[AfterPeak]

I have been cycling/commuting for many years in London now and I have to say the number of cyclists going through red lights is getting ridiculous. It hurts us all when people do this.

I propose we all shout a chorus of “Loser” when someone goes through a red light because I am not sure they know. I did have ruder words but I am saying them for close passes.

Topic

[brooksby]

True.  Whether on a bike in

True.  Whether on a bike in primary, or in a car, if you are at the front of the queue at the lights see what happens if you wait until the lights are green before you start moving.

(Clue: it involves car horns).

[brooksby]

You misunderstand me. I

You misunderstand me. I figure a link to a Dropbox full of pictures, a link to the ‘box and then just say “look at number 7”.

TBH, I was trying to take the mickey a little, and failed… 

[markieteeee]

Yeah, I’m not condoning the

Yeah, I’m not condoning the behaviour, it’s just that I don’t often see it and usually, although I’m certainly not saying that’s the case here,  it’s flagged up by people with another agenda. 

It’s possible that it’s not my experience because I cycle against the flow, rather towards central London; or that as I originally said, it’s on certain routes at certain times. On my short 15 minute cycle to and from work, I see several cars jumping reds everyday and if you include going completely over the advanced stop line into the advanced stop zone, which is also red light jumping, then it’s rare that I don’t see it at the very first lights I encounter.  So my own experience is that it’s very common among motor vehicles and pretty rare among cyclists. 

I also don’t buy that people with a hatred of cyclists have been provoked into it by (a perceived) law-breaking among cyclists.  It’s used as an excuse to justify their already nasty behaviour; just like people justify their prejudices against any minority or out-group by attributing some negative behaviour to all of ‘them’.

[quiff]

I have used this argument

I have used this argument myself before, but I don’t know if I really believe it. Sure, a lot of drivers find cyclists an annoyance and will come out with something like “as soon as you lot stop at red lights, I’ll give you more space”. But I question how many drivers actively choose to endanger a cyclist because of another cyclist’s infraction. I suspect it’s usually just a poor attempt at defending themselves after the event, in the heat of a confrontation. They seem perfectly capable of taking murderous offence at legal things that cyclists do too, so RLJing is only part of the problem.   

[Sriracha]

AfterPeak wrote:

AfterPeak wrote:

On a given day I (personally) see maybe one or two cars skip the lights. I see probably 50+ bikes run red lights or ignore the bike box and decide to stop right at the intersection instead.

My observation is that motorists and cyclists run red lights very commonly, but in different ways.

I think you will find it is almost the rule that the lead car in the queue at a red light will pull away and cross the line as soon as the amber light illuminates, even though the red will still be lit at this point, and remains so until green lights up. In this way just about every red light is jumped by at least one motorist at every turn of the lights.

But it is overlooked, whereas a cyclist stopping over the line at a red light is seldom overlooked. Count again.

[Awavey]

Agreed, that’s been my
Agreed, that’s been my experience also, I was down there briefly couple of months back and spent some time walking between places we were visiting,and not one cyclist out of more than a dozen I saw who could and should have stopped for a red light, did so, they all ignored it and rode through,some were tourists,some commuters,some deliveroo,but it just seemed the expected way to ride.

Now in fairness I saw several motorists on phones, and at least several vans,trucks,buses,cars all merrily sail through a light which had gone red,but none of them as you put it arrived at a red light and for their convenience just ignored it like the cyclists did.

Equally none of those motorists when seeing a red light blocking their left turn, took to the pavement to shortcut the corner and pretend the light or the pedestrians waiting to cross the road,werent there, as one cyclist did who most definitely got sworn at for that.

Plus I’ve nearly been hit by cyclists when crossing the road at a crossing with the green man showing to me, red light to all traffic in London few years ago now. They got sworn at too.

So it certainly happens, I’d certainly call out the worst offenders of it, though my general attitude is I will stop at a red light and through my example demonstrate to others who will perhaps see we dont all ride through red lights like that.

