Red means stop, dickhead - Page 3

In aus.bicycle on Thu, 03 Aug 2006 14:22:18 +1000
Tamyka Bell <t.bell@uq.edu.au> wrote:
>
> When I see people doing that sh1t I think, "Unnecessary risks only make
> up for a lack of fitness until you get cleaned up. Get fit you lazy
> fscker, instead of running reds."

I think people do it more for "I want to get where I'm going" than "I
will save time". Same mindset that makes car drivers tailgate, chop
lanes without indicating and so on. It's more about the immediate
than the long term, more about "I want to keep going" than "I want to
be there sooner".

When I've done it it has been because the road's clear. I try not to
do it because I don't think it is right to do so, but sometimes I've
thought "dammit, there's no real *reason* I'm sitting here". The road
is clear and I can see it is, or else the cars are jammed across the
intersection and no one's moving.

Of course there's no reason for anyone to treat a red light as more
than a give way sign, relying on their own judgement as to whether it
is safe to move. No reason except that lights are often placed at
intersections where such judgement has failed too often.


I wonder how manay cyclists who run lights complain about pedestrians
using their own judgement about when to cross and getting it wrong.


Zebee

TimC wrote:
> On 2006-08-03, Resound (aka Bruce)
> was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
>
>><mfhor@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>>news:1154519776.391864.270420@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>>I run reds regularly. I call it civil disobedience. Call me a dickhead.
>>>If I get cleaned up, it's my fault, pure and simple. If I want less
>>>risk, I'll be more cautious, and only run a few simple ones.
>>>
>>
>>Firstly, there are enough cyclists out there who clearly need traffic lights
>>to avoid being cleaned up that not running reds as a law should make sense
>>right there. The point of laws is that you don't ignore them based of your
>>personal evaluation of when it's reasonable to do so. If it was otherwise
>>then the people who most badly need those laws are the ones who'd never
>>observe them. I'm rather tempted to suggest that that's the case with
>>bicycles running red lights at the moment. The notion that it's your risk
>>and not anyone else's just doesn't wash. How about the person on another
>>bike or motorbike who goes down hitting or avoiding you?
>
>
> Whilst I agree partially with mfhor ("in an ideal world, there
> wouldn't be cars, and hence we wouldn't need traffic lights with
> rediculously long cycles ala Camberwell Junction, High St Rd/Warrigal
> Rd, etc), this one's a biggy.
>
> Even if you know you are not placing someone else in risk, they don't
> know that. Taking evasive action is a risky process. Forcing someone
> to take evasive action, because they don't know you are going to stop
> in time is stupid.
>
> The other day, I damn well came close to headbutting the ground again.
> New salmon koolstop pads, and a taxi driver who decided to do a U-turn
> in front of me. OK, so they had seen me, and intended to stop in time
> before completing the U-turn in front of me. I didn't know that, and
> decided it would be wise to take evasive action -- jam on my brakes to
> the point where I am used to them stopping me in time. Instead the
> back wheel lifted up quite a distance. Even if they knew that they
> weren't going to hit me, from my point of view, it wasn't even
> apparent I had been seen, so the only thing I could do to gaurantee I
> wasn't going to go headfirst into the side of a taxi, was to perform
> an evasive maneuvour that almost became my downfall.
>
The fighter pilots call it honouring the threat. And you must honor the
threat. Do that and you will save bruises on a pushy and your life on a
motorcycle

