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
    2•1 year ago

    considering drivers are licensed and break more rules than cyclists.

    says who ?

    • pjhenry1216
      13•1 year ago

      Are you posting on this without even being remotely aware of what the article says?

      • zoe
        1•1 year ago

        i know i am talking about bikes,which are motorists, not cyclists…but as long as cyclists share the road with motorists, they could also use a driving license, and so e-bikers do and so forth…until there are enough cyclist lanes

    • pjhenry1216
      8•1 year ago

      It’s clear you’re just posting on this site to troll since you weren’t even aware of the basic concept of the post. I don’t need to reply to trolls.

      • zoe
        1•1 year ago

        didnt pay enough attention to article ngl, but cyclists are as annoying (if they dont have cyclist lanes) and u were right

        • pjhenry1216
          9•1 year ago

          It’s the damn headline. You literally didn’t read anything. You clicked on a fuck_cars post and just made a comment based on nothing in the post at all. That’s literally trolling. You made a random comment purely to get a rise out of people.

          • zoe
            1•1 year ago

            i wrote a comment, no one was supposed to reply to it, including u, could have downvoted and moved along…also u could have stated to me that it was about cyclists, not bikers…also not all countries have cyclist lanes, including where i live, and that makes them passively irritating

            • @Sharkwellington
              4•1 year ago

              I wrote a comment, no one was supposed to reply to it

              “I expressed an opinion on a public forum, nobody was supposed to read and interact with it.”