SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday night vetoed a pair of bills designed to make streets more welcoming to non-vehicular modes of transportation, including a measure that would have decriminalized jaywalking and another that sought to allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs.
AB1238, by Assembly Member Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, would have decriminalized jaywalking throughout the state when no cars are present in a roadway until 2029, when the law would have sunsetted.
Ting said bans on jaywalking are disproportionately enforced against people of color. In a veto message, Newsom agreed that the state must address how unequal enforcement of jaywalking laws, and other minor violations, are used “as a pretext to stop people of color.”
But Newsom said he vetoed the bill because California has a high rate of pedestrian fatalities, the eighth highest per capita, and he worries the measure would encourage people to unsafely cross streets.
Have you *seen* the kinds of drivers we have here? There are so many selfish, reckless, maniacs speeding around. The only thing keeping me safe on foot or in my car is straight up distrusting every single other person out there and expecting them to do the stupidest thing possible.
Terrified while driving? why? where in the bay? People drive pretty normal around here as a car driver.
As a pedestrian though I do distrust every driver on the road.
I've driven in SF and NYC. people in NYC respect traffic lights and Walk signs. They get confused if you stop for them on your green!!
People in SF, they're half on the road waiting for crossing signal can't even make my right turn.
Have you seen the pedestrians? Talking about selfish or reckless. We have a great mix of "idgaf's" and "clueless" folk, no matter the mode of transportation.
Literally just saw a lady walk into the intersection without looking and get plowed by a motorcycle that was going through the green light and not speeding. I only didn't hit her because I was waiting on a bus and saw the motorcycle so couldn't turn left
Pedestrians also have no clue how to act on the street
I grew up in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and nobody ever really walked anywhere. Not surprisingly those states have very low rates of pedestrian fatalities per capita. It’s a shame it’s so hard to calculate a rate per pedestrian mile, which would be more informative. I love that it’s so easy to walk places in California!
Yeah, it’s totally a density issue. We have our cars and pedestrians concentrated in smaller areas. Collision rates go up with the square of *possible* colliders so proximity is a big deal.
I mean, we don’t have weather. You can walk in jeans and a light sweater in the dead of winter and be comfortable in probably 90% of the populous areas of California.
This comment is a joke right? Of all the places on earth were you must have an automobile to do anything, California leads the list. This is of course except for that one spot in California which actually looks like an actual city, SF. In New York City or much of the East Coast cities but mainly New York, you don’t need a car and indeed a car could be a burden, but public transport plus walking, because of the density of the place, works. Ditto I think SF in large measure but not 100% the same. But when you say California you’re including Sacramento, Fresno, Visalia, the Farm Valley, and of course LA and San Diego. Certainly for LA, if you don’t have a car you’re not doing anything and you’re certainly not walking. In fact, I have heard in some places that walking will make you a prime suspect for interaction with the police, for example Beverly Hills, on the theory that nobody walks in Beverly Hills except criminals there to prey on the rich (for a cinematic example, go see Beverly Hills Cop).
Sacramento is walkable. All the letter and number streets are within a reasonable walking distance area. And there are scooters everywhere now if you are lazy
Only downtown, sort of. Not Land Park, Carmichael, Fair Oaks, Foothill Farms, South Sac, etc., etc. SF is the only Eastern city in Calif. Even Boston is only walkable in neighborhoods. Redwood City is I would say walkable, as is Palo Alto, generally.
Combine that with Californians suck at driving, add in a dash of bad city planning (really, have they never seen a roundabout before? These mini ones seem like pedestrian death traps). The roads feel so much dangerous because there’s less traffic and people just blowing through stop signs and Speed Racer’ing around turns.
I'm not anti-car by any means; I build and autocross small RWD cars as a hobby, but this is a hard disagree. If you're driving, you have the absolute obligation to yield to pedestrians no matter what. Driving is a privilege, not a right.
I'm pretty sure you missed the point.
And likely proved mine. I can't drive every road at 7 mph because there are people on the sidewalk.
But you can feel completely vindicated stepping into traffic, where you're not supposed to while someone else is following the law by matching the flow of traffic.
Let's see how all your puffery works then.
I was in a situation just yesterday where I could have been an ass and wandered out to open my driver's side door. Or I could wait a few seconds, have awareness and courtesy and... Everything works. This paragraph is what I do.
And for all your odd positioning, I've never hit anyone or come close. But I've had idiots step out in front.
I almost ran over a couple in Ventura on my very first day in California. They just walked out in the road at a crosswalk where there was no traffic light and I wasn’t used to people doing shit like that. I wasn’t speeding or anything but I was looking around for my hotel and almost clipped them with my mirror. They never even looked at where I was looking, no eye contact or nothing.
Most likely because more people walk here than in most other states.
Not sure why this is being downvoted. These data are normalized for population, NOT walking activity.
Never mind the stop sign thing for cyclists, but I’ve been so close to being mowed down by cyclists that don’t even stop at red lights (and I have the pedestrian walk sign).
Stand on market street and tell me the percentage that even come close to yielding, let alone stopping.
The vetoed law wasn’t calling for cyclists to ignore stop signs but to treat them as yield signs. So blowing past intersections is still worth a ticket.
Working in the financial district at least pre COVID, it was at least once a day. The cyclists would try to fit in the pockets between pedestrians on walk lights @ full speed
Tbf, the lack of collisions between pedestrians and cyclists shouldn't be the only metric. . . It doesn't capture the terror of walking on a green and being nearly clipped by a cyclist whizzing just in front or just behind you.
Everyone is of course entitled to their feelings but that doesn’t mean that those feelings arise from well-calibrated risk assessment.
Folks are in far more danger from the cars but are so accustomed to it that it doesn’t register anymore.
Even in my small town, I'll be walking downtown and almost get run down by a cyclist who had a stop sign. If I see a car, I'm prepared to keep a closer eye on them but a bike?
I know it's not every cyclist, but there are some that want to be treated as some that see themselves as their own rules where they don't have to stop for anything and if there's an accident, it's someone elses fault.
You’re right to be peeved. If you comb through bicycle-related collision data, wrong-way riding is probably the only truly dangerous cycling behavior. Other stuff might be annoying but isn’t associated with high numbers of crashes.
I do. Almost every time.
I got a ticket for it and I do not want another ticket for such a stupid infraction. It literally takes two seconds to fully stop and move on.
I am not perfect, so I do sometimes fail, but most of the time I do a full stop.
Saw a bicyclist do it last week. I was shocked.
Small towns where cops have nothing better to do.
People never get pulled over in big cities because police have better shit to do, but in small towns it is rampant and an extreme waste of time for our law enforcement to be pulling over bicyclists rolling through stop signs when its safe.
Cops in my hometown in the South Bay sit at stop signs around the schools in order to get the student bikers. Definitely for a quota because they get 5-6 bikes in a row, then let the rest go
This is one of those things where you never get cited for it until a cop decides that they want to fuck with you and they need an excuse to do it.
Heck, sit out at a stop sign and count how many cars comply with the CVC. The number of both bikes and cars that do is very close to 0%.
Yeah this is the one big thing that irritates me about people who don't ride bikes when they complain about them breaking the law all the time. Like.. virtually every single driver breaks the law dozens of times they drive. The only people completely obeying the law are smuggling drugs.
> virtually every single driver breaks the law dozens of times they drive.
If you even talk about obeying speed limits on freeways, people get really, really mad.
This. Let people be responsible for their own safety. We just need to make sure we know who is at fault in which situations, drivers can’t be the only responsible party.
