Police in Hackney catch 18 red light jumping cyclists in 90 minutes

brooksby wrote:

Have you got a day off or something?  You're spending way to much time on trying to goad Nige into admitting something that everybody here knows they will never ever admit to...

As a matter of fact yes I do

Garage at Large wrote:

You clearly don't know much about puffin crossings, because if you did you'd note that there is a time delay between the lights changing to red and the green man appearing.

This time lag is exactly equal to the time it takes for the red light to become established, and so your question is paradoxical: it isn't possible to hit a young child who is crossing the road on the green man unless the red traffic light is established.

Another exposure of your lies coming up.

The other day I showed you videos of car drivers running red lights.  To which you responded....

Garage at Large wrote:

Er no, because they are either gambling when the lights have just changed (which as I mentioned is a frequent occurrence), or in the case of the guy next to the police car has made an error of judgement.

Now the videos in question showed multiple drivers running red lights which had been red for at least 4 seconds (i.e. the time from the clip starting showing a red light to the offending driver and/or a green light to the recording driver).... to the time the driver plowed through the red light.

So I can only assume that you don't think a Red Light becomes established until it has been Red for more than 4 seconds...... which means..... wait for it...... drumroll...... if one of those drivers plowed through a red light, which in your own words has "just changed" 4 seconds ago.... they could quite easily hit and kill a pedestrian.

Low life ? Tell that to John Stevenson !
How many were making a left turn ?

>> It also shows the general public that cyclist can be 'done' for jumping red lights and that you don't need a registration plate to identify the culprits.

Yup, that's good.

Some people complaining about red light jumpers are arguing in bad faith. If they can't find a real complaint, they'll make one up.

Others are pissed off at flagrant lawbreaking going without consequence. You can write a dissertation proving they're technically Pareto suboptimal to want these resources deployed if you want. Nobody will care. Ever.

I thought this while scrolling the social media wars over the Highway Code. I suspect the "pavement riding, red light jumping, no lights cyclists" people complain about are, on the whole, not the same self-identifying cyclists who engage in road safety debates on Twitter.

Police on foot are not going to step in front of a rlging motorist, far too dangerous.

ktache wrote:

Police on foot are not going to step in front of a rlging motorist, far too dangerous.

This is true.  And, of course, also shows why cyclists jumping red lights, whilst illegal and wrong, is nowhere near as dangerous as car drivers doing the same, no matter how long it is since the lights turned red.

You can't get points on your driving licence for cycling offences, if that is what the writer meant.

There is a lot of 'whataboutery' here. ALL policing should of course be proportionate to the harm caused by lawbreaking. It may be that fatalities involving cyclists are v rare (and such statistics do not necessarily imply culpability on the cyclist's part).

But deaths are only the visible tip of much wider harms caused by jumping red lights. We also need to consider their impacts in terms of serious and minor injuries to pedestrians (and many of the latter will be unreported in police incident stats), and in terms of the distress such behaviour causes. Many pedestrians express concern at the apparent problem of RLJing cyclists and it is not plausible to believe that this is merely a consequence of 'cyclist-baiting' by DM and other irresponsible journalists. Such stories have an impact because at least in part they resonate with people's experiences.

So, if we wish to take this problem seriously as a society then we need to enforce the laws in a proportionate way (i.e. proportionate to the wider harms they cause and not simply deaths). I think I have only once in my life been stopped by police in an enforcement operation (erroneously offering advice on wearing hi-vis!) and I'm in my 50s. It is true that enforcement action by police against motorists has suffered disproportionately from Tory cuts in recent years and that urgently needs to rectified. Of course tackling dangerous driving should therefore be prioritised - but that does not obviate the need to take action against RLJing cyclists. The police also have a duty of care to all road users including protecting RLJers themselves from the potential consequences of their stupidity and thoughlessness.

We should also recognise that such behaviour has a serious impact on how some drivers choose to treat cyclists (i.e. their behaviour affects other cyclists) and this may cost lives. Offering advice to RLJers through occasional enforcement action seems like a proportionate police response. To argue otherwise would require a comprehensive assessment of the total police resource allocated to such activites in comparison with that targeted at other enforce operations on the UKs roads - NOT focusing on one instance like this to argue that this is somehow 'disproportionate'... And if one is caught breaking the law in a way that puts others at risk there really are NO EXCUSES.

Crazyhorse wrote:

Many pedestrians express concern at the apparent problem of RLJing cyclists and it is not plausible to believe that this is merely a consequence of 'cyclist-baiting' by DM and other irresponsible journalists.

Seems entirely plausible to me.

Crazyhorse wrote:

Such stories have an impact because at least in part they resonate with people's experiences.

Or... Such stories have an impact because at least in part they resonate with people's prejudices.

