Has ignoring red lights gotten a lot worse?

AndrewJRenko

PhilOssophy wrote: »

You are just not getting it Andrew. The sole metric of whats OK on the road is not whether you kill somebody or who kills anybody.

Fair enough - you're right. Killing is not the sole metric


We should look at the numbers of those seriously injured as well. It was 8-10 people maimed each week by motorists last time I looked.

Breezer

Crossing at a green man from the top of Westmoreland St to the median on O'Connell Bridge yesterday. A fella in a Range Rover comes southbound across O'Connell Bridge and starts to make an illegal right turn through a straight ahead arrow across my path. He stops, looks at me, decides "ah sure he's not so far across the road that I'll hit him" and proceeds through the green man and across the traffic lanes from Westmoreland St onto the South Quays.

fullstop

Another thread ruined by our favourite cyclist :rolleyes:

Shai

fullstop wrote: »

Another thread ruined by our favourite cyclist :rolleyes:

Not sure what you're on about. It's not Andrew who is trying to shift the thread towards cyclists.

jjpep

It's interesting how if you drive, cycle and walk you're a cyclist and anything you say about driving must be because you're anti motorist.

Seth Brundle

This is just going around in circles now with the cars vs cyclist crap.
The issue is the lack of due care by some road users, regardless of mode of transport, when it comes to red lights. The potential for injury or death is increased from red light gambling especially by those travelling faster in heavier vehicles. The claim that someone on a bike may not cause as much damage isn't necessarily valid because they could collide with a car causing injury or death to themselves.

This is down to many factors including heavier volumes, longer travel times, lack of proper enforcement. The main reason that some people travel through red lights, regardless of whether they are on bikes or cars us because there's next to no enforcement.

Changing behaviour needs to be marketing driven just like the drink driving campaigns but there's no point doing that if there's no enforcement.

Zipppy

Seth Brundle wrote:

Changing behaviour needs to be marketing driven just like the drink driving campaigns but there's no point doing that if there's no enforcement.

3 cycles of the lights in Phibsboro last nite cars broke the lights.. 2 Garda were on duty a few meters away..just looked on...
Meanwhile today at Doyle's corner an Audi flew (and I mean flew) up the inside of 2 buses and brokes lights about 3 seconds after the red..no way he could have seen anything or be seen..no one cares it seems..least of all the Garda car that was stopped in traffic coming opposite...really don't know how there wasn't carnage..

magicbastarder

jjpep wrote: »

It's interesting how if you drive, cycle and walk you're a cyclist and anything you say about driving must be because you're anti motorist.

in a not-quite-argument i was once having with someone (who does not cycle) about cyclists, i was accused of being 'biased' because i do cycle. i had to pause for a second or two to process the enormity of that amount of - quite sincere - idiocy.
the 'of course you would say that, you're a (insert type of road user)' concept *only* seems to apply to cyclists.

jjpep

magicbastarder wrote: »

in a not-quite-argument i was once having with someone (who does not cycle) about cyclists, i was accused of being 'biased' because i do cycle. i had to pause for a second or two to process the enormity of that amount of - quite sincere - idiocy.
the 'of course you would say that, you're a (insert type of road user)' concept *only* seems to apply to cyclists.

Yep, and I'm not trying to bring this back to a cyclist Vs motorist thing nor am I saying that if one individual drives and cycles than everything that individual says on those topics is correct. It's just that weird illogic that you've observed too.

If I criticise driver behaviour and I'm see as a driver then it's fine. I'm one of 'us'. If I'm see as a cyclist then it's not, I'm one of 'them'. And in my mind I'm both.

RobbieMD

Zipppy wrote: »

3 cycles of the lights in Phibsboro last nite cars broke the lights.. 2 Garda were on duty a few meters away..just looked on...
Meanwhile today at Doyle's corner an Audi flew (and I mean flew) up the inside of 2 buses and brokes lights about 3 seconds after the red..no way he could have seen anything or be seen..no one cares it seems..least of all the Garda car that was stopped in traffic coming opposite...really don't know how there wasn't carnage..

Maybe the garda driving the car is one of the huge number not qualified to drive with blue lights and sirens....

Duckjob

Seth Brundle wrote: »

The claim that someone on a bike may not cause as much damage isn't necessarily valid because they could collide with a car causing injury or death to themselves.

