalking and cars held liable for running stop signs but bikes should be able to do it regardless of how the law reads. All three can cause injury by disregarding the right of way of the other so why should bikes get a pass on the law beyond the fact that you ride one?
If there is no rule of law regarding right of way there is no way to assign blame and with no way to assign blame there is no way to hold a party liable for the damages they cause and if there is a law it is going to be enforced. If you dislike that law you need to lobby to have it changed.
Eddie said:Jack,
you're right. I may owe you, and everyone else an apology here, especially NotoriousBIG, and so I do apologize. But I don't believe I was the one who started attacking my fellow bikers first (e.g. NotoriousBIG). My whole point is; I will do what is morally right, for myself, drivers, and pedestrians alike, and that doesn't always mean stiking to the law. The law, in many cases, is not just or moral, so when I say f'k the stop signs and the folks who inforce them, I really mean in a nicer way; the government needs to stop ripping us all off with these silly stop sign laws, all vehicles need to have some sort of liability for themselves, and the bigger and faster they are, the liability should fit. And on the other hand, if a jaywalking pedestrian hurts a biker, then they should also be liable.
Jack said:Eddy, I would like to say what most people on here are trying to (somewhat) nicely say:
Quit being a *edit* jerk.
Eddie said:And you should get the point of hp ratio between cars and bikes. Your an idiot if you don't...pussyDIV>
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Edith,
Referring to people by the wrong name rarely warms them to you.
Just sayin'
Eddie said:NotoriousBIG,
Look. I already apologized, and I don't think that writing anymore on here is going to do anything for me. I've already expressed my dislike for things, and I'll leave it at that. If you want to sit down and have a beer, and discuss it, that would be much more dynamic and productive than having a static conversation online.
notoriousDUG said:First off if you had put everything in the language you used here you would not have been 'attacked.' I use quotes because it is less that you were 'attacked' and more that you were called out on presenting your point of view like a ignorant and selfish child.
Please explain how stopping, or not stopping, at a stop sign is an issue of morality?
Please explain how and why you feel bikes should not have to stop or yield the right of way but cars and pedestrians should? You want pedestrians held liable for jaywalking and cars held liable for running stop signs but bikes should be able to do it regardless of how the law reads. All three can cause injury by disregarding the right of way of the other so why should bikes get a pass on the law beyond the fact that you ride one?
If there is no rule of law regarding right of way there is no way to assign blame and with no way to assign blame there is no way to hold a party liable for the damages they cause and if there is a law it is going to be enforced. If you dislike that law you need to lobby to have it changed.
Eddie said:Jack,
you're right. I may owe you, and everyone else an apology here, especially NotoriousBIG, and so I do apologize. But I don't believe I was the one who started attacking my fellow bikers first (e.g. NotoriousBIG). My whole point is; I will do what is morally right, for myself, drivers, and pedestrians alike, and that doesn't always mean stiking to the law. The law, in many cases, is not just or moral, so when I say f'k the stop signs and the folks who inforce them, I really mean in a nicer way; the government needs to stop ripping us all off with these silly stop sign laws, all vehicles need to have some sort of liability for themselves, and the bigger and faster they are, the liability should fit. And on the other hand, if a jaywalking pedestrian hurts a biker, then they should also be liable.
Jack said:Eddy, I would like to say what most people on here are trying to (somewhat) nicely say:
Quit being a *edit* jerk.
Eddie said:And you should get the point of hp ratio between cars and bikes. Your an idiot if you don't...pussyDIV>
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IF YOU ARE INCONVENIENCED BY THE EFFORT NECESSARY TO ACHIEVE MOMENTUM ON A BICYCLE, THEN PERHAPS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER CHOOSING A MODE OF TRANSPORTATION THAT DOESN'T REQUIRE AS MUCH EFFORT. LIKE A CAR OR SOMETHING.
Are you joking? I can't tell but if you are not it's an extremely ignorant thing to say. If we consider for a moment that "effort" really means caloric usage then we find that bicycling is a far more efficient, cost conscious and resource conservative method of transportation. The objective of most of the people here on the Chainlink is to in some small way be a part of a community who wishes to see the usage of bicycles replace the automobile in any aspect where it's more efficient.(*1) For you to actively believe that people who do not want to loose efficiency in their riding should give up and choose an automobile is rather out of place. This line of thinking would have more legitimacy if you, let's say, posted it on forums.hotrod.com but on the Chainlink you're talking to the wrong group of people.
