Garda crackdown on cyclists started today

dearg lady

petethedrummer wrote: »

If the point of this garda excercise is to curb illegal behaviour by cyclists then it's a good initiative.

If the point is to lower deaths and make the roads safer then they are barking up the wrong tree.

Illegal behaviour and unsafe behaviour should not be conflated.

Agreed. i rarely break red lights on the bike, I do it when it's safer for me to break it than wait

bazza1

dearg lady wrote: »

Agreed. i rarely break red lights on the bike, I do it when it's safer for me to break it than wait

How is it safe to break a red light?

martingriff

Lumen wrote: »

Running a red light is always illegal and often unsafe.

However, "unsafe" is a very broad brush. We don't as a society tend to legislate to discourage activities which are unsafe to the people doing them, we legislate to discourage activities which are unsafe to third parties.

Cars jumping red lights (often, but not always) pose a very grave danger to third parties.

Cyclists jumping red lights are mostly just annoying and discourteous, but of little risk to others.

If I made the law I'd probably have on-the-spot fines for breaking reds but summons for going through a ped crossing on green man, on the basis that the latter offence requires more subjectivity in determining the seriousness.

How about if a car is at 30 or 40 KPH and they have to jam on the breaks to avoid hitting you and get rearended. Or worse still they don't/can't break in time and injure you. A law is there for your safety not just third party.

ThisRegard

Brakes. Just saying.

martingriff

dearg lady wrote: »

Agreed. i rarely break red lights on the bike, I do it when it's safer for me to break it than wait

Safer for you WTF? Breaking a red light is never safe you never know what can happen.

witty username

del_boy13 wrote: »

Santry at the flyover.

I passed you while he was giving you his sermon. You looked very attentive...

Cienciano

martingriff wrote: »

Safer for you WTF? Breaking a red light is never safe you never know what can happen.

A pedesterian crossing on an empty street with absolutly no one around. I drive down cork street in dublin daily and one of the ped lights will always turn red. They take so long the ped has long gone. Street is empty. No danger going through it. Even less if you slow down, double check and make sure no one is around.

bazza1

We need legisltion for cycling "Rules of the road" infractions. Fixed penalty notices for misdemeanours will not clog up Garda and court time. If you want to contest the charge, you would be entitled to your day in court. If you are not successful, increased penalty.

THIS WOULD NOT AFFECT THE MANY THOUSANDS OF RESPONSIBLE CYCLISTS OUT THERE WHO ABIDE BY THE TRAFFIC LAWS!!!!

Mint Sauce

seamus wrote: »

Really?

Because I saw a Garda cycling in a LUAS-only lane breaking a red light and swerving around pedestrians who were crossing with a green man this morning.

I sh1t you not.

If the Gardai don't even care themselves about these things, I'm skeptical about their willingness to bother stopping anyone else for it.

In before the line of duty, yada yada yada, if not done already. But I have too seen Garda bikes cut across pavements and going the wrong way along one way streets. On both occasions they did not look like they were chasing someone.

I thought line of duty was actually in the process of preventing an offence, or going to an offence, ie, an emergency, and not just being in a hurry to get home or back to the barracks.

Jawgap

bazza1 wrote: »

How is it safe to break a red light?

6-00am in the morning when you're turning left is pretty safe.

Here's an info-graphic based on research done by TfL - most incidents at red lights are caused by cars.......

I reckon there's not much difference between London and Dublin, if anything London is more likely to be worse than Dublin.

Lumen

martingriff wrote: »

How about if a car is at 30 or 40 KPH and they have to jam on the breaks to avoid hitting you and get rearended.

Which part of "mostly" do you not understand?

Mint Sauce

bazza1 wrote: »

How is it safe to break a red light?

Turning left if no one coming or road clear, a pedestrian crossing that has no pedestrians at it....

Am sure one or two could be added.

couerdelion

martingriff wrote: »

Safer for you WTF? Breaking a red light is never safe you never know what can happen.

If you are on the same route commuting day in day out you get to know the traffic light sequence and it can be safer.

Take for example the Dorset Street, Temple Street crossroads in Dublin. Temple Street get the lights, then Dorset Street, then pedestrians. If I was on a bike waiting to turn right I know that I could jump the red light when the green man comes on and that way avoid having to sit in the middle of the road with cars flying past me both sides.

Kav0777

petethedrummer wrote: »

"The 162 who died consisted of 29 pedestrians, 8 cyclists, 95 car occupants, 7 goods-van, 2 goods-HGV, 1 minibus, 19 bikers and 1 other."

http://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Road-Safety/Our-Research/Deaths-injuries-on-Irish-roads/

8 cycling deaths and all the other deaths probably caused by cyclists. I can think of no better deployment of resources.

