Pulled over on my bike.....

I am guessing you are young or look young since he asked your DOB. It is not uncommon for officers to be ingnorant of the dynamics of cycling and even the actual cycling laws. I have heard of officers telling cyclist to get on the sidewalk and ride where they belong even if it is against local statutes.

Yes sir, no sir. Yes maam, no maam (with as much sincerity as I can possibly muster).

This sentiment has spared me more grief with the police than anything else. Not breaking known laws goes a long way too. It may have indeed been dangerous to stop at the speed you were at, but you did put yourself in that position. It sounds however like your initial poor judgement was somewhat mitigated by your follow up good judgement. Glad you came out ok.

Thankyou, have a nice day (with as much sincerity as I can possibly muster).

He's right: you had plenty of opportunity to stop. After all, you are the one that made the stupid decision at 150 meters from the yellow light. People like you give cyclists a bad name.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by alienator [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

He's right: you had plenty of opportunity to stop. After all, you are the one that made the stupid decision at 150 meters from the yellow light. People like you give cyclists a bad name.

How do "people like me" give cyclists a bad name? 150 meters was a very bad estimate and an overexaggeration (it was closer to 150 feet and not meters-- (I was confused about the distance because I had been calculating my speed by feet per second rather than meters per second, but I thought I was calculating it as meters per second) and even less when it turned red) and with acceleration from 25 - 32 being less than two seconds as it was downhill with a wind behind me it was still less than five seconds to cross the line. It was just as safe to go as to stop as slamming my brakes on with cars behind me isn't really safe as I can stop faster than a car and I do not have any brake lights. The only person I endangered was myself-- why a motorist or anyone else would care about me endangering myself is beyond me, I see motorists run red lights, break hundreds of other laws and people with decently fast cars floor it passing me within inches to get to a light that is 1/4 or 1/5 mile away.

I think that anyone who's opinion I actually cared about would realize it was a silly mistake (and you should too) and it wouldn't affect their opinion of cyclists in general, and if it did-- I wouldn't care because of they clearly just hate cyclists or other people in general.

Anyways one of the main reasons why I didn't actually stop is because I just wouldn't feel comfortable stopping at over 30 MPH knowing that there was cars behind me and if in the not-so-improbable situation where I did fall (I have fallen over 5 times this year due to bad road conditions and not really lack of skill or stupidity) the options were braking particularly hard with a car under 15 feet away from me (regularly practiced by motorists here) risking falling, getting hit by other motorists turning right, left or going straight-- or avoiding the collision but falling anyways because of bumps/cracks/sand/gravel/dirt/loss of traction/flipping bike and getting another concussion/injury vs. running it and risking getting screamed at (happens anyways), honked at, pulled over, lectured...(I bet no one has read this whole post) etc. I think the choice was clear, yes, I admit I could've avoided it completely by not accelerating to 25+ in the first place, but I didn't and I can't change that. I'm sure you've made a mistake if you have ever actually ridden on the road (motorists make mistakes all the time-- and no one is worried about them having a bad name, anyways I'm sure I live hundreds if not thousands of miles away from you so it will not probably not really affect you much if at all.)

Cyclist going through red lights (whatever the reason) unfortunately give cyclists a bad name. As much as we are all individuals, we are also all ambassadors to our sport.

Sounds like the officer was nice and genuinely concerned for your safety. He could have made things much worse. I care about others endangering them selves for the selfish reason that I don't want to witness a death. It sounds that an honest mistake, we all have them and should learn from them.

Squirtys said:

