‘I felt powerless – so I started filming’

ChezCheese:)

ChezCheese:)

Well-Known Member
Region
USA
City
Kitsap Co, WA
Here's an article about a Dutch cyclist who films distracted drivers while biking around London. What do you think about this? It would be a far more risky thing to do, I think, in the US - - too many Americans are prone to road rage. But would you do this, in an attempt to make the roads safer?

www.theguardian.com

‘I felt powerless – so I started filming’: CyclingMikey on his one-man battle with dangerous drivers

Mike van Erp has reported more than 1,000 motorists to the police – including Chris Eubank and Guy Ritchie. He explains how his father being killed by a drunk driver inspires his actions
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Nope - too much rage all over America. It's just not safe to confront bad behavior, in just about any setting.
 
Nope, I have been yelled at for just riding on a street. I'm not confronting anyone.
 
I have thought about doing this at stop lights. Just a tripod mounted camera in a safe place on the corner. (If I were retired and bored.)

Cars blow through red lights. They were moving and didn't quit make it to the intersection in time and the light turns red before they get across. We'll after a while I noticed plenty of cars started entering the intersection when they already had a red light. (Conditioned disregard for the law.) My wife and I call that, "Blowing through a hard red."

One day I saw a semi with a 30 foot trailer speed up because he was too far back when the light turned yellow. It turned red before he even got to the light....blew right through at 35 or so.

Sadly, in the US, I believe an officer would have to see the crime being committed. Just before covid hit I was looking around for a "coffee with a cop" meeting I could attend to find out why this is not a focus of enforcement. I ask myself how much longer before you can't even drive across town because you can't count on what other drivers will do.

If we had prosecution of proven videotaped motor violations in the US I think there would be a lot of people who would record and report. It would take polite propriety on the roads back 30 years in pretty short order.
 
I see bicyclists breaking traffic laws maybe at a rate of 100x that of car driver infractions
 
Merle Nelson said:
I have thought about doing this at stop lights. Just a tripod mounted camera in a safe place on the corner. (If I were retired and bored.)

Cars blow through red lights. They were moving and didn't quit make it to the intersection in time and the light turns red before they get across. We'll after a while I noticed plenty of cars started entering the intersection when they already had a red light. (Conditioned disregard for the law.) My wife and I call that, "Blowing through a hard red."

One day I saw a semi with a 30 foot trailer speed up because he was too far back when the light turned yellow. It turned red before he even got to the light....blew right through at 35 or so.

Sadly, in the US, I believe an officer would have to see the crime being committed. Just before covid hit I was looking around for a "coffee with a cop" meeting I could attend to find out why this is not a focus of enforcement. I ask myself how much longer before you can't even drive across town because you can't count on what other drivers will do.

If we had prosecution of proven videotaped motor violations in the US I think there would be a lot of people who would record and report. It would take polite propriety on the roads back 30 years in pretty short order.
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I´ve been known to blow thru a yellow light only when stopping would leave me in the middle of
the intersection.. What gets me is when some &%$$=# decides to right turn on red while I´m crossing
with the walk light. Not so long ago I was forced to do a painful face plant that took months to heal
when this happened. They´ll also turn into you though you´re in the straight ahead lane. that happens
to me all the time.
 
rich c said:
Nope, I have been yelled at for just riding on a street. I'm not confronting anyone.
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I've been yelled at for riding on the road where bicycle lanes are provided. Not only that, but on friday or saturday evenings more car drivers begin to be more aggressive after seeing me not get off the road even though I'm going traffic speed and not keeping anyone waiting. Ebikes are not permitted where the bike lane has structures, not just painted zones.
So they get righteous outrage .. wrongly. It's worse than normal abuse because they become actively dangerous drivers trying to lean over to scream and drive same time and then aggressively take more of the road area. I decided to be an outlaw and ride the bike lane to reduce their odds of killing someone in their erratic rage-driving.
Now that the bike lanes become snow and ice danger, back to the road.
 
