And ‘rationalize’ is not the same thing as ‘being rational’. But you knew this too, of course.

When I can stop at the red light northbound on Speedway at 38th on my way to work in the morning, and during a light cycle stand about a 50/50 chance of observing a cyclist start from a dead stop on a stale red and go straight through, while in all the 10,000 times I’ve gone through that intersection I have yet to see a SINGLE motorist do it, well, I know reality – and you, my friend, are no friend of reality.

Elliott, you missed a great teaching moment with Acevado. I’d have said something. (And when I could still bike, I did ask other cyclists to stop running red lights and stop signs right after I observed them doing so).

Secondly, there are the signs & lights, and there are what people actually do. Since education and enforcement on this has been so light, people don’t see the need, don’t fear punishment, or as I said before are following others behavior. I myself witnessed Chief Acevedo fail to stop more than once at a stop sign on the Political Pedal. If the chief ain’t following the rules in the middle of one of the highest profile rides of the year, seems like we have a problem. I for one favor moving to the Idaho way, but as I said before, if we are going to keep the law, let’s get serious about it of ignore it. I guess I’m hoping for consistency.

`Back to square one with you.’ Sorry to disappoint you, dad, but I think I’ll pick my own square.

As for cyclists who don’t know they’re supposed to stop, why do you keep bringing this up? If any driving age (let’s exclude actual children) cyclists actually don’t know that, they’re a tiny minority. Concentrating on the corner cases (or the theoretical cases such as `cyclists would speed if they could!’) is a great way to make sure you don’t spend any effort on things that actually matter.

I recently came across and promptly lost again a summary of the one and only ‘protest ride’ I ever rode in here (the one trying to push the Council to un-stall the Pfluger Bridge). Many of us, myself included, spent a lot of that ride being good examples and haranguing those who were breaking laws in front of the motorists we were trying to win over for our cause.

But I have a very hard time believing, again, that cyclists don’t know they’re supposed to stop. Every time a ‘crackdown’ surfaces, you don’t see people claiming they didn’t know; just that they should somehow have been exempt from enforcement.

When it comes to cycling, we have next to no education and haphazard enforcement at best. We’ve not made the commitment with cyclists the way we have with motorist. Some of this is because of cycling’s relatively small scale in the population mix and some of it is government picking battles. Again, the consequences of the motorist breaking the law are much higher and deadlier than the cyclist.

If we treated motorist the way we treat cyclists, our streets would be chaotic and full of law breaking motorist. Just visit most developing countries, and you’ll see motorist behaving the same way.

Again, if cyclists were physically capable of speeding, they doubtlessly would. In every situation where they are CAPABLE of breaking the law, they do so in far higher proportions than do motorists, and far more seriously.

The best `very true generalization about lawbreaking’ one really can make is that people generally break laws when the odds of consequences times the severity of those consequences are lower than the benefits of breaking the law.

Motorists speed, roll through red lights/stop signs and neither is likely to cause an accident when done properly, and tickets are rare as well. Cyclists speed less, but perhaps run red lights more — but again, this rarely causes accidents and tickets are rarely given out.

But OK, stop signs and red lights. It seems to be red lights (mature ones especially) that you’re hung up on, so where’s the study done at a red light about who breaks the law there? If a good one was done, I imagine you’ll find considerable compliance with the law from both camps in most cases, especially if traffic is moderate to heavy. But if there is no other traffic, both camps will run that red light with impunity at any stage in the cycle. No traffic means low risk of accident or ticket for both groups.

As for the `cyclists would speed if they could’ strawman that you keep bringing up, um, so what? And motorists would run mature red lights if they could — and oh, yeah, they occasionally do (when traffic is light, when it’s safe, no cops around), just like cyclists occasionally speed — when they can. (Low speed limit? Down a hill? `Are you speeding?’ kiosk that gives your speed? Many, perhaps most cyclists speed!)

Ultimately, as I see it, when somebody says `cyclists don’t obey the law, so we shouldn’t make this bike lane/law/whatever’, it’s just a rationalization of the decision they’d already made. If cyclists did obey the law, 100% of the time, they’d just find another scapegoat (or the same scapegoat — it doesn’t need to be accurate.) They aren’t a member of that minority, so they see no need to benefit that minority.

`Many black people are criminals, so I shouldn’t build this community center in this black neighborhood’. It wouldn’t be P.C. to actually say this (overt discrimination based on color is frowned upon, after all), but I imagine a lot of politicians think this way.

Nobody goes `motorists don’t obey the law, so we shouldn’t build a new road/law/whatever’. But the number of tickets APD gives out suggests that motorists certainly do break the law in significant numbers. (Cyclists get tickets too — in smaller numbers, though there’s fewer of them too.)

The ‘slackerati’ are those who somehow manage to spend all day down at City Council chambers and all night and weekend running their neighborhood associations — without any visible means of support. I should have been more clear that a guy starting a bike business from the ground up wasn’t really what I had in mind, more like the ‘leaders’ you spoke to who write off the contributions of anybody they don’t see in person (and, yes, I know who most of those folks are, and, no, they don’t have private sector jobs, not really).

My apologies if this argument has gotten personal. I know you have a premmie and continue to pray that you and your family get through this difficult time. I just think that fact that your time is so limited re-enforces the point I was making. If you only have a little time, make it count. Participate in the debate but not just to discredit or tear others down. Point out errors in logical or facts but then offer solutions. I know you’ve got great ideas but you are not sharing them. So I ask again, what is your solution to this problem?

In other words, if cyclists could speed, they doubtlessly would. In the cases where they are fundamentally capable of breaking ANY GIVEN TRAFFIC LAW, cyclists do so far more often and far more seriously than do motorists. It’s eminently reasonable to remove the dependent clause here as everybody gets the fact that a bike can’t go 75 in a 65.

And everybody serious on transportation knows that “running the orange” isn’t as serious a problem as running the middle of a red light. Running the very beginning of a red light is largely an efficiency issue – people on the other side aren’t going fast enough yet to be at risk of a collision. Still, though, red light cameras are now up in some trouble-spots around town to write motorists tickets for this infraction – so why the whining about cops ticketing cyclists for running the middle of a red light cycle – again, an action which motorists almost never do?