Matt S. (vitaminwater-Trek)

I don’t see where anyone went to jail, Luke.  If you run a red light, you should get a ticket.  Note that I said ‘if’. 

How can we demand motorists respect us if we don’t respect the rules everyone has to live with?  If we as cyclists aren’t willing to police ourselves, shouldn’t the police do it for us?

And it’s not just the messengers and alleycats...I’ve seen the turin and judson rides do some pretty stupid and reckless things.  You can yell and scream at the pack and it’s about as effective as screaming at a bunch of grazing cows.

And really, is anyone surprised?  They announced the “summer crackdown [on cyclists]” in the paper. Congratulations:  the “bike program coordinator for the Department of Transportation” is not on our side anymore.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Julian (vitaminwater-Trek)

Um… the law is in fact the law and it requires all traffic (cyclists included) to obey the rules of the road without exception.  I’m a supporter of Utah’s law allowing cyclists to treat lights as stop signs and stop signs as yields when traffic is light but the fact remains that ISN’T the law in Chicago. 

Now, as someone who’s been hit by several cars I’m not defending idiot motorists but I think that a HUGE owness lies on the part of cyclists.  We know that cars weigh 2 tonnes and that we have little to no protection save a foam helmet and yet too often WE do stupid things that endanger not only ourselves but the other cyclists, pedestrians and yes, motorists around us.

I too don’t give a rat’s ass if motorists respect me.  But until there’s a sea change in the perception of cyclists by motorists I’M going to do everything I can do to protect my own ass- that includes obeying the law and not being a dumb ass and sprinting down Green Bay, whipping through six-way intersections, or riding recklessly.  I’ve been part of group rides that roll through intersections, hog lanes, and otherwise behave recklessly and thank goodness nothing has come of it… but when the XXX ride blows through a stop sign, or the Judson ride launches a harrowing sprint down Sheridan, or when the Harper ride occupies the whole road on blind descents is it our place to point the finger at motorists, many of whom are probably terrified and confused about what to do about the 40 cyclists all over the road…

I can’t control the behavior of motorists and it’s not my place to do so.  We can get into a massive debate about the behavior of motorists and who’s right, or the proportion of incidents caused by various parties but that’s foolish and a waste of time.

The bottom line is that nobody is going to protect you except yourself… Let’s all start there and stop crying and worrying about what driver’s do and own OUR behavior.

Sheesh.

Matt S. (vitaminwater-Trek)

Luke:

Likewise, I’m tired of the fallacy that motorists’ disregard of the law somehow empowers cyclists to do the same.  I learned back in kindergarden that ‘two wrongs don’t make a right.”

And, as you pointed out, one should thoughtfully consider the proportionality of the situtation:  in a car vs. bike scenario, the car (or “cage” or “coffin” for you counter-culturists) will always win.  As you pointed out, cars speed and roll through red lights.  So we as cyclists should protest by...running red lights in some suicidal ritual of civil disobedience?

I agree with you that us stopping at red lights isn’t going to made motorists respect us.  It was a Pollyanna moment on my part, I admit.  Let me phrase it a different way--when we blatently run red lights in front of motorists, it reinforces their expectations of us and, in the worst case, justifies their “messing with us” or “teaching us a lesson”.  If you’ve ridden a bike long enough, as you well know, Luke, a motorist will take it upon himself to ‘teach you a lesson.” I’ve lost count, myself.

As for your strawman asking basically ‘how many people die because of cyclists running red lights’, well, I don’t know, but it’s at least one per year. Are you OK with it now?

I have personally witnessed a pedestrian enter a crosswalk (with the signal), only to be ‘saved’ by another pedestrian who did see the alleycat flying down the street.  These jackasses were doing 20+ mph on a busy city street and would have broken many bones in this person’s body, if not killed them.

Now let me back up.  I appreciate that there is a vast difference between slowing/stopping at a light and rolling through after checking for traffic, and blowing through a red light, putting our “red light negotiating skills” to the test.  I get that.  I suspect you and I aren’t even debating the same scenario.

Let me also state that if you have ridden with me, you know that I am the last person in the world a motorist wants to mess with.  I react disproportionately at any threat to my health when I’m on a bike.  I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m advocating that we as cyclists give up our rights and let motorists bully us.  I just don’t consider running red lights one of my rights.

Matt S. (vitaminwater-Trek)

Please don’t get me started on our budget crisis).  I’ll have go back on my medication :(

yobdlog (xXx Racing-AthletiCo)

Well I didn’t go to jail but here is my 2 cents on the experience overall (now day 2 after my ‘incident’).

We’re dealing with people.  I was out of breath and made a comment about ‘where I was going’ and I believe in the huff and puff of my labored breathing, the 60+ year old officer took my comment as offensive and took the authoratative stance on me with Chicago greased wheel quickness.  I noticed his attitude changed from ‘you broke the law and I’m going to remind you why’ to ‘oh, so you wanna play tough guy ehh? well i got your tough guy sandwich’.  Who knows what the outcome would’ve been if we were both jovial from the start......

I also think that because the amount of distraction that it caused for passerbys in cars, the fact he stopped me in front of a crowded restaurant, added to the extra tenseness to compel the officers to make the write-up seem warranted.  The drivers who rolled down the windows and yelled ‘Bogus!’ in my support, may have made my situation worse in that the officers felt they ‘really’ needed to show me and the public who is in charge.

My biggest gripe about this whole thing is that there is discretion on the police’s part to evaluate what particularly needs enforcement - its not written in ANY of our laws that an officer of the law cannot NOT enforce the law - its subject to their evaluation.  Otherwise, if there were cops giving tickets for every single f’ing offense on the road or otherwise, we’d be inundated in an adminstrative beauracratic nightmare of sorts (moreso than we already are in the City).

That copper made a choice, evaluated his options and consciously said, well, I’m gonna get him.  To what service did he give the community by doing so.  Is the lesson worth the outcome in administrative costs to the city?  Police are here to serve and protect - so explain to me who did they serve and who did they protect in this instance?

Whatever - I am dealing with Chicago’s finest and shouldn’t have expected anything else.