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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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

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

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. [/quote]

Cycling in the crosswalk is completely legal and perfectly safe provided drivers exercise the usual precautions. Any driver who doesn’t have the visual acuity to notice a moving object in a crosswalk they are about to drive through and/or the wherewithal to verify that no one is about to enter the crosswalk before proceeding across it should not be driving.[/quote]

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