Stop Sign Check Point - 8/26/2011

I was just wondering if anyone else got stopped at rush hour for not "stopping" at the intersection of Milwaukee, Clinton and Fulton? I mean, I get it, but it really bothered me given that just a few 100 feet up Fulton bikers are run off the road for turning traffic and the Milwaukee bus stop. (Not to mention all the craziness in the Loop)

The cop also told me that "ideally" bikes should be stopping fully, including putting both feet on the ground at the stop sign. I'm sure cars will totally yield right of way to a cyclist having to start from a dead stop.

 

Anyways, just curious people's thoughts on this. Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Duppie on August 29, 2011 at 2:20am

OP proves her own point.

 

She did not stop in the intersection, presumably because she thought it was safe to do so. Yet, she did not see the bike ambassadors/police. I've seen them before executing their sting operations and they are hardly hiding.

 

So what if instead of bike ambassadors, it was an older person in the crosswalk that she failed to notice? Or a mother with a stroller? Or that car that started moving after the driver waited for their turn?

 

Point is, most bicyclists, including myself, overestimate their ability to scan all moving objects in an intersection without slowing down/stopping.

 

Of course, she could have noticed them but just chose to ignore them...

Permalink Reply by Chris B on August 29, 2011 at 2:45am

I hear this all the time but it's not true.

Elderly pedestrians and children are the most vulnerable to some cyclist who is not paying attention. There are plenty of bad cyclists out there who think only of themselves, just like drivers, and plenty of times I've seen them ignore and almost knock over pedestrians, or even other cyclists while passing too fast and too closely. Shouldn't the 3 foot law apply to passing another cyclist? Of course it should while on the road.

And the problem is, when cars roll through stop signs, when they blow reds, they do it for the same reason we do: they don't see anyone and they think it is safe to do so. They usually aren't doing it because they hate bikers or peds and want to kill them. But the problem is, just because you don't see anyone it doesn't mean someone is not there.

I know I have almost been hit, or hit people, because I didn't see anyone.

It doesn't have to be either or, either you follow all the laws, or you are a maniac swerving around. Sometimes I feel safer if I go before the light turns green, sometimes I don't. But let's disabuse ourselves of the notion that bikes do not create danger for others. 

Are cars more dangerous? probably, but it is relative. It's not that bikes are not dangerous, cars are just more dangerous. That should guide how we allocate resources to improve safety.


Dan Korn said:

B.S.!  Bad cyclists don't kill anyone.  Neither do bad pedestrians. Motor vehicle drivers do, and not just the bad ones.
Permalink Reply by David Barish on August 29, 2011 at 5:09am

I see a lot of piling on Jeff's comment. I completely agree with him. There is no question that automobiles, because of their size and power have by far the greatest capablilty to cause damage, injury or worse.  However, all users must participate in the dance of the road.  Distraction is an issue for all users.  I have already mentioned on this board that I believe that pedestrians are by far the worst offenders of distraction and the worst offenders at simply ignoring the lights signs and rules of the road. That being said, its silly to say all pedestrian or all cyclist or all drivers, skateboarders or whatever are bad or evil or stupid.  We all ride and we all believe in human powered movement. That's why we are here. Who is kidding. That being said, we must look to the totality of the traffic on the road to make things work.  I was recently on my bike and a group of kids purposefully walked against a red light into traffic narrowly getting hit by a car and towards me. I screamed like the devil on steroids and scared the feces out of the kid and his compatriots.  My wife looked at me and I told her that its good for him to be scared. He should be scared of walking around not caring if he gets hit and literally daring people to hit him.  I stop at lights and have had riders almost hit me from behind. I have walked and done so and have had people walk in to me.  When I am on the street and see some knucklehead in a left turn lane holding a phone to his or her ear I pantomine putting the phone in my pocket and point to the person before he/she makes the turn and kills somebody.

 

I significantly disagree with Dan.  Bad road users put everybody in danger.  It doesn't matter who they are.  Who has not seen the Rube Goldberg cartoon like situation where a doofus walks into an intersection and a bike or car stops and another bike or car stops and they pile up or simply cause gridlock because they are put in a bad position on the road.  The is not an us v. them situation. Until its a multi use paradise we will all suffer.

Permalink Reply by ad on August 29, 2011 at 5:34am

As others have noted, cyclists taking risks through intersections can lead to accidents where others are seriously hurt due to how cars are forced to react.  Not to mention that recently a cyclist running a red light in San Fran actually killed the pedestrian he hit: http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/08/11/pedestrian-hit-by-bicyclist-la....  Sure it's rare and cars undoubtedly injure many more people than cyclists each year, but to say a cyclist's negligent conduct is incappable of seriously injuring or killing someone is just plain wrong. 

 

I'm also all for Idaho stop-type legislation; however, as others have noted, an Idaho stop wouldn't even apply in most sting situations.  Every time I've seen a sting operation, there have either been cars or pedsetrians already present near the intersection when the cyclist decided not to stop.  It's not like the police are setting-up on quiet residential streets with little to no cross-traffic present when they conduct stings.  They're on fairly major streets during rush hour periods.       

