The Red Light and Stop Sign Cake

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The main purpose of traffic law is to provide a consistant set of predictable movements. Predictability leads to less confusion with what others in this shared pace are doing and less crashes. Most transportation activist hotheads seem to have no awareness of how things work in places around the world unless it’s a handful of counties in Western Europe which they have no problem misrepresenting. They’ve never been to Latin America, Southeast Asia or Africa which are home to places where traffic is far more chaotic, less predictable, and far less safe.

In the bicycle advocacy world, saying such is virtually taboo among most of those in the Platitude-driven domain though. Also taboo, or blatenty ignored is that in all 50 US States, cyclists have the same rights and duties while operating on (most) the the nation’s highways¹, limited access ones typically exempt, and the bicycle is a vehicle.

These facts are virtually unknown in the echo chamber of Platitude-Driven advocacy. Cluster B(bike) activists are completely ignore such, intentionally it appears.

Platitude-driven cyclists are ironically more ignorant of such facts than the non-cycling majority motorist population.

Part of traffic law requires drivers of vehicles to obey stop signs and traffic lights. Unfortunately bicyclists have a negative reputation among non-bicyclists for disobeying both even though legally they’re held to the same standard in most places.

Bicyclists have come up with a set of reasons in an attempt to justify such, and part of that is alleged safety and others argue with an appeal to their own narcissism insisting they’re saving the oceans from boiling or some other absurd reason.

Platitude-driven bicycling activists have successfully lobbied for the legalization in certain contexts of “running” either/and stop signs or red lights in some jurisdictions. Idaho is the first, and perhaps the most prominent example which legalized “rolling stops” primarily to reduce the number of cyclist appearing in court for violating the state’s law.

What follows is a brief history of Idaho’s laws, paraphrasing the article, “Origins of Idaho’s ‘Stop as Yield’ Law” written by Rick Bernardi for Bicycle Law.

In the early 1980s, some of Idaho’s magistrates were irritated with the number of stop-sign violating bicyclists clogging up the court docket and asked Carl Bianchi, the Idaho Administrative Director of the Courts, and also a bicyclist to do something. They considered the practice normal and not worthy of their time in the courts but had to follow the letter of the law nonetheless. Bianci helped write an updated set of traffic laws for bicyclists since in that state they’d previously been chipped away. Among legalizing rolling at stop signs (with certain conditions!) cyclists were given the right to control narrow lanes and merge left prior to turning.

Police piped back in opposition, wondering whether children on bicycles, often unaware and obviously not licensed, were capable of judging when it was safe to roll stop signs.

Early on, the “momentum” argument came out of the woodwork. The Ada County Bicycle Coordinator, at the time, Eric Guise remarked.

The basic philosophy should be to design the laws for the most competent rider or commuter. Bicycle codes should be designed to allow bicycles to travel within the city more swiftly and easily, so that bikes can play a significant role in the transportation system.

Conservation of energy is paramount to moving about on a bike. Overcoming inertia is the key. Bikers try to keep moving, and increasing the number of stops makes it harder for a rider to progress. Most riders do not now stop.

Guise’s initial remark indicated at something additional - he wanted to frame bicycling laws to increase their role in the transportation system. This is a typical prescription of Platitude-Driven cycling ideology. Proponents of this worldview however, despite their feel-good platitudes, often promote a decrease in cyclists’ safety.

Needless to say, the law was passed and came into effect in 1984 despite being far more about pragmatism in the court system than safety. It permitted treating a stop sign as one would treat a yield sign, provided there were no other road users (drivers or pedestrians) present. It also permitted stopping then going on red lights with the same “no other traffic” condition but for right turns or left turns onto one-way streets only. Proceeding straight through an intersection on a red light was only legalized in 2006.

Over the past 30 years, other states and jurisdictions have passed similar laws, colloqually categorized as Idaho Stop laws. Not all are identical to that of Idaho’s.

Idaho Stop type laws by state (Wikipedia)

Whether these laws actually increase a bicyclist’s safety is quite the rabbit hole on its own worthy of an entirely different post but I’ll tease that here by saying the studies are typically rife with issues as typical with the activism-driven “studies” pushed by fiat academics in the field.

The safety benefits are likely heavily exxagerated or taken out of conext - typical behavior of Platitude-driven ideologues too.

But nevertheless, the drive for such laws is now a staple in the bicycling advocacy world.

Somerville, a city located in the Boston area, have as of late been dealing with the issue. Cyclists in MA are still required to obey stop signs and traffic lights the same as motorists.

