Your Nicked – Cyclists jump a Red light!

I dunno , this thread has gone a long way with no comments on the grammar of the title. Sorry, I know, chat’s that way

Jeez, I’ve only just spotted it….

I dunno , this thread has gone a long way with no comments on the grammar of the title.

Yes, almost half way down page one.

As respecters of the red light, what do you all do at a Toucan crossing? I have a couple of these on my way in, and will get going on the green man / bike as long as there’s not a crowd of pedestrians crossing in front of me. Another cyclist caught me up one time and admonished me for not waiting till the actual traffic light went green.

Surely green bike means go?

Jesus. Where are you guys riding?

I’ve ridden 10,000km+ per year for as long as I can remember and I have never seen a cyclist (or a car) go through a red light.

Is this a London thing?

Is this a London thing?

Can be, but it’s also a deliveroo/Just Eat on the clock thing, a regular commuter when they know the red gives them enough time to get over a dangerous/busy junction thing, or in this case, 4 entitled pricks who just think it doesn’t/shouldn’t apply to them thing.

this thread has gone a long way with no comments on the grammar of the title

I’d just thought @Thols2 2nd post picture just sort of covered it fro everybody really..?

~There are two junctions in Edinburgh I will regularly red light jump at – because its much safer to do that given poor road design

Is this a London thing?

It’s a city thing IME. Delivery riders are worst. But it happens in Edinburgh and Glasgow when I’ve visited.

Research of course shows that car drivers jump red lights far more and cyclists are on average the most law abiding road users

This might have changed with the delivery riders tho – they are a menace

For balance… Birmingham Police have been having a go at stopping Red Light Jumping motorists as well.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-67771704

“West Midlands Police said, since August, it had sent hundreds of notices of intended prosecution to drivers for driving through red lights.”

Research of course shows that car drivers jump red lights far more and cyclists are on average the most law abiding road users

Averages are meaningless when you are dealing with a specific instance. In this specific instance the cyclists jumped a red light in front of a cop and got fined for it. If I was one of those cyclists, I would just say “Fair cop” and leave it at that.

The Blackbelt Barrister has it bang on IMHO

Jesus. Where are you guys riding?

I’ve ridden 10,000km+ per year for as long as I can remember and I have never seen a cyclist (or a car) go through a red light.

Where do you live? Greenland?

I saw three cars blatantly go through red lights on theirs side, green on mine, yesterday morning at a single crossroads. It’s now become so common around here that you need to check for it before you move off at certain junctions. It’s also far from being a recent phenomenon, it’s been getting worse for years.

As a car driver all you need to do is check that there is no camera on top of the lights and then just drive across whatever the colour.
You would have to be very unlucky to do so in front of a police car.

I see multiple drivers per day running red lights, and I’m not in London either.

I would disagree with Black Belt Barrister on one thing in his video. He appears to treat the fact that cyclists are vulnerable road users as a status or privilege whereas I see it as simply factual. Cyclists are simply more likely to die or be seriously injured by drivers, and while I see cyclists behaving in contravention of the Highway Code daily in ways which attempt to mitigate that vulnerability, they remain vulnerable road users.

This might have changed with the delivery riders tho – they are a menace

Many of them arent cyclists though but illegal motorbike riders.

I saw three cars blatantly go through red lights on theirs side, green on mine, yesterday morning at a single crossroads.

There is a light controlled roundabout near me which is awful for it. They do seem to have moved beyond ignoring the amber to ignore the red so long as it has changed in the last week or so.

I saw three cars blatantly go through red lights on theirs side, green on mine, yesterday morning at a single crossroads.
There is a light controlled roundabout near me which is awful for it. They do seem to have moved beyond ignoring the amber to ignore the red so long as it has changed in the last week or so.

On that junction I mentioned, I regularly see cars going through their red light so that they can plonk themselves into the yellow box junction and completely block the cars from moving from the other side of the crossroads.

There’s also another crossroads a few hundred metres up the road where cars do this – RLJ AND block the yellow box – which actually benefits me as a cyclist because I weave between the blocking cars and head off down the dual carriageway with  no-one else on the road! 😀

and while I see cyclists behaving in contravention of the Highway Code daily in ways which attempt to mitigate that vulnerability, they remain vulnerable road users.

These guys are not trying to mitigate their vulnerability though, and I think that’s the difference here. They’re not rushing becasue they don’t earn a proper wage, or limiting their exposure to a dangerous junction. They just behave as if they’re entitled to ignore the red light, and as some-one who commutes by bike and car, that sort of behaviour pisses me off as much as non-cyclists

On my commute there’s one set of lights that won’t change in response to a cyclist being present. That bit of road is quiet enough that I can’t rely on a car or bus coming along and changing it for me so I will jump that light and feel irritated about it every time I do so.

Elsewhere on my commute I do occasionally witness other cyclists jumping red lights. As others have said they are often delivery riders but other commuters do too. I don’t see that many cyclists though so it’s not that common really. I do see plenty of cars going through red lights, the sort who seem to have evolved beyond “keep going if the light is amber” too “keep going if the light was amber at any point in recent memory”.

On my commute there’s one set of lights that won’t change in response to a cyclist being present.

Locally, there’s one light sensor on a T junction which is on a steep road, so I never stop there as starting again is awkward. I ride up past the lights, check what the traffic on the road I’m entering looks like and generally ignore the lights because I’m already on the road by the time it’s safe for me to stop.  It’s not even vaguely designed for cyclists’ safety, never mind convenience.