Anonymous wrote:Argh these posts drive me nuts. It's so obvious that the vast majority of the people posting on this thread have never used a bicycle as their main mode of transportation.

I have. For a year, I biked to work every day. Not in DC, but in another US city.

Coming to a full and complete stop and then restarting on a bicycle is incredibly physical taxing. If you want to fully stop, you need to put your foot down on the ground and then regain all your momentum when you start going again. It's grueling, especially when there are several in a row (as is common). It also does absolutely nothing for safety. When you're on a bicycle, going a typical commuter pace (ie, we're not talking about the Tour de France here), it's very easy to slow down and look, thoroughly, for vehicles and pedestrians as you're approaching a stop sign, without doing that full stop.

There are two ways that this removing this requirement actually increase safety:

1) Every single bicycle commuter quickly stops doing the full stop, because it's so wildly impractical, so you're essentially training bicyclists that the rules of the road don't apply to them. The signs and laws are for cars - bicycles are "different" - and they're not wrong. The rules around stop signs are designed for cars, not bikes. This mindset IS unsafe. It leads to things like not yielding to pedestrians in cross walks (bikers are way worse about this in my neighborhood than cars, I find), not stopping for stop LIGHTS (very unsafe!), going the wrong way down one way streets, etc. Changes like this, that align the rules of the road with the reality of both biking and driving prevent this attitude.

2) When you restart after a TRUE full stop as a biker, you're going very, very slowly the first 10-20 feet. That's when you're in the middle of the intersection! If you actually do this, you can easily come to a full and complete stop, see a clear intersection, and start proceeding forward, and then have a car show up and hit you. This is especially true in non-four way stops, where traffic isn't stopping from the cross street. It might be nearly physically impossible to get yourself safety to the other side of a wide road without risking getting hit by a car.

I understand what people are saying about cars that roll through stop signs - but having frequently done both, there is just such a huge difference in both what it's like to actually fully stop, and what the impacts on safety are.

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Anonymous wrote:So bicyclists can blow through stop signs but they aren't required to wear helmets? It seems like the city's policy is really just "bicyclists don't have to follow any rules."

They have to follow the rules- the rules are that they yield at stop signs and don’t have to wear helmets. You don’t seem to LIKE the rules but that doesn’t mean they aren’t following them.

When I drive I prefer cyclists doing the Idaho Stop- I generally prefer that they clear the intersection as fast as possible. If I am coming up to an intersection a second or two after a cyclist it is to my benefit that they go right through- I will stop and be able to proceed knowing I won’t hit them. There is more room for error in an intersection with a bike- if two cars go at the same time they can stop more easily. A cyclist making a sudden stop is more likely to wipe out or fall.

If it's that hard to stop, maybe the cyclist is just going too fast.

Ding ding ding! Too many biker bros racing through the intersection already. Slow down and yield to pedestrians especially when cutting down a crowded sidewalk!

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Anonymous wrote:So bicyclists can blow through stop signs but they aren't required to wear helmets? It seems like the city's policy is really just "bicyclists don't have to follow any rules."

They have to follow the rules- the rules are that they yield at stop signs and don’t have to wear helmets. You don’t seem to LIKE the rules but that doesn’t mean they aren’t following them.

When I drive I prefer cyclists doing the Idaho Stop- I generally prefer that they clear the intersection as fast as possible. If I am coming up to an intersection a second or two after a cyclist it is to my benefit that they go right through- I will stop and be able to proceed knowing I won’t hit them. There is more room for error in an intersection with a bike- if two cars go at the same time they can stop more easily. A cyclist making a sudden stop is more likely to wipe out or fall.

If it's that hard to stop, maybe the cyclist is just going too fast.

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Anonymous wrote:So bicyclists can blow through stop signs but they aren't required to wear helmets? It seems like the city's policy is really just "bicyclists don't have to follow any rules."

They have to follow the rules- the rules are that they yield at stop signs and don’t have to wear helmets. You don’t seem to LIKE the rules but that doesn’t mean they aren’t following them.

