10 kW
I have thought of myself as a pretty conservative bike rider; I never run a red light (well, sometimes a "Pasadena Pause" in a right-on-red situatoin, but only if there are no cars or cameras at the light), signal turns, etc. However, I do frequently run two stop signs coming out of my neighborhood. One is a four-way all-stop inside the subdivision. It is stupid really. The speed limit in the neighborhood is 25 mph. Most people don't come to a full stop in cars, but I usually do slow way down. When I get to that stop sign on my bike, I am headed down a 15% grade. I look and if it is totally clear, I blow through it. About 100 yds further down the hill is a stop sign for a "tee" intersection. There is a hill that tops close to the intersection coming across the top of the tee, while I am coming up the vertical part of the "tee". If I stop, which I sometimes do, I often just start out, taking a left, as a car comes over the hill. It looks to the driver like I pulled out in front of him. Get a lot of nasty looks and horns there. After taking the left at the "tee", I am on that stretch for about 200 or so yards. The road is very narrow with no shoulders, a shear drop into a ditch. It is very busy. I try to get off that road as quick as possible. Anyway, today, like many days, I am coming downhill to the "tee", see that it is clear, and blow through at about 20 mph, taking a left. A car coming about 30 yards behind me stops at the light and starts yelling something. I glance back and catch that he is cussing me for running the sign.
I am usually a pretty conservative driver and rider, but any way you cut it, it is not a very safe intersection for bikes. Probably the safest thing however is to come to a complete stop just so you don't miss a car that is going to T-bone you. Anyway, I'm not the safest guy in the world I guess. It really annoyed me that the guy took the time to cuss me, when I am reasonably sure he would just watch if 100 cars did a rolling right turn there. Also, who made him the traffic cop? The only one I'd kill is myself, so what the heck does he care? On the other hand, laws are laws and I was clearly in the wrong there.
So to be clear, if the intersection is an upright "T", I was headed "north" up the leg doing downhill braking to about 20 mph before shooting out of the subdivision, taking a left. It did not feel unsafe, but it was quite illegal. I can partially justify it based on the fact that cars coming over another hill through the straight run of the "tee" often run right up on me before they see me. But I think overall it is probably safer to stop all the time.
So the question isn't what is legal (obviously, what I did was not legal and I could be ticketed for it) but what would you do and why?
I am usually a pretty conservative driver and rider, but any way you cut it, it is not a very safe intersection for bikes. Probably the safest thing however is to come to a complete stop just so you don't miss a car that is going to T-bone you. Anyway, I'm not the safest guy in the world I guess. It really annoyed me that the guy took the time to cuss me, when I am reasonably sure he would just watch if 100 cars did a rolling right turn there. Also, who made him the traffic cop? The only one I'd kill is myself, so what the heck does he care? On the other hand, laws are laws and I was clearly in the wrong there.
So to be clear, if the intersection is an upright "T", I was headed "north" up the leg doing downhill braking to about 20 mph before shooting out of the subdivision, taking a left. It did not feel unsafe, but it was quite illegal. I can partially justify it based on the fact that cars coming over another hill through the straight run of the "tee" often run right up on me before they see me. But I think overall it is probably safer to stop all the time.
So the question isn't what is legal (obviously, what I did was not legal and I could be ticketed for it) but what would you do and why?