Please don't confuse frequency of hearing a message with the frequency of belief in that message in a population. Sure, there are a tiny fraction of bike riders who don't care about rules and happily flaunt them and defend their 'rights' to do so, but they are far overrepresented in the dialog. Most people who ride bikes follow the rules pretty closely, and don't go home at night posting on city message boards about how it's their right to break the law.
>"Please don't confuse frequency of hearing a message with the frequency of belief in that message in a population."
To be clear we are talking about NYC here. If we were talking Coppenhagen or Berlin or Amsterdam yes that would be true.
I'm not confusing "frequency of message." I'm being informed by actual observation. The overwhelming majority of bicyclists in NYC do not stop at red lights or use hand signals. All you have to do is stand on the stand on the street to confirm this. And yes it's the law:
And I'm speaking as a cyclist who has ridden in Manhattan as my main form of transportation 8 months/year for 10 years, as an occasional driver, frequent uber/taxi user that I disagree with your assessment.
Everybody makes rolling stops at stop signs on empty roads every once in a while. Based on my own anecdota, I wouldn't say that they usually make rolling stops though. It's still a ticket, that many local police in the US are more than happy to hand out. Not that it matters either way- it doesn't mean that it's OK for anyone to ignore stop signs as a rule.
> You stopped at every red light on your way to work today(...)?
Yes. I bike 6 miles but only hit 7 lights because I head over to the west side greenway.
> (...) and you witnessed nearly every other cyclist doing the same?
Your original claim was:
> The overwhelming majority of bicyclists in NYC do not stop at red lights or use hand signals.
Even if I saw, say, 40% of bicyclists blow red lights, it would still contradict your claim of an 'overwhelming majority'.
Also, I'm a bit confused now about your claims. Are you claiming that a majority of bicyclists every now and then goes through a red light? Or are you claiming that a majority of bicyclists constantly go through red lights? I disagree with the latter but could agree with the former.