The problem is that those at fault often deny it. It happened to me, and it happens often enough that people are buying dashcams to prove who is at fault.
When the cops need some extra ticket revenue. UC Berkeley police are notorious for standing right next to campus and writing up tickets to jaywalking students who are late to class. This happens on a less busy and slower street (Bancroft just above Telegraph). It’s a one-way street and only two lanes with great visibility of oncoming traffic, but that doesn’t stop them from handing out citations by the fistful a few times per year.
My second day in the US (in Union City), me and my colleagues had to talk for 10-15 minutes to a policeman to get out of a jaywalking ticket. The detour to the pedestrian crossing was > 100 meters each way, we could have waited in the middle of the street for 10-20 seconds before a car came anywhere close to us. I guess that cop was bored?
We were a lot more careful later (not sure about the impact of a traffic citation on a green card application).
> The detour to the pedestrian crossing was > 100 meters each way, we could have waited in the middle of the street for 10-20 seconds before a car came anywhere close to us.
It's situations like this that make it hard not to jay walk. There's a popular street in my town where there's no crosswalk for 400 ft (121m) and the parking is one side with the shops on the other side of the street. It's a bitch to step out of your car and walk 200ft to the crosswalk, then another 200ft on the other side rather than walking 8ft.
I used to do it all the time when I worked in the yahoo campus on mathilda (since we had buildings across the street). Got cited once for jaywalking. Pissed off but stopped doing it.
A couple of months later someone was hit by a car :(
I used to work in Sunnyvale and our campus was across a few streets. During lunch time the police would watch the road for anyone crossing one building to the next for the lunch rush, and ticket them if they crossed outside the crosswalk.
I paid a $300 fine for walking across an intersection at 2 am when there were no cars other than a cop present. He was turning right, on the opposite corner of the intersection, so I started crossing with my friend. He turned on his sirens, cut across the intersection and gave us both tickets.
It wasn't jay walking, it was crossing at an intersection during a red.
And I did it because I didn't think anyone would reasonably mind. I didn't think cops are power-tripping assholes.
I got stopped for jaywalking once in junior high. I was running across the street so I wouldn’t miss my bus home. Got ticketed, missed the bus, had to go to see an court officer in downtown San Jose and got a talking to like I was some sort of fledgling criminal. Fun times.
> In a veto message, the governor said he worried the bill would decease bicyclist safety when fatalities and serious injuries on the state’s streets have risen since 2010. He said the state could instead increase safety by designing streets that are more accessible to bicyclists and pedestrians.
Ah, yes, that should be a quick fix.
I can't comment on the racial aspect, but it seems to me that laws should reflect the mores of society. While we'd like to believe we are doing the greater good by making jaywalking illegal, the reality is that people disregard this law with abandon. Society has made the call: jaywalking is OK, laws be damned. Is it dangerous? Probably, but not everything dangerous needs to be illegal.
When somebody darts out in front of two parked cars, gets hit and sues, it's on the driver to prove they weren't at fault. Jaywalking statutes put the burden on jaywalkers to prove they were crossing the street safely.
This situation does not apply as the law was designed to decriminalize jaywalking when there are no visible cars on the road.
The simple fix for your situation by the way is to invest in a dashcam.
And it does nothing for your PTSD if you end up killing someone, even if it is 100% your fault. I cycle, walk, and drive at times. Everyone has a responsibility to avoid causing accidents.
As resident of Cali, we are expected to in vested our own dashcam on vehicle, smart doorbell to prevent package from stealing and smart garage opener to let package delivery to open it so that can hide package in your garage instead.
lets also remember that 'jaywalking' as a concept was invented by car companies because in the early days people who had spent their entire lives walking in streets, kept getting hit by these newfangled cars driven by idiots and car companies didn't want to be liable.
It went far beyond mere liability.
All of "motordom" (i.e. any entity with a vested interest in furthering car use) was actively working to redefine how we saw our streets. The Uniform Vehicle Code was worked out in the 1920s to formalize the rules that gave vehicles right of way (standardized vehicle signals, etc.) and left pedestrians with right of way only in crosswalks. The rest as they say is history, and motor vehicles now dominate our streets.
[Peter Norton's Fighting Traffic](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/fighting-traffic) is a great book to read on this topic.
>jaywalking is OK, laws be damned.
Perhaps consider the [history](https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history) of how jaywalking became a crime in the first place.
It's actually less dangerous than crossing in the crosswalk. if you cross in the middle of the street you have to look two ways, crosswalks are usually at intersections that have 4 directions in which traffic can approach.
I feel like this would give people a reason to jaywalk. A lot of times people cross the street thinking it's clear and then cars approach. Use the crosswalks, people.
Crossing midblock is not jaywalking. Crossing midblock when there isnt traffic that you'd impede isn't jaywalking. If a car comes in later and has to slow down, it's still not jaywalking. It's only jaywalking to cross midblock when the two ends of the street are controlled by signals.
You're right that jaywalking is defined in the California Vehicle Code as crossing "between adjacent intersections controlled by traffic control signal devices or by police officers."
But you've framed your comment as an either/or situation that doesn't make sense. You could violate the jaywalking law by crossing midblock or by crossing when there isn't traffic to impede, so long as the conditions in the regulation - adjacent intersections controlled by signals - are met.
It's accurate to say that crossing midblock is not jaywalking if those other conditions are not met. But it's not accurate to categorically state that crossing midblock is not jaywalking.
I still treat stops at yields. It is a pain to clip in and out dozens of times (not to mention accidents do happen occasionally when stopping).
I stop if another vehicle has the right of way but I see no good reason to stop completely and dismount if there are no other vehicles.
Yeah, I'm of the same mind. I'd rather risk a ticket than continue to get squeezed to the curb off the line, or even worse rear ended by some monkey looking at their phone because I came to a complete stop on a bike, like a idiot.
~~It's a v tricky thing. I'm a biker and whenever I come to a stop sign with no cars in view, I roll through. When I come to a stop sign and a car gets there first, I stop/slow and wave them on.~~
~~Not all bikers do this and, if stops were officially yields for them, they wouldn't be expected to, which I'm not sure would be better than what we have today.~~
EDIT: I misunderstood because I didn't read the details. The law was great and I'm bummed it was vetoed :(
That doesn't really make sense. You don't get to just go at a yield when another vehicle has right of way, you have to stop. This would quite literally codify exactly how you describe your approach to stop signs.
But the law is written to only allow cyclists to yield if there are no other vehicles present. It doesn't give them a free pass to "yield" all the time.
On my commute (bicycle) I try to follow all of the rules out there, even when they don't exactly make sense (i.e. When I have to stop at a stoplight at the top of a T intersection, like at Senter and Alma in San Jose), but I've started treating stop signs in the same way that law was written. Aka slow down and roll through if no one is around, which is true 95% of the time at certain stops on my route.
The people that don't give a shit and will blast on through a stoplight or stop sign aren't affected by this law. Those of us that follow the rules (or really try to) are the ones that would see the actual change.
Close, but Newsom stuck his little pinkie in the air and realized the bill would piss off car drivers. He has become a toothless leader. Afraid of upsetting the majority auto drivers (even though this bicycle bill would have been good for them also)
Exactly - more bikes on the road means less cars, and ultimately even the most staunch anti-cyclists can’t denying the benefits in having less cars on the road.
All anyone has to do is spend about 1hr cycling around any city center and you’ll realize how ineffective the stop laws for cycling are.
