And Bicyclsists Are Scofflaws?

[KelOnWheels]

@Rootchopper 24125 wrote:

I made the mistake of driving to Bailey’s Crossroads on Saturday. All traffic lights from I-395 to Carlyn Springs Raod were out. I was amazed at how many drivers refused to treat a dead traffic light as a four way stop. It’s no wonder that so many drivers are ignorant of bicyclists rights to the road.

I also tried that drive on Saturday (but REI was closed ) I was amazed I didn’t get rear-ended since I actually did stop at intersections.

[Riley Casey]

This entire cyclists are scofflaws, no drivers are the real scofflaws barb trading is tiresome. We can all be saints one moment and sinners the next given only a modicum of tiredness or anxiety or whatever colors our emotions that moment. The only constant I would venture is that a 160 lbs scofflaw on a 15 lbs bike is a very different threat to everyones well being than that same scofflaw behind the wheel of a 2000 lbs SUV traveling at 50 mph.

[creadinger]

@Riley Casey 24130 wrote:

This entire cyclists are scofflaws, no drivers are the real scofflaws barb trading is tiresome. We can all be saints one moment and sinners the next given only a modicum of tiredness or anxiety or whatever colors our emotions that moment. The only constant I would venture is that a 160 lbs scofflaw on a 15 lbs bike is a very different threat to everyones well being than that same scofflaw behind the wheel of a 2000 lbs SUV traveling at 50 mph.

I take great exception to your comment sir. My bike is not 15 pounds, it’s more like 25 pounds. I work really hard to get that bike and myself up to speed and up hills. Haha.

Well said. Maybe we could add a quantifier word in front of the word scofflaw, like momentum. You become a momentum (mass*velocity) scofflaw when you do certain dangerous-to-others things with high levels of momentum.

[mstone]

@creadinger 24131 wrote:

Well said. Maybe we could add a quantifier word in front of the word scofflaw, like momentum. You become a momentum (mass*velocity) scofflaw when you do certain dangerous-to-others things with high levels of momentum.

newtonian scofflaw?

[KelOnWheels]

@creadinger 24131 wrote:

I take great exception to your comment sir. My bike is not 15 pounds, it’s more like 25 pounds. I work really hard to get that bike and myself up to speed and up hills. Haha.

Yeah! Maybe YOUR dainty little bicycle is only 15 pounds, I’m pushing 30-odd pounds of STEEL, baby!

Slowly. Very, very slowly.

[Riley Casey]

Well I’m 200 lbs of mass but I was trying to be charitable in assuming that not all the readers of the board are fat old men – like me.:rolleyes:

@creadinger 24131 wrote:

I take great exception to your comment sir. My bike is not 15 pounds, it’s more like 25 pounds. I work really hard to get that bike and myself up to speed and up hills. Haha.

Well said. Maybe we could add a quantifier word in front of the word scofflaw, like momentum. You become a momentum (mass*velocity) scofflaw when you do certain dangerous-to-others things with high levels of momentum.

[acc]

Riley, someone has hacked into your account. They are accusing you of being a Master Clydesdale.

Driving on Saturday was dicey. I figured out a way to get onto 495 that involved almost all right turns because I knew any intersection with dead lights was going to be a kill zone.

Bikes v. Cars: I’ve become a better driver because of riding bikes. But I’ve also become less tolerant of sitting in traffic.

[Rootchopper]

I tip the scales at around 220 and none of my bikes are under 30 pounds (not including my commuting load) so Mini Coopers fear my physics.

Since I started this thread, I should point out a couple of things. I have never ever seen so many drivers completely ignoring the rules of the road. After an hour of this, it occured to me that there really was no reason for me to be in a hurry. After all, I was in an air conditioned car and my house was an oven. No rush to get there.
The other point I want to make is that it may be the treat the dead-light-as-a-stop-sign rule is not a law. It’s a custom. Does anybody know if this is true?

Now that everyone but me has power, people are behaving better. I. on the other hand, am so sleep deprived I almost had a head on collission on the MVT today. My appologies to the other cyclist.

[mstone]

@Rootchopper 24184 wrote:

Since I started this thread, I should point out a couple of things. I have never ever seen so many drivers completely ignoring the rules of the road. After an hour of this, it occured to me that there really was no reason for me to be in a hurry. After all, I was in an air conditioned car and my house was an oven. No rush to get there.
The other point I want to make is that it may be the treat the dead-light-as-a-stop-sign rule is not a law. It’s a custom. Does anybody know if this is true?

code of virginia, § 46.2-833:

C. If the traffic lights controlling an intersection are out of service because of a power failure or other event that prevents the giving of signals by the traffic lights, the drivers of vehicles approaching such an intersection shall proceed as though such intersection were controlled by a stop sign on all approaches. The provisions of this subsection shall not apply to: intersections controlled by portable stop signs, intersections with law-enforcement officers or other authorized persons directing traffic, or intersections controlled by traffic lights displaying flashing red or flashing amber lights as provided in subsection A.

