Busting the myth of the "scofflaw cyclist" Danish Road Directorate studies reveal that while 66% of motorists routinely break road traffic laws only 5% of cyclists do so. Law breaking by cyclists is higher where there is no cycle-specific infrastructure.
Some interesting stuff here, including links to more studies showing similar results in different countries.
The summary is that the reason motorists break more laws is that speeding is so common.
I don't think this is because motorists are all evil and cyclists are all saints. Probably, the reason motorists break speed limits is that it can be relatively difficult to keep cars below the speed limit. It's all too easy to absentmindedly speed up. It's also, perhaps becuase of this, widely seen as socially acceptable to break the speed limit (speaking anecdotally).
One interesting thing here, which may not surprise regular readers of Fuck Cars, is that better cycling infrastructure leads to less lawbreaking by cyclists. As is often the case, it's the design of roads and cities that changes behaviour, not abstract appeals to road users to be sensible!
So, it appears that when giving everyone equal infrastructure, motorists are still awful at getting around.
The reason Dutch cyclists don't break laws is that there's little reason to. Their traffic signals work for cyclists, their paths work for cyclists, there's no reason to speed, etc.
Compare that to most cities in North America, and "breaking the law" for a cyclist means not wanting to wait 10 minutes at the same red light because there aren't any cars to trigger a change to green. Or riding on sidewalks because nobody feels safe on roads with semi-trucks and pickup trucks refusing to give them any space.
When motorists break the law, it's because they are impatient or just don't know how to drive. When cyclists do it, it's to either be safe or because the infrastructure is so poor that it makes normal cycling behaviour seem like a crime.
As a UK cyclist I can see that stopping at a red light definitely does make sense. I don't want to hit pedestrians and other road users who have been given a green light to cross my path.
Fair point. I don't think it matters in this context.
The Dutch and Danes both have excellent cycling infrastructure, so it doesn't matter what place we're talking about, since the behaviour of cyclists (and motorists) is the same when given appropriate infrastructure.
Yes, drivers absolutely should be actively driving, but they don't. I've watched how a lot of people drive over the years, and the vast majority of drivers aren't actively checking their mirrors, and gauges every few seconds. Road designers have decades of data on how to subconsciously make us slow down. It won't stop all speeding, but it will drastically reduce it in the US.
@frankPodmore@slrpnk.net One interesting thing here is that it seems that cyclists, whether breaking the law or sticking to it, are often doing so out of self-preservation. If you're turning left at a busy junction with a bike lane, jumping the red might actually be safer than waiting for it to change. A good example of a perverse incentive!
Granted it's not all the time, but I do agree that a lot of the time, the rule breaking is incentivized by cars' problematic driving and not sharing the road well. If cars were on a whole more friendly with cyclists and knew the proper rules as well, it probably wouldn't happen as often.
@pjhenry1216 I think the key thing is better cycling infrastructure. Most people would do almost anything to avoid hitting someone with their car, but it still happens all too often because of poorly designed roads
Granted it’s not all the time, but I do agree that a lot of the time, the rule breaking is incentivized by cars’ problematic driving and not sharing the road well.
I suspect it literally is all the time. If there were no cars, there would be no need for the rules in the first place.
we've got a new cycle lane with dedicated lights near me - though only activated by a beg-button.
except you can press the button sall you want ant it'll stay on red all the time.
unfortunately due to the concrete separator i can't nip over into the main lane and use that lane on green.
so i just have to run the red. almost every bike trip i make is lawbreaking for me.
I break laws cycling almost daily. While infrastructure is fairly good in my country, there still are a lot of dangerous points. Breaking the law is necessary to get to your destination safely.
I've broken it a few times in my younger years when I could flex hard on my fixie in steep gearing.
I stopped trying after a motorist pulled out from a side street in front of me and I slammed into the side of his car at 60+kph. Completely destroyed the custom forks I had commissioned for the bike so I could run a disc brake specifically to avoid that happening :(
I wonder which motor vehicle breaks more rules, motorcycles or buses. Far and away those are the two vehicles I always assume will ignore traffic rules and I am seldom proved wrong, but I wonder which of the two is best-in-show.
Buses are actually the safest form of road transport. Granted, I've had a couple of bus drivers nearly hit me on my bike, but that's not representative!
For sure! When a bus violates traffic rules, everyone else gets out of the damn way because it's a bus. You don't want to try driving aggressively against one of those. When a bus decides to be in 2 lanes at once without using a turn signal, you just do your best not to be near it.
Buses are actually the safest form of road transport.
Yeah, but not because they are inherently safe, but because they are often driving much slower than regular traffic and in stop and go situations, often in places built around bus infrastructure.
Put them on high-speed roads or outside that tailored infrastructure, and you end up with multi-casualty crashes. Like this, or this, or this, or this.
But to the comment you were replying to, many of the bus drivers around here drive as though they were in a pickup truck. Poorly!