Busting the myth of the "scofflaw cyclist" Danish Road Directorate studies reveal that while 66% of motorists routinely break road traffic laws only 5% of cyclists do so. Law breaking by cyclists is higher where there is no cycle-specific infrastructure.

Some interesting stuff here, including links to more studies showing similar results in different countries.

The summary is that the reason motorists break more laws is that speeding is so common.

I don’t think this is because motorists are all evil and cyclists are all saints. Probably, the reason motorists break speed limits is that it can be relatively difficult to keep cars below the speed limit. It’s all too easy to absentmindedly speed up. It’s also, perhaps becuase of this, widely seen as socially acceptable to break the speed limit (speaking anecdotally).

One interesting thing here, which may not surprise regular readers of Fuck Cars, is that better cycling infrastructure leads to less lawbreaking by cyclists. As is often the case, it’s the design of roads and cities that changes behaviour, not abstract appeals to road users to be sensible!

  • zoe
    -20•1 year ago

    if cyclists dont have dedicated lanes somewhere, they need to have a license of some sort, ‘specialist’ cyclist, driving bicycle license, anything, to keep traffic in order

    • Jesse
      9•1 year ago

      @zoe @frankPodmore Driving licences and traffic lights were invented because car drivers were too dangerous to safely mix with existing road traffic and we needed to restrain them. Bicycles have never been a significant danger to other road traffic. We don’t require licences for people to ride bicycles for the same reason we don’t require licences for pedestrians, it’s a ridiculous idea that would do nothing useful.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      8•1 year ago

      I don’t think you’ve really engaged with this post properly at all.

      Cyclists don’t need a licence ‘to keep traffic in order’, because it isn’t cyclists that cause the problems.

    • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏
      5•1 year ago

      A common argument raised around here, is how will kids cycle to school if licenses are needed? Their parents are likely to drive them instead, creating more traffic, and the kids lose out on that exercise and freedom of mobility.

      If their parents can’t drive them or afford to own a car it’s tough luck, that kid loses out on an education 🤷‍♂️