Years ago I got into a Facebook argument with a good friend of a good friend — well, he commented on a column I had written, and I commented back.
That’s the full extent of my Facebook arguments, ever. I’ll post copy up to the thing for the wide world — or at least the abuelos y abuelas — to see, but otherwise I don’t go there.
Anyway, I probably agree on most other things barring Dodgers v. Giants with smart, and curmudgeonly so, San Francisco novelist and journalist Bob Bowman, but he and I really see the world differently on the crucial issue of whether bicyclists should be allowed to blow through stop signs.
I had mentioned in this 2017 missive that I was in favor of cyclists blowing through stop signs, and that, while I am an infrequent bike rider myself, I have been known to pedal full steam ahead past the red menaces into intersections without a care in the world, much less a guilty conscience.
(Speaking of stop signs, isn’t it weird that, in the Ancient Age at least, you could go to a faraway foreign country and the streets signs still read “STOP” as opposed to “ARRET” or “ALTO” or whatever? Whereas all the other street signs were appropriately lingua local?)
Anyway, my point was that I can so capriciously disregard the rules of the road because I am blessed with sight, and so can tell if any Mack trucks or silent-but-deadly Teslas or guys on Harleys are vying to share the intersection with me. If they are, I will stop. If there’s nobody coming, I’m not wasting the energy to brake, come to a halt, start it all up again. I am not powered by internal combustion or electricity.
Plus, as the cyclist advocates correctly note, the safest thing for us is to get out of that intersection as quickly as possible, so that we can get back to sharing one lane of the road with the mean-spirited murderous motorists who constantly break a much more important law by driving their multi-ton vehicles within about six inches of our unprotected tushes.
Bob disagreed: “I don’t get the argument that having to come to a full stop at a stop sign is actually more dangerous for cyclists because of those ‘precious seconds to get back up to speed.’ The same holds true for cars, doesn’t it? And if you’re speeding through an intersection, vehicles coming from either side have less time to see you and react. … I’m thoroughly sick of cyclists blowing through stop signs and red lights, failing to signal, not wearing helmets, riding three or four abreast on a narrow street, then complaining about how badly they’re treated by motorists. Safety is a two-way street, pun intended. And BTW, I stop completely at all stop signs, whether I’m driving or on my bike.”
Well said. Plus, wrong. Me and my biker brethren are still fighting for the right to turn red to yellow — to legally treat a stop sign as a yield sign, with precaution — and that’s why we’re backing AB 122, a bill from Assemblymember Tasha Boerner Horvath, D-Encinitas, that would make it legal for bicycle riders, if no traffic is present, to slow and proceed cautiously, without having to come to a complete stop.
As Streetsblog notes: “It takes longer for a person on a bike to clear an intersection if they come to a complete stop, the energy costs to a bike rider are huge, and other states have made similar changes to their laws and have found that bike crashes have decreased significantly. It’s also a step toward removing yet another excuse for police to harass and ticket bicyclists who are riding safely.”
The only formal opposition to the bill is from a CHP officers’ political group — the ticket-happy lobby. The rest of us, we’ll ride easier under AB 122.
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com
"Stop" - Google News
May 16, 2021 at 10:33PM
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Blowing through stop signs on a bike - The Pasadena Star-News
"Stop" - Google News
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