Resound wrote:
> <mfhor@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:1154519776.391864.270420@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > I run reds regularly. I call it civil disobedience. Call me a dickhead.
> > If I get cleaned up, it's my fault, pure and simple. If I want less
> > risk, I'll be more cautious, and only run a few simple ones.
> >
>
> Firstly, there are enough cyclists out there who clearly need traffic lights
> to avoid being cleaned up that not running reds as a law should make sense
> right there. The point of laws is that you don't ignore them based of your
> personal evaluation of when it's reasonable to do so. If it was otherwise
> then the people who most badly need those laws are the ones who'd never
> observe them. I'm rather tempted to suggest that that's the case with
> bicycles running red lights at the moment. The notion that it's your risk
> and not anyone else's just doesn't wash. How about the person on another
> bike or motorbike who goes down hitting or avoiding you? How about the
> person who winds up injured and/or traumatised and/or well out of pocket
> when you bounce off their front guard and into their wind screen? How about
> the cost to the community in both dollars and physical resources with
> regards to the emergency services who scrape you off the road and cart you
> off to hospital? And finally, as has been mentioned in this group a huge
> number of times, how about the dozen people who watch you blow through that
> red light each time and mentally reinforce their pre-conceived notion that
> cyclists are dangerous idiots. Don't even think about saying that they won't
> apply it to all cyclists because not all cyclists are the same. When you're
> not part of a minority, there's a tendency to treat that minority as a
> homogenous group. Non-cyclists aren't interested in making the mental effort
> to give us the benefit of the doubt, especially when being mentally lazy
> lets them see another data point to reinforce their fondly held prejudices.
>
> Oh, and before I forget:
>
> Dickhead.

SO now I've got all the prejudiced, insurance-premium-up-stumping ,
tax-paying, cringers in the corner of the transport system that the
motoring lobby allows us out in the open, what have you gained by
thinking differently for the microsecond you allowed yourselves before
heaping invective on the devil's advocate I was playing?

Nothin'.

You're locked into the status quo.

You won't think differently about traffic - how it's organised, who the
present organisation benefits, why cyclists are victimised, why we as
cyclists get a gravel and glass strewn half a metre all to ourselves
whilst trucks, cars and those incredibly annoying scooters can
imperiously put our lives at significantly more danger than theirs by
simply looking away for half a second.

SO take back the dead bits of the traffic cycle. Show EVERYONE how much
dead time and unweildiness there is in this regimentation for the
benefit of multinational companies who make big things that kill
people. I'm not talking about Kona or Shogun here. Or just submit to
all the little bits of non-cycling friendly traffic regulation that add
up, in their entirety, to unjust laws. The ones that stop people riding
bikes by making our *commonly owned* outdoors a safe place for cars
(made by *privately owned* Ford,GMH, etc., yes, incredibly
human-focused organisations) first, and people next, if at all. Are we
being screwed? Yes.

And keep self-righteously calling everyone who disagrees with you a
dickhead. It just underlines the fact, in motorists eyes, that all
cyclists are stupid. Yes, I'll keep on running all the red lights that
I think are runnable, you feel free to arrest me (if you're entitled,
and can catch me), yell at me, call me a dickhead, laugh/mourn over my
mangled body/corpse, or whatever. I'm not stupid. I ride in traffic
every day, and have done for 20 years in Melbourne. I think I'm doing
all right (touch wood) having not been hospitalised yet. I've been
close-called and minorly injured by cars ostensibly obeying all the
written road rules many times. The medium is the message. Two tons of
metal with a captive occupant is built to not care, really, about
anything except a quicker way to get from here to there, and traffic
lights are just (grudgingly admitted as necessary) impediments,
homicidally flouted when possible, to most motorists, not the
touchstones to a gloriously safe future which some posters here seem to
think they are. I've never heard of a cyclist killing a motorist whilst
colliding at an intersection. I'll use all the skills I developed
growing up in the country, where there were about 2 traffic lights
within a 100 k radius, to assess the dangers of a road situation. You
continue thinking along the little tracks that Mr Toyota and Mr Ford
built, and are happy for you to think along.

MH

cfsmtb wrote:

>
> That's another damn fine rebuttal to that pile of self-moralising. Have
> talk to anyone who works in emergency services. Going to extremes here,
> but one thing you *never* want to see or experience, is maximum blunt
> trauma to a human body. Can't walk it off, difficult to stitch back
> together and truly awful to deal with even in a professional capacity.
> Life is full of risk, but don't consciously make yourself a Darwin
> Award nominee.
>
> Dickhead.
>
>
> --
> cfsmtb

And how do you you know I haven't? Hasn't happened to me, but I've seen
it happen to someone else right up close AND IT WAS IN A PERFECTLY
LEGAL TRAFFIC SITUATION, right up to the moment the car swerved right
to avoid another car. Badly injured cyclist resulted.

