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+--- Thread: Cyclists running through stop signs... (/showthread.php?tid=6807)
Cyclists running through stop signs... - Dark Jaguar - 2nd February 2015
This has started to become a problem in my area. Now, I want to be clear. I grew up with a father who rode bikes all the time, such as racing. Outdoorsy fellow in general. Anyway, I'm all for the trend of more adults biking from place to place (even if that's not a realistic possibility for me at the moment). However, the trend around here has been to flagrantly ignore stop signs and just blaze on through. I've had a few situations where I had the right of way, where the crossing street ahead of me had stop signs but not the one I'm on, and someone suddenly cuts across. Stopping in time has been a very close call, and in at least one case the biker looked at me, like I'M the mistaken one. After calming my nerves I went on, but is this really safe? It seems like an invitation for disaster. I try to keep looking, but on at least one of these sorts of roads the surrounding area is full of wooden fences too tall to see over. Any bikes that came blazing there would be impossible to see. I've been forced to slow down significantly around ANY intersection, right of way or not, much to the annoyance of those behind me, because I don't want to take the risk.
The only defense I've heard is about "momentum", that is, they want to keep their forward momentum to "make it across safely". That sounds like nonsense to me. I rode my bike all the time as a kid, and I always stopped. I never had an issue making it across the street from a full-stop, and I was a KID. Here's the issue. If you pull to a stop, then have to work your way back up to speed, drivers will SEE you (assuming you properly looked to make sure the coast was clear before starting across), and they will slow down if you're going slow.
I mean, this is basic physics here. No matter what you think your "rights" are, if no one sees you and they're driving a 2 ton piece of metal at say 35 MPH, they CAN'T stop in time! Agh!
Cyclists running through stop signs... - A Black Falcon - 3rd February 2015
You definitely should follow the same rules as cars if you're on a bike, yes. People who ride bikes on the sidewalk are really annoying, you aren't supposed to do that!
However, I can understand why in certain places someone might go through a stop sign on a bike, particularly if it's, say, a stop sign right at the bottom of a hill. But regularly going through an intersection against the sign could be dangerous, so using that as an excuse isn't a great idea, even if it does seem reasonable, in a place like here anyway which actually has hills (does Oklahoma?).
Cyclists running through stop signs... - Dark Jaguar - 3rd February 2015
You may know Oklahoma as that place "where the wind goes sweeping down the plains", so no, it's not particularly hilly. There are a few hills here and there though, and some of those hills have streets on them, so it's understandable.
Nevertheless, it makes it all the more dangerous for the biker in question if cruel gravity forces them to run a stop sign, say with one particular hilly intersection I can think of with a concrete barrier blocking oncoming traffic from seeing down that street until it's too late. If that's the case, it's all the more critical that the cyclist slow down way in advance and slowly work their way down the hill so they can come to a complete stop and look both ways before crossing.
Cyclists running through stop signs... - Sacred Jellybean - 7th February 2015
My sister clipped a cyclist who ran a stop sign. Luckily he was cool with it, I suppose he recognized that it was his own reckless biking that caused the incident.
I feel like I've almost hit cyclists before. If it's as fun in real life as in gta, I might have to absorb a few vehicular manslaughter charges. Just to say I did it.