When I drive I prefer cyclists doing the Idaho Stop- I generally prefer that they clear the intersection as fast as possible. If I am coming up to an intersection a second or two after a cyclist it is to my benefit that they go right through- I will stop and be able to proceed knowing I won’t hit them. There is more room for error in an intersection with a bike- if two cars go at the same time they can stop more easily. A cyclist making a sudden stop is more likely to wipe out or fall.

Anonymous wrote:So bicyclists can blow through stop signs but they aren't required to wear helmets? It seems like the city's policy is really just "bicyclists don't have to follow any rules."

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Anonymous wrote:The city endlessly harasses drivers and yet there seem to be no rules at all imposed on cyclists. They don't have to wear helmets. They're free to put young children on bikes in incredibly dangerous situations. And now they can ignore stop signs.

How does it harm you if a cyclist doesn't wear a helmet?

Ok then don't claim that any of this is actually about safety.

It's about making accidents less likely. Helmets are about making you safer if you're in one. Both are about safety. For what it's worth, there are also a lot of studies looking at whether helmets do or don't help with preventing accidents; the evidence is mixed, but some studies have found, counterintuitively, that cars are MORE LIKELY to hit cyclists in helmets.

The thing about helmets that is well-known is that they reduce caution and increase dangerous behavior and can lead to more injuries. They also protect the brain and reduce concussions when accidents happen.

The problem is not with cars and bicycle helmets. The problem is with bicyclists.

Surely you misspelled "drivers" there.

Helmets increase injuries of the helmet wearer by giving a false sense of security.

Drivers are not the helmet wearers.

Anonymous wrote:A law that is universally ignored shouldn’t be on the books. This was the proper action for DC council to take.

If cars stopped for stop signs and red lights, this wouldn’t be an issue. But cars don’t stop for stop signs or red lights. So why should cyclists have to?

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Anonymous wrote:The city endlessly harasses drivers and yet there seem to be no rules at all imposed on cyclists. They don't have to wear helmets. They're free to put young children on bikes in incredibly dangerous situations. And now they can ignore stop signs.

I am not sure where you get that drivers are harassed given they control, disproportionately, the public space they use, they decreasingly follow the rules of the road, etc. the entitlement of drivers is astounding.

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Anonymous wrote:Did they also vote to get rid of right turns on red?

That has killed a couple bicyclists this year. Maybe if we just banned cars entirely, bicycling would be safer.

Maybe don't ride your bike here? If you want to ride your bike on city streets, move to the suburbs. Perhaps you'd be more comfortable there. There's a lot of people here, and riding a bike just isn't safe.

Anonymous wrote:Did they also vote to get rid of right turns on red?

That has killed a couple bicyclists this year. Maybe if we just banned cars entirely, bicycling would be safer.

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Anonymous wrote:Good. Now do shoplifting.

Agreed 100%

It’s a petty charge used to harm BIPOC. Get rid of it.

OR...we start teaching people not to steal???

This reeks of some low expectation bullshit. Seriously, this is disgusting. HAVE SOME ACCOUNTABILITY for once.

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Anonymous wrote:The city endlessly harasses drivers and yet there seem to be no rules at all imposed on cyclists. They don't have to wear helmets. They're free to put young children on bikes in incredibly dangerous situations. And now they can ignore stop signs.

How does it harm you if a cyclist doesn't wear a helmet?

Ok then don't claim that any of this is actually about safety.

It's about making accidents less likely. Helmets are about making you safer if you're in one. Both are about safety. For what it's worth, there are also a lot of studies looking at whether helmets do or don't help with preventing accidents; the evidence is mixed, but some studies have found, counterintuitively, that cars are MORE LIKELY to hit cyclists in helmets.

The thing about helmets that is well-known is that they reduce caution and increase dangerous behavior and can lead to more injuries. They also protect the brain and reduce concussions when accidents happen.

The problem is not with cars and bicycle helmets. The problem is with bicyclists.

Surely you misspelled "drivers" there.