Ok, lets take another tack, to get away from the moralising, from one
camp or another.

What if *our* outdoors, you know, the one we pay taxes to enjoy, were
designed for the utility of human-powered transportation and enjoyment,
rather than as a conduit for motorised traffic?

Think bigger, peoples. Do you think bikes would have to stop at red
lights? Do you think peds would have to? Why do we have to now, apart
from being threatened with death by chunk of metal moving at 60 kph+?

Try another culture, another society. Get out of your Anglo mental
gridlock.

Holland

Denmark

East Asia

All either admit to the reality of a people-oriented transport system,
or actively design for it. It's only countries held hostage by big
(auto) business who try their hardest to put as many people as possible
in metal containers and make them behave. If the containers have
wheels, why then, it just adds to the illusion that they're going
somewhere important.

Yes, I've been known to attend Critical Mass too, and I've got a
CarBusters "One Less Car" sticker on my downtube. I also own a car,
mainly to get to bicycling venues avec bike. I never run reds in my
car, never. I hate driving in peak hour traffic, and am appalled at the
# of people who I see chatting on their mobiles whilst driving, despite
all available evidence that this kills people.

MH

cfsmtb wrote:
> The subject of red-light running came up again during a lunch meeting
> today....

<snip>

Lotsa cycling folk get cranky with those who run reds, arguing that it
makes us look bad to car folk. The issue certainly gets raised often
enough by non-cyclists I know and even cycling supporters among them
really don't like it.

But how do we get the recalcitrants to change? I'm not keen to spoil my
pleasant morning commute by challenging folks and getting into
arguments.

I wonder if peer pressure might work? This morning, watching the usual
drift through the red at Elgin St, I thought of using some sort of
sound, a honk of derision and disapproval, like a duck lure or similar.
If everyone started doing it, the message might get across. Sort of
like Italians whistling at the Opera. Less confrontational than a
telling-off, but maybe more embarrassing and effective?

What do you think?

Persia

You not helping one iota to this discussion MH, (and you *really* should do something about that very unfortunate *grinning git* image of you in a recent mag, it's a fkng pisser!)

Must make it out to a MazzaBUG outing one day to see if you're actually that silly, or it's really all an act. Fascinating.

On 03/08/06 at 22:55:34 persia somehow managed to type:

<snip>

>
> But how do we get the recalcitrants to change?

Probably the same way we can get motorists to stop using bloody mobile
phones while they're driving. It doesn't matter what you do there'll
always be some idiots who seem to think that the road rules are only
loose guidelines at best and that they only apply to others anyway.

Hmmmmm that wasn't very helpfull was it, I must have had a bad day or
something....

<snip>

--

Humbug
Today is Setting Orange, the 69th day of Confusion in the YOLD 3172

I like this tact. Pity a 'slow clap' (in full finger gloves) wouldn't quite work whilst perched at the lights. How about blowing the biggest, rudest, wettest sounding raspberry at the offender?

cfsmtb wrote:
> mfhor@yahoo.co.uk Wrote:
> > waffle snipped
>
> You not helping one iota to this discussion MH, (and you *really*
> should do something about that very unfortunate *grinning git* image of
> you in a recent mag, it's a fkng pisser!)
>
> Must make it out to a MazzaBUG outing one day to see if you're actually
> that silly, or it's really all an act. Fascinating.
>
>
> --
> cfsmtb

Au contraire. I think I'm actually asking, maybe provoking, people just
to have a bit of a think about what the hell end of the stick bikes get
in traffic. People who preach about the inviolability of red lights, in
my limited exp, also are absolutely sure they're right about many
things, and get all uppity and insultative when someone disagrees with
them on those, like, fr'instance, the necessity of aparthied, or the
right of Western multinationals to pillage the developing world, etc.
Well, maybe not those.