RE:1 other..... extreme ironing?

seamus

JawGap wrote:

Here's an info-graphic based on research done by TfL - most incidents at red lights are caused by cars.......

I reckon there's not much difference between London and Dublin, if anything London is more likely to be worse than Dublin.

Be interesting to do a similar survey in Dublin. I wonder if there's a relevant college department where one could convince a postgrad to do the research.

There are so many variables though in terms of the types of junction, etc, it's a tough one. If you only look at crossroads, you're going to get very different results than T-junctions and pedestrian crossings.

Mint Sauce

Jawgap wrote: »

6-00am in the morning when you're turning left is pretty safe.

Here's an info-graphic based on research done by TfL - most incidents at red lights are caused by cars.......

I reckon there's not much difference between London and Dublin, if anything London is more likely to be worse than Dublin.

Give me cycling in London any day of the week, over cycling in Dublin or any other part of Ireland for that mater. There are a number of drivers here that seem to have no preception of whats going on around them on roads here.

Two years doing a daily commute in London, never in a accident, bar odd near miss. Several near misses here, and one accident.

Jawgap

bazza1 wrote: »

How is it safe to break a red light?

I rarely break a red light but if I've rolled up to a junction and stopped (even at the advanced stop line) and the next vehicle to pull up behind me is a HGV then bet your a$$ I'm breaking the light to go as far as is safe to make sure I'm not in his blind spot.

intellectual dosser

Jawgap wrote: »

The problem I have with this is that the statistics aren't weighted. Cars are going to cause more accidents because there are far more cars.

I'm not sticking up for motorists, I just think it's misleading. If there is some indication that it's weighted then I've missed it and you can put me straight.

dearg lady

bazza1 wrote: »

How is it safe to break a red light?

Lot's of examples given! My own personal one, if I need to change lanes or merge immediately after the lights. Unfortunately if I need to take a lane that is not the left lane many cars drive aggressively and dangerously me, so if the road is clear I will move out ahead of the traffic into the lane I need to avoid this.

Jawgap

intellectual dosser wrote: »

The problem I have with this is that the statistics aren't weighted. Cars are going to cause more accidents because there are far more cars.

I'm not sticking up for motorists, I just think it's misleading. If there is some indication that it's weighted then I've missed it and you can put me straight.

the number of cars / bikes is irrelevant because the outcome is event related - 100 cars breaking red lights once is the same as 1 bike breaking 100 red lights.

seamus

intellectual dosser wrote: »

The problem I have with this is that the statistics aren't weighted. Cars are going to cause more accidents because there are far more cars.

I'm not sticking up for motorists, I just think it's misleading. If there is some indication that it's weighted then I've missed it and you can put me straight.

The problem with the proportionality argument though is that it misses the raw figures.

Let's say for the sake of argument, that cyclists were overrepresented in the statistics and twice as many caused accidents as you would expect. But if even then that only represented 4% of the total accidents, then it should only be given 4% of the focus. The focus should always be on those areas where the majority of fatal accidents occur.

Because cars and pedestrians feature so prominently in the figures, then they should be focussed on a lot more than cyclists.

Very interesting to look at our own RSA figures for 2011.

By far the biggest area for concern there is pedestrians. The vast majority of pedestrians are killed while crossing the road. And outside of the cities, practically all of these fatalities occur at night.

This indicates that in terms of road safety, this is an area which requires major focus. How often do we have threads complaining about pedestrians crossing on the red man, or cars breaking red lights when people are waiting to cross? Or old people walking on country roads not carrying a torch or high-vis? Much bigger issues, far less focus.

intellectual dosser

Jawgap wrote: »

the number of cars / bikes is irrelevant because the outcome is event related - 100 cars breaking red lights once is the same as 1 bike breaking 100 red lights.

Then I guess I don't see the point in this. I think anyone would be able to tell you that cars cause more accidents at traffic lights without any surveys being done. It's down to volumes and it doesn't vindicate cyclists breaking the law.

I think useful information would be that a cyclist has x% chance of causing an accident at a junction compared to a car. For example 1,000 cyclists travelling through a junction will cause x number of accidents, compared to y number of accidents for 1,000 cars.

studiorat

DuckHook wrote: »

Are you saying that a cyclist running a red light is illegal but not unsafe?

