We’ve been hearing a lot about it, what seems like a rash of bike versus car confrontations. So, what’s the real deal?

City statistics show 148 bike-involved crashes in Portland in the year 2000 and 193 in the year 2006, with a steady increase each year.

“In 2007, we know there were six bicycling deaths in Portland. That’s an unusually large number,” said Cheryl Kuck with the Portland Office of Transportation. "But it’s important to look at the circumstances of each of them to understand what happened,” said Kuck.

“Bicycle use in Portland is up fourfold since the early 1990s. Therefore, the rate of collisions has actually declined,” she said.

Newschannel 8's went out to do a very unscientific bike versus car sting of sorts.

We started Thursday at 7:30 a.m. and the sting lasted several hours, randomly choosing a busy bike boulevard in southeast Portland.

Our crew waited at SE Clinton Street and SE 15th Avenue. We also had one photographer waiting by the four way stop at SE 17th Avenue.

He told us, by radio, whenever a bike or car ran the stop-sign and then we talked to them two blocks down.

It was only a matter of minutes.

A driver, named Patty, who asked that we not reveal her last name said she was late for work when she rolled through the stop sign.

"I'm sorry if I did, but usually I do stop at the stop sign,” she said.

While she admitted not stopping, the next person to run the stop sign was a cyclist. He wasn’t as apologetic.

"Did you come to a complete stop?" we asked him.

"The bike did," he said.

He told us he came to a stop when the video clearly showed him riding right through it.

"Do you think that everybody should stop at a stop sign?" we asked.

"Yeah," he said.

Cyclist, Maren Souders rolled through the stop sign and admitted to it.

"I guess I didn't think about it as running the stop sign, kind of a California stop," she said.

She said on a bike there's much better visibility than in a car.

"When I drive, I notice the difference. So [on a bike] I always pull up as close as I can and look; make sure there's nobody coming and then sometimes I roll through,” she said.

The findings? We found the same number of drivers and cyclists ran the stop-sign.

According to the city of Portland statistics between 2002 and 2006, eighteen cyclist crashes were caused by a cyclist running a stop sign. Fifteen were caused by a motorist running a stop sign.

Portland Police Sergeant Brian Schmautz said cyclists and drivers, alike, think the law applies to everyone but them. 

“We have to be fair.  We’re not on the side of bikes.  We’re not on the side of cars.  We have to enforce the law evenly,” said Schmautz. 

Karl Rohde, from the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, is also concerned.  He said, “There’s a growing need for people to understand and share the road and be respectful to one another.”

"We don't yet have 2007 data for total reported bicycle crashes,” said Kuck.