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In California, "Lane-splitting" is allowed for motorcycles - they can use the center line to pass, or pass you in your own lane (link). This is legal because the legislature wants to reward motorcycle riders for using more economical vehicles, and realize that motorcycle use selects for a more prudent
and skilled vehicle operator. Also, if a motorcycle rider is imprudent at lane splitting, it is likely that no-one else will be hurt besides the motorcycle rider. So of course, if it is unsafe to do so, motorcyclists will not split lanes.
I suggest that this same rationale should be extended to stop signs and stop lights. If it is prudent to stop at a marked intersection, a motorcyclist should do so. But this should be left to the discretion of the motorcycle rider, who may decide to proceed without stopping, or instead to speed up to minimize the time spent exposed to cross traffic.
Lane splitting.
http://www.motorcyc...survival/lanesplit/
It makes freeway congestion fun! [bungston, Jun 04 2005]
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Agree with [Pa've] on this one. Stopsigns are ther for a reason, it isn't any safer for a motorcyclist to ignore them than it is for a car. |
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I dunno... California drivers are pretty damn slow, especially around stop signs. This would probably work for good motorcyclists, and would weed out the bad ones (hereby referred to as "the Hunter S. Thompson theory of Evolution"). |
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Or at least teach them not to blow through stop signs. |
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This would be a good idea if you're prepared to accept the inevitable spike in accidents that would accompany the weeding out of the bad as per [justaguy]'s HST theory. However, I'm unconvinced that hitting a motorcyclist head on in a car is only going to damage the biker - you hit a Hog and it's got to be good for least a fair-sized deer's worth of damage.
As for fuel economy, all that need be done is to convince the US motoring public that they don't all need to ride around in vehicles capable of pulling tanks. Good luck with that one! |
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Splitting lanes is fun! Used to do it all the time over in Italy, they drive like there's PCP in the water. Oh, and stop signs/lights turned into decor at some point in my stay over there, so [+]... I did see a few dead guys though... |
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//motorcycle use selects for a more prudent and skilled vehicle operator// - only within the set of motorcyclists. Within the set of road users as a whole, bikers are always selected against and your plan would increase that pressure even further. I do hope [half] is right. |
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In his novel "Pattern Recognition," William Gibson describes an arrangement in Russia where some drivers can pay the state for a flashing blue light and siren for the cars to ignore the traffic laws when drivng through Moscow. I've searched Google for factual references to this, but can find none (though I might not be looking for the right thing). Does anyone know if this is based on something that exists, or something he came up with in his novel for slightly-in-the-future Russia? |
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I have no evidence, but from what I understand about Moscow a)this will exist in some form and b)you aren't going to find any references to it. Whether it is legal or not is a moot point, 'legal' is a rather vague concept over there, even to the state. |
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I suppose Gibson could have learned about it from others, or what-not. Ultimately, all I was getting at is that this idea might be somewhat baked, at least in Russia. But I didn't know how factual the fiction I was reading was. Gibson does have a gift for verisimilitude. |
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let me see if I understand- not good to run over motorcycle with flashing blue lights, OK to run them over otherwise? |
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I've spent a lot of time in Moscow, many months in total, and haven't ever seen any evidence of this blue light thing. Not that that proves anything, really, but I'm fairly observant and curious by nature and think I would have seen this in practice. |
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aw, what the hell, why not. There arn't that many bikes, and those that skip lights dumb-style are only going to be a problem once. They say that a city with no traffic control (not even paint on the roads) is the safest - because you Think Twice... However, it's much more stressful, and less effecient, because you can't "just go" - you have to check everything. Look at it this way - no you can't go through reds - but the benefit of that is that when it's green you can be 98% sure that nothing is going to try and drive accross you. (not without flashing it's blue lights anyway) |
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At least one, and I think several, states have passed laws
that allow bicycles, not motorcycles, to treat stop signs as
yield signs. |
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This makes some sense simply because the cyclist has a
much harder time regaining momentum lost at a stop sign.
Surprisingly enough, cyclists (upright, not recumbent)
have one of the best sight lines on the road, making it
safer for them to do so if they are cautious. It makes less,
but not zero sense, for a motorcyclist because they have
to do something special to come to a complete stop (put a
foot down). They do not, however, have to make a
significant effort to regain the lost momentum, and do risk
severe damage to an opposing vehicle or driver if they
mess up (bike through the windshield or jammed in the
undercarriage). |
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I have to say, therefore, that this is not the best idea, and
allowing them to blow through rather than yield is just
idiotic. |
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Let me put this as simply as I can: |
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[nicholaswhitworth], you've pretty much described Tijuana. |
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[21] is right. I saw a newspaper photo of a Plymouth Duster (approximate weight 3300 lbs.) overturned by a speeding cyclist (estimated 100mph). Cyclist and auto passenger fatal. |
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