BIKE: Car-Free Word newsletter | April 20, 2004

[Mike Dahmus]

Michael Bluejay wrote:

> Here's the new newsletter:
>
>     http://BicycleUniverse.com/newsletters/2004-04-20.html
>
 From the newsletter:

/In fact, my fantasy is that the next time CAMPO or the City Council 
wants to deny funding to cyclists because some cyclists run red lights, 
I want to be there to enthusiastically scream, "I couldn't agree more!" 
And then show a homemade video of motorists running every single cycle 
of a red light at some prominent Austin intersection 20 times in a row, 
and then ask, "Since road users who run red lights don't get funding, 
when can we expect funding to be cut for new highways?"/

/Of course the irony here is that it was CAMPO member Senator Barrientos 
who implied at a meeting that he wouldn't support increased bike funding 
because cyclists run red lights, and then a while after that the good 
Senator was arrested for drunk driving.
/

/
/

/
/Otherwise known as Fallacious Bike Argument #46.

Motorists don't run red lights the way cyclists do. Period. They "run 
the orange" pretty often. This is a very different violation in terms of 
the real, pragmatic, world we actually live in.

"running the orange" means that some impatient jerk decides to keep 
going even though the light just turned from yellow to red.

Compare and contrast to cyclists - in my estimation, close to 50% of the 
cyclists I see on the road do not stop at stop signs unless they see 
traffic; and do not stop for traffic lights or sometimes stop-and-go 
(AND DON'T TELL ME ABOUT THE ONES THAT DON'T TRIP; I'M TALKING ABOUT 
LIGHTS LIKE SPEEDWAY AT 38TH WHICH IS ON A PURE TIMER).

It's not the same thing. Every time you equate what cyclists do to what 
motorists do, you make it that much harder on people like me who are 
trying to get real things accomplished. Our outgoing chairman of the UTC 
voted against bike facilities on at least one occasion because of the 
obnoxious lawbreaking attitude evinced by cyclists like that; so we even 
have this problem at the city level.

SUMMARY: CYCLISTS RUN RED LIGHTS AND STOP SIGNS IN A WAY THAT MOTORISTS 
DO NOT. MOST MOTORISTS, IF THEY EVER DO THIS, "RUN THE ORANGE" OR DON'T 
COME TO A FULL ROCK-BACK AT A STOP SIGN. TRYING TO EQUATE THIS WITH THE 
WILD-WEST ATTITUDE OF MANY CYCLISTS IS MAKING YOU LOOK STUPID AND MAKING 
MY JOB HARDER.

- MD