[wtjs]

You should probably just put

You should probably just put up a public gallery of these

Ah!, but I haven’t put up the picture of Lancashire County Council Highways Management going through a red light for ages! And how would your new restriction on me be easier for people than just scrolling past a picture they don’t want to see? After all, I have to scroll past massive items consisting of quotes of other people quoting yet other people quoting…. I think the space I take up with the odd repeated photo is more than compensated for by the reduced space of my small italic selected quotations. I’m not sure if I’ve even used this one of PE70 RXP before…

[Captain Badger]

Dicklexic wrote:

So often when this subject crops up, people claim that it’s a none issue, and/or the behaviour of other cyclists has no effect on them so why should they call it out. In my opinion that attitude is at best naive. It’s not just about the risk posed by cyclists to pedestrians or other road users, but also the knock on effect of their actions.

Whether you like it or not, there are a number of drivers out there who knowingly and/or deliberately put cyclists as risk, simply BECAUSE they have witnessed cyclists riding through red lights. I never (* almost never) intentionally ride, or drive for that matter, through red lights. Yet still when I have challenged drivers in the past over a close pass they have inflicted on me, they have claimed that I don’t deserve their respect because “you don’t pay road tax, and all cyclists ignore red lights”. Clearly they are completely wrong, yet the fact remains that because they saw some random cyclist who I have never met pass through a red, I myself am being put at risk. Explain to me how the two events are not linked?

Changing the attitude of all those drivers is no easy task, and sadly nor is changing the attitude of those cyclists that think it’s okay for them to make up their own rules on red lights.

(* I can’t claim to have never misjudged the amber light timing when driving, and there’s a red light on a quite road junction near me that does not detect cyclists, so you have to make a judgement and ride through. It will never change unless a car comes up behind you.)

Potentially, however as it has been demonstrated to be less prevalent behaviour than amongst car drivers, and comparatively vanishingly small issue in terms of outcome, why would I draw further attention to an irritation that is already massively overblown by the drivists and right-wing press?

 

(* PS. Amber means STOP.)

Edit: I am playing devils advocate a little. It irritates me too, and I have been known to shout out, if not loser, then perhaps something more badgerish and unrepeatable if someone sails past me when I’m waiting.

But trying to change gammons’ point of view is a losing battle. You might win a few with reasoned argument ( I remember bringing round someone who was criticising RNLI for funding swimming lessons for girls in other countries, I think it was Afghan, Iraq, Yemen amongst others) but it takes a long time, patience, and someone who is in comfortable to engage. 

[hawkinspeter]

quiff wrote:

I agree with all of that, but I do think there’s still a place for calling out bad behaviour – it doesn’t need to amount to abuse (I wasn’t actually endorsing the ‘loser’ proposal in the OP). I’d also probably support things like the Idaho Stop (haven’t given it a lot of thought), but unless and until it is law here, I don’t agree with just acting like it is. Sadly, it’s not uncommon to see cyclists in London going through a pedestrian phase at speed, rather than with Idaho Stop levels of care.    

What I think is also an enabler of bad road behaviour is the lack of traffic policing. When it’s common to see people routinely breaking the law, then it just becomes normal. One way to do that is to pick a random junction, and put a load of police there and stop and prosecute all RLJers, speeders, mobile phone users (whilst driving) etc.

[quiff]

I agree with all of that, but

I agree with all of that, but I do think there’s still a place for calling out bad behaviour – it doesn’t need to amount to abuse (I wasn’t actually endorsing the ‘loser’ proposal in the OP). I’d also probably support things like the Idaho Stop (haven’t given it a lot of thought), but unless and until it is law here, I don’t agree with just acting like it is. Sadly, it’s not uncommon to see cyclists in London going through a pedestrian phase at speed, rather than with Idaho Stop levels of care.    

[Dicklexic]

So often when this subject

So often when this subject crops up, people claim that it’s a none issue, and/or the behaviour of other cyclists has no effect on them so why should they call it out. In my opinion that attitude is at best naive. It’s not just about the risk posed by cyclists to pedestrians or other road users, but also the knock on effect of their actions.

Whether you like it or not, there are a number of drivers out there who knowingly and/or deliberately put cyclists as risk, simply BECAUSE they have witnessed cyclists riding through red lights. I never (* almost never) intentionally ride, or drive for that matter, through red lights. Yet still when I have challenged drivers in the past over a close pass they have inflicted on me, they have claimed that I don’t deserve their respect because “you don’t pay road tax, and all cyclists ignore red lights”. Clearly they are completely wrong, yet the fact remains that because they saw some random cyclist who I have never met pass through a red, I myself am being put at risk. Explain to me how the two events are not linked?

