CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years old!
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RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
You can either read Jon snow in the Scotsman telling us all to be 'nice' (Below) Or in the Herald a feature on why Dave Brennan loves his bike (not yet online).
http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/jon-snow-attacks-fellow-cyclists-bad-behaviour-1-3171565
Gaaah! What is this obsession with ****** RLJ's!!!
Easy sorted, some police enforcement and fixed penalties for RLJ'ing cyclists AND other road users.
As to the comments, the usual tedious trolls, not worth reading!
Plus it manages to obscure the subtler points being made about cutting traffic and reducing conflicts. But that would have made for a much less eye-catching headline
Surely the real problem lies in the misleading use of the single term 'RLJ' to describe two completely different behaviours. When a motorist RLJs, he's speeding up on approach to a junction in the hope (fingers crossed) of getting through before any cross traffic - with the potential to cause serious injury to other road users and pedestrians. A cyclist RLJ is a completely different thing - s/he's entering the junction at a very slow speed, moving cautiously, checking that nothing is coming left or right and then crossing if it's clear - and endangering primarily himself. In fact, exactly the same thing a pedestrian does when crossing without a green man. But where are the outraged complaints about pedestrians RLJing? It seems to me the anger about cyclist RLJing comes from a sense that it's a form of 'cheating' - motorists resent having to wait at lights while seeing cyclists get across them. A lot of the hostility to filtering, ostensibly expressed as a safety concern, I think really derives from the same resentment of someone else seemingly gaining an unfair advantage.
if two cyclists RLJ'd at the same time in opposite directions they could clip each other?
I was track standing, I say that but not really, crossing Lothian road on an amber which also has a green man and a taxi came firing out through the perpendicular red.
I was watching for such antics but RLJing is never a good idea. there is one junction on Lanark road where it will never endanger anyone for a cyclist to RLJ as the road is two very wide lanes and the traffic turns right in the inside lane only. I am not recommending RLJing but I do think Keith Brown has bike filter lights at top of is list just behind strict liablility
Mr Snow is writing this from a very London centric viewpoint, methinks.
While he may be chairing a conference in Glasgow later this month, he may see no RLJing at all if he pops his head outside the hotel for 5 minutes.
On the other hand, anecdotaly it seems fairly common in London, but that may simply be weight of numbers as well as lack of suitable infra, I dont know for sure.
I was tooted on friday night as I turned right at the filter, top of Morningside Road - it was just turning amber as I hit it - i.e. perfectly legal and in fact safer than slamming on the anchors. Said tooting car driver received some abuse from me, whereas what he really needed was some lessons on common sense,
Jon Snow: "I don’t know if there are any cyclists who haven’t gone through a red light."
Oh, come on! By the same token, he could say, "I don’t know if there are any drivers who haven’t gone through a red light.", because nobody has a visual record of every road user at every moment of the day way in which that sentence could really hold any water. In fact, by saying that, he's actually admitted jumping a red himself. I know I haven't, so he's definitely wrong. I normally respect what he says about cycling but that is unnecessary fuel for the hate mob.
@ Colonies_Chris
"A cyclist RLJ is a completely different thing - s/he's entering the junction at a very slow speed, moving cautiously, checking that nothing is coming left or right and then crossing if it's clear - and endangering primarily himself." That's very much a generalisation too.
Just a few days ago, I approached Haymarket from the west and stopped at the red light outside the station. Several seconds later, as the pedestrians were about to cross, a courier (or wannabe - cap, courier bag, fixie bike) zoomed through the light on my left, and I found myself essentially apologising to the peds for his actions. After shouting an expletive at him!
Thankfully, I was dressed from head to toe in lycra, so that was a +1 in favour of us so-called "lycra louts" ;-)
There's also a difference between a ped crossing on a red man and a cyclist (or driver) jumping a red. Only one of those is illegal (if no incident occurs as a result).
And that raises the question of whether the sort of RLJ I described *should* be illegal for cyclists, if it's no more dangerous than what pedestrians routinely do. (The sort of RLJ you described is a different matter entirely - that's closely equivalent to the motorist version and almost as dangerous).
I'm not long back from a stay in Los Angeles with my (resident) brother, who drove us around a lot. I dislike a lot about American roads, but I do feel that the "Right on Red" idea is sensible (you give way to pedestrians though, as well as any cars that have a green light of course).
And also, even if you have a green light that allows you to turn left or right, pedestrians usually still have priority (they even have a "Walk" sign [white man]). The effect seems to be that, while people drive like loons on highways/motorways, they are more sedate on town roads with junctions as they know that green doesn't mean they necessarily have priority.
@ Colonies_Chris
For me, there's no question. If a cyclist goes through a red light, slowly/cautiously, whatever, and that is ok, what's to stop a motor vehicle doing the same? You'd essentially be making red lights advisory for traffic as well as peds, and that's just a recipe for disaster. I'm in favour of things like advanced greens for cyclists but there comes a point when we (as a group) start looking for extra entitlements to be on the road, something we're generally critical of motorists acting like they have.
Nope, a RLJ is a RLJ.
If a cyclist goes through a red light, slowly/cautiously, whatever, and that is ok, what's to stop a motor vehicle doing the same? You'd essentially be making red lights advisory for traffic as well as peds, and that's just a recipe for disaster.
