Re: Red lights jumping - interesting survey

Phil Armstrong

Conor <conor_turton@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In article <1igxg5k.d6vaq012fxypaN%%steve%@malloc.co.uk>, Steve Firth
> says...
>> You have denied in the past that cyclists are more prolific red-light
>> jumpers than car drivers. This research proves you wrong:
>>
>> "At Piccadilly Circus 101 roadusers jumped red lights in three hours,
>> including 43 cyclists, 27 car drivers,"
>>
> The figures look even worse if you are to take them as a percentage of
> road user by type of vehicle. I'd say it would make cyclists at least a
> hundred times worse.

The two figures are not necessarily directly comparable. Cyclists can
filter to the front of the queue at traffic lights & jump them even if
other road users in front of them choose not to. Car drivers on the
other hand generally can't[1] jump the lights if the driver in front
of them decides to stop.

If all you care about is the raw number of light jumping events, then
you can use the numbers quoted above. If you want to argue that car
drivers are more law abiding than cyclists, then you need to know how
many car drivers and cyclists had the opportunity to jump the lights
in order to make a fair comparison. For drivers this number will
obviously be much lower for a busy junction like Picadilly Circus than
the total number of cars making use of it.

(The other obvious problem is that measurements made at one place and
at one time of day are unlikely to accurately reflect the reality
across the whole country. Picadilly Circus is not exactly a
representative junction either.)

Phil

[1] I have actually seen someone three cars back from the front of
a queue pull out and jump a set of red lights once. I think the
risks of meeting other traffic head on dissuades most people from
trying this on a regular basis!

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