It's quite simple, really, though very, very sad, indeed. Driving a motor vehicle invokes a negative emotional reaction. Motorists really want nothing more than to exit their vehicle, as soon as at all possible. Whether they admit this or not is irrelevant. Nothing contributes more to the already negative emotions than a perceived delay. Whether the delay is real or not, doesn't matter, only that it is perceived that way.

You are on a bicycle. You are only capable of doing three to ten miles per hour, or "nowhere near the speed limit."(This is how it is perceived regardless of your actual speed or the fact that the motorist had to speed to get around you, or that you will actually arrive at your destination first.) You are, therefore, a serious delay. A great many motorists will lament that "traffic is tied up by the damn bicycles." This makes you the "cause of their frustration" and as such you should not be on the road. "Roads are for cars", or, this rash of recent crashes is "proof that bicycles should not be on the same roads as cars".

Human nature is to vent frustration at a perceived cause of said frustration whether or not it is the actual cause. E.g., a man has a bad day at work so upon arriving home smacks his wife around for a while because "she's lazy and didn't have dinner ready", or a motorist threatening a bicyclist because the bicycle is slow and is "tying up traffic" when the reality is that there is simply a stop sign up ahead and there are just too many cars trying to get to the same place at the same time.

Regardless, you are the object of frustration and must be gotten around by any means necessary. It isn't that there's necessarily more aggression toward bicyclists than any other road user group, just that being more vulnerable to it makes it acutely obvious. Or, maybe there is, but that's because by being more vulnerable to it, you are an easier target?

Fortunately, most people are pretty good at being fairly calm while driving and won't attack by passing too closely or whatever.

"We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are."

If you are rolling through stop signs and treating stop lights as stop signs, then you are breaking the law. MN Statute 169.222, Subdivision 1 states that "every person operating a bicycle shall have all of the rights and duties applicable to the driver of any other vehicle." We need to abide by the law if we wish to benefit from the law's protection. There is nothing stating that stop signs become yield signs when we are on a bikes, no free pass to disregard traffic laws simply because we are on bikes. "When traffic is minimal" is far too subjective, and we as a community need to be more accountable for our actions. Running a stop sign or red light might not seem like such a great risk, but if anyone at all can see you breaking the law then you are adding fuel to the attitude that cyclists are vigilantes, justification for the broken-record commentary in the news that "cyclists need to be more careful."

Is it annoying to stop at every stop sign and wait through every red light? Sure. Is it annoying for a driver to be "stuck" behind a cyclist? Sure. But we can all benefit from a safer environment when we are willing to endure some occasional annoyances. When I am hit (because odds are good that it will happen sooner or later), I want to have the reputation for being that totally annoying rider who stops at every damn stop sign. If I don't make it, I want my friends and family to be able to prosecute the person who ran me down, being fully confident that I was on the right side of the law.

The clarification I would be interested in seeing is that "stopping" for a cyclist or a vehicle means the wheels stop turning--not necessarily a 'foot down' required for cyclists (it's not required for motorcyclists), but rolling stops by cyclists or motorists should be subject to ticketing.

I think the problem with stop signs and lights is that bicycles are different from cars. Cyclists can see a lot more than drivers because we're not inside a huge metal framed cage. Coming to a complete stop and then getting going again does not make things safer than if we roll to a very slow speed and then proceed after checking both directions. However, to get going again after a complete stop for a cyclist is a huge waste of momentum.

I'm not saying cyclists should break the law willy nilly, but let's all recognize that everyone breaks traffic laws all the time - most drivers speed, most cyclists run stop signs.

We need to recognize that there's a difference between running a stop sign after carefully looking around, and, for instance, running a red in a busy intersection. Just as there's a difference between going 5 mph over the speed limit to keep up with traffic and going 50 mph over the speed limit on a joyride. There are safe ways to drive/bike even without strict adherence to rigid traffic laws.

Personally, I would like to see several streets marked with designated 'yield to bikes' or 'bikes do not stop' on most of the intersections.

It seems like south Minneapolis, especially, almost every single intersection is set with a stop sign in one direction or another. This makes a lot of sense to make sure that cars aren't barelling down them at 50 miles an hour.

There's also a lot to be said for the fact that cars and bikes _are_ different. A car approaching an intersection at 35-40mph, stopping quickly, and then taking off again has far less time to evaluate the safety of passing through the intersection. A bike going through that same intersection at 15 mph has the same amount of time, if not more to see what there is for cross traffic, and if stopping is necessary.

