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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
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Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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I live in a country that doesn't allow Idaho Stops. In fact, those in charge aren't even interested in it.
But I use them because I know it's safer. I also treat red lights at empty intersections like a stop sign, because being forced to wait 10+ minutes for a car to stop so it can change to green is discrimination by design.
I'll also point out that 99% of DRIVERS are using Idaho Stops, so don't expect cyclists to oBeY tHe LaW.
Laws of course differ, but I was under the impression that a light can be treated as a stop sign if it is not functioning properly (not changing in a reasonable amount of time). It's apparently referred to as "dead red". A cyclist isn't going to trigger a sensor-driven light, and a sensor sensitive enough would be going off all the time, so it makes sense when all is clear to proceed.
99% of drivers aren't doing Idaho stops. That implies slowing, looking for traffic, and yielding if there is any. I see a lot of just going through the stop sign or even red light for a turn, half-ass looking as the turn is made, usually with a visible phone in their hand. Lots of close calls. Self-driving cars get a lot of criticism (and they should, to get better) but damn, the humans out there really suck too for different reasons.
If it's not working, then yes, everyone is expected to treat it like a stop sign. But I'm talking about lights where they will make you wait BY DESIGN, because they only respond to cars and trucks.
Our region has started to put up sensors specifically for cyclists, and they reduce the wait time by a lot. They aren't meant to change the lights 100x a minute, but are meant to make intersections a bit more balanced.
But these are at 0.01% of the intersections in the region, so it means very little to me. It's an expensive project for something that the very free Idaho Stop can solve.
LOL. Fair play. I see more stop sign and red light runners in motor vehicles than I do cyclists behaving badly.
I once saw a car make a right turn at a red without even slowing down, nearly hitting a crossing pedestrian (an old man). The driver THEN slowed down, but only to yell at the pedestrian... There's something about being in a metal cage just turns people into lunatics.
I'm North Carolina and a few other states, you must wait for 3 cycles of the light before moving through the red. I got stuck on Monday at a 5 minute red light. So I was there for 15 minutes.
I can sort of understand the 3 logic, but some lights are going to be a problem, like that one. Then there's the lights that get stuck and there's no cycle, what then?
Story time. I was heading for work one early morning when there is virtually zero traffic. Waited as usual at a light to get on the highway, and across from me was a dark patrol car. So hell no, I'm not going to try and go through it. So I wait. And wait. It wasn't terribly long, but it was pretty obvious the light that usually would trigger quickly wasn't going to change. Kudos to the officer - he recognized that I was stuck in a bad place and wasn't going to make a move, so he flashed his blue lights just for a sec as a signal that he got it, and I was good to go. I looked for traffic, and went my way.