Should cyclists be allowed to ride through red lights? Campaigners split on safety benefits

chrisonatrike wrote:

Although "Vision zero" is much better than the current approach (maximum throughput of motor vehicles consistent with safety) an aside:  this often comes over as more "slogan" than plan.  I appreciate there are various versions of "Vision zero" and I have tried to understand the detail where it's actually given (not always).

That's why I keep pointing to the Dutch "sustainable safety" model.  There is a clear goal which is a positive goal ("safe and efficient movement of people") rather than just "no deaths".  The latter suggests fixing what's already there, the former a whole new direction.

The overall goal in the "sustainable safety" model is served by a set of principles and applying those leads to the design detail and rules.  Finally one of the principles is a requirement for a feedback process.  So issues (crashes, problems with rules etc.) aren't just viewed through the "someone - an isolated wrong 'un - done wrong / it was just one of those things" lenses we have here. Applying a more "systems-based" approach to issues can lead to recognition of less-than helpful designs, or prompt more training or rule changes.

That's a much better approach, but I'm concerned that the UK is more interested in copying the U.S. than Europe.

One aspect of allowing RLJing by cyclists/scooters is that it reinforces the idea that different vehicles should have different restrictions according to weight/speed/momentum etc. so maybe we can get past the tired old theme of "if you use the road you have to abide by all the same rules as everyone else".

Except there is more to Green is Go.

There is always If Clear and Proceed with Caution.

If I viewed life with your level of simplicity I'd have been dead long ago and many times over when attempting to cross the road.

Don't forget folks accellerating through the junction because they were already hooning and the red was not yet "established"... and the driver behind them doing follow-my-leader!

Still, I think given things are already confusing for some road users making them even simpler is the way to go.  They could start with removing any "hardship" dodges for driving offenses, ditch the "mandatory cycle lane parking" exemptions, then move on to making the speed limit, you know, a limit...

And emergency vehicles going through on red with caution.

Life seems to be getting somewhat complicated, doesn't it?

LeedsLegs wrote:

So embarrassing.

The only embarassment here is when someone's been so brainwashed by carbrain and populism that they think everything is simple. It's not. Advanced stop lines for cyclists must blow your mind!

Unless you are a London cyclist* 

Green means go, amber means GO, red means GO GO GO! Zebra cossing Goooooo!! 

*not all cyclists, just an exasperated p**s take from experience being one of few who do stop at lights and for pedestrians in London.

I think this article is Scotland-focused because it started out with a comment by a Glasgow-based charity (Bike for Good) and was picked up by a Scottish newspaper. And, as you say, transport policy is devolved so I suspect it would need to go through legislation separately in Scotland and rUK. 

But all the arguments apply equally across the UK and it is something that has been mooted before, especially in regards to London:

https://www.cyclinguk.org/blog/duncandollimore/turn-left-red-running-red...

https://www.bikeradar.com/news/let-cyclists-run-red-lights-says-pressure...

because when your 90kg combo hits a human at no more than 5mph, Newtons second law of motion kicks in, and the force hitting most likely the humans shoulder is over half a tonne for a fraction of a second.

And I can assure you that hurts.

It is not that bad, it is still better than being hit a 100kg 10mph runner. Even if you get hit by a car at 5mph you will probably not be hurt. The problem is that motor vehicles will reach much greater speeds, incomparable to human powered motion.

So cycling speeds are not really great, especially compared to motor vehicles. The sweet spot in bicycle commuting is going slow and as uninterrupted as you can get, you will not sweat and not get tired. That is why the Dutch love it, they have excellent infrastructure, cycle on rusty bikes with normal clothes and still are happy, good looking, fast and safe.

Both motor vehicles and cyclists can quickly exceed jogging speeds even from a standing start... and certainly motorists passing reds tend to be going fast or even accelerating!

Inertia should also be considered. A runner hitting you will likely fall. So will a cyclist but they may be airborne / land more awkwardly - so maybe worse outcome for them.

Part of the added danger of motor vehicles is that due to their greater mass when they hit you they won't be brought to a stop. If a much more massive and/or higher- clearance vehicle hits you - and you aren't thrown to the side - they will be on top of you...

Agree with the comments on Dutch cycling speed but note that how they manage interactions between modes is *utterly* different from UK. I doubt "just let cyclists through red" would be acceptable as good "sustainable safety" practice. For more on their designs see "unbundling / unravelling modes", smart traffic lights, junction design etc. (You can find all these at bicycledutch - there's a "Themes" section or just search).

My shoulder would disagree with you on how much that hurts.

And bringing motor vehicle forces into it is just whataboutery on this point, the discussion is about letting cyclists go through red lights, and doing that pedestrians will be put at risk because we already see those cyclists willing to take risks through red lights do not treat them as stop and only go if it's safe, they carry on through "uninterrupted" because they dont like stopping and this change would simply give them free licence to do it, and the consequences be damned.

