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news
Basel red light study (picture credit VDB)Should cyclists be allowed to ride through red lights? Campaigners split on safety benefits
Leading cycling campaigners in Scotland have been discussing the potential road safety implications of allowing cyclists to ride through red lights.
Speaking to Scotland on Sunday figures from campaign groups such as Bike for Good, Cycling Scotland and Spokes shared differing opinions on the matter, with disagreements over whether such changes were necessary and what safety improvements they would have.
As per the Highway Code, informed by the Road Traffic Act 1988 section 36, cyclists 'must obey all traffic signs and traffic light signals' and 'must not cross the stop line when the traffic lights are red'.
This differs from road laws in other parts of the world, notably in some parts of the United States and France where cyclists are permitted to proceed at red lights in certain circumstances, something Gregory Kinsman-Chauvet of Bike for Good believes should be implemented closer to home.
"After reading various studies proving that removing the obligation for cyclists to stop at red lights increased safety, I decided to test it myself," he told the Scotsman's Sunday sister paper, arguing a change of road rules could allow those on bicycles to travel through red lights at specially marked junctions after giving way to pedestrians.
"In Paris and Lyon last summer I had the opportunity to experience this and quickly felt much safer on the road. At junctions motorists knew they had to prioritise cyclists and were more cautious — it's time to change mindsets."
However, not everyone agrees, Cycling Scotland's cycling safety manager Simon Bradshaw suggested Scotland's road laws are too different to France's to be compared and questioned if such action should even be a priority.
"There are many actions needed to improve safety for people cycling and we don't believe that permitting people to cycle through red lights is one of them," he said.
"Red lights — and green figures — ensure people can cross roads more safely and confidently. Scotland also has very different rules of the road to France, making it complex to replicate. The recent updates to the Highway Code, if followed, make our roads safer for everyone."
Likewise, Ian Maxwell of the Lothian cycling campaign group Spokes, told the Sunday newspaper he does not believe the matter is "necessary".
"I would like to see all motorists respecting advance stop lines before we try this approach," he explained.
"There is also the question of why this particular priority is necessary. Cycling is already a fast and reliable way of getting through city centres, even if you have to wait at a few red lights."
Just last year Colorado approved a bill to let cyclists ride through red lights with the aim of cutting collision numbers by reducing interactions at junctions between drivers and people on bikes.
The rule change does still require riders to briefly stop at red lights to give way to any vehicles or pedestrians before continuing on their way.
Elsewhere, in Paris, since 2015 cyclists are permitted to travel straight or make right turns through reds when at specially signed junctions, a law change that followed a successful pilot scheme.
> Cyclists in Paris allowed to ignore red traffic lights
"They [red lights] were installed so that car drivers would let pedestrians cross the road, to regulate the flow of traffic and to moderate the speed," Christine Lambert of the campaign group Mieux Se Déplacer à Bicyclette (MDB) said at the time.
"But bicycles don't go fast and don't make any noise. It's idiotic to stop for nothing. You waste energy and it slows you down. The best safety assets for cyclists are your eyes and your brain."
Coverage of cyclists and red lights here in the UK is often a divisive topic, with headlines such as 'Red light Rats!' appearing in the Mail on Sunday after the paper accused 26 "rogue cyclists" of jumping lights outside Buckingham Palace.
The story of last August led to accusations of the article being "manufactured" and "dehumanising" after it was discovered the road was closed to motor traffic and police officers had urged bicycle riders to continue through the lights.
Earlier this month a Deliveroo food delivery cyclist based in Edinburgh spoke out about the pressures of the job and said the struggle to make ends meet leads many couriers to break traffic laws, such as jumping red lights.
"I do not have any issue with laws, and as a recreational club cyclist, I feel some obligation to not give cyclists a bad name and fuel anti-cyclist attitudes held by many motorists. Riding for Deliveroo, I have the opposite mindset," he said.
"If every road law was to be followed, it could easily add five minutes to a delivery, which would cut my income by 20 per cent.
"My normal 'Roo' daytime income averages £10-12 per hour. To reduce that by 20 per cent is therefore not realistic. Most Roo cyclists will, like me, not follow all road laws."
What do you think? Should cyclists be allowed to ride through red lights in certain circumstances? Would a change in the rules improve road safety for everyone? Is a change even necessary?
