Are bikes allowed to go through red lights on major roads?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine what it would be like if cycling was actually popular in DC?

PARIS — On a recent afternoon, the Rue de Rivoli looked like this: Cyclists blowing through red lights in two directions. Delivery bike riders fixating on their cellphones. Electric scooters careening across lanes. Jaywalkers and nervous pedestrians scrambling as if in a video game.

Sarah Famery, a 20-year resident of the Marais neighborhood, braced for the tumult. She looked left, then right, then left and right again before venturing into a crosswalk, only to break into a rant-laden sprint as two cyclists came within inches of grazing her.

“It’s chaos!” exclaimed Ms. Famery, shaking a fist at the swarm of bikes that have displaced cars on the Rue de Rivoli ever since it was remade into a multilane highway for cyclists last year. “Politicians want to make Paris a cycling city, but no one is following any rules,” she said. “It’s becoming risky just to cross the street!”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/world/europe/paris-bicyles-france.html#:~:text=In%20Paris%2C%20parts%20of%20the,bike%20lanes%20weave%20through%20traffic.

No thanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Riding a bike in a big city is like playing football or boxing. You should not be surprised if it gets you seriously hurt. It’s part of the deal, whether you want to admit it or not.

No. Riding a bike, by itself, is safe. Just like walking is safe, or sitting on park bench, or sitting in outdoor seating at a restaurant, or loading groceries into your car trunk. It's the presence of cars, and people driving cars, that make all of these activities dangerous.

There's a half million cars in D.C. If you want to be somewhere where there's no cars, move. Sounds like city living isn't for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Riding a bike in a big city is like playing football or boxing. You should not be surprised if it gets you seriously hurt. It’s part of the deal, whether you want to admit it or not.

No. Riding a bike, by itself, is safe. Just like walking is safe, or sitting on park bench, or sitting in outdoor seating at a restaurant, or loading groceries into your car trunk. It's the presence of cars, and people driving cars, that make all of these activities dangerous.

There's a half million cars in D.C. If you want to be somewhere where there's no cars, move. Sounds like city living isn't for you.

DP: city living is great for bikers and only improving! You can tell because at least once a week we get a thread where drivers complain about them. Although I guess if they don't like it, they could move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Riding a bike in a big city is like playing football or boxing. You should not be surprised if it gets you seriously hurt. It’s part of the deal, whether you want to admit it or not.

No. Riding a bike, by itself, is safe. Just like walking is safe, or sitting on park bench, or sitting in outdoor seating at a restaurant, or loading groceries into your car trunk. It's the presence of cars, and people driving cars, that make all of these activities dangerous.

There's a half million cars in D.C. If you want to be somewhere where there's no cars, move. Sounds like city living isn't for you.

DP: city living is great for bikers and only improving! You can tell because at least once a week we get a thread where drivers complain about them. Although I guess if they don't like it, they could move.

Or they could try getting on a bike!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Riding a bike in a big city is like playing football or boxing. You should not be surprised if it gets you seriously hurt. It’s part of the deal, whether you want to admit it or not.

No. Riding a bike, by itself, is safe. Just like walking is safe, or sitting on park bench, or sitting in outdoor seating at a restaurant, or loading groceries into your car trunk. It's the presence of cars, and people driving cars, that make all of these activities dangerous.

How many of these stupid posts have you written today? Have you done anything else since the moment you woke up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Riding a bike in a big city is like playing football or boxing. You should not be surprised if it gets you seriously hurt. It’s part of the deal, whether you want to admit it or not.

No. Riding a bike, by itself, is safe. Just like walking is safe, or sitting on park bench, or sitting in outdoor seating at a restaurant, or loading groceries into your car trunk. It's the presence of cars, and people driving cars, that make all of these activities dangerous.

How many of these stupid posts have you written today? Have you done anything else since the moment you woke up?

I'm a DP, but I notice that we have hit the absolutely no counterpoints line. Guess that means it's time for the spandex jokes next.

[Anonymous]

Unsurprisingly, old white men in tights are tattle tales.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today, I was driving westbound on Macarthur Blvd, and I stopped at a red light. Two bicyclists, with children in tow, came up behind me, crossed four lanes of traffic to turn left onto Dana Place. I know bikes can do a rolling stop through stop signs, but is this correct behavior at a stop sign. It seemed very dangerous to me as cars were crossing Macarthur with the light.

