CYCLISTS JUMPING RED LIGHTS; SHOULD IT BE LEGAL?

Around 3,000 fines are written up every year in London for cyclists jumping red lights. For this, you can expect a £50 on-the-spot fine in the UK. But is this a worthy law?

Proposals to introduce law changes in San Fransisco have sparked up huge debates between those for and against the law. Police were met with protests where cyclists rigidly obeyed traffic laws for one day and almost brought traffic to a standstill. Now, similar debates are firing up in the UK as the four main candidates to replace Boris Johnson as the Mayor of London have said they will consider such a change.

Where London is merely discussing it, cities in Europe have already made the change. Paris, Brussels, some German cities and the Netherlands have already relaxed laws with little consequences, which got me wondering whether contravening red lights is really that black and white (or red and green, shall we say).

The Facts

Data obtained from Transport for London by the CTC revealed that from 1998-2007, a period spanning nearly a decade, an average of 5 pedestrians were injured per year after a cyclist had jumped a red light, whereas 14 were injured by red light jumping motorcyclists, 78 by red light jumping car drivers and 13 in collisions with taxis, buses or other vehicles. In addition, 5% of cyclists killed and seriously injured in London, in 3 of the most recent years, occurred after the cyclist had disobeyed a red traffic light or give way marking, whereas 15% of cyclists were killed or seriously injured when another vehicle disobeyed a red traffic light or give way marking.

This implies that there is very little risk to allowing a cyclist to choose to contravene a red light, however, this does not provide much reason to vote for the movement, nor am I trying to imply that we should either, but if we are going to take a hard look at cyclists, and we are going to crack down on lawbreaking, it really should be for all road users.

That being said, I’m straying from the point a little, as a change to the law would not allow cyclists to suddenly be subject to a different laws to motorists, they will simply be given a few extra benefits, much like cycle lanes and filtering boxes at junctions; road features that are clear of a purpose to all road users and don’t tend to cause ambiguous spurts of law interpretation.

What will the change mean?

Law changes have been going on around the world since the early Eighties. In the US, the Idaho Law passed in 1982, allowing cyclists to treat a red light as a stop sign, and a stop sign as a yield sign, therefore allowing cyclists to stop and roll through a red light if the way is clear.

This idea inevitably conjures up images of cyclists darting out in front of motorists, but the reality is actually a lot simpler than it sounds. It’s important to note that these rule changes, often referred to as the Idaho Law, do not allow a cyclist to make this judgement call at every red light. They are under the authority of a specific sign permitting you to do so. These signs are placed in appropriate places, notifying the cyclist of their options, like a sign stating “Go left” where a cyclist can follow a curb with the flow of traffic without disturbing anyone. The signs do not allow a cyclist to ‘jump a red light’ or cross a flow of traffic, they are merely a new filtering system.

In Summary

I hear it time and time again; the cyclist says they need to escape the junction to keep themselves safe, and the motorist says that cyclists should play by the same rules if they are to be treated as an equal road user. Whether I agree with either of these statements or not is by the by. The truth is that a change in the law would not suddenly allow cyclists to make their own decisions at red lights, nor will they be subjected to any more differences on the road than they are already. So next time you hear the Mayor talking about cyclists and red lights, don’t panic until you know what that actually means. And you’d be forgiven for jumping to conclusions, seeing as no-one is willing to explain it properly.

If the “law” changes, cyclists will be presented with a sign that allows them to follow a curb and a flow of traffic in order to keep them moving. That’s all. They will not be jumping out willy nilly, causing accidents, and they will not be breaking a law. Frankly, the fact that it has become a debate is confusing to me, seeing as we are really discussing a minor alteration to infrastructure, not so much the law and behaviour of road users. Whole cars are allowed to turn right when it’s clear in the US, and they haven’t descended into anarchy yet, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine here.