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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126 comments
Woud that involve going through an established red light?
On the only occasion I have been knocked off my bike by a car, I was waiting at a red light and the driver anticipated the green and went right into the back of me (when the light was still yellow). Back wheel wrecked and a few cuts and bruises were, fortunately, the only damage.
As a result of that collision, I make no apologies for occasionally skipping through a red where I judge there is a danger of that happening (Audi TT drivers revving up behind me being a good example) and if the police stop me and give me ticket I consider that a price worth paying for not ending up under someone's front bumper.
I have also noticed an increasing tendencey for drivers to go when the cyclist specific light goes green at the junction near my house, rather than waiting for theirs. I assume their attitude is "if it clear for cyclists to set off, then it is obviously clear for me to as well".
Anything we can do to ease that interaction is fine in my books.
Waiting for the light to actually turn green before moving away is always a pretty risky proposition...
I have had to dive out of the way when stopping as amber turns to red to avoid being rear ended by ambler gamblers.
This would be a positive change and I'm all for it. It seems to work well in France: https://youtu.be/yIcj9rIWgA8
I think it would improve safety overall. If drivers are expecting cyclists to be crossing the junction when their light is green, then I think they will approach with more care and a lower speed.
Ideally, I would prefer a combined phase where pedestrians and cyclists can negotiate the junction without any moving motorised traffic. But that's a costly change and will take a long time to implement. Letting cyclists treat a red light as a give-way at some junctions is a sensible solution to quickly improve the safety and convenience of cycling.
If it is selected clearly marked junctions only then I see no problem with this - not sure it will increase conflict as the motorists who are anti-cyclist already think we all sail through red lights on a regular basis!
And the minority of bad cyclists will continue to sail through red lights in front of cross traffic even if marked up as a "no-cycling-on-red"
I bolded the above - as unlike New world or re-built europe we have many narrow roads - I only see this working for left turn or straight at light controlled T-junctions where the road is wide enough for cyclists to turn/proceed with little to no impact on any flowing traffic, obviously same could be achieved with dedicated turn/straight cycle lanes - but the latter would be more costly to implement than a few small rectangular signs added to the existing traffic light.
Im mostly agnostic to it - tending to slightly against. I think the benefits are marginal and I'd rather see the funding used for more ASL's to reduce cyclist/motorist interactions rather than increasing the chance of Pedestrian-Cyclst interactions.
I dont think its solving the anything near the most pressing problem for cyclists.
I don't see why it would need special funding - I'd be all for a rule change to decriminalise cyclists crossing through a red light without any need for changed signs or road markings. The idea would be for cyclists to make their own choice as to whether it's safer to wait for the green or to proceed when they consider it safe (and obviously no pedestrians trying to cross).
I'd agree about it not being the most pressing problem as the lack of road policing makes it easy to just go through reds when appropriate and of course the lack of road policing is probably cyclists' most pressing problem due to some drivers having the skillset of a squirrel playing chess.
It just needs the rule to be 'treat a red light as a Stop sign'.
I was specifically commenting on the article - not some other theoretical proposal.
I'd be dead against this change with no indication to pedestrians that they are somehow approaching a junction that has different expecatations on them.
Even if we went with your model there'd need to be a massive PR campaign which would cost money.
Saying this could be done for free is both naive and dangerous imo.
I'd assume that any update in rules would be along the lines of cyclists treating the red-light as an uncontrolled junction - i.e give way to cars on the road you'd be crossing and crossing pedestrians (if the light was directing pedestrians too). So in theory, there wouldn't be any different expectations on the pedestrians as the cyclists should be givig way to them too.
I don't see why there would need to be different expectations from pedestrians as they would have priority and can cross as usual. I suppose the benefit of specially marked junctions would be to roll out the change incrementally, but I think the better option is to just change the law. A PR campaign would hardly be needed as plenty of "news" papers/sites would pick up on it with their usual anti-cyclist bias.
I believe (haven't looked it up) that the U.S. states that introduced the red-light-as-stop-sign laws didn't require changing junctions or a massive PR campaign. I think Paris may have changed some signs, but I think that was after making the law change.
So far the evidence is that it isn't dangerous.
