Red Light Jumpers!

tarquin_foxglove

Spen666 & Dog Breath, pretty sure Mike Healey agrees with you & was making the point to Airborne Warrior that if you condone RLJ'ing where do you draw the line with other traffic offences.

Anyway I didn't consider myself to to be a RLJ but an incident the other night has made me reconsider my status. I was stopped at a red light at a cross roads, there was a pedestrian crossing as part of the junction but there wasn't an ASL and while I waited a queue of cars built up behind me.

The green man goes red, the other set of lights go to red, the cross traffic stops and so I push off, clip in, roll forward while I wait for the green light & then start pedaling.

Further along the road a car goes past & the guy's window is down & he shouts 'Typical f***ing cyclist, always jumping red lights'.

There I was thinking I was being a considerate cyclist but by the basic definition he was right I was RLJ'ing. Everything I've ever known & held dear, ie my moral superiority over RLJ'ing cyclists, has been pointed out as a sham. I've been wandering round in a daze every since.

Anyway can someone make me feel better & put the world right, by giving me a definition of RLJ'ing?

I'd always thought RLJ'ing was people treating them as 'giveways' and all I was doing was the equivalent of taking the handbrake off & putting the car in first.

Dog Breath

I've gone back and read Mike Healey's last post just in case I got it wrong. He said...

"A speed limit sign doesn't mean that it's dangerous to exceed it. It just means that it could be under certain circumstances. If those circumstances do not exist, then what's wrong with doing 40 in a 30 zone? As long as there aren't any pedestrians around and you're a good enough driver to be able to judge whether or not there are potential dangers, what's wrong with doing 40 under those conditions?"

It reads to me as if he is advocating breaking the speed limit if he thinks it's safe to do so?

chuckcork

Dog Breath wrote:

I've gone back and read Mike Healey's last post just in case I got it wrong. He said...

"A speed limit sign doesn't mean that it's dangerous to exceed it. It just means that it could be under certain circumstances. If those circumstances do not exist, then what's wrong with doing 40 in a 30 zone? As long as there aren't any pedestrians around and you're a good enough driver to be able to judge whether or not there are potential dangers, what's wrong with doing 40 under those conditions?"

It reads to me as if he is advocating breaking the speed limit if he thinks it's safe to do so?

Just because you don't see a pedestrian, doesn't mean they aren't there. By the time you do actually see them, it may well, at 40mph, be far too late to stop or take evasive action.

I've more than once had someone step or run out from behind a vehicle, without looking, where I could not possibly have seen them (think young child from behind a car, a man from behind a large van), and travelling at a lower speed I have been able to take evasive action, including an emergency stop, and so avoided hitting them.

Fair enough if you want to do speed on a motorway, that is an environment that is engineered with speed in mind, where the potential for the unexpected is relatively limited. But in urban areas speeding is a disaster waiting to happen. Just because YOU won't bear the consequences of the unexpected, is no reason for you to decide the law doesn't apply to you.

tarquin_foxglove

Dog Breath wrote:

I've gone back and read Mike Healey's last post just in case I got it wrong. He said...

"... what's wrong with doing 40 in a 30 zone? As long as ... you're a good enough driver to be able to judge whether or not there are potential dangers..."

It reads to me as if he is advocating breaking the speed limit if he thinks it's safe to do so?

He isn't advocating it, but drawing the parallel between speeding when you judge it is safe to do so & Airborne Warrior's point that is ok to RLJ when you judge it is safe to do so.

Both speeding & RLJ aren't judgment calls; you are breaking the law, you don't know what is about to step out etc and so shouldn't do it.

No ones answered my point, am I a RLJ for pushing off & rolling over the stop line a second before I get the green light?

don key

The red light jumpers society has a new enemy/competitor
It is apprporiately named the "Red Light Pullovers", they knit while they wait.

fnegroni

tarquin_foxglove wrote:

No ones answered my point, am I a RLJ for pushing off & rolling over the stop line a second before I get the green light?

According to Cyclecraft: yes.

tarquin_foxglove

fnegroni wrote:

According to Cyclecraft: yes.

Ah. :oops: I promise not to do it again.

When can I go back to being sanctimonious with regards to RLJ cyclists?

fnegroni

tarquin_foxglove wrote:

The green man goes red, the other set of lights go to red, the cross traffic stops and so I push off, clip in, roll forward while I wait for the green light & then start pedaling.

Further along the road a car goes past & the guy's window is down & he shouts 'Typical f***ing cyclist, always jumping red lights'.

If I read cyclecraft correctly, you are only supposed to start getting ready for pedalling when the red-yellow combination appears.

Which is around 1 second before the green light.

But, I do not think that warrants for a car driver insulting you, considering usually car drivers are the ones honking to cyclist to get out of 'their' way.

on the road

It looks like the troll has disappeared :roll:

chuckcork

fnegroni wrote:

tarquin_foxglove wrote:

No ones answered my point, am I a RLJ for pushing off & rolling over the stop line a second before I get the green light?

According to Cyclecraft: yes.

In that case just about every motorist I've seen doing the slow roll forwards at a red light is a RLJ'er!

---CameraLucida---

Those lights are for cars though, surely they don't apply to me!

Mike Healey

Thank you Tarquin for spotting what I thought was the blindingly obvious.

I really must remember to add a :roll: next time.

I find the pro-RLJ "case" (the " " are to indicate that I don't think it's valid ) generally as ludicrous as the self-serving complaints of the Safespeed lot. I'm perfectly prepared to accept that in some cities (London, Glasgow, etc.), cyclists are slightly more at risk from left hookers and so forth, but, in 54 years on two wheels of pedal and/or powered variety, and obeying red lights, I haven't felt in serious danger once in thsoe circumstances.

Yes, I've been hooked on a handful of occasions, but since I've always been aware that it's a possibility, I've been ready to take evasive action (brake, serve, or whatever) in time to avoid trouble. And that, in spite of filtering on the left far more often than on the right.

And no, I don't believe that most RLJers do it recklessly, but do their naturally self-preserving best to do it safely, unlike many 2-to-3-seconds-late-after-red, RLJing by drivers.

However, I still argue that, by removing one of the more obvious examples of cyclist law breaking, along with pavement riding, ignoring pedestrian crossing lights, etc., we would at least save god knows how much time in defending ourselves in the public arena.

We would still have to put up with the selfish ignorance and stupidity of a proportion of the driving public, but we would then be able to shift the emphasis in public debate to their shortcomings, which are, after all, far more dangerous than ours.

I know that some, on this forum, including me, have had the dubious privilege of appearing on local or national broadcast media and I for one, have got sick and tired of having the "discussion" hijacked by the usual complaints about lawbreaking cyclists, when the real subject should have been on driving standards.

We should also bear in mind that "our" traffic offences are far more obvious to other road users since things like ignoring red lights half-way through their cycle, riding on pavements or through pedestrians on crossings.. Drivers on the other hand manage to kill pedestrians on pavements at a rate of about 180 to 1 compared with us, but they don't do it by bombing along them but, usually, across them. The collisions therefore are unlikely to be seen by many people, whereas someone riding along them or blatantly ignoring signals/crossing lights is seen by far more people.

Similarly, driver RLJing, which is often misjudged amber gambling (I put my own hand up over this), is far less noticeable, as is speeding in most cases.

Remove our obvious and frequently seen traffic offences and the often ludicrous opinions of the ABD and Safespeed lot will be more clearly seen for what they are, since they won't be able to throw up the smokescreen of cyclists failings.

As for teaching our kids bad examples, I have been known, on occasion, to run safe cycling courses for the police, one or two of whom were in considerable need of instruction - altho' more on positioning and traffic awareness than RLJing

dave milne

I used to do this all the time. Then I got caught and fined and after a bit of thinking came to the conclusion it was doing nothing for cycling's image and now I stop 99% of the time. I will go through a red light at a pedestrian crossing if no one is anywhere near crossing it but that's about it.

We're all very fast to get self righteous about drivers we perceive as dangerous, we should really apply the same standards to ourselves

rsquid

What gets my goat about RLJ'ing is that it is only cyclists who get stick for it. I regularly see "colour-blind" motorists (the ambler-gamblers that Mike Healey refers to) desperate not to be the only car left behind when the lights turn red. Do they think they will be eaten by a bear or something if they are left behind at the lights?