Totally undestand you, when a motorcycle going the wrong way hit me on a pedestrian crossing, I admit I wasn't that kind and I may have used some of my grocery as projectiles against the hasty rider. And I had pain quite a few days.

Nevertheless it is a light injury, I had nastier injuries me just walking alone, playing basketball, or working. I bet that health effects from exhaust fumes from passenger cars driving around, will have compromised much more my health in an irreversible way.

So if we could promote cycling commuting by evaluating again red lights for cyclists, it makes sense to me. There are big health gains for many when even a few people cycle to commute.

Awavey wrote:

My shoulder would disagree with you on how much that hurts.

One of the worst wrist breaks I ever saw on the rugby field was when a prop forward, jogging at not much above walking pace to get back into position, tripped over a supine teammate and fell awkwardly on the hand he had put out to break his fall (admittedly there was a lot of weight going through it); very ugly compound fracture that required surgery. Young children, pregnant women and the elderly are of course far more vulnerable to bumps and falls at any speed. No legislation or cyclist behaviour should be based on the idea that "if there is a collision it's only going to be a little bump".

vehicles jumping red lights it is not the problem we think it is and we should concentrate safety efforts elsewhere

The idea that only those moving traffic offences which can be proved to have resulted in collisions, injuries and death are worthy of consideration, and the rest should be shrugged off as 'everybody does it' is a counsel of despair and a call to anarchy! To start with, it leads to 'if you survived a close pass it wasn't worth talking about'- this is essentially the case at the moment, and the reason why the count of NMotD is nudging 850 with no improvement so far

With the massive reductions in traffic police since the introduction of "speed cameras" we should concentrate these scarce resources where they will do the most good.

JustTryingToGetFromAtoB wrote:

Most reasonable people recognise that most bike RLJs are not a danger to anyone else

I'm feeling like I've hijacked my own account today, but I'm going to have to disagree on that one as well! I agree that RLJs are not often a direct danger to anyone else in terms of the likelihood of colliding with them and the severity of injury if they do, but riding in London I frequently see motor vehicles and/or other cyclists having to take evasive action to avoid RLJs, action which could easily cause incidents with oncoming traffic, pedestrians et cetera.

From previous discussions on this it seems that there is a "thing" with this in London.  Is this just "concentration" e.g. small area with sufficient cyclists so that the x% who jump lights are actually "lots")?  Is it "demographics" where the cyclists there are more likely to take risks (e.g. more riders are young / Londoners are somehow more pushy / there's an excess of bicycle messengers / food delivery services)?  Is it that there is enough 'adequate' cycle infra for there to be a noticable number of cyclists?  Is the infra itself contributing (maybe excessively long waits tempting people)?

Tbf most RLJs I see seem to be people who have no idea about the HC so may not be representative of a legal RLJ.

Ashley Neal wants to disagree!  (His first post on the Picardy Place Leith Street / York Place collision).  His point (I think) is "it's not just 'only a danger to themselves' - there is an effect on a driver who hits them, the family of that driver, their own family..."

I think we should talk about that.  However I suspect he would emphasise a certain aspect (personal responsibility / enforcement) whereas I see this as a more systemic issue.  I'd say we're setting vulnerable road users up to fail - or at best forcing them to choose safety OR convenience in a way we simply don't with the dominant mode (driving).  We're also obscuring the seriousness of the choice you make each time you decide to drive.

I'm also still interested in getting to the bottom of the figures repeatedly brought up by some posters here.  These apparently suggested pedestrians are at an elevated risk of being in a collision where cyclists were "involved" at crossings (relative to other vehicles).  This clearly needs much more detail however as to what is actually being recorded and why this might be the case.

chrisonatrike wrote:

I'm also still interested in getting to the bottom of the figures repeatedly brought up by some posters here.  These apparently suggested pedestrians are at an elevated risk of being in a collision where cyclists were "involved" at crossings (relative to other vehicles).  This clearly needs much more detail however as to what is actually being recorded and why this might be the case.

Those figures (assuming you are referring to the infamous TfL table, the bottom of which a certain person likes to cut off) are a nonsense, because all they did was record all vehicles involved in an incident, whether or not they actually came into contact with a pedestrian. If an out-of-control motorist hit a cyclist and then span into a pedestrian, that was recorded as a pedestrian collision/injury/fatality involving a cyclist with no record of circumstance or fault. I've looked reasonably hard for any evidence that pedestrians are at greater risk on crossings from cyclists than from motor vehicles and haven't been able to find anything; I'm pretty sure that if there was a study or evidence that showed that it would be being quoted at us ad nauseam by the motor lobby.

Rendel Harris wrote:

I've looked reasonably hard for any evidence that pedestrians are at greater risk on crossings from cyclists than from motor vehicles and haven't been able to find anything; I'm pretty sure that if there was a study or evidence that showed that it would be being quoted at us ad nauseam by the motor lobby.

Don't worry, Martin73 will be able to share the outputs of his various Freedom of Information requests, which for some reason known only to him, are restricted. It's going to be a big story. But he can't share it yet. Probably because it doesn't exist. Probably.