Amazing. They're there, obviously visible in high vis jackets (as they have to be) with TfL vans scattered around probably with clipboards observing and surveying cyclists. Of course they're going to behave.
I could turn around and say that 100% of cyclists jump red lights. As a result of extensive driving around London on Saturday Night I saw 15 cyclists, none of which stopped for red lights.
There we go, its conclusive.
Also, it's as bad as a survey...
"Hi, mind if I ask you a question?"
"Sure, go ahead"
"Do you stop for red lights?"
"Erm, Yeah?"
"Thanks"
I see cars jumping red lights every day. Anecdotal, I know, but it certainly would be interesting to measure the failed "amber gambles".
When you consider the number of cars that go through a set of lights when they're green and then how many vehicles might go through them when they're on red, I doubt the amount of guilty vehicles would be anywhere near 1 in 6.
If you imagine a fairly typical scenario, where, say, 20-odd cars go through the lights when they're green and then one goes through on amber that makes for a statistic of around 5%.
And that's only IF one car definitely goes through a red light at every opportunity.
When you think of it that way, to get a figure of 16% jumping red lights, it has to be fairly prolific.
I wonder how that compares to the number of "amber gambler" drivers who end up going through on red?
RED = STOP
AMBER = GO AS FAST AS YOU CAN
GREEN = SWERVE INTO THE PATH OF THE CAR THAT IS ALSO WAITING TO GO AT THE LIGHTS.
This seems to be in the Cyclst hand book in some places.
Cycle paths underused. and riding in the middle of country lanes another of 'the cyclist hand book' written by cyclists for cyclists.
we have a strech of road on the A6 near us it's about 3 miles long very narrow, lots of corners and continuous double white lines. there is a cycle path that runs the full length of this stretch but will the 'professional cyclists use it' not a chance. they would rather risk getting killed or killing others by riding two or three abreast along this piece of road. Car, van and lorry drivers are forced to tail some of these for the whole way sometimes because they can't pass. If they do pass they berak the law and risk life-and-limb because of oncoming traffic.
your set of stats may say traffic liht proticol is improving but!
Can you imagine what the roads would be like if 1 in 6 cars jumped red lights?
There seems to be an absence of statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised if the stats were similar for cars as they are for bikes. Poor road users are poor road users regardless of their choice of transport.
I see both on a regular basis. 2 or 3 drivers sneaking through on a just-changed red is almost accepted practice round here.
There seems to be an absence of statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised if the stats were similar for cars as they are for bikes. Poor road users are poor road users regardless of their choice of transport.
I see both on a regular basis. 2 or 3 drivers sneaking through on a just-changed red is almost accepted practice round here.
Nah,
You might see one or two cars doing it once in a while but there's no way that you get 1 in 6 cars going through every red light.
Even with a fairly short light sequence, you're easily going to get 20 cars through a set of green lights which'd mean you'd need at least 3 cars to jump every set of lights to get a similar sort of statistic.
And that's before you start to consider stuff like multi-lane roundabouts where you might get 100 cars going through each set of green lights.
Don't get me wrong, jumping lights is a shitty thing to do but there's a huge number of cars on the roads which helps reduce the statistical impact of poor behaviour.
I'd bet that the number of cars that jump red lights is somewhere near 2% or summat.
Can you imagine what the roads would be like if 1 in 6 cars jumped red lights?
Well precisely.
I would be extremely surprised if the number of motorists doing it was anywhere near 1 in 6. I do a lot of mileage and the sight of a motorist deliberately running a red light is a very rare sight.
When you consider the number of cars that go through a set of lights when they're green and then how many vehicles might go through them when they're on red, I doubt the amount of guilty vehicles would be anywhere near 1 in 6.
If you imagine a fairly typical scenario, where, say, 20-odd cars go through the lights when they're green and then one goes through on amber that makes for a statistic of around 5%.
And that's only IF one car definitely goes through a red light at every opportunity.
When you think of it that way, to get a figure of 16% jumping red lights, it has to be fairly prolific.
Why would you do it that way though?
I'd look at the scenario of amber, then one of red and count how many stopped and how many didn't. Anecdotally, I see cars everyday deciding not to stop when there is room to stop before the line.
Why would you do it that way though?
I'd look at the scenario of amber, then one of red and count how many stopped and how many didn't. Anecdotally, I see cars everyday deciding not to stop when there is room to stop before the line.
Erm, not really sure how that'd work.
You'd either have to quantify it as being 1 car stopped at each junction - the car immediately in front of the lights - or you'd have to quantify it as every vehicle that's affected by the lights changing to red, which could be thousands (which is just downright silly, of course, because a vehicle that's 10 cars back cannot jump a red light even if they wanted to).
Seems like the only relatively sensible way to quantify it would be to look at the number of vehicles that actually USE the junction and then compare that with the number of vehicles that jump a red light.