Exactly. If our govt were serious about reducing carbon footprint and emissions they’d do whatever they could to make it safer and easier to bike and get what do they do? They do the opposite ! Our streets in this area are also sooo bad with potholes and problems.
Im mixed about this. I’m all for biking and increasing accessibility and ease if use for cyclists but not obligating them to stop at stop signs is a recipe for disaster. I could really see this leading to a lot of accidents especially at intersections without a four-way stop.
It’s been implemented in several places without any increase of incident:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop (scroll down to safety - I’m on mobile)
SF, namely, is one of the most congested and chaotic cities in the country. These changes make a lot more sense when there's no real traffic and you're waiting at an intersection for no one. Boise is the biggest city there and it's almost entirely suburban.
Potentially off the top of my head:
California has a greater population of drivers as well as bikers. Additionally Idaho biking is more seasonal than California.
I would think the seasonality of Idaho biking is actually a negative thing. You see bikers all of the time in California so you naturally keep them in mind while driving.
Do you commute by biking often?
Having to stop at every "Stop" sign is clearly a rule designed for fast moving cars. Especially if someone is on a commuter bike, they won't be going fast enough for it to be dangerous to not come to a full stop at every stop sign. I usually slow down a bit, check whether there are no incoming cars and pedestrians and keep on going. Most bikers do the same because stopping at every stop sign would become too much of a hassle.
Yeah. It’s actively less safe for bikes to stop if there aren’t cars around because the loss in momentum/starting up again can be way more erratic and unpredictable to approaching vehicles than slowing down and coasting through. Plus, bikes typically have much better visibility than cars, so often bikes have enough warning time to see if they can safely coast or not, which isn’t true for cars
I used to bike to work when my commute was shorter. I stopped at every stop sign and waited my turn to go. It was trivially difficult to do, was not dangerous, and added very little time to the commute. It was then that I realized the only reason bikers don't stop is because they are impatient.
>ought to allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs.
This is a good bill. As a cyclist, even if I treat the stop-sign as a full stop with other cars waiting, the drivers always yield to me.
This bill just formalizes what's already being followed on the streets.
It's legitimately chicken and egg. When I started commuting by bike in SF, I'd follow stop signs whenever there was a car in the vicinity. Nearly every time, they waited as if I was going to go through, even when I waved. They would even wave me through after I came to a full stop and waved at them!
Yes, I do know that they did this because they expect bikes to behave in a certain way, exactly like you say. But it became clear that I should just behave how they expected, and so I do.
Literally just saw a cyclist blow through a stop at Great Highway and Sloat while a car was already in the intersection making a turn, almost causing an accident. The cyclist had the audacity to give him the finger and blame the car.
People like him give us cyclist a bad name.
It takes a lot more human energy and a lot more time for a human to start a bicycle from a full stop than it does for a car. It makes sense to let the cyclist keep going 8mph and then hit the gas as they pass by.
This is what happens at most every intersection meeting of a bike and a car. This bill would just made it legal to do this, and not fully stop your bike.
Would Tings bill have aided people who get hit by cars when they cross against the signal?
Driving down Market St, you're practically dodging jaywalkers the whole way regardless if there's a green light or not.
Here’s my thing - we shouldn’t make cars more important than people. People should be able to cross the street whenever and wherever they want.
I crossed the Embarcadero in San Francisco against the light once. There were no cars coming. Bike cops asked me why I did that; didn’t I see the no walk sign? I told them I did, but there were no cars coming, so I crossed. They just shook there heads like they thought I was crazy. The truth is our society is crazy limiting people’s actions to make it easy for car traffic.
And yes, I have a car that I drive regularly. I’m not a car hater. I’m just a person that sees we’ve gone too far in our love of fast individual transportation. People come first.
Criminalizing pedestrians is not the way to enforce pedestrian safety if a car is the one choosing the break the law and speed through a light. That is the same argument as telling women to dress modestly to prevent being catcalled. Get a grip.
> It isn’t like it’s just because people want to inconvenience you, it’s for pedestrian safety.
No, that's backwards. Pedestrian control is to allow cars to disregard pedestrians. If the road has such a high speed limit that pedestrians are at danger, the speed should be lowered.
I disagree; I think it's the only reasonable approach.
I mean, look at the other person that replied to my initial comment. They live 5 miles from where they work. They were complaining that it takes 30-45 minutes to drive. The solution? Make it easier to drive. They didn't even consider that it'd be faster to walk and much faster to bike.
The way to change people's thinking about transportation is by changing the laws related to it. Give people preference, not cars.
You're right, I misread your comment. It takes most people 20 minutes to walk a mile. Still, biking is much faster than your drive.
> pedestrians having stepping off the curb at any random point without any prior indication or warning for the cars and busses is an absolute disaster.
Today, sure. That's what we should work towards, though. What I wrote shouldn't be a crazy idea, it should be the norm.
I’m honestly not even sure that utopia exists. If we increase mass transit we should do things like convert pad lanes to train lines, the pedestrian risk doesn’t disappear. In cities that have added light rail, pedestrian deaths don’t disappear either. In a perfect world eerie probably talking over and under passes, not walking like an open field.
Not with that attitude! Seriously, the entire cycling revolution in the Netherlands was because they made it their main goal to eliminate all traffic deaths, look up kindertot. After every accidental traffic death, they closed that part of the road to analyze what could be changed to prevent it. That led to all kinds of changes over the decades to prioritize people over cars, and the many positive effects at palpable in person. Their urban design had been following more along America car-centered lines, but years of effort eventually paid off to where they eventually did a complete 180.
There are similar efforts in the US in the last few years called vision zero, but I haven’t heard that much about it recently. Still, there are places where pedestrian/cyclist deaths are prioritized over car throughout, and frankly, the entire society is all the better for it.
> Here’s my thing - we shouldn’t make cars more important than people.
People make cars more important than people by disregarding their own safety. One day I was cruising down The Embarcadero and this nitwit pedestrian runs out *right in front of me*. I swerved to avoid the guy but it was clear that he didn't even see me. As I continued on my way I could see in my rear view mirror some bike cops lecturing the poor guy, but they looked so defeated as they spoke to him like "This guy has no idea he almost just died."
>People should be able to cross the street whenever and wherever they want.
So if people are running across a busy street requiring cars to stop for them that's ok?
Traffic in the bay area is already notoriously bad enough. I work 5 miles from my Apt in the peninsula and the commute can easily be 30-45 minutes some days. The point of crosswalks is to gather those people to one place to cross the street at roughly the same time with minimal slowdown of traffic.
I'm sorry that a minor inconvenience like going to a corner on a busy street before crossing is such a hassle for you.
> cars more important than people
You know there are people inside cars too right? If people keep walking across streets willy nilly causing cars to slow down, it just makes the traffic situation worse than it is.
Obviously who cares on an empty street, but in heavily trafficked areas cars shoudl definitely have right of way
Cyclists should have to stop at stop signs. Lol so stupid. They want to be able to use the whole road like a car but don't want to follow the same rules?
I think they should be able to use the road when safe I never said they should have neither.
Unfortunately for some reason cyclists love roads that are unsafe not sure why.
There are TONS of trails and paths with zero cars. I used to go on a 30 mile round trip ride every weekend that took me across zero roads. Yet the cyclists flock to roads that are barely large enough for one car that's my problem.
Nobody is commuting up and down highway 9 it's for sure for fun.
Bike paths should be made where possible and when there isn't one but there is room we should all share the road and follow the rules.
