Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#131

Post by pif » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 8:58 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #113

dasil003 wrote: post #84

I've spent most of my life with cycling as my primary mode of transportation, living in Minneapolis, Santa Fe, London and SF/Oakland. I ride fast and generally try to go with the flow to avoid inconveniencing drivers while also being considerate to pedestrians. I think this traffic cone thing is pretty cool, but I have a larger observation to make: Here's the thing about SF: everyone is way too fucking agro. Drivers…

Want some fun? Try being someone who commutes in the Bay area via a combination of walking and public transit. Cars give me very little trouble. Bicycles, though.. at least a couple times a week I nearly get killed by one. At crosswalks, typically I'm in a crowd of people and drivers know better than to try to make a turn through the crowd. Cyclists, though, will blow through, even just flat running a red light, and…

You sure you are talking about the Bay? That's exactly what happens in Geneva.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#132

Post by gaff33 » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 8:59 AM UTC

oarsinsync wrote: post #123

andrewem wrote: post #40

I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here (bicyclists need to be licensed! bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers! we shouldn't have bicyclists on many roads because cars go too fast!). Instead, I'll say that just as people walking need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadw…

> I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here ... bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers In the UK, all vehicles on the road are required to abide by the highway code. Yep, that means bicycles have to follow the same rules as drivers. In the 1990s, schools in the UK ran cycling courses to ensure th…

This is what happens when bikes follow rules designed for cars:

http://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/07/30/this-is-wh...

It's patently stupid to have the same rules for bikes as it is for cars since they are completely different vehicles.

Now perhaps this is a case of semantics: The Highway Code has rules for all users of highways, but obviously within those rules some apply to cars, some to pedestrians, and some to cyclists. Still point remains that the specific rules are different depending on what vehicle you're in, and we'd be wise to think critically about this.

A good example of this is the Idaho Stop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#133

Post by dagw » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 9:00 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #129

andrewem wrote: post #40

I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here (bicyclists need to be licensed! bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers! we shouldn't have bicyclists on many roads because cars go too fast!). Instead, I'll say that just as people walking need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadw…

>> bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers I mean....where the hell do you live where they do not? Everything about giving priority, obeying traffic lights, one-way streets, should absolutely apply to bicycles, how can it possibly not?

Well it technically does apply in a purely legal sense. However many cyclists don't really care and I've never heard of a any cyclist suffering any legal consequence because of this.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#134

Post by Anasufovic » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 9:05 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #113

dasil003 wrote: post #84

I've spent most of my life with cycling as my primary mode of transportation, living in Minneapolis, Santa Fe, London and SF/Oakland. I ride fast and generally try to go with the flow to avoid inconveniencing drivers while also being considerate to pedestrians. I think this traffic cone thing is pretty cool, but I have a larger observation to make: Here's the thing about SF: everyone is way too fucking agro. Drivers…

Want some fun? Try being someone who commutes in the Bay area via a combination of walking and public transit. Cars give me very little trouble. Bicycles, though.. at least a couple times a week I nearly get killed by one. At crosswalks, typically I'm in a crowd of people and drivers know better than to try to make a turn through the crowd. Cyclists, though, will blow through, even just flat running a red light, and…

Yeah, the pedestrians don't do themselves a service either. Crossing on red is common and now in the uprise of having something in your ears or looking at something in your hands there are a lot of obvious missteps into a cyclists line. I think we should not be as quick to dismiss dasil003's comment. We can all back off a bit, cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians alike. Stop riding the edge, back off, and just take an extra second to proceed, an extra one or two seconds can make all the difference.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#135

Post by ptaipale » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 9:07 AM UTC

snovv_crash wrote: post #82

brokenmachine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually have no problem with those fines but they should be enforcing the 1m rule as well. Why wouldn't you wear a helmet as a cyclist anyway? It sucks that NSWPolice are more interested in fining cyclists and are ignoring people actually putting other people's lives in danger. When I drive and I see people riding with no helmet, I can't help but think to myself, "well you obviously don't care about your own safet…

>Why wouldn't you wear a helmet as a cyclist anyway? Because a dinky bicycle helmet won't change anything if you are hit by a car. Even a motorcycle helmet won't help. The only time a helmet helps is in low speed accidents.

