Red Light Jumping

[martint235]

I know, why don't we all just accept that we all have differing opinions and that an internet forum is highly unlikely to change those opinions and move on to who's making me a cake.

But Tilly, you'd be spoiling their fun. This thread has cropped up under various guises about 5 times in the last month. It's a pointless debate with no end but it seems to keep people happy

And why aren't you out training?

 

[MissTillyFlop]

Ah my boss makes me come to work during the week - bummer!

 

[twobiker]

if you were turning left at a traffic light junction you could just push the bike round the corner and then just carry on with the flow of traffic, if you wanted to go straight ahead or turn right you could just bloody well wait like the rest of us have to.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

if you were turning left at a traffic light junction you could just push the bike round the corner and then just carry on with the flow of traffic, if you wanted to go straight ahead or turn right you could just bloody well wait like the rest of us have to.

 

[oldroadman]

What a pintless argument. It's either legal (OK) or illegal (not OK). Let's take, for instance, the argument that you can drive through a town at 70mph during the night, ignoring all lights and other laws, because "it's OK as no-one is affected". Then someone on a bike decides that it's OK to cross a red light for the same reason, and, boof!, end of bike rider. Which is why laws are made in an effort to keep everyone reasonably safe. Just because others ignore them (speeding is the classic) does not make it right to ride through red lights, for insyance. If you want the moral high ground, then it has to be from a position of responsibility. Which RLJ's demonstrate a lack thereof - because they are the very people who make the Daily Mail type brigade call bike riders "lycra louts", etc, whilst publishing articles by Clarkson types praising 180mph motors. You can't have it all ways. It's either right or wrong, and RLJ is wrong, can not be justified, end of. Stopping for a few seconds never hurt anyone, carrying on just might hurt us all!

 

[Angelfishsolo]

On reflection, don't. I cannot imagine that you would ever accept the validity of any negative criticism.

Careful. That will be taken as a personal attack.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

What a pintless argument. It's either legal (OK) or illegal (not OK). Let's take, for instance, the argument that you can drive through a town at 70mph during the night, ignoring all lights and other laws, because "it's OK as no-one is affected". Then someone on a bike decides that it's OK to cross a red light for the same reason, and, boof!, end of bike rider. Which is why laws are made in an effort to keep everyone reasonably safe. Just because others ignore them (speeding is the classic) does not make it right to ride through red lights, for insyance. If you want the moral high ground, then it has to be from a position of responsibility. Which RLJ's demonstrate a lack thereof - because they are the very people who make the Daily Mail type brigade call bike riders "lycra louts", etc, whilst publishing articles by Clarkson types praising 180mph motors. You can't have it all ways. It's either right or wrong, and RLJ is wrong, can not be justified, end of. Stopping for a few seconds never hurt anyone, carrying on just might hurt us all!

Well said that man!

 

[Mad at urage]

Bad rljers are indefensible.
Thats not what im reffering to.
We should all dissuade anyone from rljing where it is in anyway unsafe to anybody or might be anticipated that it might cause offence to a reasonable person. Indeed this is true in general.

This morning, at RL on a Xroads with two lanes in each direction, centre island - the works, whilst I (cycling) was stopped at the RL with a whole road full of motorists, a cyclist filtered down the outside lane to turn right .... OK so far.

He rode over the stop line and onto the island. Then he dismounted. Was this OK? IMO not.

Point is, he could easily have made the same manoevre legally and safely (and probably caused almost as much offence to the motorists, but then they would have been wrong) by dismounting before the stop line and walking onto the refuge.

Would he have done this? I don't know but he was pushing towards that behaviour, which is unacceptable:

Because this is a matter of personal judgement - for example a guy this morning thought it was safe to go through a pelican crossing whilst there was a large crowd of people using it, weaving in and out of the pedestrians, which included small children.

Whilst I assume nobody here would be that idiotic, it is all down to the individual cyclists perception of what is safe and as we can't guarantee that each individual cyclist isn't going to endanger themselves or other road users, then the rest of us have to deal with the consequences of that (waiting at traffic lights).