So when, inevitably, a cyclist legally going through a red light is hit and killed by a driver legally proceeding through a green light, who is going to be to blame? I simply don't see the need for this to be introduced, surely it is simply common sense that the safest way to get opposing streams of traffic – all traffic – through a junction is for lights to hold traffic going N-S whilst the traffic from E-W goes through and vice versa. That, coupled with advanced stop zones and early release lights for cyclists, is surely the optimal way of avoiding conflict. Telling cyclists that they can ride through red lights at their own discretion is to my mind simply adding an extra layer of danger and confusion with no safety advantage, merely an insignificant time saving.
If you make it so a red light for a cyclist is in effect the same as a give way sign, then you have the precedent there.
I'm not sure where I stand on this issue, but that specific question seems pretty easy to answer.
The cyclist. Because, if we're assuming that this is going to work like cyclists treating red lights like a normal "give-way" junction, they'd still have to actually give-way. So in your scenario, the cyclist has pulled out in front of a car without looking/giving way.
They'd be "legally" going through a red light in terms of there not being a specific crime for it, but they'd still be in the wrong in the same way a car would be if they pulled out from a side-street infront of another car.
In your cyclist/driver/red light scenario, the blame would by default be with the cyclist for not checking that it was safe to proceed (providing that the driver didn't suddenly accelerate or swerve to hit the cyclist).
You may believe that to be the safest way, but the evidence shows that allowing cyclists to treat red lights as STOP signs results in greater safety for cyclists. It may well be counterintuitive to you, but reality doesn't have to abide by anyone's rules.
Here's a study into the Idaho law and its effects on cyclist safety: https://denver.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2018/02/idaho-law-jasonmeggs-2010version-2.pdf
I disagree. Pretty sure a green light means "proceed with caution"...not "pedal to the metal" (been a little while since my last driving test). So irrespective, the driver at the wheel of a 2T death machine not looking at what's in front of them is at fault.
Yeah - I was envisioning a typical incident as being a driver continuing at a steady speed and a cyclist coming from the side and causing them to hit the brakes or change course to avoid a collision (or not as the case may be). The traffic going through an established green should have priority and cyclists/scooters going through the red should be only going when there's a suitable space.
Good point...the "he/she came out of nowhere" defence.
I see plenty of RLJ'ing by cyclists here in NL, but it's really part of the culture and most drivers seem to be expecting it and are ready to give them a good blast of the horn. However, we also have the ability to turn right at a junction on a red light on the bike (most of the time) which really makes sense (as long as we also give way to peds that may be crossing on a green). The weird thing, and it's really in the detail, is that to do that we often have to pass waiting cyclists on their left and hope they don't get a green light at the worst possible time. I have seen a few bike lanes with a right turn filter lane, but they seem to be fairly rare.
This would definitely be a good thing to introduce for cyclists as we've had to put up with motor-centric designs of roads, junctions and traffic lights for too long. Anyone who cycles recognises that there's some junctions where it's safe to turn left for bikes when there's not enough room for cars to make the same turn.
I don't think it's worth considering the attitudes of anti-cyclist motorists as they seldom have an understanding of the highway code as it is. If people are concerned that it introduces asymmetry into road traffic, then they should appreciate that there's already a huge difference in vulnerability between drivers and cyclists. It seems reasonable to provide those most vulnerable with the opportunity to avoid some of the danger posed by motorised vehicles, and not having to start moving at the same time as drivers when the lights turn green is one instance where it's safer to go through on red.
There's a pelican crossing near me that you can wait for ages after you press the button. Quite often I press the button, cross when a gap in traffic appears and then be 20 yards further on before I hear the beeps. The crossing has good sight lines, but I suspect that regarless iit was still deemed too dangerous to be a zebra crossing largely because of poor driving and lack of confidence in drivers ability to see pedestrians. If I'm cycling along there in good light, I can see the pedestrian has crossed, I can see that there are no other pedestians are in the vacinity why would I want to stop and wait at a red light that was put in because there are lots of drivers that can't be trusted to observe a zebra crossing?
Going off on a tangent a bit, but the long wait when you press the button at a pelican crossing isn't because it is a pelican crossing, it is because it has a long wait. The solution is simple, do away with the wait.
