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Courland Milloy endorses trying to kill cyclists: "It’s a $500 fine for a motorist to hit a bicyclist in the District, but some behaviors are so egregious that some drivers might think it’s worth paying the fine." (wapo.st)

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[–]Eurynom0sU Street 6 ポイント7 ポイント

I think the biggest problem is that the law basically treats bicycles as miniature pedal-powered cars. A perfect example is what happens at red lights. Recklessly blowing through a red light is always a bad idea, but it's ridiculous that a bicyclist CAUTIOUSLY running a red light is treated essentially the same as a motorist doing the same thing.

Basically I think the laws for the road need to be rewritten to recognize bicycles as a distinct third category (the other two being cars/motorcycles and pedestrians).

[–]Justice-Beever425 Mass Ave NW 9 ポイント10 ポイント

We have traffic lights for a reason. A car can't blow through a red, a pedestrian can't legally walk through an orange hand, why should bikers be exempt from following traffic signals?

[–]SQUEEEEEEEEEPSColumbia Heights 8 ポイント9 ポイント

In certain cases, it's the law.

[–]Eurynom0sU Street 23 ポイント24 ポイント

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

Reasons include:

  1. It's a lot harder for a bicyclist to do any serious damage to a pedestrian than it is for a motorist to do so should the situation be misjudged, especially if the bicyclist is slowing down or stopping first.
  2. Bicyclists have a much better visual/auditory field of view of their surroundings than motorists do.
  3. It's safer for everyone if bicyclists can get out ahead of cars--drivers have better visibility on the bicyclists this way, and bicyclists can do things like get over to make a left turn without having to deal with competing car traffic.

You also seem to be starting from the way the laws are currently written and effectively saying "they're written this way now and thus must be written this way forever", when my entire point boils down to the laws needing to be rewritten.

BTW, mindful jaywalking is often safer than crossing at intersections when you have the walk light, since you don't have to deal with drivers trying to barrel through left turns, for instance. And jaywalking laws only came into existence because the car industry wanting to shift the blame for pedestrian deaths onto pedestrians and off of drivers back when cars were new.

The UK is among those countries where jaywalking is not an offence. But the rate of pedestrian deaths is half that of the US, at 0.736 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2011 compared to 1.422 per 100,000 in America.

[–]Justice-Beever425 Mass Ave NW -5 ポイント-4 ポイント

If the way some bikers already ignore traffic lights and enter trafficked 4-way intersections is any indication, making this practice legal in a major metropolitan area is going to increase fatalities. The whole point of a 4-way intersection with lights/stop signs is to avoid traffic from criss-crossing. And all of those reasons could be applied to motorcycles, why don't we exempt them from traffic signals as well?

[–]Eurynom0sU Street 15 ポイント16 ポイント

As noted in the Wikipedia page, you're generally only allowed to do this if it's possible to visually verify that there's no oncoming traffic, meaning that traffic isn't criss-crossing. You're not going to see this happening at the corner for 15th and I NW during rush hour. So please, provide a source on "it's going to increase fatalities". The source I've provided indicates that this isn't the case.

I'll be happy to continue this conversation when you've given any indication whatsoever that you've either read any of my links and/or that you understand that the way the laws are currently written is not the only way they can possibly be written.

[edit]I've noticed that the "anti" crowd on this seems to often start with "I've had bad experiences with bicyclists blowing through red lights without even slowing down" and assuming that that's what's being advocated. Meanwhile I never see these people saying anything about all the motorists around here who blatantly run red lights--by blatantly I mean they very clearly sped up after the light turned red, and didn't simply misjudge the length of a yellow and then make a calculated decision that running the red would be better than stopping short at that point.

[–]jawathehutt 3 ポイント4 ポイント

Anecdotal evidence isn't great, but I have literally never heard of a pedestrian being ticketed for jay walking when there were no cars coming. In the rare instances I've seen it happen, it was at extremely busy intersections that were consistently seeing issues with reckless pedestrians causing traffic issues.

[–]trackpete 2 ポイント3 ポイント

MPD sometimes has high awareness days (usually after someone gets hit by a bus) and they will stand outside high traffic locations and just yell at people and ticket them en-masse for jaywalking without any traffic around (I see them every few months outside Ferragut North's entrances on Connecticut).

I've avoided them twice by simply refusing to acknowledge them, and both times the officers just went after one of the other many people crossing with me. So inane.