Cyclist sues New York Police Department over "malicious and outrageous" fines for jumping red lights, arguing officers are getting traffic law wrong
Cyclist sues New York Police Department over "malicious and outrageous" fines for jumping red lights, arguing officers are getting traffic law wrong
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I can't make much sense of this situation, if it's red then the walk sign should be in the other direction. Unless this was a scramble, in which case I think you shouldn't go because it's too crowded. Article says advance walk but not sure the exact setup.
I think that is the case with lights configured with an LPI (Leading Pedestrian Interval) where the automobile light is red but the walk sign in the parallel direction is on for a few seconds.
According to those rules, if there's no separate cyclist signal, cyclists facing a red light auto signal with walk pedestrian signal should briefly stop, then proceed with the pedestrians.
But then why would the judge throw it out?
The walk signal will be parallel to the flow of traffic. Therefore, yes, a red light for traffic would mean that pedestrians are crossing your path, not going with it.
NYC is using "Leading Pedestrian Interval" on most intersections. This feature has been installed about 10 years ago. When the cross traffic light has turned red and your (the car driver's) traffic light is about to turn green, the pedestrian traffic light in the same direction turns green first. Your traffic light turns green a few seconds later, and the pedestrian light stays green. 15 seconds later, pedestrian light starts flashing red, and 30 seconds later both lights turn red at same time.
This few second advanced-pedestrian-green protects pedestrians from collisions with cars by allowing the squishy road users to saturate the crosswalk before the cars trying to make a right/left turn get a go. Cars making a turn have to wait. When both lights used to change green at same time, the drivers making a turn had too much temptation to just gun it across an intersection before the pedestrians reached the middle of it. NYC has very many intersections and very many pedestrians. This caused many collisions and injuries.
A 2019 city council law ammended the Administrative Code section 19-195 to clarify that bicyclists should use the advanced pedestrian green as well. This makes sense because bicyclists ride on the side of the road (in the right turn danger zone) and are in the squishy human category. NYPD hates bicyclists and ignores the law, pretending to "forget" it exists every time they write a citation violating it.
There are intersections where all lights stay red, giving pedestrians a walk sign in all directions.
There are also intersections where the walk sign turns on before the light goes green.
In both cases, the cyclist still needs to yield to pedestrians, but it seems they'd be legally allowed to ride through the red if it's clear.