Sanibel cyclists: Stop signs on trail a hazard

SANIBEL, Fla.- Cyclists on Sanibel Island say there are too many stop signs on the bike trail and they are asking the city to get ride of some. The cyclists say many people are ignoring the signs–making for a dangerous situation.
“The stop signs are necessary but not realistic. I don’t know of anyone that stops at them,” said Brian Donahue, a cyclist on the Sanibel Bike Trail.

On any given day around 4,000 cyclists use the trail but how many actually follow the rules of the road? Our cameras caught cyclist after cyclist completely ignoring the stop signs painted on the trail.

“There’s a lot of stops. I can see both sides of it, I think it’s a good and bad thing. For us with little kids we basically stopped at 80 percent of them,” said Anne Marie Mauro.

Some cyclists say not only are they unrealistic but they’re a hazard.

“Because they’re there and people don’t heed them it makes them more dangerous in one way because I think drivers think that you do but you don’t. I think they’re dangerous,” said Donahue.

This week the Sanibel City Council received a request form some cyclists about this problem. They’re asked the city to bring in traffic engineers to reevaluate.

“What we’ve done is we set up a policy right now that provides the greatest level of safety for the users of the paths we would hope that they would like to use those the their advantage for their safety sake but obviously controlling that can be a challenge,” said Keith Williams, Public Works Director.

The city says the proof is in the numbers–no fatalities in 14 years but cyclists say it’s an accident waiting to happen.