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!

  • Frank Podmore 🌹✊
    25•1 year ago

    @frankPodmore@slrpnk.net One interesting thing here is that it seems that cyclists, whether breaking the law or sticking to it, are often doing so out of self-preservation. If you’re turning left at a busy junction with a bike lane, jumping the red might actually be safer than waiting for it to change. A good example of a perverse incentive!

    • pjhenry1216
      11•1 year ago

      Granted it’s not all the time, but I do agree that a lot of the time, the rule breaking is incentivized by cars’ problematic driving and not sharing the road well. If cars were on a whole more friendly with cyclists and knew the proper rules as well, it probably wouldn’t happen as often.

      • Frank Podmore 🌹✊
        9•1 year ago

        @pjhenry1216 I think the key thing is better cycling infrastructure. Most people would do almost anything to avoid hitting someone with their car, but it still happens all too often because of poorly designed roads

        • pjhenry1216
          3•1 year ago

          That would cause the biggest impact, but in the meantime I wish car drivers were just better educated about the rules of the road when a bicycle is present. I’m not even sure which is the easier goal honestly. Maybe better infrastructure is easier even if more expensive. Easier to change a road than it is to change people.

      • @grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3•1 year ago

        Granted it’s not all the time, but I do agree that a lot of the time, the rule breaking is incentivized by cars’ problematic driving and not sharing the road well.

        I suspect it literally is all the time. If there were no cars, there would be no need for the rules in the first place.

        • pjhenry1216
          3•1 year ago

          If there were no cars, there’d be a hell of a lot more bikes. I’d still want rules. Like which side of the road one should be riding their bike, etc.

          • @grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3•1 year ago

            Before cars, there were a hell of a lot more bikes (and pedestrians, horses, and horse-drawn carriages) and yet we didn’t need rules.

            Stop signs and traffic lights were invented specifically because cars were uniquely dangerous. (Or rather, they were invented to shift the blame for the danger from the cars to the infrastructure.)

            • pjhenry1216
              2•1 year ago

              There were a hell of a lot less people then too, plus a lot less traveling.

              You still need laws for bicycles regardless of the presence of cars.