I don't see why cyclists have to follow the traffic laws at all. They're more in danger and at risk than someone with a cage around them. They can also see better and travel slower and brake faster. So let them go past red lights or stop signs if no ones there.

Call them pedestrians because they're more at risk than people in cars. Oh and get out of your fucking car and ride a bike in the city.

I would have kicked, punched or thrown a rock at 90% of those drivers. FFS.

They have to follow laws because we all do. They make the road work.
Cyclists don't see everything, and allowing them to run lights and stop signs would cause far more accidents, because they would often not see the already moving traffic and get hit or cause the other drivers to have an accident.
I used to ride over 30 miles a day, and following the rules of the road helped me avoid many an accident.
These drivers were a good example of why one should wear spiked riding gloves...both to protect your hands when you're hit and to punch through windows to get the attention of stupid inattentive drivers.

But other cars DO have to avoid those cyclists, and it's best if those cyclists are behaving in some predictable fashion. It doesn't take any immagination to see how a careless cyclist could very easily cause fatalities for someone other than themselves.

I think you're all full of shit. In Seattle cyclists are everywhere, they don't pay attention to stop signs or stop lights and it seems to work just fine.

I think the best idea is still banning cars from city centers and only using trolleys or bicycles.

If I'm being honest here, I don't care what you guys think, this comment section is for me not you.

Of possible interest...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop
and...
http://vimeo.com/4140910

I am in full agreement with this, having both been a bicycle commuter smashed up by an idiot driver, and being a car commuter nearly running down idiot cyclist disturbingly often (though to be fair, they're usually the wannabe bike messenger types who get a kick out of weaving through traffic and disregarding one-way streets and such).

If you're going to ride a bicycle in the street, you need to follow the traffic laws as though you were a slow car (this is, in fact, the law in most places). Otherwise you're just dangerously unpredictable. I do appreciate that there are occasional times when it's safer to bend the rules, but predictability really is the key.

Yogi, there are even cities that experiment with getting rid of rules for drivers as well, and it works better!

http://www.minds.com/blog/view/248215469679448064/german-town-abolishes-traffic-lights-and-codes-accidents-are-now-almost-non-existent

BTW, the video is coming up Private for me. So can't watch.

*dead, cuz it's "private"

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by Payback.

Thanks, fixed.

What ball?! I was never issued a ball! What the Fuck @dag?

God this is terrifying to watch!

The one car that pushed him into the bus stop had a graduated licensing "L" sticker. Means the driver -a Learner- HONESTLY didn't know wtf they were doing. Passenger/teacher's fault.

Towns are a different thing than cities now aren't they?? Most cities are petri dishes of dysfunctional herds-

You're right Yogi. I also find that cyclists in Seattle are too fucking stupid to remember what those red, yellow and green lights mean, and the red octagonal sign writing on it... what's up with that bullshit, eh? BIKE POWER!!!!!

population of Bohmte about 13,000 over about 40 sq miles. 300 people per sq mile. Seattle - 7,700 peeps per sq mile. So yeah, the same.

I'm a cyclist in NYC, and I do a little o' both. I break the traffic laws when I deem it safer or more convenient for everybody that I do so. I do it to get myself out of the way. And on my way.
Obviously not paying attention at all to stop lights is just dumb, you can't just mosey into cross traffic without looking, but I do agree with Yogi that the usual traffic laws shouldn't apply to bikes. Fortunately, this seems to be the de facto state of affairs in my city.

Cyclist here too, have been for 35 years... The most traffic laws i break involve things that stops me using the only advantage over walking, inertia. That means running on red lights is common but only if it's totally empty crossing.. People who use motors to go forward don't have to use muscles so it doesn't always enter their minds that cyclists rely on rolling forward all the time, stopping as few times as possible. That's why cyclists need to bend the rules pretty often, it just works a lot better for all of us. Of course i could stop at red lights, specially if it's button activated, i could reserve that 20s instead of using 3s making everyone wait... But here it has been a lot more common to use cycles and drivers do behave well on intersections letting that momentum to carry us over and saving time from everyone. We just can't count on it, i would say 80% do it well, it's that 20% that feels hurt if they have to yeild to a puny sack of meat riding on a tubular frame..

Last winter was brutal, instead of snow we had ice that melted a bit during the day and froze overnight. Then it was a case of survival with a bike and things from my teens started to bother me: cars that don't understand they cant tip over and hurt them selves, going thru safe, dry routes became a real fight. When i was school age, i had to to cycle on the road, with cars, no shoulder cause of snowbanks, just four deep tracks that the cars had made. The times the car horns scared me when the motorists blamed me for driving on the only piece of road i could do so, width of maybe 20cm with ice on both sides.. man., you couldn't get out of those without falling spectacularly while the cars of course could, they just were lazy. Now a days there is a cycle road built separately there but the attitude became obvious "roads are for cars, if you don't have one, stay at home..."

"I hope he obeys the traffic laws himself"

Clearly he does not. The situation at :35 was created when he failed to yield (like all the traffic next to him) at the roundabout.

Also, he's riding like an idiot. Yes, the car at the end was at fault, but he shouldn't have been going so fast he couldn't stop for it.

This is true, but those towns were inspired by cities. That German town is only proving it can work in a Western culture as well.

*downunder

Neerabup is just on the edge of Perth, Western Australia - https://goo.gl/maps/yexKA

Adding video to channels (Downunder) - requested by oritteropo.