The article‘s author makes the principal contention that most bicyclists make ‘‘poor judgments‘‘. The argument of the article hinges on this anecdotal observation, which is the basic reason its conclusion fails to convince. The observation, while doubtlessly well intended, sounds rash, and unfair. Consider this:

NYC has roughly 3 million households; more than half those households have no automobile. Giving multi-car households the benefit of the doubt, lets say we believe there are 2.5 million motorists on the road in a given day in New York City (where, statistically, over 90% of the population uses public transit to get to work). There are, it‘s estimated, approximately 200,000 bicyclists in the city in a given day. NYC‘s lowest automotive traffic fatality count in the past ten years was about 250 fatalities in one year. It averages approximately 20 bicycle fatalities a year, the majority of which are the products of either legally made right hand turns by cars and trucks into the paths of legally positioned bicycles, or legal & illegal bike-car interactions at intersection crossings. One out of every 10,000 bicycle riders dies in NY every year. For every 10,000 cars in NYC, one person dies, every year, in an automobile related accident. These are estimates, but they are in their respective ballparks.

When one considers that bicycle law enforcement throughout the city has traditionally been very lax (red light violations, opposite traffic riding, and the like are routinely done in view of police officers without eliciting summonses), the common practice of bicyclists in NY (who overwhelmingly treat red lights as yields, in what is plausibly the most densely populated metropolitan area in the United States) appears to be no less safe than the common practices of motorists, who are under the much stricter scrutiny of a very well developed licensing and enforcement apparatus. A common-sensical observation of anyone who has been in a few bike collisions, and even a single car collision is that colliding with someone or something in an automobile is much more reliably dangerous for everyone involved. For a host of reasons, going through a red stop light in an automobile, considering its blindspots, given its size, is much more likely to cause property damage and loss of life than a similarly acting bicycle rider. And yet, these violations for bikers and motorists are equally illegal, not differentially illegal. Their impacts are generally very different, but their proscribed punishments are precisely the same. ($270 fine for the first offense. $450 for the next. $1020 for the third.) The principal sanity in this was that, up until fairly recently, this law was not equally enforced for cars and bicyclists.

But, the point I am out to demonstrate is made. The statistical cocktail-napkin calculation above seems to support what is commonsense: even this virtually unregulated ragtag mass of bicyclists in a place that exemplifies the most congested of American urban settings are no more at risk of death than a very strictly (and expensively) regulated automotive paradigm that is widely accepted. To whatever extent one sees credence in these glib, breezy stats, its a pretty convincing argument that, where enforced, bicycle regulations ought to benefit from being specific to bicycles, with little risk of upending the status quo. Bicycle riders, faced with only specious guidance, do in fact appear to be making competent decisions.

All the same, for those for whom bicycling is recreational or a hobby, erring on the side of the strictest vehicular interpretation of the law may sound quite well good enough. Unfortunately, though, many working people desperately incorporate bicycling into their lives for financial considerations (to be able to afford their commute to work, that is), in addition to the health and lifestyle choices it serves. The importance of balancing safety with the need of making a 5, 10 or 15 mile commute practical is a much more deliberative choice that involves and deserves more than simply eyeballing whether laws originally written with cars in mind apply equally well and equally fairly to both enthusiasts AND commuters. A fairminded and complex acceptance of how bikes are different from cars, from a traffic and safety perspective, deserves a rapt audience. A reasonable listener to the needs of a bicycle commuter making a 10 mile commute in one direction should sympathize with not only the measures of keeping that commuter (as well as the roads) safe, but keeping her option to commute by bicycle realistic. Day to day experience and empirical evidence suggest these goals are not exclusive of one another, but the UVC laws on the books in most states are insensitive to the working balance that has been struck by people thankful to be able to bicycle to work 5 or 10 miles every day, if only because it increases their odds of making the minimum Visa payment a few days early that month. Making biking harder, less practical, hurts people in a manner that most of us would hesitate to disclose if it had been us in that position. It doesn‘t matter whether its Brooklyn or Sacramento, this is lived knowledge that almost every working person on a bike can relate to. And the request is pretty simple. Make it practical, not harder.

My personal solution is to come to a full stop at stop signs if there are other riders or motorists either stopped or closely approaching the intersection. I always stop at traffic lights unless there are no other riders or motorists in sight.

Also, I like the idea of substituting yield signs for stop signs and the use of roundabouts. Many times, stop signs are used to slow or discourage traffic on specific streets and make little or no sense for cyclists. We need streets and highways designed to encourage bike traffic and bicyclist safety.

I think the best solution is to actually plan bikeways with as few stops as possible, but lots of traffic calming. This way we don’t put cyclists in the position of regularly having to decide if following the letter of the law makes sense or not. Outside of that option, however, the Idaho stop law seems like the sensible alternative.

Shoe clips should be easy enough to release that it is no problem to put a foot down if necessary – I can almost always come to a complete stop for a moment without having to put a foot down, but if I need to stop for longer it is no problem to put a foot down. If you use a fixed gear bike for urban cycling, you can stand still for minutes at a time if you wish (by “stand still” I mean don’t move forward from where you are). I have stood still for several minutes on a high-wheeler (penny-farthing, ordinary).

Why are cyclists so concerned with saving energy when most claim to be cycling for their health, at least in part? I don’t need a super-efficient bike when I am out to burn calories anyway. Sure, a mud-lugged tired mountain bike may be a little too far in the calorie-burning department for smooth road riding, but I really don’t have much use for my Mondia Special or its predecessor, a Gitane Tour de France. My hybrid bike is efficient enough and has much more puncture-, rut- and sewer-grate-resistant tires.
I just watched the 75+ mph record set by a French woman last year. Can you imagine hitting a deer? A rabbit? A pebble? at anywhere close to 75? on a bike? Motorcycles have a hard enough time with hitting things, even at moderate (for a motor vehicle) speeds.
We hit a deer at about 45 mph a few years ago. It was just a nick, but that pushed the fender back to where the door scraped on it, and broke the turn signal and plastic grille. At least we were in the van. If it had happened in a car, the deer might easily have come thru the windshield. On a recent 1,500 mile trip I must have seen a couple of hundred deer, dogs, coyotes, and dogs dead by the road. Smaller animals don’t count as they are no threat. The only animal I have ever hit on a bike was a chihuahua that was trying to bite my ankles and dodged in front of the wheel.

The energy saved by not needing to accelerate from v=0 to v=2 is miniscule. The time lost by introducing ambiguity at intersections can be significant.

The attraction in this proposal is probably less about conserving momentum and more about skill and confidence in re-starting from a stop, especially if foot-to-pedal fastening mechanisms are involved. But many cyclists are unaware or clumsy at a Power Pedal start even with flat pedals, which makes them reluctant to put a foot down. Thus, for their own convenience, they want to roll through intersections without slowing all the way to v=0.

This restarting convenience doesn’t seem to me a strong enough argument for treating cyclists differently from other roadway users. If convenience were a good reason for the law to differentiate between classes of roadway users, how about forcing cyclists to ride far to the right of a lane, for the convenience of motorists who wish to overtake? (Oh wait, we already have 21202 and 21208…)