How do "people like me" give cyclists a bad name? 150 meters was a very bad estimate and an overexaggeration (it was closer to 75 meters and even less when it turned red) and with acceleration from 25 - 32 being less than two seconds as it was downhill with a wind behind me it was still less than five seconds to cross the line. It was just as safe to go as to stop as slamming my brakes on with cars behind me isn't really safe as I can stop faster than a car and I do not have any brake lights. The only person I endangered was myself-- why a motorist or anyone else would care about me endangering myself is beyond me, I see motorists run red lights, break hundreds of other laws and people with decently fast cars floor it passing me within inches to get to a light that is 1/4 or 1/5 mile away.   I think that anyone who's opinion I actually cared about would realize it was a silly mistake (and you should too) and it wouldn't affect their opinion of cyclists in general, and if it did-- I wouldn't care because of they clearly just hate cyclists or other people in general. Anyways one of the main reasons why I didn't actually stop is because I just wouldn't feel comfortable stopping at over 30 MPH knowing that there was cars behind me and if in the not-so-improbable situation where I did fall (I have fallen over 5 times this year due to bad road conditions and not really lack of skill or stupidity) the options were braking particularly hard with a car under 15 feet away from me (regularly practiced by motorists here) risking falling, getting hit by other motorists turning right, left or going straight-- or avoiding the collision but falling anyways because of bumps/cracks/sand/gravel/dirt/loss of traction/flipping bike and getting another concussion/injury vs. running it and risking getting screamed at (happens anyways), honked at, pulled over, lectured...(I bet no one has read this whole post) etc. I think the choice was clear, yes, I admit I could've avoided it completely by not accelerating to 25+ in the first place, but I didn't and I can't change that. I'm sure you've made a mistake if you have ever actually ridden on the road (motorists make mistakes all the time-- and no one is worried about them having a bad name, anyways I'm sure I live hundreds if not thousands of miles away from you so it will not probably not really affect you much if at all.)

If you can't ride safe on the streets and adhere to the laws, stay off the streets. You're the one that decided to wick up the speed and remain ignorant of your surroundings. Further, it's not just you that would have been affected by an accident. The driver of whatever car YOU hit would have been affected to. It's a sign of pure ignorance to assume they wouldn't be affected. I've been to enough accident scenes for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists to know that a lot of drivers are devastated by such things. I seriously doubt you could have slowed from 32 to 0 faster than a car. A car can go from 35mph to 0mph in 42-45m. By your ignorant statements, you apparently couldn't stop in either 150m or 75m (your distance revised to make look less ignorant). So much for your boastful claim. It is your responsibility to ride in a safe manner in accordance with the laws. Simply put: you failed to that. No justification from you works. Cyclists are trying to gain acceptability on the roads and to overcome prevailing motorist attitudes. Your behavior exactly doesn't help. For the record, I've not blown a stop or stoplight like you.

I can stop from 10 mph in 5 inches, can a car? I can stop from 30 mph - 0 in less than 25 FEET, can a ca-- oh, clearly not. I have measured my stopping distances.

Collectively my bike, I and the supplies on it weigh under 160 pounds an SUV weighs what, a few tons-- it's clear which can stop faster, a car has 4 wheels which would be mostly on the front wheels, each of their tires aren't much more than 15 of my tires and it has 4000 or even 8000 pounds divided into 4 tires... that's 1000 or 2000 pounds... per tire. I have 80 pounds on two tires, if it's 400 pounds over 4000 pounds it has more weight per tire, and it's less than 15 feet away if you had read my full post you would've clearly known that and it would've been less than a second away from hitting me, they were most likely texting anyways, even if not, and were paying full attention it would take OVER half a second to REALIZE I was slowing down and another 0.5+ seconds to start to stop, so I would've been hit.

Quote: No justification from you works.

Why don't my justifications work, seems pretty solid to me-- the option was simply put be seriously injured or worse-- killed versus run a light and have a bad rep I'd clearly take the former (sarcasm.)

If I had hit a car it would've gotten a scratch, no harm done to the driver in 99% sure of that, they're encased in a cage and I have sub 20 lbs of metal and under 160 lbs collectively, yea, I would be hurt FAR MORE in BOTH cases. Anyways-- they're not going to accelerate in the 0.5 seconds of time that I was in the intersection while the light was green while I was there-- it's almost impossible, even if they are concentrating on the light very intently and didn't notice a me.

Actually, even if I did hit them and they tried to swerve/slammed on their brakes/etc they would be going under 20 and that's if they tried to accelerate fast out of the stoplight. I highly doubt they're going to be hurt much getting rear ended by something not much more than their weight at under 20 mph (they have 5 feet of metal protecting them.)

I rarely break traffic laws anyways, and I highly doubt that cyclists are going to be accepted on the roads anytime within your, or my lifetime. Just sayin' motorists will always be angry if a cyclist is in their way-- it's the way things are (and will be IMO for a LONG time.)