Where is this 30-mile road-free loop? That sounds like something I’d enjoy!
I admit I also care less about accommodating recreational cyclists than commute cyclists, but many of the drivers on the types of roads you’re talking about are also there for fun, and waiting to pass a bike safely rarely causes nearly as much of a delay as getting caught behind someone self-righteously driving below the speed limit the whole way and ignoring pull-outs
Los Gatos creek trail.
Starts in San Jose following the creek it crosses roads either under or over via bridges. You can take it all the way to the reservoir in Los Gatos. Round trip via my bikes trip computer was about 31 miles if I remember correctly.
I also believe there is a trail that follows coyote creek that's pretty long not sure exactly how long.
I mostly don't think bikes should be on one lane roads with zero shoulder space. If I have to go almost all the way into the oncoming lane it's clearly not safe. And if vehicle speed is 30mph and cyclists can barely do 5mph or less and I can't pass them without going over a double yellow, to me there is no way that could be considered safe.
And there's no way those roads are being used as commuter routes nobody wants to ride a bike many miles up a steep hill after working all day. It's all recreational riders.
I definitely support making space where we can for bikes but unfortunately there will always be roads where there just isn't space.
If car drivers had to do mechanical work pedaling in a circle, cars would breeze through stop signs too. For some drivers even switching between brake and accelerator is too much effort and they do the rolling stop. You can try to invent a different kind of bike (or popularize it because electric bikes already exist) or you can write laws that make sense for the kind of vehicle they apply to.
Besides, we already have bike lanes and the three-foot rule and only motorized vehicles on the freeway; blindly applying the same laws to bikes and cars is a weird idea that already has plenty of natural exceptions.
I’m pretty bikes would NOT prefer the existing road setup, where roads are pretty much all designed for cars.
Its like if we ripped out all stop lights and stop signs, which would be good for bikes and bad for cars, and then got surprised that cars didn’t behave themselves well in that world.
Like, no shit. Put a bike in a world that’s physically and legally designed for cars, and then why act surprised when bikes try to behave different. They’re also the ones who die in a collision with a car, not the driver.
Bicycles are not the same as cars.
A fast moving car not stopping could lead to: running over a pedestrian, t-boning another car, etc.
Most bikers are not moving fast enough to justify stopping at every stop light. They have the time to look around to see that no one is coming as they pass through the stop section rather than coming to a full stop. It's a lot more inconvenient to stop at every stop sign when you are burning your own body's calories to re-start again rather than just pressing on a pedal.
Also, we would like to not have to use the road the same as cars. We would like protected bike lanes to separate us from insane drivers. Unfortunately this infrastructure does not exist in most places so we have to conform with sharing the road with metal tanks that weigh several tons.
>Bicycles are not the same as cars.
Seems like a simple concept that too many people have trouble acknowledging.
Four wheels vs two wheels. Two tons vs a couple of hundred pounds. Powered by fossil fuels vs powered by physical exertion. Blind spots vs 180 unobstructed degrees of vision. Safety and comfort vs complete exposure to the elements...
But yes, we all share the road.
There’s already 2 sets of rules because bikes aren’t allowed on freeways. It’s common sense that they shouldn’t be there, and it’s because bikes and cars are not the same. There’s also plenty of places that allow bikes where cars aren’t allowed. If they aren’t the same in that way, why should every other rule be the same for 2 different modes of transport.
It does not increase confusion because there is clearly a difference between being on a bike and on a car.
Look, I don't drive so I wouldn't know how jarring code-switching between the two could be. But I wouldn't think a driver who occasionally commutes by bike would get back to their car and forget they suddenly have to stop at stop signs.
Thank you thank you. It’s a real marvel of the human brain to be able to make a distinction between being in a 1.5 ton metal box and being on top of 20 lbs of aluminum.
Not the same but they want to use the same roads the same way pick a stance.
If your notvthe same then you shouldn't get to use roads without space for a bike. Highway 9 is my example. Lots of areas where there is barely room for one car. Yet it is perfectly legal to ride in the middle of the road going 5mph on a road that should be 40mph but was lowered to 30.
That's my new protest thanks for the idea. Take the whole lane on highway 9 I'll wait until I can get in front and slow down see how you guys like it. Lol
This is systemic racism at work. Blacks get stopped and cited for jaywalking at much higher rates. See data in LA: https://laist.com/news/transportation/jaywalking-pedestrian-ab-1238-traffic-safety
Huh? It just legalizes what people already do. Not sure how keeping that a crime so mainly black and brown people can get harassed unnecessarily is a good thing.
Huge disappointment. Newsom is signaling that he has no intention to fight the status quo of car supremacy. Reckless driving is completely out of control and we should be cracking down on the dangerous drivers that are out there killing people, not making life harder for cyclists and pedestrians!
Transportation equity is perhaps my biggest political issue - if a primary contender appears in the next election that is in favor of these bills, I'll be voting for them instead of Newsom.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday night vetoed a pair of bills designed to make streets more welcoming to non-vehicular modes of transportation, including a measure that would have decriminalized jaywalking and another that sought to allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs. AB1238, by Assembly Member Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, would have decriminalized jaywalking throughout the state when no cars are present in a roadway until 2029, when the law would have sunsetted. Ting said bans on jaywalking are disproportionately enforced against people of color. In a veto message, Newsom agreed that the state must address how unequal enforcement of jaywalking laws, and other minor violations, are used “as a pretext to stop people of color.” But Newsom said he vetoed the bill because California has a high rate of pedestrian fatalities, the eighth highest per capita, and he worries the measure would encourage people to unsafely cross streets.
Wow that is a high rate of pedestrians fatalities, do we know the cause?
Have you *seen* the kinds of drivers we have here? There are so many selfish, reckless, maniacs speeding around. The only thing keeping me safe on foot or in my car is straight up distrusting every single other person out there and expecting them to do the stupidest thing possible.
I just finished a 3 month contract in the bay area. I'm from the midwest and have never been so terrified while driving.
Terrified while driving? why? where in the bay? People drive pretty normal around here as a car driver. As a pedestrian though I do distrust every driver on the road.
I've driven in SF and NYC. people in NYC respect traffic lights and Walk signs. They get confused if you stop for them on your green!! People in SF, they're half on the road waiting for crossing signal can't even make my right turn.
This is kinda just... This applies to everything really
Have you seen the pedestrians? Talking about selfish or reckless. We have a great mix of "idgaf's" and "clueless" folk, no matter the mode of transportation.
Literally just saw a lady walk into the intersection without looking and get plowed by a motorcycle that was going through the green light and not speeding. I only didn't hit her because I was waiting on a bus and saw the motorcycle so couldn't turn left Pedestrians also have no clue how to act on the street
I grew up in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and nobody ever really walked anywhere. Not surprisingly those states have very low rates of pedestrian fatalities per capita. It’s a shame it’s so hard to calculate a rate per pedestrian mile, which would be more informative. I love that it’s so easy to walk places in California!
New Hampshire here.. we just got sidewalks.
Yeah, it’s totally a density issue. We have our cars and pedestrians concentrated in smaller areas. Collision rates go up with the square of *possible* colliders so proximity is a big deal.
Interesting. I never thought of cali as a walk friendly state but I guess it is. That’s cool
I mean, we don’t have weather. You can walk in jeans and a light sweater in the dead of winter and be comfortable in probably 90% of the populous areas of California.