DC (like most places) is similar. MD has recto-cranial inversion in this area of law (unless they’ve finally passed the bill that’s been stalled for years), though MDOT pretends there is legal backing and advertises that people must treat dark signals as stops.

[Terpfan]

@mstone 24185 wrote:

code of virginia, § 46.2-833:

C. If the traffic lights controlling an intersection are out of service because of a power failure or other event that prevents the giving of signals by the traffic lights, the drivers of vehicles approaching such an intersection shall proceed as though such intersection were controlled by a stop sign on all approaches. The provisions of this subsection shall not apply to: intersections controlled by portable stop signs, intersections with law-enforcement officers or other authorized persons directing traffic, or intersections controlled by traffic lights displaying flashing red or flashing amber lights as provided in subsection A.

DC (like most places) is similar. MD has recto-cranial inversion in this area of law (unless they’ve finally passed the bill that’s been stalled for years), though MDOT pretends there is legal backing and advertises that people must treat dark signals as stops.

Maryland law is weird. About a decade ago, shoot maybe it was late 90s, I was driving down Georgia Avenue after a horrible thunderstorm had knocked out of all of the powerlights. The traffic was absolutely miserable, but I stopped at a non-functioning stoplight near Leisure World. A cop was too my right and instructed me to roll down my window. She told me that she understands why I stopped and that it’s noble, but the smaller road must yield to the bigger road and I should not stop. I asked are you sure and she said definitively. Ever since then I have quizzed every officer I know or come across and gotten a multitude of different answers. It’s one of those things where they need to uniformly just say this is the rule/law, no if, ands or buts.

[pfunkallstar]

When I was riding around in the Falls Church Apocalypse Zone this past weekend I kept giving a weird four finger salute at each intersection. I didn’t think anyone understood it until a guy rolled up beside me and said “Four way – right on.” He was driving a Tercel.

[mstone]

@Terpfan 24187 wrote:

Maryland law is weird. About a decade ago, shoot maybe it was late 90s, I was driving down Georgia Avenue after a horrible thunderstorm had knocked out of all of the powerlights. The traffic was absolutely miserable, but I stopped at a non-functioning stoplight near Leisure World. A cop was too my right and instructed me to roll down my window. She told me that she understands why I stopped and that it’s noble, but the smaller road must yield to the bigger road and I should not stop. I asked are you sure and she said definitively. Ever since then I have quizzed every officer I know or come across and gotten a multitude of different answers. It’s one of those things where they need to uniformly just say this is the rule/law, no if, ands or buts.

The first cop was probably correct. In the absence of any law that a vehicle must stop for a dark signal, the situation falls back to the general rule that vehicles must yield to traffic in the intersection. (This, of course, means that cars trying to enter or cross a busy street could wait forever.) The reality is that there is no good way for 8 lane roads to intersect without some kind of traffic control, whether a stoplight or a traffic cop. We just don’t have the resources on hand to manage the infrastructure when this sort of event happens.

[Rootchopper]

This whole 4-way stop thread has me thinking that many of these intersections would be better served with roundabouts.

[Greenbelt]

@mstone 24192 wrote:

The first cop was probably correct. In the absence of any law that a vehicle must stop for a dark signal, the situation falls back to the general rule that vehicles must yield to traffic in the intersection. (This, of course, means that cars trying to enter or cross a busy street could wait forever.) The reality is that there is no good way for 8 lane roads to intersect without some kind of traffic control, whether a stoplight or a traffic cop. We just don’t have the resources on hand to manage the infrastructure when this sort of event happens.

In a deeper sense, doesn’t it seem sort of ridiculous that we’ve built 8 lane roads in the first place. Whose idea was that anyway? Is there any more hated aspect of suburbia?

[MCL1981]

They started wising up about the traffic control situation in the Montgomery Blast Radius. Cones and tape down the middle where the main road has a median. This makes it so that intersecting traffic (the smaller road) can only turn right. This significantly sped things up since nobody could actually cross all the lanes. Most people are getting the hang of it too. The main roads, people slow and stop as needed to accommodate someone waiting to cross/turn. And where the view is clear, people just roll through in groups rather than stopping one at a time unnecessarily. Friday night and Saturday were an absolute nightmare. But by Sunday, people were figuring it out.

What really gets me is once night falls. Sometimes you don’t know you’re blasting through a controlled intersection until you see the light in the top of the windshield. I went through many dark intersection without even realizing I was in them

@Rootchopper 24213 wrote:

This whole 4-way stop thread has me thinking that many of these intersections would be better served with roundabouts.

You apparently have never driven through Dupont, have you?

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