Changing the attitude of all those drivers is no easy task, and sadly nor is changing the attitude of those cyclists that think it’s okay for them to make up their own rules on red lights.

(* I can’t claim to have never misjudged the amber light timing when driving, and there’s a red light on a quite road junction near me that does not detect cyclists, so you have to make a judgement and ride through. It will never change unless a car comes up behind you.)

[Rendel Harris]

I wish I could say the same –

I wish I could say the same – I’m afraid at peak commuter time riding Peckham-Chelsea and vice versa there are at least five sets of lights where I can absolutely guarantee four or five cyclists will pass me as I sit at the red, and it’s getting worse. I’m totally pro-cycling and anti-car but I do find it really embarrassing, I used to be able to say “Bollocks, that’s a tiny minority” when faced with the red light whataboutery, but I can’t honestly say that any more. 

Not a defence, and I don’t do it ever, but a fair bit of it is simply anticipating lights, but there are a significant number of people (many of them, like me, MAMILS on pricey kit) who seem to think it’s OK even to slalom through the pedestrians crossing on a pelican – nearly had a fight recently with a guy I chased and remonstrated with for this at the crossing outside King’s College Hospital on Denmark Hill, fifteen-odd people crossing, guy ploughed through not even changing his line, his excuse was “I wasn’t going fast, was I?”

I don’t know the solution but I do know it’s doing us no favours.

[hawkinspeter]

quiff wrote:

Are you suggesting we shouldn’t care about cyclists’ offences unless and until we have eradicated motoring offences? I fully understand that cyclists pose a much lower risk to other road users, relative to drivers. But the risk of harm is not zero, as illustrated by my example above. Why can’t we try to make both drivers and cyclists better at the same time? 

I do think that offences should be dealt with according to the amount of danger caused to others and society. Currently, cycle offences seem to be extremely harshly penalised compared to motoring offences and additionally, there is a large amount of abuse given to cyclists both on the roads and in popular discourse. I don’t think we need to increase the amount of abuse that cyclists are subjected to even if some of them are cycling recklessly.

Currently we’re in the situation where the car is king and even when cycle lanes are grudgingly put in place by councils, they seem to be ripped out even quicker. This is while there’s increasing indication that climate change has reached or about to reach the tipping point of no return (i.e. large areas of the world are likely to become unlivable and there will be large numbers of people having their homes destroyed by “freak” weather events) and we also seem to have an epidemic of obesity and poor health brought about by people’s lack of exercise.

What we should be focussing on is encouraging as many people as possible to take up active travel (maybe just swapping a journey here or there with walking/cycling/scootering) and what we don’t need to be doing is creating a climate of abuse and dissent amongst us. There’s also the tribal problem of assuming that all cyclists are a group and as such need to be policing each other (c.f. war crimes of group responsibility).

Personally, I think we should have a change in the road laws regarding cyclists. Implement something like the Idaho Stop whereby red traffic lights can be treated as “Stop” signs (e.g. proceed with care only if your way is clear and give way to everything – that may be what you are seeing when cyclists go through established red lights) or at least allow turn-left-on-red with similar caveats (c.f. the U.S. turn right on red which also allows cars to do the same). I also think one way streets should allow two-way cycle traffic where there is room and it is safe to do so.

I think the problem is also exacerbated by the way roads are designed to prioritise motor traffic and there are often red lights that perform a meaningful function with large vehicles but are unnecessary for much smaller bicycles.

[quiff]

Whether it’s a problem is a

Whether it’s a problem is a matter of opinion, but in my experience it is common. I haven’t commuted in London for a while (covid, innit) but I used to see it a lot on my commute.  I have said before on here that I think the ire drivers reserve for RLJing cyclists is partly because of the way cyclists jump red lights. Yes, plenty of drivers (and some cyclists) are amber gamblers, who will sneak through on amber or red when they should have stopped. But what a lot of cyclists (but very few drivers) do, is arrive at an established red light and then carry on through it for their convenience.         

[quiff]

Are you suggesting we shouldn

Are you suggesting we shouldn’t care about cyclists’ offences unless and until we have eradicated motoring offences? I fully understand that cyclists pose a much lower risk to other road users, relative to drivers. But the risk of harm is not zero, as illustrated by my example above. Why can’t we try to make both drivers and cyclists better at the same time? 

[Author]

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