BIKE: How to break the law?

[Michael Bluejay]

On Apr 21, 2004, at 10:15 AM, Fred Meredith wrote:

> Come on Michael. You aren't that thick.

Whew, I remember when *I* was the one who talked like this on this list.


>  Are you telling me that you see no difference between that and a 
> cyclist (or motorist) just flat going through the middle of a red 
> light with no possible excuse that their timing was off, or they 
> thought it was still yellow, etc.?

What I'll tell you is that I see a big difference in motorists 
barreling through the first part of a red light and cyclists carefully 
going through the middle of a red light after checking the cross 
traffic.  Like Chuck said, the motorist's vehicle i large, fast and 
dangerous; he hasn't had the ability to check the cross-traffic to the 
extent the cyclist could; he can't stop in time if he sees a problem; 
and importantly, he's more likely to be risking lives other than his 
own, unlike the cyclist.  The motorist's behavior is more dangerous, 
hands down.  So yes, I do see a difference, and that's the difference I 
see.

By the way, I'm not just talking about yellows that turn to reds -- 
nearly every day I see motorists ENTERING the intersection when the 
light is already red.

The fact remains:  The original argument was that cyclists "break the 
law", but faced with the fact that motorists break the law too, now the 
detractors are forced to say, "Well, it's not really that they're 
breaking the law, it's that they're breaking the law in a way we don't 
like."  This is pretty much an admission that it never *really* was 
about cyclists breaking the law, was it?

That's my two posts for the day.

-MBJ-