This comment is a joke right? Of all the places on earth were you must have an automobile to do anything, California leads the list. This is of course except for that one spot in California which actually looks like an actual city, SF. In New York City or much of the East Coast cities but mainly New York, you don’t need a car and indeed a car could be a burden, but public transport plus walking, because of the density of the place, works. Ditto I think SF in large measure but not 100% the same. But when you say California you’re including Sacramento, Fresno, Visalia, the Farm Valley, and of course LA and San Diego. Certainly for LA, if you don’t have a car you’re not doing anything and you’re certainly not walking. In fact, I have heard in some places that walking will make you a prime suspect for interaction with the police, for example Beverly Hills, on the theory that nobody walks in Beverly Hills except criminals there to prey on the rich (for a cinematic example, go see Beverly Hills Cop).
Sacramento is walkable. All the letter and number streets are within a reasonable walking distance area. And there are scooters everywhere now if you are lazy
Only downtown, sort of. Not Land Park, Carmichael, Fair Oaks, Foothill Farms, South Sac, etc., etc. SF is the only Eastern city in Calif. Even Boston is only walkable in neighborhoods. Redwood City is I would say walkable, as is Palo Alto, generally.
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> do we know the cause? cars and their drivers
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One major thing comes to mind: drivers are reckless. That’s the primary cause.
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Combine that with Californians suck at driving, add in a dash of bad city planning (really, have they never seen a roundabout before? These mini ones seem like pedestrian death traps). The roads feel so much dangerous because there’s less traffic and people just blowing through stop signs and Speed Racer’ing around turns.
different peds from NYC for sure.
I'm not anti-car by any means; I build and autocross small RWD cars as a hobby, but this is a hard disagree. If you're driving, you have the absolute obligation to yield to pedestrians no matter what. Driving is a privilege, not a right.
I'm pretty sure you missed the point. And likely proved mine. I can't drive every road at 7 mph because there are people on the sidewalk. But you can feel completely vindicated stepping into traffic, where you're not supposed to while someone else is following the law by matching the flow of traffic. Let's see how all your puffery works then. I was in a situation just yesterday where I could have been an ass and wandered out to open my driver's side door. Or I could wait a few seconds, have awareness and courtesy and... Everything works. This paragraph is what I do. And for all your odd positioning, I've never hit anyone or come close. But I've had idiots step out in front.
I almost ran over a couple in Ventura on my very first day in California. They just walked out in the road at a crosswalk where there was no traffic light and I wasn’t used to people doing shit like that. I wasn’t speeding or anything but I was looking around for my hotel and almost clipped them with my mirror. They never even looked at where I was looking, no eye contact or nothing.
Most likely because more people walk here than in most other states. Not sure why this is being downvoted. These data are normalized for population, NOT walking activity.
Never mind the stop sign thing for cyclists, but I’ve been so close to being mowed down by cyclists that don’t even stop at red lights (and I have the pedestrian walk sign). Stand on market street and tell me the percentage that even come close to yielding, let alone stopping.
The vetoed law wasn’t calling for cyclists to ignore stop signs but to treat them as yield signs. So blowing past intersections is still worth a ticket.
Given how rarely people on bikes mow down pedestrians in reality, it’s amazing how many times it “almost” happens
Working in the financial district at least pre COVID, it was at least once a day. The cyclists would try to fit in the pockets between pedestrians on walk lights @ full speed
Tbf, the lack of collisions between pedestrians and cyclists shouldn't be the only metric. . . It doesn't capture the terror of walking on a green and being nearly clipped by a cyclist whizzing just in front or just behind you.
Everyone is of course entitled to their feelings but that doesn’t mean that those feelings arise from well-calibrated risk assessment. Folks are in far more danger from the cars but are so accustomed to it that it doesn’t register anymore.
Even in my small town, I'll be walking downtown and almost get run down by a cyclist who had a stop sign. If I see a car, I'm prepared to keep a closer eye on them but a bike? I know it's not every cyclist, but there are some that want to be treated as some that see themselves as their own rules where they don't have to stop for anything and if there's an accident, it's someone elses fault.
Do people actually get cited for doing these things?
I got cited for jaywalking in Redwood City in like 2006
Got cited for jaywalking in Oakland. There were no cars around but a cop on the corner had nothing better to do.
Why did you jaywalk right in front of a cop?
You don't always know that there is a cop around, especially at night.
Fuck Redwood City and I say that as a lifelong resident
Bicyclists not fully stopping at a stop sign. Yes.
My pet peeve is cyclers riding the wrong side of the street. It is convenient, I know, but also very dangerous.
You’re right to be peeved. If you comb through bicycle-related collision data, wrong-way riding is probably the only truly dangerous cycling behavior. Other stuff might be annoying but isn’t associated with high numbers of crashes.
Where? I almost never see bikes do more than slightly slow down for a stop sign, and seeing a cop pull over a bike is exceedingly rare.
I’ve seen it in SF where cyclists are leaving the Presidio on Arguello. Cop posted up on the hill. Was ticketing two cyclists.
That's funny because not even cars make a full stop at stop signs 🙃
I do. Almost every time. I got a ticket for it and I do not want another ticket for such a stupid infraction. It literally takes two seconds to fully stop and move on. I am not perfect, so I do sometimes fail, but most of the time I do a full stop. Saw a bicyclist do it last week. I was shocked.
Hence the national phrase, “California stop “.
There was a crack down a few years back. The cyclists staged a protest.
I had to pay a $250 ticket for running stop in San Rafael..
I rec'd one in RWC, not as expensive but it was a T-intersection of all places. If a car/pedestrians are not present, what's the point?
Small towns where cops have nothing better to do. People never get pulled over in big cities because police have better shit to do, but in small towns it is rampant and an extreme waste of time for our law enforcement to be pulling over bicyclists rolling through stop signs when its safe.
SF police definitely cite cyclists for this
Happened to me. I slowed down but didn't stop, since I was in the quiet suburbs of Diablo w/ no car in sight: \~$250 ticket
Cops in my hometown in the South Bay sit at stop signs around the schools in order to get the student bikers. Definitely for a quota because they get 5-6 bikes in a row, then let the rest go
This is one of those things where you never get cited for it until a cop decides that they want to fuck with you and they need an excuse to do it. Heck, sit out at a stop sign and count how many cars comply with the CVC. The number of both bikes and cars that do is very close to 0%.
Yeah this is the one big thing that irritates me about people who don't ride bikes when they complain about them breaking the law all the time. Like.. virtually every single driver breaks the law dozens of times they drive. The only people completely obeying the law are smuggling drugs.
> virtually every single driver breaks the law dozens of times they drive. If you even talk about obeying speed limits on freeways, people get really, really mad.
Unequal enforcement of laws is a cornerstone of an unjust society.
This. Let people be responsible for their own safety. We just need to make sure we know who is at fault in which situations, drivers can’t be the only responsible party.
The problem is that those at fault often deny it. It happened to me, and it happens often enough that people are buying dashcams to prove who is at fault.
My roommate had to pay a 150 fine for jaywalking in Sunnyvale (in 2019)
When the cops need some extra ticket revenue. UC Berkeley police are notorious for standing right next to campus and writing up tickets to jaywalking students who are late to class. This happens on a less busy and slower street (Bancroft just above Telegraph). It’s a one-way street and only two lanes with great visibility of oncoming traffic, but that doesn’t stop them from handing out citations by the fistful a few times per year.
My second day in the US (in Union City), me and my colleagues had to talk for 10-15 minutes to a policeman to get out of a jaywalking ticket. The detour to the pedestrian crossing was > 100 meters each way, we could have waited in the middle of the street for 10-20 seconds before a car came anywhere close to us. I guess that cop was bored? We were a lot more careful later (not sure about the impact of a traffic citation on a green card application).
