(2020) Motorists Break Law To Save Time, Cyclists Break Law To Save Lives, Finds Study
(2020) Motorists Break Law To Save Time, Cyclists Break Law To Save Lives, Finds Study
Researchers have found that almost all road users break the law, but the reasons for the infractions differ between modes, with cyclists doing it to save their necks.
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"A Transport For London camera study of 7,500 cyclists at five junctions found in 2007 that, contrary to popular perception, most cyclists do not run reds: 84% of the cyclists stopped at red traffic lights."
This surprised me. I haven't noticed that many cyclists running reds. The tone seemed to suggest that was a good statistic for some reason. That is way too high. If 16% of cars ran red lights my life expectancy would be about three days. I'm in favor of cyclists bending or breaking rules to protect themselves but I don't think running reds qualifies. Everyone should always stop at reds. I'm a bit of a scofflaw when it comes to some traffic laws but that's too far.
I could be wrong, but aren't a lot of injuries caused by being rear-ended while waiting at a red? I'm pretty sure that's the case for motorcycles so I imagine it's similar for bikes. I normally wait at reds but I'll run it if there's no traffic. It feels more like jay-walking than running a red light. Most people are perfectly fine with jay-walking.
In London about 95% of the ones I see running reds are the uber eats etc riders, pretty much all the modded e-bikes don't stop at reds. My colleague saw a woman knocked down by one ignoring a red light at a crossing, the woman had kids with her.
I've also had a cyclist effing and blinding at me because I stopped at a red.