I have talked to a few of them when we came to a traffic light stop and we got along fine in person, when I explained the law.
 
ChezCheese:) said:
Here's an article about a Dutch cyclist who films distracted drivers while biking around London. What do you think about this? It would be a far more risky thing to do, I think, in the US - - too many Americans are prone to road rage. But would you do this, in an attempt to make the roads safer?

www.theguardian.com

‘I felt powerless – so I started filming’: CyclingMikey on his one-man battle with dangerous drivers

Mike van Erp has reported more than 1,000 motorists to the police – including Chris Eubank and Guy Ritchie. He explains how his father being killed by a drunk driver inspires his actions
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
Click to expand...
I would bet my bike that he is a bike riding scofflaw hypocrite
 
My old friend Joel once told me he treats every yellow light like Don Garlits younger brother is coming from the other direction....folks blowing through stop signs, on bicycles too ahem, and stop lights is assinine behavior. Doesn't mean that people don't do it though. I live in a rural area and the closest stop light is 10 miles away so I don't have much to crab about on a daily basis however.
 
Handlebars said:
I would bet my bike that he is a bike riding scofflaw hypocrite
Click to expand...
I suspect you're right. And that might be something for someone who cares about it to film. Certainly if that kind of bike riding routinely results in heartache and death for others.

I often think if a knowledgeable law enforcement officer followed me for a few miles that person could see me do something illegal in my car. AND, if an officer were following him for three miles they could see him doing something illegal in his patrol car.
 
JRA said:
My old friend Joel once told me he treats every yellow light like Don Garlits younger brother is coming from the other direction....folks blowing through stop signs, on bicycles too ahem, and stop lights is assinine behavior. Doesn't mean that people don't do it though. I live in a rural area and the closest stop light is 10 miles away so I don't have much to crab about on a daily basis however.
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This is the bike rider behavior I see daily in the city. Signalling: Not. maybe one in a thousand. Riding across crosswalk with pedestrians: about half. Full stop for stop signs: one in a thousand. Riding on sidewalk: lots every day.
Holier than thou: CHECK!!!!!!!!!!!
 
One thing that has changed over the years is that both cyclist and motorist don't know the law. I'm not talking about not following it they don't know it. That might be a place to effect change.
 
So I have a smaller John Deere tractor and am a member of a tractor forum. They have a transportation section which tends to focus on pickup trucks. There was a farmer that was killed on his tractor a couple of years ago and i have been seeing signs around lately saying “Start seeing tractors “ and every spring you see a lot of “start seeing motorcycles “ signs go up.

So on this tractor forum I started a thread titled watch out for bicycles too. Most of the comments have been positive about bikes but there are some negative ones. Bikes riding three wide, bikes ignoring stop signs and red lights, bikes swerving in and out of traffic etc. The truth is you learn more from the negative comments. You have to put yourself into the minds of the people that have a negative view of bicycles. That doesn’t make them good people in my mind but it might keep me from getting hit by one.
 
I think even some police aren't aware of recent law changes. In Washington bicycles can treat stop signs as yields. I had a police cruiser follow me for several blocks, then pull off on a side street and follow me again a month or two ago when I went thru a 4 way stop - I was clearly the first vehicle at the intersection and slowed but didn't stop. Maybe the officer was checking the statutes when he pulled off. Also had idiots in cars call out to me that I had to stop at signs. I also stop then proceed when safe at red lights since they aren't triggered by bicycles.
 
Merle Nelson said:
I have thought about doing this at stop lights. Just a tripod mounted camera in a safe place on the corner. (If I were retired and bored.)

Cars blow through red lights. They were moving and didn't quit make it to the intersection in time and the light turns red before they get across. We'll after a while I noticed plenty of cars started entering the intersection when they already had a red light. (Conditioned disregard for the law.) My wife and I call that, "Blowing through a hard red."