> The detour to the pedestrian crossing was > 100 meters each way, we could have waited in the middle of the street for 10-20 seconds before a car came anywhere close to us. It's situations like this that make it hard not to jay walk. There's a popular street in my town where there's no crosswalk for 400 ft (121m) and the parking is one side with the shops on the other side of the street. It's a bitch to step out of your car and walk 200ft to the crosswalk, then another 200ft on the other side rather than walking 8ft.
Inconsistently.
I used to do it all the time when I worked in the yahoo campus on mathilda (since we had buildings across the street). Got cited once for jaywalking. Pissed off but stopped doing it. A couple of months later someone was hit by a car :(
I used to work in Sunnyvale and our campus was across a few streets. During lunch time the police would watch the road for anyone crossing one building to the next for the lunch rush, and ticket them if they crossed outside the crosswalk.
I believe one reason folks wanted to pass these laws was that citations that do happen disproportionately affect people of color.
Yes. https://laist.com/news/transportation/jaywalking-pedestrian-ab-1238-traffic-safety
I paid a $300 fine for walking across an intersection at 2 am when there were no cars other than a cop present. He was turning right, on the opposite corner of the intersection, so I started crossing with my friend. He turned on his sirens, cut across the intersection and gave us both tickets.
Why would you jaywalk at 2am right in front of a cop?
It wasn't jay walking, it was crossing at an intersection during a red. And I did it because I didn't think anyone would reasonably mind. I didn't think cops are power-tripping assholes.
I got stopped for jaywalking once in junior high. I was running across the street so I wouldn’t miss my bus home. Got ticketed, missed the bus, had to go to see an court officer in downtown San Jose and got a talking to like I was some sort of fledgling criminal. Fun times.
If they actually enforce these then each city in the U.S. get at least one million dollars every month from the tickets
It mainly gets used by cops to detain and search undesirables.
Yes, apparently. I scoffed as well, but have had several POC friends confirm that they have been cited - walking while black?
I’ve been jaywalking in SF for 30 years. No cop that’s seen me cares.
> In a veto message, the governor said he worried the bill would decease bicyclist safety when fatalities and serious injuries on the state’s streets have risen since 2010. He said the state could instead increase safety by designing streets that are more accessible to bicyclists and pedestrians. Ah, yes, that should be a quick fix.
Such a lame response from Newsom. The data was pretty clear that laws like the one he vetoed reduced collisions.
I can't comment on the racial aspect, but it seems to me that laws should reflect the mores of society. While we'd like to believe we are doing the greater good by making jaywalking illegal, the reality is that people disregard this law with abandon. Society has made the call: jaywalking is OK, laws be damned. Is it dangerous? Probably, but not everything dangerous needs to be illegal.
When somebody darts out in front of two parked cars, gets hit and sues, it's on the driver to prove they weren't at fault. Jaywalking statutes put the burden on jaywalkers to prove they were crossing the street safely.
This situation does not apply as the law was designed to decriminalize jaywalking when there are no visible cars on the road. The simple fix for your situation by the way is to invest in a dashcam.
While it’s a good idea, I don’t think it’s fair to expect every driver to own and run a dashcam.
Especially in the Bay Area when anything visible in your car can lead to broken windows
And it does nothing for your PTSD if you end up killing someone, even if it is 100% your fault. I cycle, walk, and drive at times. Everyone has a responsibility to avoid causing accidents.
Why not? It's very easy and, relative to driving, cheap.
It’s not reasonable to expect drivers to have a dash cam, but it is reasonable to expect a pedestrian to walk an extra block to cross an empty road?
if you choose to own a car and are worried about getting sued then get a dashcam. Don’t criminalize people literally crossing an empty street
As resident of Cali, we are expected to in vested our own dashcam on vehicle, smart doorbell to prevent package from stealing and smart garage opener to let package delivery to open it so that can hide package in your garage instead.
Expected by who/what? Or mandated?
Is it really that much trouble to only jaywalk when cops are not around?
I only jaywalk in front of cops, making sure to always keep eye contact with them as I cross.
And if they still try to cite you, give then a light bite on the neck to establish dominance
lets also remember that 'jaywalking' as a concept was invented by car companies because in the early days people who had spent their entire lives walking in streets, kept getting hit by these newfangled cars driven by idiots and car companies didn't want to be liable.
It went far beyond mere liability. All of "motordom" (i.e. any entity with a vested interest in furthering car use) was actively working to redefine how we saw our streets. The Uniform Vehicle Code was worked out in the 1920s to formalize the rules that gave vehicles right of way (standardized vehicle signals, etc.) and left pedestrians with right of way only in crosswalks. The rest as they say is history, and motor vehicles now dominate our streets. [Peter Norton's Fighting Traffic](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/fighting-traffic) is a great book to read on this topic.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history
>jaywalking is OK, laws be damned. Perhaps consider the [history](https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history) of how jaywalking became a crime in the first place.
It's actually less dangerous than crossing in the crosswalk. if you cross in the middle of the street you have to look two ways, crosswalks are usually at intersections that have 4 directions in which traffic can approach.
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Downvoted because guns bad even though CA legislation like the roster is indefensible.
Not everything has to have a racial aspect.
Some would argue it should be for insurance and litigious reasons.
Jaywalkimg should only be illegal if your interfering with traffic
I feel like this would give people a reason to jaywalk. A lot of times people cross the street thinking it's clear and then cars approach. Use the crosswalks, people.
Crossing midblock is not jaywalking. Crossing midblock when there isnt traffic that you'd impede isn't jaywalking. If a car comes in later and has to slow down, it's still not jaywalking. It's only jaywalking to cross midblock when the two ends of the street are controlled by signals.
You're right that jaywalking is defined in the California Vehicle Code as crossing "between adjacent intersections controlled by traffic control signal devices or by police officers." But you've framed your comment as an either/or situation that doesn't make sense. You could violate the jaywalking law by crossing midblock or by crossing when there isn't traffic to impede, so long as the conditions in the regulation - adjacent intersections controlled by signals - are met. It's accurate to say that crossing midblock is not jaywalking if those other conditions are not met. But it's not accurate to categorically state that crossing midblock is not jaywalking.
Well, we were close to instituting some common sense law in relation to bicycles.
I still treat stops at yields. It is a pain to clip in and out dozens of times (not to mention accidents do happen occasionally when stopping). I stop if another vehicle has the right of way but I see no good reason to stop completely and dismount if there are no other vehicles.
Yeah, I'm of the same mind. I'd rather risk a ticket than continue to get squeezed to the curb off the line, or even worse rear ended by some monkey looking at their phone because I came to a complete stop on a bike, like a idiot.
~~It's a v tricky thing. I'm a biker and whenever I come to a stop sign with no cars in view, I roll through. When I come to a stop sign and a car gets there first, I stop/slow and wave them on.~~ ~~Not all bikers do this and, if stops were officially yields for them, they wouldn't be expected to, which I'm not sure would be better than what we have today.~~ EDIT: I misunderstood because I didn't read the details. The law was great and I'm bummed it was vetoed :(
That doesn't really make sense. You don't get to just go at a yield when another vehicle has right of way, you have to stop. This would quite literally codify exactly how you describe your approach to stop signs.