That intersection has crosswalks on all sides. So it sounds like they were effectively turning left onto the crosswalk across MacArthur and along Dana. If there was traffic turning left off Dana onto MacArthur, they could have remained on the crosswalk and been protected by the right of way. If there was no traffic on Dana, then they can just merge from the crosswalk onto the Dana proper without any issue. A cleaner way of doing this would have been to come up onto the sidewalk of MacArthur before turning left onto the crosswalk, but either way this sounds like a perfectly safe move. Had they followed the law for cars, they’d be stuck in the left westbound lane waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear before they could turn left and would still need to worry about cars turning right from MacArthur onto Dana while running the risk of being rear-ended by a driver on MacArthur who was not paying attention. I’ll take what they did any day over that risk.

This is likely what happened. My only disagreement is that biking in the crosswalk actually can be dangerous because you’re less visible.

Less visible than what? If drivers are unable to see people who are in the crosswalk, that's a real problem.

If you’re going to bike in the city (esp with kids) you REALLY need to learn this. Biking in a crosswalk can be unsafe because cars are only looking for people moving at walking speed. You can bike through a crosswalk but you need to go slowly and look out for turning cars.

I always look for cars whenever I'm on a bike, and I don't like biking through crosswalks because I don't want to hit pedestrians. But let's be clear: The responsibility for avoiding a crash involving a vehicle turning and anyone doing anything in a crosswalk is primarily on the driver of the turning vehicle.

The responsibility to keep yourself (and your kids!) alive is yours. There’s a reason right-hook accidents are the most common - because those types of accidents are the ones where the objective physics of traffic make it most difficult for cars to see bikes. It’s absolutely idiotic to neglect to educate people on bike safety out of some kind of ideology that “cars are always at fault.”

The reason those types of “accidents” happens is because the average driver is incompetent and selfish and doesn’t give a single f*** about anyone else’s safety. You’re driving a giant and potentially lethal piece of equipment because it is more convenient for you to do so - the very least you can do is take that responsibility seriously.

Lol i guess those “drivers” just jump onto the bike trails? Every time I go biking it’s like a war zone with other bikers scattered on the ground - broken arms, crashed bikes, etc. All the ones still up and riding are giving everyone the middle finger. It’s the biker salute

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today, I was driving westbound on Macarthur Blvd, and I stopped at a red light. Two bicyclists, with children in tow, came up behind me, crossed four lanes of traffic to turn left onto Dana Place. I know bikes can do a rolling stop through stop signs, but is this correct behavior at a stop sign. It seemed very dangerous to me as cars were crossing Macarthur with the light.

That intersection has crosswalks on all sides. So it sounds like they were effectively turning left onto the crosswalk across MacArthur and along Dana. If there was traffic turning left off Dana onto MacArthur, they could have remained on the crosswalk and been protected by the right of way. If there was no traffic on Dana, then they can just merge from the crosswalk onto the Dana proper without any issue. A cleaner way of doing this would have been to come up onto the sidewalk of MacArthur before turning left onto the crosswalk, but either way this sounds like a perfectly safe move. Had they followed the law for cars, they’d be stuck in the left westbound lane waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear before they could turn left and would still need to worry about cars turning right from MacArthur onto Dana while running the risk of being rear-ended by a driver on MacArthur who was not paying attention. I’ll take what they did any day over that risk.

This is likely what happened. My only disagreement is that biking in the crosswalk actually can be dangerous because you’re less visible.

Less visible than what? If drivers are unable to see people who are in the crosswalk, that's a real problem.

If you’re going to bike in the city (esp with kids) you REALLY need to learn this. Biking in a crosswalk can be unsafe because cars are only looking for people moving at walking speed. You can bike through a crosswalk but you need to go slowly and look out for turning cars.

I always look for cars whenever I'm on a bike, and I don't like biking through crosswalks because I don't want to hit pedestrians. But let's be clear: The responsibility for avoiding a crash involving a vehicle turning and anyone doing anything in a crosswalk is primarily on the driver of the turning vehicle.

