[CMI-CM] Red Lights

[Paul Riismandel]

The reason for running red lights is so that the Mass can remain a Mass.  If
the light changes while the mass is crossing an intersection, it would be
more dangerous and chaotic for the mass to try and stop mid-way through than
it is to just continue.  If it's not very big the Mass can avoid running red
lights if the people up front are careful to stop at yellow lights.  The
mass acts like one big vehicle-- if it gets broken up that effect is lost,
and it becomes more dangerous for everyone involved.

Unfortunately this takes some practice, and dare I say, training, which is
typically hard to acheive with a constantly changing mass.

Rather than simply stopping riding with CM, perhaps the whole enterprise
would be improved if suggestions were made to help alleviate this problem.
How can the mass not run red lights but also avoid being broken up?  It's a
legitimate question and deserves discussion.

Critical Mass changes with the participants, both for the bad and good.
Nobody's in charge.  Maybe it can be changed for the better?

--Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Rebecca Roach
To: 'Scott Dossett'; critical-mass at lists.groogroo.com
Sent: 12/12/2001 9:26 AM
Subject: RE: [CMI-CM] (no subject)

The main reason I have stopped riding with critical mass (although I
still
"advertise" the rides by poster in my office) is that the mass finds it
necessary (and often seemingly desirable) to break traffic regulations
(like
running red lights.)  I choose not to be a part of that message.  As a
daily
bike commuter, I do battle every day with the cars - and prefer not to
do it
as a "message" on the last Friday of the month.  As bikers, we must
follow
the rules in order to get the respect we deserve from the drivers.  

I agree with Scott -  the bikers' running the red light does not justify
the
Jeep driver's actions - I  hope he does go to jail.  There is incredible
power in numbers, and the mass has some numbers.  I just hope the power
can
be used for right, and not just to thumb our nose at drivers because we
are
a mass.  I am afraid the drivers perceive CM as nose-thumbing and are
just
getting pissed off.  I hope the message can be that bikes have just as
much
(but no more) right to the road as cars do.    Becky



-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Dossett [mailto:scottd at sws.uiuc.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 8:48 AM
To: critical-mass at lists.groogroo.com
Subject: [CMI-CM] (no subject)


Hi all.

At the risk of being the poop in the pack here; note the CriticalMass 
participants rendering of the actions of the "pack".  Excerpt from
e-mail 
link below.

To run red lights on crowded city streets is not smart my friends.  The 
ride I went on in September from Wright and Green did the same thing as
it 
wound it's way through downtown Champaign, 6 times.

This does not of course justify the actions of the Jeep battering ram
and I 
hope he goes to jail.

It's just................... what we do effects what we get.

peace
=====================================
Austin Chronicle, 10-5-01
Statesman Falls Off Its Bike
BY JORDAN SMITH

........................................According to Justin Davis -- the

Statesman's "unidentified bicyclist" who supposedly participated in 
Henderson's group beating -- the Critical Mass riders encountered
Henderson 
at the corner of Congress and Second. "We had come to the intersection
and 
while we were going through, the light turned red," he said. In an
effort 
to keep the group together, the riders continued through the red light.
=====================================

Scott Dossett

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