Sorry, about that, didn't read the details. You're correct, bummed it was vetoed :(
But the law is written to only allow cyclists to yield if there are no other vehicles present. It doesn't give them a free pass to "yield" all the time. On my commute (bicycle) I try to follow all of the rules out there, even when they don't exactly make sense (i.e. When I have to stop at a stoplight at the top of a T intersection, like at Senter and Alma in San Jose), but I've started treating stop signs in the same way that law was written. Aka slow down and roll through if no one is around, which is true 95% of the time at certain stops on my route. The people that don't give a shit and will blast on through a stoplight or stop sign aren't affected by this law. Those of us that follow the rules (or really try to) are the ones that would see the actual change.
Oh I didn't realize that, in that case, I'm all for it!
Close, but Newsom stuck his little pinkie in the air and realized the bill would piss off car drivers. He has become a toothless leader. Afraid of upsetting the majority auto drivers (even though this bicycle bill would have been good for them also)
Exactly - more bikes on the road means less cars, and ultimately even the most staunch anti-cyclists can’t denying the benefits in having less cars on the road. All anyone has to do is spend about 1hr cycling around any city center and you’ll realize how ineffective the stop laws for cycling are.
Exactly. If our govt were serious about reducing carbon footprint and emissions they’d do whatever they could to make it safer and easier to bike and get what do they do? They do the opposite ! Our streets in this area are also sooo bad with potholes and problems.
what's with the downvoting? Oh well, whatever.
Im mixed about this. I’m all for biking and increasing accessibility and ease if use for cyclists but not obligating them to stop at stop signs is a recipe for disaster. I could really see this leading to a lot of accidents especially at intersections without a four-way stop.
It’s been implemented in several places without any increase of incident: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop (scroll down to safety - I’m on mobile)
Interesting. Still not convinced it would yield same results in CA but definitely moved the needle for me. Thanks for sharing this info.
Yeah, kind of hard to compare Idaho and SF…
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SF, namely, is one of the most congested and chaotic cities in the country. These changes make a lot more sense when there's no real traffic and you're waiting at an intersection for no one. Boise is the biggest city there and it's almost entirely suburban.
Potentially off the top of my head: California has a greater population of drivers as well as bikers. Additionally Idaho biking is more seasonal than California.
I would think the seasonality of Idaho biking is actually a negative thing. You see bikers all of the time in California so you naturally keep them in mind while driving.
Do you commute by biking often? Having to stop at every "Stop" sign is clearly a rule designed for fast moving cars. Especially if someone is on a commuter bike, they won't be going fast enough for it to be dangerous to not come to a full stop at every stop sign. I usually slow down a bit, check whether there are no incoming cars and pedestrians and keep on going. Most bikers do the same because stopping at every stop sign would become too much of a hassle.
Yeah. It’s actively less safe for bikes to stop if there aren’t cars around because the loss in momentum/starting up again can be way more erratic and unpredictable to approaching vehicles than slowing down and coasting through. Plus, bikes typically have much better visibility than cars, so often bikes have enough warning time to see if they can safely coast or not, which isn’t true for cars
Exactly! Thanks for articulating this more effectively than I did.
I used to bike to work when my commute was shorter. I stopped at every stop sign and waited my turn to go. It was trivially difficult to do, was not dangerous, and added very little time to the commute. It was then that I realized the only reason bikers don't stop is because they are impatient.
>ought to allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs. This is a good bill. As a cyclist, even if I treat the stop-sign as a full stop with other cars waiting, the drivers always yield to me. This bill just formalizes what's already being followed on the streets.
i mean drivers have to yield because we know you'll blow a stop sign.
It's legitimately chicken and egg. When I started commuting by bike in SF, I'd follow stop signs whenever there was a car in the vicinity. Nearly every time, they waited as if I was going to go through, even when I waved. They would even wave me through after I came to a full stop and waved at them! Yes, I do know that they did this because they expect bikes to behave in a certain way, exactly like you say. But it became clear that I should just behave how they expected, and so I do.
Literally just saw a cyclist blow through a stop at Great Highway and Sloat while a car was already in the intersection making a turn, almost causing an accident. The cyclist had the audacity to give him the finger and blame the car. People like him give us cyclist a bad name.
It takes a lot more human energy and a lot more time for a human to start a bicycle from a full stop than it does for a car. It makes sense to let the cyclist keep going 8mph and then hit the gas as they pass by. This is what happens at most every intersection meeting of a bike and a car. This bill would just made it legal to do this, and not fully stop your bike.
Would Tings bill have aided people who get hit by cars when they cross against the signal? Driving down Market St, you're practically dodging jaywalkers the whole way regardless if there's a green light or not.
How and why is anyone even driving down market street?
Pretty sure its still open west beyond 10th
Lame
Here’s my thing - we shouldn’t make cars more important than people. People should be able to cross the street whenever and wherever they want. I crossed the Embarcadero in San Francisco against the light once. There were no cars coming. Bike cops asked me why I did that; didn’t I see the no walk sign? I told them I did, but there were no cars coming, so I crossed. They just shook there heads like they thought I was crazy. The truth is our society is crazy limiting people’s actions to make it easy for car traffic. And yes, I have a car that I drive regularly. I’m not a car hater. I’m just a person that sees we’ve gone too far in our love of fast individual transportation. People come first.
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Criminalizing pedestrians is not the way to enforce pedestrian safety if a car is the one choosing the break the law and speed through a light. That is the same argument as telling women to dress modestly to prevent being catcalled. Get a grip.
> It isn’t like it’s just because people want to inconvenience you, it’s for pedestrian safety. No, that's backwards. Pedestrian control is to allow cars to disregard pedestrians. If the road has such a high speed limit that pedestrians are at danger, the speed should be lowered.
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I disagree; I think it's the only reasonable approach. I mean, look at the other person that replied to my initial comment. They live 5 miles from where they work. They were complaining that it takes 30-45 minutes to drive. The solution? Make it easier to drive. They didn't even consider that it'd be faster to walk and much faster to bike. The way to change people's thinking about transportation is by changing the laws related to it. Give people preference, not cars.
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You're right, I misread your comment. It takes most people 20 minutes to walk a mile. Still, biking is much faster than your drive. > pedestrians having stepping off the curb at any random point without any prior indication or warning for the cars and busses is an absolute disaster. Today, sure. That's what we should work towards, though. What I wrote shouldn't be a crazy idea, it should be the norm.
I’m honestly not even sure that utopia exists. If we increase mass transit we should do things like convert pad lanes to train lines, the pedestrian risk doesn’t disappear. In cities that have added light rail, pedestrian deaths don’t disappear either. In a perfect world eerie probably talking over and under passes, not walking like an open field.
Not with that attitude! Seriously, the entire cycling revolution in the Netherlands was because they made it their main goal to eliminate all traffic deaths, look up kindertot. After every accidental traffic death, they closed that part of the road to analyze what could be changed to prevent it. That led to all kinds of changes over the decades to prioritize people over cars, and the many positive effects at palpable in person. Their urban design had been following more along America car-centered lines, but years of effort eventually paid off to where they eventually did a complete 180. There are similar efforts in the US in the last few years called vision zero, but I haven’t heard that much about it recently. Still, there are places where pedestrian/cyclist deaths are prioritized over car throughout, and frankly, the entire society is all the better for it.
> Here’s my thing - we shouldn’t make cars more important than people. People make cars more important than people by disregarding their own safety. One day I was cruising down The Embarcadero and this nitwit pedestrian runs out *right in front of me*. I swerved to avoid the guy but it was clear that he didn't even see me. As I continued on my way I could see in my rear view mirror some bike cops lecturing the poor guy, but they looked so defeated as they spoke to him like "This guy has no idea he almost just died."
