Why Do Some Cyclists Run Red Lights?

Cornucopia

The elephant in the room is risk, or the perception of risk.

Whether we like it or not, these are minor offences (or in some cases not even specific offences). Therefore most people fall back to a complex judgement based on the rules, but also bringing in notions of risk and benefit.

This comes together around marginal decisions: if 70 is safe, what about 71? if 1 second after the red light is safe, what about 2 seconds? In this instance, "safety" is a combination of actual physical danger and the risk of being caught.

As I said before, whoever designs traffic light installations is not helping matters in many cases by implement complex multi-phase arrangements where there are extended periods of under-use of the road space. These under-use periods can often provide a passage for cyclists that is either totally safe, or only puts them in conflict with pedestrians and not with vehicles.

Nasqueron

NBLondon wrote: »

"Running" is what boliston has just described - carrying through when the light has gone amber to red. I see all sorts of road users do it in London. Some cyclists will justify it as safer (and less effort) than stopping and starting again.

"Shooting" is approaching an already red light, checking and then carrying on through at speed, possibly overtaking already stopped vehicles and swerving around any pedestrians. I see cyclists do this 2 or 3 times a week in London; I have never seen a motor vehicle do it apart from those with blue flashing lights and two-tone sirens. Some cyclists will try and justify this on the same grounds as what I've called "running" - but I think it more likely that they are just arrogant.

I see your "running" almost every day when driving and cycling, including cars going through following a car who gets over the line as it goes red so they're through clearly after it's gone red, as well as drivers speeding up on amber and still going through on red despite having time to stop. I see cars "shooting" by cars most weeks as well and you can see many examples on dashcam video compilations on youtube, perhaps in London traffic is so busy the opportunity doesn't come up as often for the latter.

TFL data, as quoted earlier on this thread for all accidents involving road users hitting pedestrians following a red light jump shows only 4% of such incidents are caused by a bike, cars cause 71% of them. 98% of pedestrian serious injury or deaths in urban areas are caused by motor vehicles, indeed 98.5% of pedestrian fatalities and 95.7% of pedestrian serious injuries on a fooyway/verge are caused by motor vehicles. 2005-14 NO pedestrians were killed by bikes jumping red lights, 5 a year were killed by motor vehicles

Certainly I admit a bike is going slower and can avoid pedestrians but focusing on that is like my favourite analogy, complaining to the dam owners about a 6" crack in the dam wall while ignoring the 2m wide hole right next to it.

reeac

I was a road racing cyclist for some years, covering around 12-15,000 miles per year but I'm shocked by the road behaviour of some cyclists nowadays. My view is that a cyclist should behave exactly like any other road vehicle....keep to the left, never ride on pavements, always obey traffic signals and give clear signals when changing lane or turning.

JP08

NBLondon wrote: »

"Shooting" is approaching an already red light, checking and then carrying on through at speed, possibly overtaking already stopped vehicles and swerving around any pedestrians. I see cyclists do this 2 or 3 times a week in London; I have never seen a motor vehicle do it apart from those with blue flashing lights and two-tone sirens. Some cyclists will try and justify this on the same grounds as what I've called "running" - but I think it more likely that they are just arrogant.

What I normally see* when I do see a is a variation on this - the cyclist that effectively treats the red light as "proceed at caution". This is not normally at speed.

I suspect that this is less dangerous to do on a bike than in a car, irrespective of the speed and weight difference. On a bike you have far better visibility and sense of road position than in any vehicle just by simply not being enclosed, the widest point of your vehicle being the widest point of your body and visible (a situation your instinctively used to, it's your hands), a "driving position" above most cars and significantly further forward. It means you can be pretty much "inch perfect" in positioning, where some drivers can't manage "foot perfect".


*mostly at the Junction of Blackfriars Road and The Cut / Union St, right outside the TfL building and Southwark tube station as I wander into work or out for lunch.
It occurs pretty rarely considering one of the Superhighways crosses this junction too. Far more common to see a gaggle of up to 20 cyclists waiting for the green.
What is definitely the norm though, is two to three vehicles running, as per NBLondon's definition, the lights when exiting both the The Cut and Union St - causing some interesting avoidance actions in the middle of the slightly staggered junction. I think it's because the phase is so short it only allows about 5 vehicles through at a time.

caprikid1

The traffic lights on my relatively quiet junction were very closely timed.


The result was those going through on amber and those quick off the mark could easily meet if both were eager. I recall at least one accident and near miss myself.

Johno100

Cornucopia wrote: »

Isn't that a bit unfair on driver-cyclists vs. non-driver-cyclists?

Well yes, we'd have to be a bit imaginative with those, perhaps a rider iimprovement scheme?

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Any evidence to support this?

I read the report when it came out detailing the methodology. But regrettably the link to the report in the article posted by Johnmcl7 is dead and despite searching I can't find another link to the 2012 report. Perhaps you or Jack_Pott, who seems to love posting links to research papers, could assist?

Norman_Castle

The survey was done in 2007 but was used in an article in 2012.
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/traffic-note-8-cycling-red-lights.pdf

Cornucopia

Norman_Castle wrote: »

The survey was done in 2007 but was used in an article in 2012.
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/traffic-note-8-cycling-red-lights.pdf

Interesting. Not least because those sites are presumably easy to monitor, but not necessarily those where red light issues will be most prevalent. Some of the junctions are simply too big for even the boldest cyclist to want to risk getting caught half way across when the lights change. The one I know best (bottom of Blackheath Hill) is, by contrast, too small and the simple 2-phase operation there does not provide much time within which red light issues could arise.

I would like to see figures for medium-sized, multi-phase junctions within Zone 1. I'd also like to see figures for Zebra crossings and Pelican crossings.

I worked in two different sites in central London, and in both locations there was originally a Zebra crossing over a major road nearby. In both sites, there was a persistent problem of cyclists failing to stop when pedestrians were part-way across the crossings. Eventually, both locations were upgraded to Pelican crossings which seemed to improve matters.

[Deleted User]

You beat me to it, I had the link all cued up ready when I got to the end of the thread.

"an average of 16% violated red lights, whilst the remaining 84% obeyed the traffic signals"

If the lights were green there would be nothing to obey.

Tilt

Johno100 wrote: »

That Tfl study is totally flawed, the reported 84% of cyclists who reportedly didn't 'violate' a red light included those who arrived at the light when it was green, so didn't get the opportunity to jump it.

Your'e telling me!

A few months ago one of the TV news (can't remember whether it was ITV or BBC news now) carried out an 'experiment' at a major junction in London where they filmed/clocked 40 odd cyclists who flouted the red light in ONE GO! Some were even doing wheelies through the junction (presumably for the camera). Their cycling was so 'arrogant' that vehicles crossing the junction with a green light in their favour had to actually stop to give way to this mass of cyclists going through on red.

According to some of the locals, it happens on numerous occasions everyday. Now I know the pro-cyclists amongst us will say "what about motorists who run red lights..." well yes, some do BUT i've never heard of 40 doing it in one go before...