If you are invonvenienced by people who don't want to loose effieciency on a bicycle by coming to a complete stop then perhaps you should consider a different group of people to complain about becuase you are almost certainly in a marginalized minority on this and that's not going to change.
But I am not the type of person to argue and run, I always back myself up with facts.
If you look at a page like this calorie chart, you will find that a person riding a bicycle is the worlds most effiecient mode of transportation. A person traveling at around 15 miles per hour will burn 0.049 calories per pound per minute, so lets say a 175lbs person burns 515 calories in an hour that would be about 34 calories per mile. Your average medium grade gallon of gasoline contains about 31,000 calories. If you converted the amount of calories burned by gasoline into a person riding a bike a person could ride about 912 miles on a single fucking gallon of gas! Can you believe that? An average car gets about at best 30 miles per gallon so incomparison this is a stunning vicotry for bikes.
But in the real world we humans don't have have the capacity to convert petrolium to calories. So we have to deal with that, delicious yet, inefficiently pesky stuff we call food. Even if you are in peak bike fitness like a Tour de France racer and are riding more than 25mph the more you stop the more your effeciency plumits. Stoping and starting to build momentum from 0mph is even more of a drain on your efficiency than air resistance and weight combined. Even with the limitation current traffic laws the average person is still getting roughly 200 to 300 miles per gallon. Can you imagine how much better it would be if we tailored the traffic laws to suite the unique characters of riding a bike? If you really want to get into the science of caloric transportation efficiency check out Bicycle Energy by David S. Lawyer
If we want to live in a world where we conserve energy resouces we need to start thinking about every aspect of our lives and make laws and change social norms accordingly. This is why something like the Idaho stop is an absolutly nessisary law to pass in Illinois. Please watch this video if you haven't already.
Why should this be put into law? Simple because this is already how almost every bicyclist operates while riding. Those who come to complete stops are in a minority. This isn't an issue of morality but of common sense. Good law adjusts itself according to the needs of the society in which it exists. For far too long traffic law has assumed that the law should apply to bicycles as it does an automobile. This method of thinking clearly does not work because almost every cyclist violates the laws every time they put rubber to pavement. If it's not working it needs to be fixed and all the stomping and pouting about how it should be isn't going to make people do what you want them to do. It's time to change the law.
*1: Is this presumptuous of me? Correct me if I am wrong.
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Spencer, I was sincere in my comment and completely stand by it. I am tired of people touting the health benefits of cycling in one breath and then complaining that current traffic structures cause them inconvenience in the next. The sometimes absurd levels of exertion required by cycling are a feature, not a bug! The aversion to "losing efficiency while riding" due to a few stop signs has everything to do with the mentality of people who feel the need to drive everywhere to begin with. It's a weak excuse for not wanting to get on a bike.
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I am glad your opinion remains in a minority and does not reflect how people operate while on a bike. I feel that the law should and will be changed to reflect the Idaho stop as more people in America begin using bikes as their chief mode of transportation. Did you watch that video?
Other than personal preference what its your primary objection to rolling stop laws? It's essentially making a stop sign a yield sign for bicycles. It cannot possibly be rooted in public safety because the data suggests no correlation between the two issues.
Michael Perz said:Spencer, I was sincere in my comment and completely stand by it. I am tired of people touting the health benefits of cycling in one breath and then complaining that current traffic structures cause them inconvenience in the next. The sometimes absurd levels of exertion required by cycling are a feature, not a bug! The aversion to "losing efficiency while riding" due to a few stop signs has everything to do with the mentality of people who feel the need to drive everywhere to begin with. It's a weak excuse for not wanting to get on a bike.
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Mulcky on
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Why don't mods ever close topics when they go off like this?
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Permalink Reply by Vondo on
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I agree. What if we eliminate stop signs for cars too while we are at it? That way cars don't lose their momentum and don't have to start from 0 mph, and thus, save gas and depend less on Big Oil... sheesh
I am all for the Idaho stop, but until that becomes the law here, I will always be against blowing through stop signs and using efficiency or momentum as an excuse. Cycling requires effort. It sucks to stop, but if "conserving your momentum" is worth gambling your life by running stop signs, there are always electric bikes...
Michael Perz said:Spencer, I was sincere in my comment and completely stand by it. I am tired of people touting the health benefits of cycling in one breath and then complaining that current traffic structures cause them inconvenience in the next. The sometimes absurd levels of exertion required by cycling are a feature, not a bug! The aversion to "losing efficiency while riding" due to a few stop signs has everything to do with the mentality of people who feel the need to drive everywhere to begin with. It's a weak excuse for not wanting to get on a bike.
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