Cyclists say they do this for multiple reasons. I’ve heard them say being at the front makes them more visible, so they filter through the traffic and if the vehicular traffic ends just before the crosswalk, they will plop themselves right in the middle of the crosswalk. I call bs on this. Why? Because I’m not driving a car, and they filter past me and plop themselves right in front of me as well. I think they just want to jump the red. If they wait behind the line, they can’t see the cross traffic down the road clearly nor are they close enough to the intersection to squeeze quickly through it and jump the red. I get shoaled like this by rlj cyclists a dozen times a day and there seems to be no end to their lack of respect for the pedestrians and the other cyclists around them. I just lead by example and eventually, once they get their heads out of their asses, they’ll queue up behind the crosswalk too.
