Do bicycles follow the rules of the road in your city?

Question

I live in a large metropolitan area which is seeing a huge increase in bicycle traffic. The mayor supports the growth of bicycle traffic and has built bicycle lanes on many roads. I think that especially as gas prices rise, that seeing more bicycles is a great thing. It's great exercise, it's cheap, and it's good for the environment.

However, what I have noticed is that most bicycles that share the road with the cars, ignore traffic laws. For example, unless they are at a really busy intersection, they just blow through the stoplight. And 4 way stop signs might as well not be there at all. I feel that if they are going to share the road, that they must follow the same rules as cars. Sure I don't like stopping at a 4 way stop when I don't see any cars, but I stop anyway, because you just never know, and besides -- it's the law.

I'm sure that bicycles technically are supposed to follow the rules, but I've never seen a bike pulled over and given a ticket. I think this needs to change.

My question is for those of you in similar situations. How have your cities handled bicycles and following the rules of the road? Do your cities ignore the problem or have they come up with ways to deal with this problem?

Answer 1

Why not keep an eye on yourself. You speed, you change lanes without signaling, you don't stop behind the white line at lights. I drive every day and see 100's of speeders (daily) etc. Why not ask that they get tickets? Why are you consumed with cyclists that break far fewer laws than you do in your car?

The real problem is too many cars, going too fast, breaking too many laws.

Answer 2

Where I live the drivers and the bicyclers are all bad.  The only difference is that some of the bad drivers (never enough!) get stopped by the police, but none of the bikers do.  Maybe one day when a biker runs down a child we'll hear about an irresponsible biker, but until then...Not making a judgment on either group though.  But to be fair, there should be a set of rules for both drivers and bikers to follow.  

Answer 3

I've never seen a bicycle given a ticket for going through a stop sign, or violating other traffic rules. I don't think bikes should be held to quite the same standards however. If a car goes through a red light, it could KILL a pedestrian, bike rider, drivers and passengers in another car and him or herself. If a bike goes through a red light, they're only risking their own life. Also- bikes generally move more slowly than cars, and weigh less- so they're less likely to have the same kind of accidents as cars. Of course, nobody wants to be the driver of the car that hits a rule-breaking bike rider...

And as a frequent bike rider- and pedestrian... I find that cars rarely yield the right of way to bikes or pedestrians, often pass at unsafe speeds, too close to bike riders... much more dangerous behaviors than J-walking, or a bike rolling through a stop sign... and I've never seen a driver ticketed for failing to yield the right of way. In fact, drivers of cars have hit and killed pedestrians IN CROSS WALKS with little more than a $50 fine: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18176512...

Considering that, the rules that bike riders break are really insignificant.

Answer 4

1/2 the drivers on the roads would fail a road test, if they didn't know they were being tested. speeding, not stopping at stoplines, failing to yeild to pedestrians and slower moving traffic (read: bicycles), crossing the center line to straighten curves, passing too close to bicycles, aggressive driving, failing to signal before changing lanes or turning, following too close, etc. none of these violations ever earns a citation, with the exception of speeding (but even there we're allowed up to a 10mph buffer). why then would the police bother with the significantly lower number of cyclists on the roads, when they fail to enforce so many other moving violations?

Answer 5

Our city has a lot of bikes and that number is getting larger every day.  There are lots of bike lanes, which is great.  But now instead of just dealing with crazy drivers, there are crazy bicyclists too.  Lots of drivers who break the law and bikers who ignore the law because they know they'll never get a ticket.  

Drivers know that when they break the law, they'll face possible loss of their license.  But as far as I know in our city, no such consequences exist.  I think the police can give tickets to bikers, but I've never seen anyone get a ticket.  I agree with you that bikers should be subject to the same consequences as drivers.

In our city, the mayor has instituted stricter penalties for any driver who is in a collision with a bike.  This might help awareness on the part of drivers.  But it's a little onesided in my opinion.  For sure, drivers need to be more aware of bikes, but bikers need to follow the rules too.  Everyone breaks the rules, but everyone should have the same set of consequences for breaking the rules.  When one group has no consequences the system won't work.