Seems they just counted the number of cyclists who used 5 junctions and then counted how many of them jumped red lights.For all we know, of course, it might only be a handful of cyclists who jumped a whole heap of lights while touring London each morning.
The whole thing's so inconclusive that it's really almost worthless.
I think far more drivers go through amber lights than cyclists go through red lights. Amber doesn't mean speed up and go ahead, it means stop!
Depends what you mean.
There are something like 30 times more cars than cyclists on the road so, in absolute terms, that's possible I guess.
Again, though, we're talking about 1 in 6 cyclists allegedly running a red light.
There's absolutely no way in hell that 1 in 6 car drivers do the same thing because that'd suggest that 3 or 4 cars are running EVERY red light in the country and that's nowhere near being correct.
You'd either have to quantify it as being 1 car stopped at each junction - the car immediately in front of the lights - or you'd have to quantify it as every vehicle that's affected by the lights changing to red, which could be thousands (which is just downright silly, of course, because a vehicle that's 10 cars back cannot jump a red light even if they wanted to).
Seems like the only relatively sensible way to quantify it would be to look at the number of vehicles that actually USE the junction and then compare that with the number of vehicles that jump a red light.
If you use total vehicles, then that is a distortion, since you pick up all the legitimate ones. Surely the idea is to pick up the illegitimate ones, so you can't have jumpedRedLight && lightGreen. Also, as you pointed out earliler, you can't directly compare bikes and cars, since only 1 or 2 cars get a chance to jump, whereas many more bikes can.
So I would camp out for a few hours and see how many jumped amber/red when they should/could have stopped, then if there were 100 red light occasions what % obeyed could be calculated.
If you use total vehicles, then that is a distortion, since you pick up all the legitimate ones. Surely the idea is to pick up the illegitimate ones, so you can't have jumpedRedLight && lightGreen. Also, as you pointed out earliler, you can't directly compare bikes and cars, since only 1 or 2 cars get a chance to jump, whereas many more bikes can.
So I would camp out for a few hours and see how many jumped amber/red when they should/could have stopped, then if there were 100 red light occasions what % obeyed could be calculated.
Honestly, I'm not trying to be argumentative here but I just don't see how that could work.
I mean, if you count up the total number of vehicles that use a junction and then count how many vehicles jump red lights you can say, with some authority, that a given percentage of vehicles which used that junction jumped a red light.
If you use any other criteria, I'm not sure how the statistics would work.
You might, perhaps, have 98 vehicles all stopping as they should and then one vehicle stops on amber while another one goes through and that'd give you a result which says 50% (?) of vehicles ran red lights even though the actual number of vehicles which commited an offence is 1 out of 100?
I just can't see what it'd actually be quantifying or what benefit it might have.
I call that quite a significant percentage actually.
I agree. it's shockingly high.
As a motorist, I see little red light jumping by cyclists in my part of south coast suburbia or if they do, they cause no problem so I don't notice them. On the other hand, I do notice the odd car jumping a red light.
If I had to guess about cyclists, I'd say well below 10% jump the red, probably closer to zero than 10%, and if I had to qualify it with "dangerously" I'd say close to zero, with cars a bit higher. But as I said, I live in suburbia.
If I had to guess about cyclists, I'd say well below 10% jump the red, probably closer to zero than 10%, and if I had to qualify it with "dangerously" I'd say close to zero, with cars a bit higher.
Nah,
There's no way in hell a greater proportion of cars jump red lights than bicycles.
There are, quite simply, so many cars on the roads that it'd be mayhem if they did.
There's no way in hell a greater proportion of cars jump red lights than bicycles.
There are, quite simply, so many cars on the roads that it'd be mayhem if they did.
I said "dangerously". If cyclists did it dangerously, I'd definitely notice therm. I can't even recall the last time I saw a cycliist dangerously jump a red light... or jump one at all come to think of it - seriously. Maybe it's just where I live, law abiding lot we are round here. :cool:
Comments
I could turn around and say that 100% of cyclists jump red lights. As a result of extensive driving around London on Saturday Night I saw 15 cyclists, none of which stopped for red lights.
There we go, its conclusive.
Also, it's as bad as a survey...
"Hi, mind if I ask you a question?"
"Sure, go ahead"
"Do you stop for red lights?"
"Erm, Yeah?"
"Thanks"
Who's going to admit to jumping red lights?!
Please excuse me for not believing you.
When you consider the number of cars that go through a set of lights when they're green and then how many vehicles might go through them when they're on red, I doubt the amount of guilty vehicles would be anywhere near 1 in 6.
If you imagine a fairly typical scenario, where, say, 20-odd cars go through the lights when they're green and then one goes through on amber that makes for a statistic of around 5%.
And that's only IF one car definitely goes through a red light at every opportunity.
When you think of it that way, to get a figure of 16% jumping red lights, it has to be fairly prolific.
Conclusion: the roads are chock-a-block with idiots. This is not news
ONLY 16%?!?!