Somerville (or at least their police) have apparently had it with bicyclists not obeying the law.

It got the attention of a local NBC affiliate who ran a television clip and segment entitled, “Somerville cyclists oppose bikes being stopped for going through red lights.”

Local bicycling advocates have taken note of the police increasing enforcement of cyclists running red lights and want the police to focus their efforts somewhere else. Somerville received a grant from the state government intended to go to bicycle and pedestrian law enforcement.

Perhaps the cyclists have a point, given that motorists in adjacent Boston have been ranked among the worst in the country.

Somerville City Councilman Ben Ewen-Campen further elaborated that these bicyclists are largely doing the deed when nobody else is around.

"What we're talking about here is a cyclist comes to a red light and stops, sees that there are no pedestrians, that there's no traffic or the right of way, and then proceeds through. That's the behavior that we're talking about.

Unless the police are hiding near these intersections attempting to catch the law breaking cyclists, then they’re likely present at or near these intersections. That would likely make these cyclists’ movements illegal even in states where Idaho Stop type laws are on the books.

Ewen-Campen is making little sense here.

Also if there are no other motorists around, the crash hazard arguments are also bullshit.

The arguments in support get even more absurd.

A resident, Jeff Byrnes said:

"The biggest thing is that it takes cyclists and drivers out of conflict when a driver might be making a right hand turn, like a cyclist is proceeding straight or making a turn themselves. It's called the right hook. It's the most dangerous interaction that a cyclist and a driver have. Because the driver has very low visibility for the cyclist, even if they're right next to you," Byrnes said. "It reduces those interactions considerably because the cyclist can go ahead in most cases."

While he accurately describes a “right hook” collision and the hazards of one he is ignorant of the fact that a bicyclist can (and should) never ever get themselves in such a position in in the first place which can be done by yielding to traffic in the next traffic lane to the left and moving into the lane prior to places where right turns are permitted. On roads with so-called “protected” bike lanes, that may be easier said than done, as such infrastructure literally channels bicyclists in into this position, where they often pass other traffic to the right in their blind spots. Roads with regular bike lanes promote similar behavior since bicyclists are expected quite literally “stay in their lane,” even though in most states their permitted to leave the bicycle lane when right turns are permitted - a law meant to prevent right hooks! Most bicyclists, in fear of the extremely rare crash from behind will ride in this “edge” position by default, even though it increases their risk for the more common turning and crossing crashes, right hook being one of them.

Boston area cyclist (and legimate expert in cycling safety) John Allen has described this behavior as bicyclists “shooting themselves in the foot.” Platitude-driven ideologues though are masters of avoiding individual responsibility, demanding to project all onto others, especially “drivers” which they view as “opressors.” Calls for bicyclists to take personal responsibilty by placing themselves outside of obviously dangerous situations such as those that lead to a “right hook” are often accused of “victim blaming.”

Cycling Savvy, the only remaining bicycling education program in the US that’s not fallen hook, line, and sinker for bikeway segregation, years ago posted a handy graphic indicating both the roles a motorist and a bicyclist can play to as they call it, “break the chain of events” leading up to a right hook.

Their advice extends to turning trucks and how a bicyclist can prevent being crushed by one turning right.

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The Somerville Police Department, per the article, are so far only issuing warnings for bicyclist who are caught disobeying the law as opposed to fines. One of their officials, said:

All this enforcement is educational. We're not looking to punish anyone or hurt anybody. It's mainly getting out there, our mission zero. As we all know, this city is becoming more congested, and I think with the increase in cyclists, we want to make sure that everyone is on the same page and we want to make sure our cyclists are safe.

A MN-based law enforcement officer and bicyclist, while not addressing “Idaho Stop” type laws directly noted year ago about the splitting of these two different vehicle operators.

The problem I see with many bike facilities is that they in effect create two different transportation systems and even sets of rules - within the same space. Users of each are often confused as to how to interact with one another. Engineers build them, but nobody is instructed as to how to use them and interact with one another safely. Bike lanes, for example, are counter to the long held restriction from passing on the right. Drivers aren't expecting to be passed on the right, don't scan that area as a habit, and right hooks are only increased.

Of course his statement also largely applies to locations without bicycle-specific infrastructure as “edge behavior” which encourages right hooks, is also common.

Platitude-driven cyclists are not driven by even a sliver of logic or reason but instead by feelings and their narcissism though hence most of this will fall on their deaf ears.

They want their cake and to be able to eat it too but exchange order on the roads for chaos.

1. Highways as defined in traffic law and in traffic engineering.