Bicycle Austin forum

Donald Lewis, I did take the lane...the bike lane. Both times I was hooked were on streets with bike lanes, and the person who hit me passed me (in their lane) then turned in front of me without signaling. I haven't taken the Traffic 101 course, so did I still do something wrong? Should I take the lane at every intersection even if there is a bike lane and no stop sign or light? That seems more dangerous since you would be weaving in and out of the bike lane at every intersection.

Dougmc, it is based on the idea that A LOT of laws are seen by drivers as unnecessary for them to follow all the time. Your example of speeding is one, no right turns on red signs is another, rolling through stop signs is another. We all break laws, like I said, we are all just people. But it is more socially acceptable to break some laws than others, so we almost don't even view them as breaking the law.

Wow, that blue mountain bike in the front of the trailer looks a lot like the one that was stolen out of my backyard a couple weeks ago. When was this pic taken? I can't be 100% sure since I don't even remember what brand of bike it was, but it looks very similar.

I didn't report it stolen since it was a crappy $100 bike from Toys R Us I bought about 8 years ago, and was purely just for riding to the corner store. It wasn't even worth buying a lock for. I was not at all surprised when I walked out of my house and saw it gone, and was actually relieved when I saw that all the bikes that I did lock up were still there. Also, the few times I have reported serious crimes the detectives never seemed to care much (I was actually told by the detective when I was assaulted that she probably wouldn't have even looked into the case if I hadn't called, and I had their license plate number). I figured this was even less likely to be investigated, and it was mostly my own fault.

Allen

If you want to compare cars and bikes that blow through stops, you have to at least understand why each does it.

When cars do blow through (and they do) it is generally because they are distracted and don't see the stop. This is very dangerous because they are not doing a mental cost-benefit analysis when blowing through, they aren't thinking about it at all. It is very difficult, due to reduced speed and less distractions, for a bicyclist to completely miss a stop sign or light.

Bicyclists, however, generally think "I'm coming to a stop sign/red light, I can see cross traffic, I know that I can make it across without getting hit, if I don't I will either be severely injured or killed". You weigh your options and what you gain (a few seconds of time/energy) vs what you loose (possibly your life), you are essentially determining how safe it will be to blow through the stop, something cars generally don't do, or don't do very well since they are surrounded by a metal cage.

Now I have not said anything about the legality of either. I personally don't think the laws that were created for auto-centric traffic work well for bikes, but it is the law. I also am not talking about rolling stops, just "blowing through", since that is what M1Ek is focusing on.

So, in my opinion, even the "typical" behavior of cyclists running stops at speed is inherently safer than the "atypical" behavior of cars running stops at speed.

One way to verify this is to look at accidents caused by bikes blowing stops and compare to accidents caused by cars blowing through stops. I bet there would be many more accidents involving cars even though M1EK insists that this behavior almost never happens. I'm guessing this info is not readily available though.

I have been extremely disappointed with the way Art Acevedo has changed the direction of the APD away from public safety, and moved towards revenue generation via citation. He was asked about this on the KOOP radio show "A Neighborly Conversation" and his response was that he has "anecdotal" evidence that shows the more police people see on the highways, the safer they feel. I also have anecdotal evidence that shows when my house is getting shot at, a friend gets stabbed, another is mugged on 7th st, another has his apartment broken into, several have their cars broken into, and countless numbers (including myself) have their bikes stolen, all in the last year since Acevedo took over (in the previous 4 years to that I think the worst that happened was some kids egged my car), then our police department is not working. I hope others start paying attention to this as well, and it becomes a major issue during city council/mayoral elections.