It is nonsensical that pedestrians wishing to cross at a pelican or puffin crossing (or cyclists at a toucan crossing) should have to wait some arbitrary period of time. Sure, there are some junctions where it might be necessary to tie the timings in with other signals - however, for the most part, it keeps those wishing to cross waiting for no reason. It delays the the time when road users will need to stop, but it will still hold up some road users, for the same amount of time, it just delays the inevitable and changes which particularly road users are delayed. The only purpose I can see, is to allow parents to catchup with their children who are running or scooting ahead of them next to a busy road (and that has its own problems).
I've come to the conclusion that the primary purpose of the wait is to penalise those who wish to use the crossings (and perhaps to disincentivise use of the crossings).
The delay is to allow the pressee to look up from their phone, realise it's clear and cross anyway, all before the lights turn to red.....
I'm against on this one, I'm afraid. There's already enough conflict and resentment from drivers and pedestrians about supposedly "entitled" cyclists, rightly or wrongly this would inevitably make it worse and increase levels of aggression against cyclists. Additionally, I just don't think it's that necessary; in a 20 km commute across London I encounter approximately forty sets of traffic lights and I always stop when they are on red, yet my Strava shows that my total travel time is only ever five minutes greater than my moving time (generally around 55 minutes total, 50 minutes moving). I would far rather see a campaign to install cameras ensuring that every driver deliberately blocking an ASZ gets fined and pointed and also a campaign to have cyclist early release lights installed at every junction. We are lucky enough to have quite a few of these around our neighbourhood and they make a far bigger contribution to cyclist safety at junctions than being allowed to run red lights will ever do.
I don't think it's valid to consider the opinions of uninformed people complaining about entitled cyclists when they typically have next to no knowledge of the highway code or the dangers present on the roads. If you try to appease them, we'll just end up with tabards, number plates, taxation and licences whilst the police would just use them as an excuse to target minority groups. What we need to do is evaluate traffic in terms of road danger and not whatever crap the Daily Fail prints to rile up the aged.
I do agree with you, but unfortunately, the fact is that "the crap the Daily Fail prints to rile up the aged" has a real impact on how cyclists are treated on the roads. Remember the HC updates when 90% of the info on it to reach the public was through the lense of anti-cyclist bile spewed by the gutter-press? I noticed a pretty significant uptick in abuse I got on the roads while that was in the news cycle.
I'm dreading the above story being picked up by the usual MSM suspects...
I totally agree that it shouldn't be necessary, but unfortunately in the real world I fear it is. There's a difference between resisting the imposition of stupid unnecessary regulations such as the ones you mention and giving cyclists exemption from the laws they currently have to follow. In an ideal world a new law could be introduced, carefully explained and people would accept it; in the imperfect world in which we live, it would, I fear, simply raise aggression levels toward cyclists. Simply from a pragmatic point of view I don't believe the resentment and extra aggression towards cyclists such a measure would create is worth the marginal benefits it would prvide.
Sorry, but I just don't think that unlawful aggression should be used as a reason for not making improvements. Throughout history there's many examples of minorities being subject to aggression (some of it illegal, but all of it immoral), but not wishing to change the status quo because of it is flawed logic - the laws often need to be changed to reduce that aggression. Imagine if the gay-bashing of the 70s/80s etc had the effect of not introducing anti-discrimination laws - how would that have helped matters?
We're not talking about antidiscrimination laws though, are we, we're talking about giving cyclists an exemption from traffic law that all other road users must follow. If anything we would be introducing a new layer of discrimination in our favour and that inevitably causes resentment.
My point is that some motorists discriminate against cyclists and that leads to unlawful behaviour on the roads that injures and kills cyclists. Now, this discussion isn't about making their discrimination illegal (although I'd consider a case could be made for that), but about different modes of transport and increasing safety for the more vulnerable. I fail to see why people cling to "one rule for everyone" when there's already different rules for buses, taxis, cyclists, pedestrians etc.
With segregated cycle infrastructure, there's a clear discrimination against motor vehicles with a stated purpose of increasing safety for vulnerable traffic and by copying Paris and other places, we'd be attempting the same thing by modifying the red light rules. Your argument could equally apply to scrapping all LTNs and cycle infrastructure and I think it's unhelpful to think in terms of appealing to the biggest contributors to road danger when we need to be increasing modal share of cycling/scootering etc.
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