On my regular commute there is a T-junction where I need to turn right from the main road to the side road. There are two separate lanes on the main road:- 'straight on' and 'right turn'. Straight on is green at the same time as traffic going the opposite way. Right turn gets a separate turn of the lights, at which same direction straight on is stopped - to allow cyclists to cross from the off-road cycle path, with its own integrated traffic light, across to filter in with the right turners. I was once very nearly wiped out by a suit in a people carrier. He was second in the queue to turn right. So for, no problem. But he decided to go straight ahead when the lights changed. Exactly as I was coming across when it should have been my clear right of way. I don't think he saw me even as his front bumper missed my back wheel by millimetres. My adrenalin level took some time to get back to normal, though!
That junction is also plagued by the amber-gamblers in the straight-on lane, so I never set off at my green light until I have eyeballed the drivers and made sure they are slowing to a stop. Incidentally, I do sometimes stick to the road not the cycle path but at rush hour the cycle path option is actually a lot safer and well-thought out.
By the way I don't RLJ either by car or bike on the grounds that there are quite enough selfish idiots on the roads already without adding to their number. I think that taking responsibility for one's own behaviour is an essential part of being a 'civilised' human being. IMO, what is needed is for more people to combine an attitude of self-responsibility withan awareness that they are not the only person of any consequence on the planet nor are they living in a PlayStation world where no real death or injury exist. A recognition of other people's equal right to exist would go a long way.

Spinner28

I actually wrote this in the commuting section of the forum as as part of a different thread alltogether, but I've just stumbled upon this topic so thought I'd cut & paste it here & add some more:

Posted 09 Apr 2009 20:45
I suppose you could apply the same to RLJing. How many riders sail through red lights at busy junctions? Well I see quite a lot doing it actually. When one irate rider who got stuck behind me once at a red light(couldn't get past cos I was right at the side of a bus) said to me that us cyclists don't have to stop at red lights, I replied that we're all part of the traffic, not peds on wheels & that traffic laws are there for a reason & apply to us all so the traffic runs smoothly & safely. His reply was that we don't have to stop at red lights & can break traffic laws etc. This, according to him, is because we can't be traced like motorists can be if we break the laws of the road & so fined etc. So that's ok then.

So do the majority of us not just go & murder people we don't like or steal things that we want because we're worried about getting caught? Or do we not murder or steal, because we genuinly belive that murdering people & taking whatever we want is wrong & don't wish to break the laws of the land which are there for the benefit of us all to keep us all in a some kind of a civilised society?!!! Same principle!

So continuing on this thread, because the law on hand held mobile phones is so badly enforced many drivers know that they can take the risk & get away it. Which they do regularly!!

Coming back to us cyclists though, we are, as has already been said, part of the traffic flow. We are NOT peds on wheels. If you wish to be a ped on wheels then ride on the pavement, which is of course illiegal, & is so because it's dangerous to peds on foot. But does that bother you? Would it bother you if you were to get fined for doing it, which of course you can, but in many areas aren't likely too.

teagar

I don't think many people dispute that, detached from their own experiences, it's probably not a good idea to jump red lights.

However, the problem is actually that the roads and the laws should be made so that there is never a moment to feel like jumping a red light.

Occasionally it doesn't make sense for a cyclist to have to stop for a red light, say, when the cycle lane never crosses the path of the traffic regardless of what direction cars are going, or where they are coming from.

If there would be a seperate cycle lane, away from the road, that would not be a problem, or at the very least, a seperate cycle traffic light.

The Netherlands is a good example of where this is (usually) done well.

The traffic light systems are made for motorvehicles, not for bicycles, hence the cyclists tending to be worse at obeying them.

Skooby73

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools ???....

eternal_headwind

Is part of the problem our satus as virtual outlaws? I use the term outlaw in the literal sense, insofar as the law does not offer us protection.
Does the sight of a policeman slipping into REM sleep when we try to report a non fatal accident involving a bike cause us to feel there are no traffic laws, only car laws?

teagar

Eternal_headwind wrote:

Is part of the problem our satus as virtual outlaws? I use the term outlaw in the literal sense, insofar as the law does not offer us protection.
Does the sight of a policeman slipping into REM sleep when we try to report a non fatal accident involving a bike cause us to feel there are no traffic laws, only car laws?

Not really sure what that has to do with cyclists jumping red lights?

eternal_headwind

The idea goes like this - the more the protection of the law (i.e. getting the police to do something about an accident or expecting a motorist NOT to left hook you) is removed from us then the less likely we are to feel a duty to the law i.e stop at red lights.

guilliano

How are we as cyclists holding up traffic by stopping at a red light when we are actually part of the traffic the light is there to stop? I find that at a lot of the red lights I have to stop at in my town my acceleration away from the lights when they turn green is pretty close to that of the car in front and as long as I am to the left of the lane as soon as possible cars can pass easily enough once they are going faster than me. Never once had a driver have a go at me for being too slow or for RLJing (which I have never done).