Among the cutting-edge stories about Princess Diana and man boobs, The Sunday Age has come up with a cracker this morning:
More than half of all drivers admit to running red lights. Why, John Elder asks, do so many push their - and others' - luck?
As they did in an earlier article on distracted driving, photographer and reporter headed for a couple of Melbourne intersections where no red-light cameras had been installed, and drivers presumably felt confident about getting away with it
:
The Sunday Age has been standing on this spot for about four hours, counting the number of clowns running red lights. The Camry is number 63, on this wet Melbourne day. The previous day was fine, and up on Dandenong Road, over four hours, 97 drivers made the drongo dash.
Data
An interesting study from the USA by Professor Bryan Porter provides some data:
Almost 56 per cent of drivers admitted to running red lights, with one in five having run at least one red light in the previous 10 intersections they had negotiated. In short, it is standard practice for too many drivers.
And although there appears to be no comparable Australian figures, local traffic safety boffins like Professor Thomas Trigg from MUARC reckon the tendency (to run red lights) may be slightly higher in Australia
. At any rate, it's reasonable to assume that Porter's data are indicative of the likely proportions here.
But the actual proportions aren't important; the fact is, drivers are running lights in significant numbers: From July 2006 to the end of May 2007, Victoria Police issued 110,360 infringement notices for red-light camera offences.
And that's just the number of notices served (presumably from intersections with red light cameras), not the number of actual incidents.
Pot and kettle
And here is something that sticks in my craw (in fact, I mentioned it just yesterday): motorists who complain about the behaviour of cyclists are expecting a higher standard of conduct from cyclists as a group than they are prepared to apply to their own group. Too often we hear the all inclusive complaint that bloody cyclists jump red lights, but when it comes to the in excess of one hundred thousand drivers who run red lights, well that's just a few ratbag individuals. The vast majority of drivers are pure as the driven snow when it comes to red light running.
The Porter data shows that to be a falsehood.
And let's have a look at the way cyclists and motorists flout red lights. Commonly cyclists "jump" red lights: having stopped and checked that the cross road is clear (or at least, clear enough) they proceed through, largely at their own risk. However, motorists tend to "run" red lights: rather than stopping, they accelerate, proceeding into the intersection with no knowledge of who or what else might also be heading for the same physical space at the same time.
I am disturbed by both behaviour patterns, but the actions of the red light-running driver disturb me far more, not simply because misbehaving drivers don't usually shoulder the bulk of the potential impact arising from their actions, but also because this kind of misbehaviour is so very normalised.
So, to those motorists who want to lump responsible cyclists like me in with the reckless, let me apply the same standard: get your own bloody house in order—get those thousands of reckless and dangerous drivers to stop running red lights—before you come complaining about the piddling small number of cyclists who ignore red lights.
Thanks Fritz. I like Paul's blog, but don't get around to it as often as I'd like, so I hadn't caught up with that one yet.
Has anyone else noticed that drivers are more likely to run a red light if they see that it's "only" a bike with the green light?
One of my bugbears is the way that some motorist feel they can run the red at user-activated traffic lights. These are rarely (if ever) covered by red light cameras but the cross traffic is the most vulnerable road user (the pedestrian). I can think of several such crossings where cars routinely roll through the red, despite the awful potential consequences.
Should you really have to look left and right before crossing at the lights?
I Am Just Curious To Find Out I Am A Cyclist i ride to and from work like you guys it disgust me how other drivers dont obied by the laws so my question is can bikes get flashed for running a red light? i ask because sometimes i get so close and it goes amber and im not sure if it ll get me for it. please write back to me thanks.
Comments
Regarding the higher standard of conduct that you note, Paul Dorn has this excellent writeup on "Vehicular crime and perceptions.