What I did was safer than trying to stop, by far, in my book. Nothing will change that-- it's my opinion and it's right in my eyes, yours is clearly wrong to me and I do not support what you think.

Quote: (happens anyways), honked at, pulled over, lectured...(I bet no one has read this whole post) etc.

I think that your clearly far more ignorant-- you haven't even read my full posts, totally gives the impression of education about this topic.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by Squirtys [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

I can stop from 10 mph in 5 inches, can a car? I can stop from 30 mph - 0 in less than 25 FEET, can a ca-- oh, clearly not. I have measured my stopping distances.

Collectively my bike, I and the supplies on it weigh under 160 pounds an SUV weighs what, a few tons-- it's clear which can stop faster, a car has 4 wheels which would be mostly on the front wheels, each of their tires aren't much more than 15 of my tires and it has 4000 or even 8000 pounds divided into 4 tires... that's 1000 or 2000 pounds... per tire. I have 80 pounds on two tires, if it's 400 pounds over 4000 pounds it has more weight per tire, and it's less than 15 feet away if you had read my full post you would've clearly known that and it would've been less than a second away from hitting me, they were most likely texting anyways, even if not, and were paying full attention it would take OVER half a second to REALIZE I was slowing down and another 0.5+ seconds to start to stop, so I would've been hit.

Sorry squirtys, but you can't stop from 10 mph in 5 inches. Maybe 3.5 feet, under perfect conditions, achieving 1G of braking. From 30 mph, you need 30 feet, again achieving the magic 1 G of braking. Don't know how you set up your braking measurements, but clearly they aren't correct.

Squirtys said:

I can stop from 10 mph in 5 inches, can a car? I can stop from 30 mph - 0 in less than 25 FEET, can a ca-- oh, clearly not. I have measured my stopping distances.  Collectively my bike, I and the supplies on it weigh under 160 pounds an SUV weighs what, a few tons-- it's clear which can stop faster, a car has 4 wheels which would be mostly on the front wheels, each of their tires aren't much more than 15 of my tires and it has 4000 or even 8000 pounds divided into 4 tires... that's 1000 or 2000 pounds... per tire. I have 80 pounds on two tires, if it's 400 pounds over 4000 pounds it has more weight per tire, and it's less than 15 feet away if you had read my full post you would've clearly known that and it would've been less than a second away from hitting me, they were most likely texting anyways, even if not, and were paying full attention it would take OVER half a second to REALIZE I was slowing down and another 0.5+ seconds to start to stop, so I would've been hit.  Why don't my justifications work, seems pretty solid to me-- the option was simply put be seriously injured or worse-- killed versus run a light and have a bad rep I'd clearly take the former (sarcasm.) If I had hit a car it would've gotten a scratch, no harm done to the driver in 99% sure of that, they're encased in a cage and I have sub 20 lbs of metal and under 160 lbs collectively, yea, I would be hurt FAR MORE in BOTH cases. Anyways-- they're not going to accelerate in the 0.5 seconds of time that I was in the intersection while the light was green while I was there-- it's almost impossible, even if they are concentrating on the light very intently and didn't notice a me.  Actually, even if I did hit them and they tried to swerve/slammed on their brakes/etc they would be going under 20 and that's if they tried to accelerate fast out of the stoplight. I highly doubt they're going to be hurt much getting rear ended by something not much more than their weight at under 20 mph (they have 5 feet of metal protecting them.) I rarely break traffic laws anyways, and I highly doubt that cyclists are going to be accepted on the roads anytime within your, or my lifetime. Just sayin' motorists will always be angry if a cyclist is in their way-- it's the way things are (and will be IMO for a LONG time.) What I did was safer than trying to stop, by far, in my book. Nothing will change that-- it's my opinion and it's right in my eyes, yours is clearly wrong to me and I do not support what you think. I think that your clearly far more ignorant-- you haven't even read my full posts, totally gives the impression of education about this topic.