I agree that we need to be following the laws (and for the most part I do) but I don't think that the laws are fair and equitable. If they expect people to follow the laws, then they should take a hard look at what the laws should be, not just say 'bikes are the same as cars' and leave it at that.

How can you claim a vehicle to be safe when it has "blind spots" at its sides. My only blind spot is directly behind me.

I'm not at all trying to pick a fight, but I want to point out that this practice just results in cars barreling between fast starts and stops between stop signs. There are much more effective traffic calming treatments to keep vehicles at a reasonable speed than stop signs.

So now I have to head over to the TOTH/WOTF thread. I witnessed three cyclists making moves that there is really no excuse for on my bicycle commute home this evening. I could almost feel the tension on the streets rising. All three of these guys would have been in violation of the proposed law changes as well as current law.

voidoid, I think we're on the same page. It's not an effective calming measure for the cars, and it creates problems when you try to ride on the streets.

I'm not sure what the final solution would be, but I don't think that we're realistically going to be able to get cyclists to follow laws that make no sense.

There are precedents for different levels of certification and enforcement for different vehicles on the road, right? Bus and truck drivers have to be certified differently, are restricted from some areas. Motorcyclists also have a slightly different set of laws, and a different certification process.

If we had some way for cyclists to be certified, and have laws that make sense for the actual realistic problems faced when cycling, I think that we could get a lot of riders behind it.

Or maybe I'm just too idealistic.

Yep, I think we're on the same page. The certification stuff gives me a little pause just because I look at bicycling as a kin to walking--a basic human right to freedom of mobility. I would be very leery to support requiring a license for cycling or walking, but you might not be thinking of going that far. . .

Anecdotal evidence from talking with BOB and K down at Freewheel yesterday would lead me to think that bike on bike collisions are up sharply this year as well.

Didn't cars go through this same thing? There was no reason for laws when there were maybe 5 cars per city. Put a few thousand in, and things started getting bad, then they were regulated.

If we are in fact at a tipping point where much of our infrastructure can make the transition to pedal power, we're going to be looking at the same situation.

If mobility is a right, is mechanized mobility a right? Is it more or less of a right if the mechanics come from an external power source or your own legs? Do electric bicycles require a license but not the rest of them? Is there a speed cap before you're allowed to use certain paths or roads? So if you travel at 20mph+, you can use a designated lane on a heavier traffic street, but in exchange for getting that lane alloted to us, you have to be certified as a person that's actually able to handle their bike at that speed?

I would imagine that the determining factor whether or not the mode of transit in question is a "right", that is, not allowed only in certain circumstances, would be the level of threat to public safety. Frankly, it isn't likely that an unassisted bicycle will kill a couple of riders or pedestrians in the event of a crash. Depending, of course, upon weight and speed.

It seems that currently, the decision of whether a vehicle needs regulation in terms of licensing is based very much on weight and speed capabilities, or, how much damage can be done by said vehicle to a bystander in the event of a crash.

South Minneapolis need tons of traffic circles, they work much better than 4-way stops and reduce auto speeds.

Here in NYC unless you leave the accident (hit and run) or are under the influence drivers never get a ticket or any charges brought against them. in 2007 we had 23 cyclists deaths and 138 pedestrian deaths. Every three days a pedestrian is killed in NYC.

Working local with elected officials might be a good place to start and then branch out from there. In my experience if you have support at the local level things will be much easier at the state, regional, and fed.

Very true, shishi, I agree. What happens when good treatments are suggested, the traffic engineers come up with one of their favorite "technical brush-offs" as to why we can't do it. In Minnesota, in regards to traffic circles, the engineering technical brush-off most likely will be related to snow removal.

Traffic engineer X would say, "That's a great idea. But, it won't work here because our snowplows won't work with traffic circles. Sorry, we can't do it." Of course this is nonsense, but it's a tactic used often to try to get people to shut up. I'm sure you are very familiar with this. The fact is that there is always different equipment that can be used to remove snow on streets with traffic circles. The only valid question is if we want to do it or not. The engineering technical brush-off is really saying, "That's a great idea. But, we simply can't do it because we choose to not want to do it."

Very true. One could easily call "Bullshit" on this as an excuse as there are two circles or roundabouts that are in use within the metro area that I know of. One in Brooklyn Park (near where I used to live) and one in Blaine - er, I mean, Circle Pines - near where I now live. Frankly, I wish there were more of them.

Snow excuse does not work. There are plenty of circles in Chicago and we all know it snows there.Also, the traffic circle itself is a great place to put the snow and then the kids have a snow mountain to play on.

St. paul has a few circles, and Richfield has added a number of them as well.