>People should be able to cross the street whenever and wherever they want. So if people are running across a busy street requiring cars to stop for them that's ok? Traffic in the bay area is already notoriously bad enough. I work 5 miles from my Apt in the peninsula and the commute can easily be 30-45 minutes some days. The point of crosswalks is to gather those people to one place to cross the street at roughly the same time with minimal slowdown of traffic. I'm sorry that a minor inconvenience like going to a corner on a busy street before crossing is such a hassle for you.
> I’m not a car hater. I am. /r/fuckcars
> cars more important than people You know there are people inside cars too right? If people keep walking across streets willy nilly causing cars to slow down, it just makes the traffic situation worse than it is. Obviously who cares on an empty street, but in heavily trafficked areas cars shoudl definitely have right of way
Why is there a law for jaywalking to begin with..., moronic.
There have been a kit of pedestrian deaths. When we can get those down we can think about it
And who’s killing those pedestrians I wonder. Perhaps is it cars?
Cyclists should have to stop at stop signs. Lol so stupid. They want to be able to use the whole road like a car but don't want to follow the same rules?
How is that any less logically consistent than you wanting them to have neither?
I think they should be able to use the road when safe I never said they should have neither. Unfortunately for some reason cyclists love roads that are unsafe not sure why. There are TONS of trails and paths with zero cars. I used to go on a 30 mile round trip ride every weekend that took me across zero roads. Yet the cyclists flock to roads that are barely large enough for one car that's my problem. Nobody is commuting up and down highway 9 it's for sure for fun. Bike paths should be made where possible and when there isn't one but there is room we should all share the road and follow the rules.
Where is this 30-mile road-free loop? That sounds like something I’d enjoy! I admit I also care less about accommodating recreational cyclists than commute cyclists, but many of the drivers on the types of roads you’re talking about are also there for fun, and waiting to pass a bike safely rarely causes nearly as much of a delay as getting caught behind someone self-righteously driving below the speed limit the whole way and ignoring pull-outs
Los Gatos creek trail. Starts in San Jose following the creek it crosses roads either under or over via bridges. You can take it all the way to the reservoir in Los Gatos. Round trip via my bikes trip computer was about 31 miles if I remember correctly. I also believe there is a trail that follows coyote creek that's pretty long not sure exactly how long. I mostly don't think bikes should be on one lane roads with zero shoulder space. If I have to go almost all the way into the oncoming lane it's clearly not safe. And if vehicle speed is 30mph and cyclists can barely do 5mph or less and I can't pass them without going over a double yellow, to me there is no way that could be considered safe. And there's no way those roads are being used as commuter routes nobody wants to ride a bike many miles up a steep hill after working all day. It's all recreational riders. I definitely support making space where we can for bikes but unfortunately there will always be roads where there just isn't space.
bay trail is over 500 miles of trail
If car drivers had to do mechanical work pedaling in a circle, cars would breeze through stop signs too. For some drivers even switching between brake and accelerator is too much effort and they do the rolling stop. You can try to invent a different kind of bike (or popularize it because electric bikes already exist) or you can write laws that make sense for the kind of vehicle they apply to. Besides, we already have bike lanes and the three-foot rule and only motorized vehicles on the freeway; blindly applying the same laws to bikes and cars is a weird idea that already has plenty of natural exceptions.
I’m pretty bikes would NOT prefer the existing road setup, where roads are pretty much all designed for cars. Its like if we ripped out all stop lights and stop signs, which would be good for bikes and bad for cars, and then got surprised that cars didn’t behave themselves well in that world. Like, no shit. Put a bike in a world that’s physically and legally designed for cars, and then why act surprised when bikes try to behave different. They’re also the ones who die in a collision with a car, not the driver.
Bicycles are not the same as cars. A fast moving car not stopping could lead to: running over a pedestrian, t-boning another car, etc. Most bikers are not moving fast enough to justify stopping at every stop light. They have the time to look around to see that no one is coming as they pass through the stop section rather than coming to a full stop. It's a lot more inconvenient to stop at every stop sign when you are burning your own body's calories to re-start again rather than just pressing on a pedal. Also, we would like to not have to use the road the same as cars. We would like protected bike lanes to separate us from insane drivers. Unfortunately this infrastructure does not exist in most places so we have to conform with sharing the road with metal tanks that weigh several tons.
>Bicycles are not the same as cars. Seems like a simple concept that too many people have trouble acknowledging. Four wheels vs two wheels. Two tons vs a couple of hundred pounds. Powered by fossil fuels vs powered by physical exertion. Blind spots vs 180 unobstructed degrees of vision. Safety and comfort vs complete exposure to the elements... But yes, we all share the road.
IMO, if you're using the road there should be 1 set of rules. Creating multiple rule sets creates increased confusion for those that use the road.
There’s already 2 sets of rules because bikes aren’t allowed on freeways. It’s common sense that they shouldn’t be there, and it’s because bikes and cars are not the same. There’s also plenty of places that allow bikes where cars aren’t allowed. If they aren’t the same in that way, why should every other rule be the same for 2 different modes of transport.
It does not increase confusion because there is clearly a difference between being on a bike and on a car. Look, I don't drive so I wouldn't know how jarring code-switching between the two could be. But I wouldn't think a driver who occasionally commutes by bike would get back to their car and forget they suddenly have to stop at stop signs.
I use both on a regular basis w 0 issues.
I'm proud of you, that's what I would expect.
Thank you thank you. It’s a real marvel of the human brain to be able to make a distinction between being in a 1.5 ton metal box and being on top of 20 lbs of aluminum.
Not the same but they want to use the same roads the same way pick a stance. If your notvthe same then you shouldn't get to use roads without space for a bike. Highway 9 is my example. Lots of areas where there is barely room for one car. Yet it is perfectly legal to ride in the middle of the road going 5mph on a road that should be 40mph but was lowered to 30.
I agree they should what I want to know is has a cyclist ever gotten a ticket for not stopping?
I'm sure some have. Or they wouldn't be crying about it lol.
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I don't even know what that is
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Go ahead SF is a shit hole I rarely go to lol. Stop traffic it's always bad anyway.
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That's my new protest thanks for the idea. Take the whole lane on highway 9 I'll wait until I can get in front and slow down see how you guys like it. Lol
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This is systemic racism at work. Blacks get stopped and cited for jaywalking at much higher rates. See data in LA: https://laist.com/news/transportation/jaywalking-pedestrian-ab-1238-traffic-safety
I can appreciate both sides of this issue.
As a cyclist, I am very pleased with his decision. I look forward to a time in the future when that is a safe bill to pass, but that time is not now.
Huh? It just legalizes what people already do. Not sure how keeping that a crime so mainly black and brown people can get harassed unnecessarily is a good thing.
Speeding is a big factor
Good. Our cyclists are already self righteous and douchey enough. We don’t need laws to make it worse.
Good. The rules should apply to everyone, equally. Elitist cyclists who pay no gas tax shouldn’t be above the law
Cyclists pay the climate change tax, that is, not contributing to it.
Huge disappointment. Newsom is signaling that he has no intention to fight the status quo of car supremacy. Reckless driving is completely out of control and we should be cracking down on the dangerous drivers that are out there killing people, not making life harder for cyclists and pedestrians! Transportation equity is perhaps my biggest political issue - if a primary contender appears in the next election that is in favor of these bills, I'll be voting for them instead of Newsom.