The responsibility to keep yourself (and your kids!) alive is yours. There’s a reason right-hook accidents are the most common - because those types of accidents are the ones where the objective physics of traffic make it most difficult for cars to see bikes. It’s absolutely idiotic to neglect to educate people on bike safety out of some kind of ideology that “cars are always at fault.”

The reason those types of “accidents” happens is because the average driver is incompetent and selfish and doesn’t give a single f*** about anyone else’s safety. You’re driving a giant and potentially lethal piece of equipment because it is more convenient for you to do so - the very least you can do is take that responsibility seriously.

Lol i guess those “drivers” just jump onto the bike trails? Every time I go biking it’s like a war zone with other bikers scattered on the ground - broken arms, crashed bikes, etc. All the ones still up and riding are giving everyone the middle finger. It’s the biker salute

That's wild man. Does the alarm clock wake you up from this dream or are you a natural riser?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Riding a bike in a big city is like playing football or boxing. You should not be surprised if it gets you seriously hurt. It’s part of the deal, whether you want to admit it or not.

No. Riding a bike, by itself, is safe. Just like walking is safe, or sitting on park bench, or sitting in outdoor seating at a restaurant, or loading groceries into your car trunk. It's the presence of cars, and people driving cars, that make all of these activities dangerous.

How many of these stupid posts have you written today? Have you done anything else since the moment you woke up?

Believe it or not, there's way more than one of us here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Riding a bike in a big city is like playing football or boxing. You should not be surprised if it gets you seriously hurt. It’s part of the deal, whether you want to admit it or not.

No. Riding a bike, by itself, is safe. Just like walking is safe, or sitting on park bench, or sitting in outdoor seating at a restaurant, or loading groceries into your car trunk. It's the presence of cars, and people driving cars, that make all of these activities dangerous.

How many of these stupid posts have you written today? Have you done anything else since the moment you woke up?

Believe it or not, there's way more than one of us here.

Nah.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Riding a bike in a big city is like playing football or boxing. You should not be surprised if it gets you seriously hurt. It’s part of the deal, whether you want to admit it or not.

No. Riding a bike, by itself, is safe. Just like walking is safe, or sitting on park bench, or sitting in outdoor seating at a restaurant, or loading groceries into your car trunk. It's the presence of cars, and people driving cars, that make all of these activities dangerous.

How many of these stupid posts have you written today? Have you done anything else since the moment you woke up?

Believe it or not, there's way more than one of us here.

You're not fooling anyone when you say you're a different poster or that you've never heard of DCUM until now and then say the exact same things you say in the previous 500 posts you wrote here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Riding a bike in a big city is like playing football or boxing. You should not be surprised if it gets you seriously hurt. It’s part of the deal, whether you want to admit it or not.

No. Riding a bike, by itself, is safe. Just like walking is safe, or sitting on park bench, or sitting in outdoor seating at a restaurant, or loading groceries into your car trunk. It's the presence of cars, and people driving cars, that make all of these activities dangerous.

How many of these stupid posts have you written today? Have you done anything else since the moment you woke up?

NP here. Q for PP:

Are you always so rude? And why do you hate bicycles so much?

You do realize your SUV leaves a massive carbon footprint, and you are choosing to poison the air your children (and everyone’s children) must breathe, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Today, I was driving westbound on Macarthur Blvd, and I stopped at a red light. Two bicyclists, with children in tow, came up behind me, crossed four lanes of traffic to turn left onto Dana Place. I know bikes can do a rolling stop through stop signs, but is this correct behavior at a stop sign. It seemed very dangerous to me as cars were crossing Macarthur with the light.

Fools also ride bikes. Anyone riding a bike who runs a red light is just asking to be killed by a car and they are acting foolishly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today, I was driving westbound on Macarthur Blvd, and I stopped at a red light. Two bicyclists, with children in tow, came up behind me, crossed four lanes of traffic to turn left onto Dana Place. I know bikes can do a rolling stop through stop signs, but is this correct behavior at a stop sign. It seemed very dangerous to me as cars were crossing Macarthur with the light.

Fools also ride bikes. Anyone riding a bike who runs a red light is just asking to be killed by a car and they are acting foolishly.

Factually false assertions.