You make a lot of assumptions that you can't back up, both on your bike and in your comments here. Oh, here's something you should research: what determines the size of a contact patch, and how does the relate to friction? Then look up weight transfer and how it affects suspension and the contact patch size. You should also look up how to accurately measure stopping distance. Hint: you don't measure it by recording what you pretend the distance is. If you were going 10mph and stopped in 5 inches, that would be an 8.07g deceleration. F1 racers would love to have that kind of traction. About the only humans that pull those kinds of g's are people in accidents and fighter pilots. Your equally ridiculous 30 mph stop in 10 feet requires the same deceleration as above. The laws of motion say your claims are farcical. As dhk2 mentioned, 1g braking on a bicycle isn't possible. MotoGP bikes, which have much better braking performance than a bicycle, can only generate a braking deceleration on the order of 1.1 to 1.2g's, about 8 times less than your Alice in Wonderland figures. To put another nail into delusional coffin, as a rule regular ol' cars can generate about 1g of deceleration. The rule of thumb for bicycles of typical geometry is that the max deceleration is about 0.67g's. At that point, the bike starts to rotate around the front wheel and any extra braking forces just makes the bike rotate more and/or faster. That's means your max stopping distance from 30mph would have been on the order of 45ft, and from 10mph it would have been on the order of 5ft or so. Ouch! Reality is a [censored]!

Thanks for working out the math.....I took the lazy man's way, just to check the bogus claim. Your illustration of car vs bike braking should cause all of us cyclists to be cautious of following cars too closely. It's great fun to follow cars down twisty descents, but be aware that they can slow a lot faster than we can.

One great thing about physics is that it can help us to avoid learning a lot of stuff by experience, aka the hard way.

One more: you're clearly young, immature and ignorant if you think that you're the only one who was at risk. Blowing a red light may mean that you surprise a driver into swerving and/or panic braking, causing them to wreck and possibly be injured.

Getting down to brass tacks, what can you learn from this to avoid a similar situation in the future? Perhaps that speeding up to go through intersections is a bad idea? Instead, slow down as you approach an intersection--it leaves you with far more safer options.

At 14, how many years have you been riding and how many miles? Not much. Between me and the members posting above are tens, probably even hundreds of thousands of miles and hundreds of years of collective riding experience. We've pretty much seen it all.

You can learn from this and grow, or, dig in, defend yourself and probably die. Your choice.

Originally Posted by Squirtys [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

If I had hit a car it would've gotten a scratch, no harm done to the driver.....

Actually, even if I did hit them ...... I highly doubt they're going to be hurt much.....

I think you may be missing the bigger picture here. While very little physical damage would be done to an opposing vehicle, have you thought about the mental distress created when an adult, a parent, teacher, coach, or anyone else with a responsibility to care for / about a child watches helplessly as they're multi-ton vehicle splashes cocky teean-ager parts all over the roadway?

As you've stated cars weigh several thousand pounds, you weigh 160. Cars are made of steel, you're made of flesh... In the event of an inadvertant collision you lose ... probably body parts ... the driver has to contend with the image of you flailing off the hood of their vehiclee, bones already protruding from skin, muscle and tissue being left on the pavement as you skid to a stop with your pants around your ankles (yep that's how you end), and litterally chunks of ass left on the asphalt.

Motorists dislike cyclist that run read lights because we scare the hell out of them, because even if they miss us, the above image runs through their head in a plit second.

I'm glad you made it through alright, and no one was injured, but please think of this conversation the next time you have a choice to make at an intersection.

Basically the rules here are the same as for a car. If you're approaching a light fast enough that you are unable to stop in time if it turns yellow, you are travelling too fast. The light doesn't change it's timing for a bike vs. a car. Big vehicles like dump trucks have similar issues with stopping distance so it's not unique to cyclists.

To avoid any confusion, let me clarify. If the light turns yellow, you need to be able to either stop before it turns red or be over the line before it turns red. It's your responsibility as a vehicle on the road to get that right no matter what you're driving.

I'm actually glad to see that the police officer in this case acted in a professional manner. His concern was obviously for the OP's safety first and foremost noting that it could have ended very badly.

Now, some of the people on this forum have been harsh to the OP, and to an extent he does deserve this, but I think it also led to his second post being somewhat defensive which made matters worse. So I'm hoping now he's learned his lesson and approaches those lights with care. It would mend a lot of fences if he'd post that resolution here.

Wow that is some story. Cops are funny. Sometimes they pay attention and sometimes they don't. It does sound as if he was concerned about your safety. You'll be thinking about it a bit more next time.