Geoff Arnold

Well, you are quite correct in your understanding of the law. Bicyclists must observe all the laws as motorized vehicles.

Like you, I've seen many instances where bicyclists behave as if they have special exemptions.

On the other side of it, I have seen many motorists ignore the fact that bicyclists have the same rights as any other vehicle - especially when the bicyclists needs to get into a left turn lane in a multilane road.

Seems like there's mutual loathing all around.

When I run lights that way, which is almost all the time I must sheepishly admit, it's for two reasons:

1. Laziness - Coming to a complete stop then coming back to full speed on a bicycle is considerably more work for the cyclist than it is for the average driver (not including the Flintstones).
2. Speed - Stop at every traffic light and your average speed drops off quickly. Your time/distance ratios look lots less impressive.

I usually do slow down for lights, however, because I need to hear and see whether some driver's going to challenge me through the intersection, in which case I would lose. Yet it's much, much easier for me to take evasive action in the middle of the intersection, so I'm more likely to chance it than I would be in the car.

Not sure about same roads, same rights, same rules. Maybe the guy with the highest human-power-generated-divided-by-contribution-to-global-warming should have the right of way.

i don't know if it's different in other countries but in Singapore, traffic lights are usually there to allow pedestrians to cross the road most of the time. Hence the only time(s) i run lights is when i'm absolutely sure i won't collide into anyone.
Bikes are smaller and easier to handle n manuever through crowds crossing the street as compared to bulky cars.
Just my two cents worth. :)

I'm a cyclist, and I say it is not okay for cyclists to run red lights or stop signs. It is dangerous and wrong. As for it being dangerous to come to a complete stop when using clipless pedals, that is just ridiculous.

I'm witholding comment on Massachusetts drivers.

I used to ride a bike as mt only means of transportion (well, no, but as I had no license it was the only form under my control).

Stopping at the lights kept me at about 16 MPH, which is a perfectly respectable speed.

Calif. is odd in that cyclists have two choices: ride in the road and be a vehicle (with all the scorn cars give cyclists... the aggessive honk was my favorite. To the point I kept thinking about getting one of the air-horns in a can, to make it sound as though a semi-was pissed at them, with which to respond), subject to the same rules.

Or to travel on the sidewalks, and be a second class pedestrian. The quirk there is that one must dismount the bike to cross a street (almost never obeyed, and less often than that enforced). I confess to useing the sidewalk as a left-turn lane, so as to avoid the hassle of moving into that lane (I won't quite swear to drivers trying to clip me when I used the left turn lane, but the level of hostility, and the lack of awareness were terrifying).

In Pet Sematary Stephen King opens the book with a discussion of how cyclists seem to think the rules of the road, and the laws of physics stop applying the moment they start to pedal.

Cyclists should usually stop at red lights, but I see no reason to remain stopped at them once there is a sufficient gap in cross-traffic (or no cross-traffic at all).

Not "should usually", MUST. Bicycles are vehicles under Massachusetts code and should always behave as such. As someone who biked the streets of Boston and Cambridge for many years and always obeyed traffic rules, I think any of the proferred excuses I've read are just total crap. You endanger yourselves and others by disobeying the law.

http://www.massbike.org/bikelaw/indexl.htm

Am I the only one here who thinks perhaps these example cyclists are not representative of the cycling community at large? I for one, never voted for any cycling rep.

To go full speed through a red light, I'd say that's stupid. But, honestly, I treat a lot of red lights as if they were a stop sign. Full stop, but if I have clear line of sight in both directions, and there is a significant break in traffic (eg, I could leisurely enter the intersection w/o fear) I will then go ahead a do so. Why? Because I feel that's less dangerous for me than standing on the white line when a row of 3,000 lb. vehicles behind me have their twitching right feet over the accelerator waiting to take off at the first indication... and totally indifferent to my mode change from standing pedestrian in the middle of the street to slowly moving two-wheeled vehicle with the same rights to my space on the road as they. Since I have no steel safety cage or airbags, I feel its important to look out for me first, and that means to avoid contact with other vehicles using any prudent means.

I for one have seen many a car infract the law. I don't see that as reflecting on other motorists as an epidemic.

"Same roads, same rights, same rules" is the slogan of brainwashed cyclists.
Traffic lights were invented for motor cars. Why should cyclists be made to follow rules that were not intended for them; in an urban space with no cars you would have no traffic lights.

Same thing for one way streets.

Why should a sane person follow rules that sanction the slaughter of tens of thousand of innocent people every year?

For all of those bike riders who have offered that they shouldn't have to follow the rules because in their opinion it's better or safer or more reasonable to not follow the rules -

I assume therefore, as a car driver, I have the right to make a left hand turn at a red light, as long, in my opinion, it's better to do so.

I am an urban cyclist and I run stoplights. I ride on the sidewalk and I ride against traffic. I use every opportunity to keep myself moving and therefore safe from the less than observant drivers of America.

I have used my bike as my primary means of transport in a number of urban areas. With the exception of when I careened into a tourist in Waikiki, I have never been hit because I did not obey the rules of the road.

I have been hit because people wrapped in thousands of pounds of steel and plastic could not be bothered to look out for a cyclist. With the blatant disregard with which I see the average dummy in car motor about the roads of America, I just cannot take the complaints of the driving public serious.

Check out the scoreboard. Over 40,000 automobile deaths annually and over 100,000 troops in Iraq to ensure that a steady stream of the black stuff keeps flowing into the SUVs and minivans of America. These are not problems brought about because too many people are running lights on bicycles.