Crazyhorse wrote:

We should also recognise that such behaviour has a serious impact on how some drivers choose to treat cyclists (i.e. their behaviour affects other cyclists) and this may cost lives.

That's a very poor argument. Drivers are entirely responsible for how they act on the roads and legitimising road rage by pointing at some RLJing cyclists is ignoring the true causes and will not lead to safer roads.

I think the reason that we have cyclists wanting to go through red lights is due to traffic lights being designed primarily for motor traffic. The stop-start nature of roads fragmented by lights is the opposite of efficient cycling infrastructure although there may not be good alternatives at busy junctions. More enlightened cycling laws can be found elsewhere such as the U.S.'s 'right-on-red' (left on red over here would be the equivalent) which also applies to motor traffic - they can proceed through a red light to turn if it is clear.

There's also plenty of situations where it can be safe for a cyclist to continue through a red light where it wouldn't be feasible for a wide motor vehicle to do the same. I'd like something like the 'Idaho Stop' law to apply - you may proceed carefully if the way is clear.

There are obviously some reckless RLJers that endanger pedestrians (and themselves), but they are a minority and they should be focussed on as most cyclists will at some point be stuck at a red light and think to themselves "there's no traffic - why should I have to wait".

hawkinspeter wrote:

More enlightened cycling laws can be found elsewhere such as the U.S.'s 'right-on-red' (left on red over here would be the equivalent)

Aahh - but it wouldn't work here - no alliteration, see?

I am not at all seeking to legitimise road rage. I am simply saying that when drivers see law breaking by cyclists it may influence their behaviour. I am not at all saying that it ought to do so. But we know that it will. 

On your other point - yes, there may well be a case for a change in the law here and we are more than free to press for such changes. But we all need to respect the rules of the road as they currently stand. 

Crazyhorse wrote:

I am not at all seeking to legitimise road rage. I am simply saying that when drivers see law breaking by cyclists it may influence their behaviour. I am not at all saying that it ought to do so. But we know that it will. 

On your other point - yes, there may well be a case for a change in the law here and we are more than free to press for such changes. But we all need to respect the rules of the road as they currently stand. 

To some extent.  We are acutely sensitive to perceived unfairness.  However I suspect that drivers who already have an marginal or unsuitable temperament / behaviours for the operator of a dangerous powered vehicle will certainly use rule-breaking by others (e.g. cyclists) to legitimise their road rage.  They may be triggered by a specific occurrence and react to that.  They may just take it out on random others.

As for "we all need to respect the rules of the road as they currently stand" is that an exhortation or a demand for an absolute?  Because almost all the rules are broken some of the time and some are broken very commonly.  Effectively they're not really "rules".  Speeding and driving on pavements are the most obvious ones - the latter so ubiquitous that police have de-facto decriminalised it.  There are certainly cyclists cycling on non-shared space footways and going through red lights too *.

So I don't think saying "well everyone should stick to the law" acknowledges reality - although you may have it as an ideal.  The questions are "why not?" and "how to address that?" and the answer to the latter is not just "get the police to do their job / more police" although that can be part of it.

*  Elsewhere I've noted they're often doing so for different reasons, in different ways, with different risks than motorists and that merits consideration - even if you just want to find out better ways of stopping them!

Crazyhorse wrote:

I am not at all seeking to legitimise road rage. I am simply saying that when drivers see law breaking by cyclists it may influence their behaviour. I am not at all saying that it ought to do so. But we know that it will. 

 

How does that insight that help me?

Crazyhorse wrote:

I am not at all seeking to legitimise road rage. I am simply saying that when drivers see law breaking by cyclists it may influence their behaviour. I am not at all saying that it ought to do so. But we know that it will. 

On your other point - yes, there may well be a case for a change in the law here and we are more than free to press for such changes. But we all need to respect the rules of the road as they currently stand. 

Unfortunately it has become normalised for cyclists to have to accept the ire of some motorists because of some perceived slight that the motorist has seen committed by a completely random cyclist.  But my question is why should it be normalised?

I would pose a couple of questions to the wider audience. 

To those motorists among us, do you think that your actions as a motorist will have any influence on how other motorists are treated by someone that you have "held up" by going at the speed limit?

Imagine you were driving along a motorway and as you were approaching an entry slip road you saw cars coming onto the motorway so you move into the middle lane so that the cars can join the motorway safely.  Despite you doing this a driver of a Grey Ford Fiesta (most popular model and colour of car for many years running) pulled straight from the slip road out into the outside lane forcing you to brake sharply.  Would you think it is acceptable, 3 days later when you are in a supermarket car park to accost a driver of a Grey Ford Fiesta and threaten them because of the car that caused you inconvenience a few days ago?

So why is it we as cyclists are made to accept that our behaviour good or bad reflects on all other cyclists?  It's akin to the victim of domestic abuse saying ..... well if I had just done one thing differently maybe I wouldn't have suffered the consequences.