Got any stupid photos of yourself we can all have a laugh at? Put them
out in the public domain, there's a good chapette, and we'll score you
out of 10 for ludicrousness. Fair?

Yes, you might see me run a red light or two if you do come along (but
it's all talk, I suspect, the coming along bit at least) and the
opinions of the contributors to the BUG are not necessarily those of
the BUG itself, I should make crystal clear. Nor of the mag, who pays
me a little bit in order to humiliate me with a substandard photo. My
editor likes it, and paid for it. What can one do? How DO you get paid
for an opinion, I hear you ask? Well, you have to be able to divine
your audience's deepest needs. All those little repressed desires that
they wish they could act upon, but don't know how. Then you have to
irritate them just enough to get them to at least countenance a
possible alternative to their current course of action. Then sit back
and watch what happens. Amusing, but also saddening, when the status
quo keeps on prevailing . . .

MH

cfsmtb wrote:
> persia Wrote:
> >
> > I wonder if peer pressure might work? This morning, watching the usual
> > drift through the red at Elgin St, I thought of using some sort of
> > sound, a honk of derision and disapproval, like a duck lure or
> > similar.
> > If everyone started doing it, the message might get across. Sort of
> > like Italians whistling at the Opera. Less confrontational than a
> > telling-off, but maybe more embarrassing and effective?
> >
>
> I like this tact. Pity a 'slow clap' (in full finger gloves) wouldn't
> quite work whilst perched at the lights. How about blowing the biggest,
> rudest, wettest sounding raspberry at the offender?
>
>
> --
> cfsmtb

Oh dear, the self-appointed guardians of cycling rectitude are starting
to rear their heads . . .

Time to go bedi-byes young Mark. Sweet dreams!

Heh heh, I'll keep my feet on the pedals of my fixie, thanks!

R

The Devil's Advocate role is often unpopular, but even more unpopular is when an argument is ignored or ridiculed. You made an argument for running red lights based primarily on your ability to assess your own risks, as well as a kind of subversive idea where the running of red lights by cyclists could help bring down the capitalist/industrialist auto system. Other people responded by saying (inter alia) that your actions affect them, in that running reds gives cyclists a bad name and at least one shared an anecdote where he was abused by a motorist _directly_ because another cyclist ran a red.

The merits of trashing the car industry by running red lights on a bicycle could be argued (and promptly rejected). The fact is that running reds _does_ make life more difficult for other cyclists by increasing the level of contempt that car drivers have for us. That contempt feeds into less care and more dangerous behaviours. You should ponder on that, as well as assess the risks to yourself and the rest of it, when you come up to your next intersection.

R

In article <1154607892.505277.212120@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
"mfhor@yahoo.co.uk" <mfhor@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> I ride in traffic every day, and have done for 20 years in Melbourne.
> I think I'm doing all right

So bugger everyone else, eh? Your concept of thinking differently looks
remarkably familiar.

--
Shane Stanley

well, you did ask us to... just stating our own personal opinion.

i dont know about you, but you dont find me riding my bike on the dead bit of the road... its common sense to take up as much of the lane as you feel safe (and its also quite lawful to do so) which puts you out of the glass zone. we legally have the right to use the road on our bicycles, so we should legally stick to the reasoning that requires us to stop at red lights... after all, if a motorist was to flaunt the law and drive through red lights willy-nilly you would get rather ****ty too.

your "bringing down the system" from the inside isnt working... no-one but you knows you are doing it and everyone else just thinks you are being an inconsiderate and very rude cyclist... and yes... you make the rest of us look bad, maybe you should think about that next time.

as for annoying scooters... im one of those annoying cyclists that uses up the lane she is entitled to, and one of those incredibly annoying scooterists, and cyclists who run red lights and flaunt the law still **** me.