While the above is true, The bolded word is highly significant and is continually glossed over by people trying to draw equivalence between people in cars breaking rules and people on bikes breaking rules.

A cyclist going through a red light, while for sure it may irritate, is largely risking their own safety more so than others. A car driver going through a red light is literally gambling not only the safety, but the very lives of others.

In 25+ yrs of driving, I've never ever ever sat in my car watching a cyclist go through a red and thought that because of them I may not make it back to my family that evening. I can't say the same in reverse about last 5 yrs of cycling.

AndrewJRenko

Seth Brundle wrote: »

The claim that someone on a bike may not cause as much damage isn't necessarily valid because they could collide with a car causing injury or death to themselves.

Does that happen often?

Seth Brundle

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Does that happen often?

Are those stats released?

Zipppy

Duckjob wrote:

A cyclist going through a red light, while for sure it may irritate, is largely risking their own safety more so than others. A car driver going through a red light is literally gambling not only the safety, but the very lives of others.

So cyclists running red lights is ok?..its just an irritant ?
Surely motorists and cyclists are equally in the wrong.. both are breaking the rules of the road. one may pose more of a danger but both are wrong and should be clamped down on with equal force..which brings us back to this thread..we should be discussing how we can step both modes breaking lights and not nit pick about who is worst..

jjpep

Zipppy wrote: »

So cyclists running red lights is ok?..its just an irritant ?
Surely motorists and cyclists are equally in the wrong.. both are breaking the rules of the road. one may pose more of a danger but both are wrong and should be clamped down on with equal force..which brings us back to this thread..we should be discussing how we can step both modes breaking lights and not nit pick about who is worst..

This has already been gone over at least once in this thread.

AndrewJRenko

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Are those stats released?

You tell me. You're flagging up the problem so I'd have hoped that you had a good understanding of what's behind it.



I'm fairly confident that no cyclist has been killed in Ireland as a result of breaking a red light in living memory. I've never heard of any case of a cyclist being seriously injured as a result of breaking a red light. Given the enthusiasm of much of the media to join in a round of cyclist-bashing, I'd be fairly confident that this hasn't happened in living memory.


RSA track stats on people killed and seriously injured, so I'm fairly confident that they would have recognised any trend in this area.

Zipppy wrote: »

So cyclists running red lights is ok?..its just an irritant ?
Surely motorists and cyclists are equally in the wrong.. both are breaking the rules of the road. one may pose more of a danger but both are wrong and should be clamped down on with equal force..which brings us back to this thread..we should be discussing how we can step both modes breaking lights and not nit pick about who is worst..

Why would you expect both to be clamped down with equal force? Do you expect the authorities to 'clamp down on equal force' on people who by more than their daily allowance of paracetamol and people who are injecting heroin on the streets? I'd expect the Gardai to focus on addressing danger, death and injury in their clampdown. They would therefore focus on the motorists that kill 2 or 3 people each week and maim many more.

Would you be in favour of a Garda clampdown on the 60-82% of motorists that break speed limits?

Weepsie

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Fair enough - you're right. Killing is not the sole metric


We should look at the numbers of those seriously injured as well. It was 8-10 people maimed each week by motorists last time I looked.

You can add to to that the 240k drivers with some sort of driving offence against them at present. That number has hovered around that for years too, so as points expire, people are still racking them up.

That would be higher too if all were caught.

Conversely, if people thought they'd be caught there'd be less.


Solution is of course helping technology and civilian staff to issue fines/points. Free up Gardai to do more meaningful work than policing bus lanes etc and making driving, cycling and even walking safer for all.

Duckjob

Zipppy wrote: »

So cyclists running red lights is ok?..its just an irritant ?
Surely motorists and cyclists are equally in the wrong.. both are breaking the rules of the road. one may pose more of a danger but both are wrong and should be clamped down on with equal force..which brings us back to this thread..we should be discussing how we can step both modes breaking lights and not nit pick about who is worst..

Are you Cathy Newman by any chance ? Show me where I said running red lights is "ok" ?

You can draw all the moral equivalences you want between cars and bikes breaking lights.

We can discuss until the cow come home whether a cyclist breaking a red is as morally wrong as a car breaking a red. I would argue the moral wrong of a motorist breaking a red is much greater because, as I am other posters have pointed out the safety implications to *others* are on an entirely different scale. That doesn't mean I think cyclists going through red is ok.

