Reply to City council voted today to allow bicyclists to ignore stop signs

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "City council voted today to allow bicyclists to ignore stop signs"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Cyclists (versus casual bikers) are a menace to pedestrians. In dense business areas and high volume traffic areas, they should be required to carry a license and registration — probably insurance too.

I’d also like to see cameras on crosswalks. [/quote]

They're a menace to their own children. I saw a cyclist this morning with a small child on the back of his back riding down the middle of New Hampshire, between the two lanes, during rush hour. Spectacularly dangerous. How are people allowed to put children in this situation? [/quote]

In cars, children must be strapped into approved car seats. On bikes, they don't even have to wear helmets. It's a real blind spot in the law. But, sure, let's focus on the real problem...(checks notes)...cars turning right on red after they've stopped?[/quote]

Because *checks notes* they don't actually stop.

THAT is the problem. Since the law has been in place for decades, the aggressiveness of drivers had gotten worse. Since driver abused the freedom, they now lose it.

[/quote]

Of course they stop. The hyperbole on this thread is ridiculous. If as many drivers ignored stop signs as you say, traffic would be completely unpredictable -- they would be *thousands* of accidents every day, the death toll would be staggering and bicyclists would have to be insane to venture out into the streets. Of course none of that is happening because the nearly every driver follows the rules. [/quote]

Almost no driver comes to a complete stop at every stop sign, as the law is supposed to require. See for instance this one stop-sign camera in Northwest D.C. that brought in $1.3 million in revenue in two years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/05/31/stop-sign-camera-northwest-washington/

Does an accident result every time a driver rolls through a stop sign or only slows down a bit? No, of course not. But the risk is greater for a pedestrian or a cyclist when a driver does decide to mostly ignore a stop -- both because they're inherently more vulnerable than someone in a car is and because they're harder to see than a car because they're smaller, which means a driver who's only slowing for a stop sign is likelier to hit them than to hit another car.

What bicyclists have been saying over and over again is that it often DOES feel like it's insane to venture out into the streets, and that some measures to make it safer are warranted. [b]But people who oppose these changes either (a) say cyclists are making it all up or (b) argue that inconvenience to drivers is much worse than danger to non-drivers.[/b] [/quote]

Or, the truly bonkers people who oppose these changes because (c) efforts to make biking safer are unwarranted because they saw a bicyclist run a red light one time on the way in to work.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics