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Re: ideal bicycle rules
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Ryan Sharpe
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Nov 05, 2009 12:57 PST
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Bob, I'm going to apologize in advance if I'm coming across as
confrontational; I strongly sensed such a tone in your message, and I'm
trying to say what I think would be enlightening to the list without
adversely coloring my commentary.
On 11/5/2009 11:44 AM, Bob Shanteau wrote:
| | Ryan Sharpe wrote:
| | But but, bicyclists are required to use motor vehicle facilities
without necessarily having gone through a training and certification
process, making them rather unique roadway users.
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Huh? Who says that public roads are "motor vehicle facilities"? Here are
the relevant sections from the California Vehicle Code
<http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/vctoc.htm>.
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[CVC citations elided]
I may have misspoke -- perhaps "bicyclists are required to use the same
facilities as motor vehicles" would have made my point less
controversial. I recognize that under the CVC, roads are accessible to
all users, but modern roadway design has specifically targeted
automobile traffic -- look at the timing of traffic control signals,
lane demarcations, designed speed of usage, and separation of
facilities, not to mention the predominant mindset of the vast majority
of users. Even most of bulk of the CVC is concerned with the movement
of motorized traffic; the bicycle bit is a few drops in a sea of text.
If it looks like a motor vehicle facility, smells like a motor vehicle
facility, and quacks like a motor vehicle facility, I'll call it a motor
vehicle facility. That's changing, thank $diety, but there's still a
lot of work to do.
| | Streets and highways are intended for *vehicular* travel. Only freeways
from which bicyclists are prohibited are for motor vehicles only
(motorways). True, motor vehicles have displaced almost all other
legitimate road users (horses and wagons, carriages, bicyclists, etc.),
but that does not mean every street, road and highway is a motorway.
| | I've been asked often enough about equipment requirements and the
rules-of-the-road at the Bicycle Kitchen to have figured out that
poorly-known laws -- especially those that ill-serve bicycle use or
seem illogical to bicyclists -- do nobody any good.
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Pray tell, what are the traffic laws that novice bicyclists don't
understand apply to them?
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Those laws are quite different than what they've heard from friends,
family, and "common sense", apparently, and many of these are things
everyone on this list would consider no-brainers. Riding against
traffic, for one. Lighting (and reflector) requirements, for two.
Brake requirements, for three. Riding on the sidewalk, for four. The
"one-foot rule" at stop signs, for five. Exactly where on a street to
ride, for six. That cars aren't required to stop for a bicycle in a
crosswalk the way they are for a pedestrian, for seven. That bicycles
are expected to stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk, for eight. Heck,
helmet requirements, for nine. And so on; if you want more examples,
let me know and I'll keep my ears open during my shift tonight.
I know most of the traffic laws because I've read through the CVC and
Sacramento city ordinances about biking a few times and immersed myself
in a bicycle advocacy group, but not everyone on a bicycle is a Squeaky
Wheel reader or has been certified as knowledgeable of the rules by the DMV.
| | | | Maybe we should start drafting our own set of "ideal" bicycle +
traffic rules, so we can get a better feel for what we should be
asking for, rather than merely complaining that the current system
doesn't work. I'm willing to host a wiki on my personal website to do
this, if anyone's interested in such a project.
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Name one or two "ideal" traffic laws for bicycles and we can start a
discussion right here (or better yet, since traffic laws are statewide,
on CABOforum <http://groups.google.com/group/caboforum>). Generalities
don't do anybody any good.
To be specific, what do you think of the Idaho stop law, which says that
bicyclists can treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop
signs?
Bob Shanteau
Transportation Engineering Liaison
California Association of Bicycling Organizations
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My brief suggestion to come up with "ideal" traffic laws was meant to
help /avoid/ generalizations. I figured the throwaway idea of drafting
a nuanced and collaborative* set of the exact sort of rules we'd like to
see enacted would help us better understand the rules we're operating
under, where we have the most conflict with the current rules, and maybe
even provide a template to someone else working over the same issues.
That sort of firm set of rules was what my suggestion was targeted at,
though I admittedly didn't bother trying to flesh it out completely in a
short list post.
Since (and only because) you asked, my opinion on allowing "Idaho
stops" is that it's probably a good idea overall -- I think bicyclists
are ill-served by the requirement to make complete stops at low-traffic
intersections, more capable of making a judgment as to the safety of
passing through than drivers, and less likely to cause significant
injury or damage if and when the bicyclist turns out to be wrong. More
importantly, though, allowing Idaho stops might help us rethink
intersection controls in general; we seem to default to using stop signs
when a signed yield might be more appropriate. There seems to be little
reason to require every vehicle approaching a calm residential
intersection to come to a full and complete stop.
--Ryan
* Hence a wiki, rather than an unwieldy e-mail thread of generalized
suggestions or a mere blog post saying "bikes are good and should be
promoted" with a few dozen comments of agreement.
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