There are already lots of examples of this. In the US they have right turns through red lights. In many parts of Europe the traffic lights outside of peak time have a 'free for all' mode, making them literally advisory devices.
It's not at all unknown for cyclists to be signalled to advance through the crossing on a phase shared with peds. We even have this in Edinburgh, at the south end of the QBC.
I think to set up cyclists with motorised traffic as though they are homogeneous is a fundamental mistake (sadly one that mainstream cycling groups here continue to pander to).
That said, even once we all agree that cyclists are inherently different to motorised traffic, it doesn't follow that they should be allowed to ride through red lights. I can see a strong argument that crossing on foot against a red man should be made an offence, for instance (although I do it all the time).
Sorry CC, Focus is right. RLJ is RLJ however you dress it up.
It's the law (stopping at red) and thinking it shouldn't apply to you is no justification for disregarding it. Put another way, there is no excuse nor good reason for deliberately jumping reds and, to use a friends expression, it rips ma knitting when people do it!
The article in the OP is a good example of the media carefully stoking conflict, although it's unforgivable for someone in Jon Snow's position to give them such damaging ammunition.
I hope he's extremely uncomfortable that he's quoted saying we "behave extremely badly" right next to this year's sombering death toll, clearly drawing the implication that the deceased had only themselves to blame.
Can you imagine if an article was being prepared on motoring casualties on "the most dangerous road in the country" (whichever one it is this week) and the head of the IAM, AA or RAC went on record to say "Motorists could do better. At the moment we behave extremely badly and I don't know if there are any drivers who haven't been drunk behind the wheel."
By the end of the article I find myself unable to support segregation for cyclists, congestion charging, or anything else that he suggests. And I'm a cyclist...
@Dave "I can see a strong argument that crossing on foot against a red man should be made an offence, for instance (although I do it all the time)."
And what is it you see?
Having spent time in one of the more civilised towns in Europe over the summer, where cyclists are treated as two-wheeled pedestrians who sometimes use the road, I'm struck on my return by the frothing anger back here over cyclists acting like pedestrians, gently paddling away from dangerous junctions before the lorries start up again.
The problem isn't people on bikes acting as pedestrians, the problem is the myopic fury the UK seems to have about this perfectly reasonable behaviour. Phrases like "giving us all a bad name" amongst "the drivers" are so common and unchallenged, it's mystifying.
What I'll do, and you can hold me to this, is I'll win the Euro Billions lotto and pay for all us UK road users to go to Europe for two weeks of reasonableness induction. We'll all laugh about our previous mad shared fury once we get back, all calm and cured.
Yes, it's the "must rush rush rush to the next lights, no one get in my way now or ELSE!!, Oh damn, lights, I'd better wait, wait, wait, wait, QUICK, off to the next ones now, better go really fast in case I can beat them" mentality. Much more relaxed (better for one's blood pressure, fuel economy, safety of other road users) to chill, accelerate gently, plan one's journey where 30 seconds difference in journey time (or 2 mins, or 10 mins, or whatever) doesn't matter and you can perform small acts of random kindness in letting other road users out of side junctions, or not shouting abuse at anyone who impedes you.
Sadly I fear that there is a small subsection of society who just cannot make the mental leap to allow this.
One minor point, by the way - Amber means stop as well as red.
I've twice in the past couple of weeks slowed to stop at an amber going to red light only to have the car behind me overtake and go through same light...
Which is always my rationale for a bit of mild amber gambling when on the bike.
@LivD I need a "like" button for that post!
@Fimm They should make them take a test and get insurance like everyone else on the road, that'd stop their scofflaw behaviour!.....oh ;-)
(amber): "...or are so close to it that to pull up might cause an accident"
Inputs into the decision process include road conditions, speed, following vehicles' proximity and speed, number of slidey metal things between current position and the stop line and whether the distance between the stop line and the start of the target post-junction lane is so long that people might think you jumped a red by the time you get to it even if you didn't, such as the westbound-past-Frederick-Street lights on Princes Street.
(green): "...and give way to pedestrians who are crossing"
I like it when I'm in front of the queue at lights and I can persuade traffic behind me to observe this.
@winpig this is a long straight road with temporary traffic lights. In both cases the following car has been happy enough to sit behind me until it has become apparent that I'm going to stop at the red, whereupon I have heard them accelerating to get through the lights...
@Smudge the extreme efficacy of the registration system for motor vehicles in the prevention of poor road behaviour is quite a good arguement against its introduction for cycles...
@Dave "I can see a strong argument that crossing on foot against a red man should be made an offence, for instance (although I do it all the time)."
And what is it you see?
The fact that a large proportion of junction movements are made outside the rule of law (the red man being advisory only) means that most citizens are used to being able to cross just whenever they please, at least some of the time.
I can imagine that it might be found to contribute to people being more casual about the rules when they travel by another mode.
I doubt that anyone has managed to conduct a study in which a jaywalking law was introduced (or repealed) and examined other RLJ offences, that it would be conclusive if they did, or that it would be socially just to clamp down on peds even it was found to be linked to vehicular RLJ, but I'm open to the possibility that a causal link exists.
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