You also can't guarantee that other road users aren't going to do something daft either (pedestrians dashing out on flashing amber, cars coming out from a crossroads as the lights change &c &c.

I wonder if anyone has ever considered the possibility of having a "head start light" for cyclists. (I know, too expensive and will never happen, this is in my evil, communist dictatorship in my head).

I have no problem with changing the law and would probably support it. What I have a problem with is people who seem to think they can just ignore the law (whilst of course fully expecting everyone else to obey laws that they may find inconvenient).

Agree.

I'm still waiting for a reply from Newport buses to my email about an RLJing bus (two weeks so far).

 

[Angelfishsolo]

well it might, especially now that you have drawn attention to it.

Sorry about that.

 

[martint235]

The one thing on all these threads that hasn't been answered is why would you want to RLJ? It's red, you stop, it's green you go again. It's usually a matter of seconds.

I rarely bother entering into conversation on the road with RLJers nowadays but when I do my usual comment is "If you want to get where you're going earlier, pedal faster". The time lost at a red light could easily be made up by just getting that little bit fitter and that little bit quicker. And IME it's rarely the super speedy ones that RLJ.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

The one thing on all these threads that hasn't been answered is why would you want to RLJ? It's red, you stop, it's green you go again. It's usually a matter of seconds.

I rarely bother entering into conversation on the road with RLJers nowadays but when I do my usual comment is "If you want to get where you're going earlier, pedal faster". The time lost at a red light could easily be made up by just getting that little bit fitter and that little bit quicker. And IME it's rarely the super speedy ones that RLJ.

Apparently is it because of the energy expended by the cyclist when he/she has to restart from the lights.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

But what if you were to get fitter and still RLJ? Imagine how fast you could be then.

Working on the premise that stopping at red lights costs cyclists energy then it is arguable that doing so aids fitness.

 

[Dan B]

The one thing on all these threads that hasn't been answered is why would you want to RLJ? It's red, you stop, it's green you go again. It's usually a matter of seconds.

On the approx 3.5 mile stretch from my home to my office there are approximately 30-40 traffic-light controlled junctions (I haven't counted, I'm just looking on google maps). If it's 30 seconds per light, that's 10-15 minutes on a journey time which was only 20-30 minutes in the first place. You might consider that 10 minutes is not a very long time, but in the context of the overall journey time I'd say it was significant


Now, despite that I argue on the internet a lot about theoretical RLJ, when I'm actually cycling I do stop at them almost all the time (3am deserted junctions, anticipation of the red+amber, and scooting across the line to get a head start being my major failings here), so I will thank you not to make some stupid remark about "just get up ten minutes earlier, problem solved" - heck, you might as well just say "get up twenty minutes earlier and you could walk that distance" - and, some days, I do. But if you have no concept that someone else's experience of inconvenience may be different to your own, you are unlikely ever to understand the the motivations behind their actions and if you don't understand where they're coming from how do you expect to change their mind?

 

[Angelfishsolo]

Indeed. My journey to and from work is a secession of sprints.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

On the approx 3.5 mile stretch from my home to my office there are approximately 30-40 traffic-light controlled junctions (I haven't counted, I'm just looking on google maps). If it's 30 seconds per light, that's 10-15 minutes on a journey time which was only 20-30 minutes in the first place. You might consider that 10 minutes is not a very long time, but in the context of the overall journey time I'd say it was significant


Now, despite that I argue on the internet a lot about theoretical RLJ, when I'm actually cycling I do stop at them almost all the time (3am deserted junctions, anticipation of the red+amber, and scooting across the line to get a head start being my major failings here), so I will thank you not to make some stupid remark about "just get up ten minutes earlier, problem solved" - heck, you might as well just say "get up twenty minutes earlier and you could walk that distance" - and, some days, I do. But if you have no concept that someone else's experience of inconvenience may be different to your own, you are unlikely ever to understand the the motivations behind their actions and if you don't understand where they're coming from how do you expect to change their mind?

Never the less you make a choice to cycle to work. That choice being made you must accept the consequences of that choice.