It's irrelevant because it isn't legal here. If you're doing it and nobody else knows, then it can't possibly be safer than following the law is.

It seems like we're talking past each other. Drivers don't expect anyone to jump a light because that's illegal. Your perception of the safety of doing so is irrelevant. You don't see every car in every situation, so the expectation of drivers is important to your safety too. In general, drivers rely on the predictability of what's around them because of the inertia of a vehicle. Decisions have to be made in advance to keep everyone alive, and having the expectation that people are following the rules of the road is an important part of making those predictions. If you ever drove, I think this would be pretty intuitive to you.

There is no law that gives you general license to routinely break traffic rules on your perception of safety. Sorry bout that.

People don't expect anyone to jump the light. I have no idea why you think it's safer for you to break traffic laws while being sanctimonious at everyone.

More surveillance tech? No thanks.

In fact this is already the case. There are hardly any intersections where it's not already posted, as far as I've seen.

That's not what the law currently says though, and not what drivers expect.

Bro? What are you trying to say, bro?

Smoking is already illegal in the playground areas of public parks and on school grounds.

Omg, there's also a pub right across the street from the school there. Actually, now that I look at the map, there's a Montessori school right next door to Atwoods too. Lol. Think of the children!

I think most of the national insurance companies are here, aren't they?

If you get into an accident, exchange insurance information with the other driver (calmly) and then call your insurance company. You make a claim with the insurance company, and then they either send an adjuster out, and/or they give you a list of preferred garages to take it to.

I'm a big supporter of rule 3, particularly as it applies to the great bicycle wars of 2022. That aside, it would be great to get more postings about upcoming local events. It seems like many groups tend to use facebook to announce these things, but since I don't use facebook, it would be great to get some of those announcements here too.

Is that China's covid policy?

What's wrong with you?

Expectation of safety is an interesting point. There are definitely generational differences here. When I was growing up, there was really an expectation that I was responsible for my own safety on a bike, but it was still a pretty clearly dangerous way to get around town. It was just down to situational awareness, helmets, and deference pretty much. We had no bike lanes, which are now really well built out over the last 10 years. So that seems to be improving a lot. It is still not a very safe activity fundamentally. There are no safety features on a bicycle whatsoever, so I guess I personally have some expectation when I get on the bike that there's some risk that's a bit higher than, for example, taking the T.

It sounds like both you and the mod are having real life conflicts with people that you want to moan about passive aggressively on the internet. And both are shocked to find that there are people who respond negatively/counterproductively to that. As for your description of the people with whom you have conflicts, online or offline, I guess it sounds a lot like you want this to be a culture war since you believe you know exactly what's in the minds of others. You're really bringing this ugliness on yourself, in that respect, which puts you in a pretty bad spot to then complain about it.

Wait a sec, now calling out toxicity is toxic? Come on. I think you just don't want to hear any dissent. If there's nuance here somewhere, I'm not hearing it. The toxicity I replied to was a bunch of sarcasm and snide for no purpose. People genuinely don't understand why there is so much bicycle anger. I myself am deeply upset about climate issues, but I know who my enemy is on that. They're not for the most part my fellow Cantabrigians.

Sorry, I'm just trying to understand the intensity of the conflict. Is that toxic? If telling some people that they might be losing their bearings in an argument is toxic, I don't know really how to apply a reality check. The trouble is that I haven't heard any actual argument of substance about this stuff. It's just some kind of bicycle identity group with whom some of us don't feel kinship. Maybe if you could help us understand why this is such a motivating aspect of your identity, we'd get it. I use a bicycle to commute for part of the year. The bike lanes are dramatically better now than 10 years ago, when none of them existed at all. Seems good?

This seems like the toxic kind of response that's at issue. I agree with your observation that the room seems to want to engage in this toxicity, which is kind of a better argument against your point than for it. We're talking about bicycles here folks. Maybe a little perspective is in order.

Yeah, a single mod, or even a sub with one dominant mod, isn't ideal. That said, maybe there's a good argument to be made that the great bicycle wars need a ceasefire? This is clearly a really serious topic to some, but to others it seems like a bizarre over-the-top caricature of activism.

Or maybe it's worth stepping out of your shoes and seeing whether your high intensity flame war would make sense to an outsider? Because I don't know that it would.

I kind of agree with the mod. There's a high intensity bicycle argument on reddit that is really angry. These are obviously important things to figure out locally, but I don't understand how a sleepy topic like bike lanes turned into a culture war. It's intense.

Are you sure that yours isn't? Reading these posts as someone who has no idea what's going on or what the conflict is seems surreal.

I seem to have missed the underlying conflict here. It sounds dramatic and bicycle -related on the basis of the comments here and posts over there....?

If you're complaining about a small uptick in crime but really believe we're on the edge of the apocalypse, it seems like I'd be wasting my efforts trying to convince you that crime is relatively quite low on a historical basis. I wish you the best of luck in your apocalypse, and maybe I will catch up with you when you emerge from your basement.