One day I saw a semi with a 30 foot trailer speed up because he was too far back when the light turned yellow. It turned red before he even got to the light....blew right through at 35 or so.

Sadly, in the US, I believe an officer would have to see the crime being committed. Just before covid hit I was looking around for a "coffee with a cop" meeting I could attend to find out why this is not a focus of enforcement. I ask myself how much longer before you can't even drive across town because you can't count on what other drivers will do.

If we had prosecution of proven videotaped motor violations in the US I think there would be a lot of people who would record and report. It would take polite propriety on the roads back 30 years in pretty short order.
Click to expand...
Years ago I lived in Brooklyn NY where a right turn on red is illegal. Our street was one often used as a bypass when the parallel Brooklyn/Queens Expressway had heavy traffic. Cars on our cross street, usually from out of state, in attempt to join the bypass from downtown Brooklyn would turn right rather than wait for the light. I wished I could get a commission for each driver I could catch. I’d have retired much earlier on the earnings.
 
Handlebars said:
This is the bike rider behavior I see daily in the city. Signalling: Not. maybe one in a thousand. Riding across crosswalk with pedestrians: about half. Full stop for stop signs: one in a thousand. Riding on sidewalk: lots every day.
Holier than thou: CHECK!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...
Just to clarify: Washington State now allows riders to blow through stop signs (not lights). But that doesn't give the rider the right-of-way. You still have to yield to drivers who do have it. I do it only when I'm confident that the traffic allows it to be done safely.

One regulation (if that's what it is) that makes no sense is taking a bike-specific route around roundabouts. Those lanes are poorly designed, and force you to cross lanes of traffic coming from your right; and that traffic doesn't want to stop for a rider. I have learned to bike right on through, as if I'm a car. I can whip around those things as fast as a car can, so I'm not holding anybody up. Of course I watch the cars carefully, just as I do when I'm driving.[[[
 
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ChezCheese:) said:
Here's an article about a Dutch cyclist who films distracted drivers while biking around London. What do you think about this? It would be a far more risky thing to do, I think, in the US - - too many Americans are prone to road rage. But would you do this, in an attempt to make the roads safer?

www.theguardian.com

‘I felt powerless – so I started filming’: CyclingMikey on his one-man battle with dangerous drivers

Mike van Erp has reported more than 1,000 motorists to the police – including Chris Eubank and Guy Ritchie. He explains how his father being killed by a drunk driver inspires his actions
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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LOVE IT !
 
Handlebars said:
I would bet my bike that he is a bike riding scofflaw hypocrite
Click to expand...
I hope you enjoy walking.
This guy is well known to the police but I assume like all of us he isn't squeaky clean in his riding. His popularity would however be a big problem (less success in citations or prosecutions) if he was also a habitually bad rider. He also doesn't normally directly confront drivers, he files the paper work and video after the fact. Any confrontations have occurred only when the driver notices he's being filmed (rider is looking right at him through the side window).

On a personal note about bike/car "confrontations", while I notice lots of mostly minor traffic issues with both bikes and cars causing friction one thing that I experience consistently (and really annoys me) is when cars stop for me when I'm stopped even when they have the right of way. This happens most often at two types of locations - on a MUP (with a stop sign for me) crossing a regular road (without a stop sign but just a caution for that traffic), or crossing in a regular street intersection with a pedestrian crossing on my right. Here I'm stopped in my lane (out in the lane, not against the curb) and not in the pedestrian crossing, yet cars going through the intersection crossing in front of me regularly think it's appropriate to stop. Not sure how many times I've had to explain either that "you have the right of way, not me" or the ever popular "I'm not a pedestrian ... would you have stopped if I was a car?"

The problem is the inconsistency and safety, some drivers stop, others don't. All I want is to pick an appropriate opening in the traffic and safely cross. It's hard to convey to well meaning folks that this polite "you go first" attitude used for pedestrians just isn't a good idea for bike traffic and can be a safety concern with other drivers going through the intersection being unsure of what's going on.
 
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