I call that quite a significant percentage actually.
http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/2636/cycling/stats-uk/
RED = STOP
AMBER = GO AS FAST AS YOU CAN
GREEN = SWERVE INTO THE PATH OF THE CAR THAT IS ALSO WAITING TO GO AT THE LIGHTS.
This seems to be in the Cyclst hand book in some places.
Cycle paths underused. and riding in the middle of country lanes another of 'the cyclist hand book' written by cyclists for cyclists.
we have a strech of road on the A6 near us it's about 3 miles long very narrow, lots of corners and continuous double white lines. there is a cycle path that runs the full length of this stretch but will the 'professional cyclists use it' not a chance. they would rather risk getting killed or killing others by riding two or three abreast along this piece of road. Car, van and lorry drivers are forced to tail some of these for the whole way sometimes because they can't pass. If they do pass they berak the law and risk life-and-limb because of oncoming traffic.
your set of stats may say traffic liht proticol is improving but!
That's the thing innit?
Can you imagine what the roads would be like if 1 in 6 cars jumped red lights?
There seems to be an absence of statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised if the stats were similar for cars as they are for bikes. Poor road users are poor road users regardless of their choice of transport.
I see both on a regular basis. 2 or 3 drivers sneaking through on a just-changed red is almost accepted practice round here.
Nah,
You might see one or two cars doing it once in a while but there's no way that you get 1 in 6 cars going through every red light.
Even with a fairly short light sequence, you're easily going to get 20 cars through a set of green lights which'd mean you'd need at least 3 cars to jump every set of lights to get a similar sort of statistic.
And that's before you start to consider stuff like multi-lane roundabouts where you might get 100 cars going through each set of green lights.
Don't get me wrong, jumping lights is a shitty thing to do but there's a huge number of cars on the roads which helps reduce the statistical impact of poor behaviour.
I'd bet that the number of cars that jump red lights is somewhere near 2% or summat.
Well precisely.
I would be extremely surprised if the number of motorists doing it was anywhere near 1 in 6. I do a lot of mileage and the sight of a motorist deliberately running a red light is a very rare sight.
I'd look at the scenario of amber, then one of red and count how many stopped and how many didn't. Anecdotally, I see cars everyday deciding not to stop when there is room to stop before the line.
Seems they just counted the number of cyclists who used 5 junctions and then counted how many of them jumped red lights.
For all we know, of course, it might only be a handful of cyclists who jumped a whole heap of lights while touring London each morning.
The whole thing's so inconclusive that it's really almost worthless.
Erm, not really sure how that'd work.
You'd either have to quantify it as being 1 car stopped at each junction - the car immediately in front of the lights - or you'd have to quantify it as every vehicle that's affected by the lights changing to red, which could be thousands (which is just downright silly, of course, because a vehicle that's 10 cars back cannot jump a red light even if they wanted to).
Seems like the only relatively sensible way to quantify it would be to look at the number of vehicles that actually USE the junction and then compare that with the number of vehicles that jump a red light.
Depends what you mean.
There are something like 30 times more cars than cyclists on the road so, in absolute terms, that's possible I guess.
Again, though, we're talking about 1 in 6 cyclists allegedly running a red light.
There's absolutely no way in hell that 1 in 6 car drivers do the same thing because that'd suggest that 3 or 4 cars are running EVERY red light in the country and that's nowhere near being correct.
So I would camp out for a few hours and see how many jumped amber/red when they should/could have stopped, then if there were 100 red light occasions what % obeyed could be calculated.
Honestly, I'm not trying to be argumentative here but I just don't see how that could work.
I mean, if you count up the total number of vehicles that use a junction and then count how many vehicles jump red lights you can say, with some authority, that a given percentage of vehicles which used that junction jumped a red light.
If you use any other criteria, I'm not sure how the statistics would work.
You might, perhaps, have 98 vehicles all stopping as they should and then one vehicle stops on amber while another one goes through and that'd give you a result which says 50% (?) of vehicles ran red lights even though the actual number of vehicles which commited an offence is 1 out of 100?
I just can't see what it'd actually be quantifying or what benefit it might have.
I agree. it's shockingly high.
As a motorist, I see little red light jumping by cyclists in my part of south coast suburbia or if they do, they cause no problem so I don't notice them. On the other hand, I do notice the odd car jumping a red light.
If I had to guess about cyclists, I'd say well below 10% jump the red, probably closer to zero than 10%, and if I had to qualify it with "dangerously" I'd say close to zero, with cars a bit higher. But as I said, I live in suburbia.
Nah,
There's no way in hell a greater proportion of cars jump red lights than bicycles.
There are, quite simply, so many cars on the roads that it'd be mayhem if they did.
I said "dangerously". If cyclists did it dangerously, I'd definitely notice therm. I can't even recall the last time I saw a cycliist dangerously jump a red light... or jump one at all come to think of it - seriously. Maybe it's just where I live, law abiding lot we are round here. :cool: