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.
There’s also a level of absurdity to cycling laws. E.g., in the UK if I:
That’s legal. But! If I:
That’s a crime.
The ‘Stop on red’ rule was obviously designed for cars and then slapped onto bicycles, a category of vehicle for which it makes very little sense.
Proof: intersections of multi-use paths don’t have stop signs and don’t need them.
We have a few municipalities around here that are adding stop lights for cyclists where multiuse paths meet intersections (to control the cross rides).
It’s more of a safety thing, but I’ve almost been run over several times while crossing them on a WALK/BIKE green, since motorists really don’t care at all.
You will often get a motorist committing to a left turn going into the cross ride, and since they didn’t look first and didn’t give themselves any time before the oncoming traffic arrives, they’ll plow through the cross ride/cross-walk. To say that I see this happening all the time is not an exaggeration.
A place where two multi-use paths cross is entirely different from a place where a multi-use path crosses a street. The signal for the latter is still because of the cars, not the bikes, even if it’s directing the latter.
That’s a really rare sight to see in my region. I wish we had enough multi-use paths to actually have them cross! LOL
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.
You’re no more dangerous cycling at 3kph than you are wheeling your bike at 3kph, but one of those things is illegal if you do it over a stop line, regardless of anything else you do once you’re over the stop line. That’s the absurdity.
Yeah, I say make them both illegal so the rules are more predictable and easy to understand.
Also, make it illegal to be outside. Too much mad shit going on out there.
The difference is that one will force you to actually stop, if even for just a moment. That can give you enough time to actually see oncoming traffic.
I don’t get this. You slow down if you don’t want to hit people. You also have a set of eyes. Are people not able to go “person walking in front, let’s slow down and go behind them”. If it’s a wall of people, then of course you stop.
So then the pedestrians trying to cross the road have to judge whether the cyclist is going to stop, rather than assuming they will. Why not make the same rules apply to everyone on the road to be more predictable?
Good point. Can’t win them all. If life was perfect then a simple communication could be used if need be. If only people didn’t wanna hit other people all the time or something.
The solution is to design roads where these conflicts and confusions don’t happen. For example, you can have a lighted pedestrian crossing for car lanes adjacent to a raised, unlighted crossing for the cycle lane.
The study in the article is from Denmark though. They never mentioned Dutch cyclists.
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.