Dan Korn said:

Jeff Markus said:
Until all users of the roads (autos, trucks, busses, bikes and pedestrians) begin to act as parts of the traffic equation with specific roles and responsibilities we will continue to have the bloody mayhem of todays road madness.
B.S.!  Bad cyclists don't kill anyone.  Neither do bad pedestrians. Motor vehicle drivers do, and not just the bad ones.
Permalink Reply by Rhea Butcher on August 29, 2011 at 6:48am

 

Permalink Reply by Melanie K on August 29, 2011 at 7:05am
I noticed that everyone calls these reminders "stings". Has anyone ever gotten a ticket or anything negative happen to them when they are stopped for failing to stop at a sign or light? Just curious.   I have seen many cyclists just blow by the Bicycle Ambassadors, even when they have a policeman present, and not once have I seen the police give out a ticket to the cyclist. I did see an ambassador try to chase someone down to stop them, but they gave up rather quickly.
Permalink Reply by S on August 29, 2011 at 9:01am
I've heard of people getting ticketed but that's primarily because they were being obnoxious jerks.  I don't think most riders get a ticket as long as they're reasonably nice.

Melanie said:
I noticed that everyone calls these reminders "stings". Has anyone ever gotten a ticket or anything negative happen to them when they are stopped for failing to stop at a sign or light? Just curious.   I have seen many cyclists just blow by the Bicycle Ambassadors, even when they have a policeman present, and not once have I seen the police give out a ticket to the cyclist. I did see an ambassador try to chase someone down to stop them, but they gave up rather quickly.
Permalink Reply by Mike Zumwalt on August 30, 2011 at 1:58pm
Yes but the law requires a motor vehicle to stop if a pedestrian is in the crosswalk without a light or stop sign. Also if they are crossing with a red light, so...a pedestrian ignoring the rules is within the law but a cyclist is not. If you get hit by a car walking or on a bike not much difference injury wise I'd say.

tj said:
Shouldn't a pedestrian have the most rights?  They are - by far - the most vulnerable and least mobile of any transportation.  Plus everyone is a pedestrian by default whereas bicycling or driving is a choice of convenience, lifestyle, or otherwise.
Permalink Reply by Duppie on August 30, 2011 at 2:25pm

When a traffic light is present HB 43 (Stop for pedestrian in crosswalk) does not apply.

Previously discussed here

Mike Zumwalt said:

Yes but the law requires a motor vehicle to stop if a pedestrian is in the crosswalk without a light or stop sign. Also if they are crossing with a red light, so...a pedestrian ignoring the rules is within the law but a cyclist is not. If you get hit by a car walking or on a bike not much difference injury wise I'd say.

tj said:
Shouldn't a pedestrian have the most rights?  They are - by far - the most vulnerable and least mobile of any transportation.  Plus everyone is a pedestrian by default whereas bicycling or driving is a choice of convenience, lifestyle, or otherwise.
Permalink Reply by Anne on August 30, 2011 at 3:02pm

WRONG
Cyclists can and do kill pedestrians

http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/08/11/pedestrian-hit-by-bicyclist-la...


Dan Korn said:

Jeff Markus said:
Until all users of the roads (autos, trucks, busses, bikes and pedestrians) begin to act as parts of the traffic equation with specific roles and responsibilities we will continue to have the bloody mayhem of todays road madness.
B.S.!  Bad cyclists don't kill anyone.  Neither do bad pedestrians. Motor vehicle drivers do, and not just the bad ones.
Permalink Reply by mike w. on August 30, 2011 at 3:54pm

i want to know -TRULY- if any or all the folks who pontificate here about following the LAW to the letter actually come to a full and complete stop -with feet on the deck- at all stop signs and red lights. Just askin'...

 

Somehow i doubt it.

Permalink Reply by Dan Korn on August 30, 2011 at 7:58pm
I stand by my statement as a rebuttal to Jeff's comment about "the bloody mayhem of todays road madness" coming to an end only when "all users of the roads" change their behavior.  The bloody mayhem, which I take to mean serious injuries and fatalities, is almost solely caused by motor vehicles.  It's (the drivers of) cars and trucks doing the killing, and only they can stop doing it.

Let's deal in some facts:  On average, one pedestrian is killed every single week in the city of Chicago, by a motor vehicle.  Exactly zero are killed by bicycles, even the ones operated by yahoos who run red lights and ride the wrong way and do all sorts of stupid things.

We can all come up with hypothetical, imagined "Rube Goldberg" scenarios of crashes being caused by errant cyclists.  And we can all recite anecdotes about "almost" getting hit by a cyclist, or "nearly" getting killed.  But none of those nice stories change the facts.

You can even scour the entire nation to find one specific example of a pedestrian being killed in a crash with a bicycle, and while that's a fact, and a tragedy, it's still anecdotal, and statistically, it's rarer than someone being killed by a bee sting.

Chris B asserts that, "Elderly pedestrians and children are the most vulnerable to some cyclist who is not paying attention."  Yet, if we look again at the facts, the number one killer of children and young adults in the United States is motor vehicle crashes.  Not just in traffic, but overall.  Creating a rhetorical equivalence between the dangers posed by bikes and cars by characterizing them as merely "relative" is misleading at best.  That's like saying that the danger posed by jumping off the top of the Willis Tower is "relative" to the danger posed by jumping off a milk crate.   So it may be true that if someone is doing something dumb on a bike, it's more dangerous to children and elderly people than it is to other people, but it's certainly true that that danger is statistically insignificant compared to the danger that kids, along with the elderly and just about everyone else, face from cars.  If you want to save the lives of children, it's about cars, not about bikes.

So, yes, the absolutism of my statement that "Bad cyclists don't kill anyone" is not literally true.  There are lots of ways that people can do stupid things which endanger other people.  But far and away, people doing stupid things, and even not-so-stupid things, in cars, is what makes our roads so deadly.

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