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

[Stuart Werbner]

C'mon Dahmus, ease up.

Be careful not to blame bike riders for all of bicycling's ills. For 
instance, on the red-light issue, I think it is time for the police (and 
lawmakers) here to either start enforcing the same traffic laws for 
cyclists, or do what Idaho did. That being letting cyclists treat a stop 
light essentially as a stop sign.

While I am very thankful to see that motorists predominantly choose to obey 
stop lights, even at times when there are no other cars at the intersection, 
I also credit serious police enforcement efforts and hefty fines.

I think that the police and the greater society need to stop treating 
bicycles like toys and more like the actual vehicles that they are.

    __o
_`\<,_
(*)/ (*)
~~~~~~~~~
Stuart Werbner
Annuit Coeptis

"Time for another regime change."





>From: Mike Dahmus <mdahmus>
>To: Chuck_Thomas
>CC: forum-bicycleaustin.info
>Subject: Re: BIKE: Car-Free Word newsletter  |  April 20, 2004
>Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 12:34:12 -0500
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>Chuck_Thomas wrote:
>
>>It seems to me that hurling 4000lbs of glass, steel and rubber thru an
>>intersection at a high speed on a light that just turned red is a bigger
>>hazard to society than me pedaling thru it after quadruple checking that
>>the coast is clear.  Granted both may be bad but why would you consider
>>my offence more grievous?
>>
>"Running the orange" is a matter of education trumping impatience. We'll 
>get there sooner or later.
>
>"Running the red" is a matter of your own convenience trumping _everything_ 
>- it shows a complete lack of respect for the law that requires motorists 
>to treat you as a vehicle.
>
>Ask yourself which is worse from a purely motorist perspective: continuing 
>to turn left at an intersection even though the light just turned red, or 
>running the intersection halfway through the other peoples' green cycle.
>
>You run enough red lights and stop signs, and drivers will, no matter what 
>the law says, treat you as a menace.
>
>I've nearly wrecked my car at an intersection near UT because some bozo on 
>a bike ran the stop sign. If I were older (worse reflexes), I would have. 
>So there you go.
>
>But getting back to the point - 99% of the people in this town drive. 
>Pissing off 99% of the population in order to make some point about danger 
>is really really really stupid from a pragmatic political perspective. 
>Sooner or later, it comes back to bite you in the ass, as it did when our 
>UTC chairman voted against bike facilities, using lack of respect for the 
>law as his stated reason for doing so.
>
>- MD
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