Comments

1
HOOLIGANS!!
2
Tickets suck, but there really does need to be more enforcement to discourage the bazillions of cyclists I see blowing stop signs and red lights every day. (This has included me several times, I am a bad person).
3
Hee hee

(That's over 50 in 2 hours by the way.)
5
Ha! This will teach those cyclists not to run down and kill motorists while yapping on their cellphones while... ah crap, nevermind.
6
Camping the great hipster silk route @ Wheeler and Broadway is kinda cheating, but hey, it makes for a good show. Also, I wonder if they bothered watching the City Center exit just east of there, I've never once seen a vehicle stop at that stop sign.
7
From the O:

"Police confirmed that one of those cited Thursday was Catherine Ciarlo, the City of Portland transportation policy director. Ciarlo was cited for running a stop sign during a similar traffic mission in Southeast Portland at Ladd Circle."

You can't make this shit up. The gross entitlement in this city has to be reigned in. It just has to.
8
Yeah, like everyone other cyclist with a brain aware of this story, I have been veeeery careful at this intersection for the last week, just waiting for the inevitable sting operation.

ME SMUG.
9
Fucking pigs have got nothing better to do, it seems. If they're not shooting people or pulling over Black drivers, it's shite such as this!
10
I wonder, why does this matter so much now that PBOT has now closed Wheeler, where these right-hook accidents were happening? Are they just appeasing the few business owners that protested the closing, to tamp down the poo-nami of whining about how cyclists are "getting their way" by having the street closed?

Believe me, I'm all for cyclists stopping, and I commute every day by bike (I take Vancouver through the RQ). But if this enforcement action was truly done to mitigate accidents caused by bikes running the stop sign at Flint and getting hit by cars turning onto Wheeler, I call bullshit.
11
This is dumb. In most other countries, and some US states (like Idaho), cyclists are expected to treat a stop sign as if it were a yield sign. A bike can stop way faster than a car, so that makes sense. Anyone who has ever ridden a bike knows how ridiculous it feels to actually come to a full stop at a stop sign when there clearly isn't anyone coming. Cars, meanwhile, which approach intersections at higher speeds and have more blindspots and really should stop at stop signs, routinely blow through them all over the city, even on residential side streets. That's what needs to be enforced. This is just theater.
12
Idaho is the only state that allows cyclists to not stop at stop signs (I think). I'm sure Idaho also has plenty of other laws you wouldn't want on the books in Oregon. And what works on roads in Europe doesn't necessarily work on roads in the states.

I ride a bike and coming to a full stop never feels ridiculous. What feels ridiculous is stopping at a stop sign and having 3 people behind you blow through it.

This city does so fucking much to promote bike use. Far more than any other city in the country. Is it too much to ask that in return, people at least make a cursory effort to follow the rules of the road? I know there's a contingent who feel like they're doing the world a great service by riding a bike and thus, shouldn't have to follow the rules that apply to cagers. But someone's, there's no reward for doing the right thing.
13
Hey Chuck. You don't ride down NE 7th by any chance, do you? And yell at the bikers who don't stop? If that is you, the next time you yell at me prepare to rammed. And probably u-locked. If I wanted some smug fucker yelling at me about obsolete laws and my duty to society I would join the Republican party. Fuck you.
14
Nah, that's not me. I am the guy on Williams tho who yells at people for not stopping for pedestrians, and 70 percent of those are bikers. Come find me sometime.
15
@Chuck, I don't like the flagrantly rulebreaking cyclists either, but I also rarely come to a full legal stop when there is no one around - I "Idaho stop," in other words. I do stop for stop lights, of course. Beyond being against the law, running lights is just the worst cyclist PR there is (beyond threatening to U-lock people).

If I was Bike Pope, the rule would be cyclists stop for all lights, stop for signs on major routes and yield at stops on side streets.
16
I'm never in a hurry when I ride, so maybe i don't mind stopping as much as others. Idaho stops, fine whatever. But there's a shit ton of people straight blowing through signs, and to claim that isn't a safety hazard for everyone on the road is fucking bullshit.

The enforcement at Flint, that's sour grapes from the local businesses. But what about in Ladd? All those living in the area have it out for cyclists just because? It obviously has something to do with safety for those people, yet people still trying to act like its some fucking travesty that people have to take the extra 4 seconds to come to a stop.
17
Its not so much about the time that it takes to stop. Its about momentum. If I'm in a car, all I have to do to get going is gently press a pedal with my foot. On a bike...well, I think you know how that works.
18
In 10 years of daily cycling around Portland I have never, ever seen a cyclist stop for a stop sign on non-arterials when there was no contention for the intersection. Has anyone (who doesn't themselves claim to be one) actually spotted one of these mythical I-always-stop-at-a-stop-sign cyclists?
19
ImplosiveFarts,
No, do go on. I bike and have always thought I had a handle on the biomechanics of stopping, particularly when approaching an intersection where the presence of cars is likely. But maybe I've been doing it wrong all these years by taking a few seconds and observing and applying my brakes. OR maybe this is the moment I become enlightened to the tyranny of stopping, traffic laws and most importantly other bikers, cars and pedestrians and realize the fuckin' road is fuckin' mine bro so fuck y'all!

Thanks.
TSW

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