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To be honest, some red lights are just pointless for cyclists. One example are pedestrian crossings with no pedestrian in sight, another are very small crossings (maybe even at night) where you can see anyone coming half a mile away, with nobody in sight.

I also hate the one where you're supposed to wait 2 light cycles instead of 1 for turning left. That is a major road so people usually follow the rule, but it's not good. At the same time the city advocates doing that twice on both sides of the bridge so you can cross at the proper side on the shared sidewalk and not ride against the (often non-existent) flow on the other shared sidewalk. Of course people still do it.



I agree that many red lights don't make sense for cyclists in an ideal world. But given the double standard being applied to cyclists, I don't want to give hateful people any more excuses.

In Austin, TX, they added signs to certain intersections saying that cyclists can use the pedestrian signal. In effect, this means that cyclists can often legally run a red light. Unfortunately I fear that some drivers don't pay attention to the signs and will think basically 100% of cyclists are illegally running the red light at these intersections. So I usually will wait for the green light, even in this case.


Those crossings are equally pointless for drivers, but we are still expected to obey the law.




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