At the end of the day though, if you want to address road safety effectively, then unless you're clinging to some sort of petty anti- mentality against another group of road users, then perceived morality doesnt really have any place in the discussion. Physics does.

AndrewJRenko

Weepsie wrote: »

You can add to to that the 240k drivers with some sort of driving offence against them at present.

And the 100k-150k uninsured vehicles on our road, but yeah, let's pull resource off reducing the death toll on the roads to clamp down on cyclists.

Shai

Duckjob wrote: »

At the end of the day though, if you want to address road safety effectively, then unless you're clinging to some sort of petty anti- mentality against another group of road users, then perceived morality doesnt really have any place in the discussion. Physics does.

I can't speak for everyone, but if it were possible for cars to be made of some magical new material that caused them to do only as much damage as a bike could in case of a collision, I personally would be a whole lot less worried about cars jumping red lights.

Duckjob

Shai wrote: »

I can't speak for everyone, but if it were possible for cars to be made of some magical new material that caused them to do only as much damage as a bike could in case of a collision, I personally would be a whole lot less worried about cars jumping red lights.

Would be nice.

While car makers have gone to the ends of the earth to increase the safety (or at least the perceived safety) of those inside their vehicles, the sad reality is that the safety of anyone outside the vehicle Is of secondary importance to the vanity of the car owner. The failure to ban bull bars from our urban spaces would be a prime example of this. But that's another thread.

Weepsie

Duckjob wrote: »

The failure to ban bull bars from our urban spaces would be a prime example of this. But that's another thread.

The types of vehicle that bull bars tend to installed on, are for the most part completely unsuited and unnecessary in urban environments too, but you know, people just have to have their 4wd, SUV, jeep-style/landcruiser style to ferry their various accessories about the place.

Dravokivich

Shai wrote: »

I can't speak for everyone, but if it were possible for cars to be made of some magical new material that caused them to do only as much damage as a bike could in case of a collision, I personally would be a whole lot less worried about cars jumping red lights.

Cyclists can be fatal to pedestrians too.

jjpep

Dravokivich wrote: »

Cyclists can be fatal to pedestrians too.

Can you imagine the uproar if 50 or 60 pedistrians were killed each year by cyclist's?

AndrewJRenko

Dravokivich wrote: »

Cyclists can be fatal to pedestrians too.

They can be - but that is a very, very rare event. In Ireland, it is more than 15 years since a cyclist killed a pedestrian. In that time, motorists have killed more than 3,500 people here.

In the UK, cyclists kill 1 or 2 people each year. Motorists kill 4 or 5 people each day.

That will give you some idea of the real source of danger on the roads.

Charles Babbage

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

They can be - but that is a very, very rare event. In Ireland, it is more than 15 years since a cyclist killed a pedestrian. In that time, motorists have killed more than 3,500 people here.

In the UK, cyclists kill 1 or 2 people each year. Motorists kill 4 or 5 people each day.

That will give you some idea of the real source of danger on the roads.

Is only death of interest here? Are the injuries and intimidation caused not also of public interest?

Shai

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Is only death of interest here? Are the injuries and intimidation caused not also of public interest?

I'm not gonna comment on injuries here, as I don't have any numbers handy, but I want to ask you what exactly you mean by intimidation. When people talk about cyclists intimidating others, I often have the impression that they're really talking about teenagers on bikes trying to act tough, racing on pedestrian lanes and generally just being a pest to pedestrians. Am I misreading this?

AndrewJRenko

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Is only death of interest here? Are the injuries and intimidation caused not also of public interest?

I addressed injuries in this recent post.


I'm not sure what you mean by intimidation, tbh.

Dravokivich

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

I addressed injuries in this recent post.


I'm not sure what you mean by intimidation, tbh.

People behind you speeding up as the light goes to amber.

Corruptedmorals

It has definitely gotten worse. Cars and cyclists breaking green pedestrian lights is especially frustrating at crossings where the pedestrian time is too short for your average person to cross without it going amber. It wrecks the sequences to have the pedestrians stop or pull back for cars to bulldoze through and then be in danger then crossing on red. The worst one I encounter is lower Leeson Street lights a bit up from the Stephen's green junction..plenty cars and cyclists breaking a very short pedestrian sequence...and a huge amount of the pedestrians crossing are schoolchildren.