Hello,
My name is Zulema and my presentation will address the question whether cyclists obey the law? On Wednesday, October 5, 2016, I stationed myself near the intersection of John F. Kennedy Dr. and Stanyan St. The reason I chose this location was because it is where the Panhandle leads into Golden Gate Park and it is a popular intersection for pedestrians and cyclists. I began collecting data at 2:55 pm and stopped at 3:35pm. In a time span of 40 minutes, I observed 144 cyclists and their behavior.
One of the biggest safety concerns for cyclists is the use of helmets. helmets are important in the case of an accident, it diminishes the risk of injury. Out of the 144 cyclists, 35 did not wear helmets and 109 did wear helmets. One-fourth of the cyclist population were risking their safety by not wearing a helmet.
The laws that I focused on were stopping before the crosswalk, riding on the sidewalk, stopping at stop signs, signaling, using bike lanes and texting while cycling. 29 cyclists (20%) were stopping on or after the crosswalk, increasing their risk of hitting a pedestrian and getting hit by a car. 14 cyclists (10%) were riding on the sidewalk, all of which had rentals which led me to predict they were tourists. In San Francisco, it is a law to ride your bike in the bike lane and is illegal to ride your bike on the sidewalk but people coming into San Francisco from different cities don’t know the laws of San Francisco. 83 cyclists (58%) did not stop at the stop sign and flew right past it increasing their risk of an accident. 27 cyclists (19%) did not signal, causing a slight confusion in traffic. 1 cyclist (.7%) was using the streets, blocking cars when there is a clearly, easily, empty, accessible bike lane to use. 1 cyclist (.7%) was texting while cycling, paying not attention to the road. All these broken laws, increase the risk of getting into an accident.
According to the Scofflaw Biking Survey, a survey that consisted of 17,000 people addressing cyclist disobedience towards traffic laws stated that cyclists ignore traffic laws at similar rates of cars in order to be more time efficient. Just like cars that do not fully come to a complete stop at a stop sign but instead barely tapping on the break, the same occurs to cyclists. The actual statistical data could not be found for the Scofflaw Biking Survey.
In conclusion, cyclists do disobey the laws.