Often much more dangerous to be parked at a red light if traffic is turning left.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3311182.ece

Often cycling through a red light is legal in the NL's and Belgium.

http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/cycling-past-red-lights-its-legal-in-the-netherlands/

intellectual dosser

seamus wrote: »

The problem with the proportionality argument though is that it misses the raw figures.

Let's say for the sake of argument, that cyclists were overrepresented in the statistics and twice as many caused accidents as you would expect. But if even then that only represented 4% of the total accidents, then it should only be given 4% of the focus. The focus should always be on those areas where the majority of fatal accidents occur.

Because cars and pedestrians feature so prominently in the figures, then they should be focussed on a lot more than cyclists.

Very interesting to look at our own RSA figures for 2011.

By far the biggest area for concern there is pedestrians. The vast majority of pedestrians are killed while crossing the road. And outside of the cities, practically all of these fatalities occur at night.

This indicates that in terms of road safety, this is an area which requires major focus. How often do we have threads complaining about pedestrians crossing on the red man, or cars breaking red lights when people are waiting to cross? Or old people walking on country roads not carrying a torch or high-vis? Much bigger issues, far less focus.

I'd like to think cyclists and pedestrians would get a better % of focus because accidents involving them will normally involve more serious injuries than fender benders etc.

The rest of it is fair Seamus and I'll agree, you've broadened the scope of the discussion though - we were talking about Cyclists/Motorists at red lights as opposed to the state of our roads overall.

Lumen

intellectual dosser wrote: »

I think useful information would be that a cyclist has x% chance of causing an accident at a junction compared to a car. For example 1,000 cyclists travelling through a junction will cause x number of accidents, compared to y number of accidents for 1,000 cars.

Yes, but we'd also need to know the outcomes of the accidents to know whether deploying Gardai to reduce the incidence of RLJing is a sensible use of resources.

If it turns out that the RLJing cyclists aren't really harming anyone then I'd be quite pissed off at this initiative if, for instance, I'd been robbed or burgled and was told that there weren't enough resources to follow it up properly.

On a related topic, I don't really understand why Ireland doesn't have red light cameras. Cost? Privacy? Effectiveness? Inertia?

DuckHook

del_boy13 wrote: »

Your argument is pretty poor when you consider that the highest proportion of deaths to other road users would be bikers.

Was there any mention in the statistics of the causes of the deaths?

What? Your on the verge on creating a wormhole here..your proving my point that the statistics used by the poster are completely flawed.

Jawgap

intellectual dosser wrote: »

Then I guess I don't see the point in this. I think anyone would be able to tell you that cars cause more accidents at traffic lights without any surveys being done. It's down to volumes and it doesn't vindicate cyclists breaking the law.

I think useful information would be that a cyclist has x% chance of causing an accident at a junction compared to a car. For example 1,000 cyclists travelling through a junction will cause x number of accidents, compared to y number of accidents for 1,000 cars.

I agree, so if the Guards have x number of hours to spend on traffic enforcement then shouldn't they prioritise their effort on the more serious issues that will actually save some lives?

......and while they're doing that the minister can sign the regulations bringing in fixed penalty notices for cyclists who break the law. It can't take more than an afternoon to draft a set of regs and shove it under Leo's nose between "Gathering" photo ops for him to sign?????

DuckHook

studiorat wrote: »

Often much more dangerous to be parked at a red light if traffic is turning left.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3311182.ece

Often cycling through a red light is legal in the NL's and Belgium.

http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/cycling-past-red-lights-its-legal-in-the-netherlands/

No offence but im never going to accept cycling through a red-light in ireland can be declared as something safe to do, comparing dutch roads to irish is like comparing apples to oranges.

Holland has a long tradition of cycling and the cities are designed with this in mind, ireland has admittedly very poor facilities for cyclists and lets be honest irish drivers are not exactly the most observant and safest bunch around.

petethedrummer

bazza1 wrote: »

How is it safe to break a red light?

By not cycling into a bus while you're doing it.

intellectual dosser

Jawgap wrote: »

I agree, so if the Guards have x number of hours to spend on traffic enforcement then shouldn't they prioritise their effort on the more serious issues that will actually save some lives?

This sounds right, but as Lumen pointed out the statistics would need to be expanded out to assess what accidents cause harm. Any accident involving a cyclist is likely to cause harm to that cyclist at least. A significant portion of the accidents caused by cars are them simply bumping into the car ahead of them etc.

Therefore cyclists need to be scrutinized just as much, for their own safety. IMO any Garda who sees a car breaking a Red is going to see an easy chance to get his monthly stats up and will pounce and punish, whereas they might let the cyclist go.