A bicycle helmet changes the probabilities significantly towards survival, in all crash types.

In majority of bicycle deaths, the most serious injuries are to the head, and the "dinky" helmet is what makes a difference.

A large majority of bicycle deaths are low speed accidents. (Over here (Finland) a majority of them actually does not even involve a motor vehicle; here we have a pretty good segregated bike/pedestrian route network.)

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#136

Post by sevenless » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 9:10 AM UTC

I propose the following modification to HN moderation:

Comments that fall along entirely predictable, nonproductive back-and-forth lines: in this case, expressions of hostility between cyclists and non-cyclists, should be deleted. There should perhaps be a link to previous iterations of the discussion, or to neutral resources on how urban planning can integrate cyclists.

This comment has been made with the deliberate decision to not read anything else written in this thread. The topic and the fact there are 100+ posts tells me everything I need to know about what's in it.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#137

Post by pif » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 9:10 AM UTC

zo7 wrote: post #3

I don't think non-cyclists realize how much risk you take on when you ride in the city. In my town we really only have bike lanes on the two main roads that go up and down the bulk of the city, and they ride dangerously close to lines of parked cars. I was riding downhill once when someone opened their door in front of me without looking -- luckily I managed to get past, but had they opened it a few moments earlier I…

> I don't think non-cyclists realize how much risk you take on when you ride in the city.

The only times I saw cyclists in a risky position, they were not respecting neither driving code nor common sense (ex: overtaking on the wrong side, in a narrow space between moving cars and pavement, at an unreasonable speed; or the more classical: ignoring red lights, priorities or forbidden directions).

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#138

Post by pif » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 9:13 AM UTC

zo7 wrote: post #3

I don't think non-cyclists realize how much risk you take on when you ride in the city. In my town we really only have bike lanes on the two main roads that go up and down the bulk of the city, and they ride dangerously close to lines of parked cars. I was riding downhill once when someone opened their door in front of me without looking -- luckily I managed to get past, but had they opened it a few moments earlier I…

> Cones are a smart way ...

Cones will keep you near the parked cars, too.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#139

Post by philbarr » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 9:14 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #126

dasil003 wrote: post #84

I've spent most of my life with cycling as my primary mode of transportation, living in Minneapolis, Santa Fe, London and SF/Oakland. I ride fast and generally try to go with the flow to avoid inconveniencing drivers while also being considerate to pedestrians. I think this traffic cone thing is pretty cool, but I have a larger observation to make: Here's the thing about SF: everyone is way too fucking agro. Drivers…

The thing we need in the United States are traffic tickets. A lot of people get tickets on freeways (where there is a dedicated highway patrol that exists only to write speeding tickets), but nobody gets ticketed on surface streets, no matter how badly they drive. I see garbage trucks barrelling through red lights at 45mph. I see taxis driving the wrong way down one-way streets. I see black cars driving 60mph down na…

If you're blocking an emergency vehicle in the UK by bad parking they have the right to smash your vehicle to get past - and it's your fault.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#140

Post by Shinchy » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 9:23 AM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #84

I've spent most of my life with cycling as my primary mode of transportation, living in Minneapolis, Santa Fe, London and SF/Oakland. I ride fast and generally try to go with the flow to avoid inconveniencing drivers while also being considerate to pedestrians. I think this traffic cone thing is pretty cool, but I have a larger observation to make: Here's the thing about SF: everyone is way too fucking agro. Drivers…

I would agree that London is a fast flowing city when it comes to cycling but it is also a pretty dangerous one. I've personally seen another cyclist killed while out on my bike and I know we have a bit of a problem with just how dangerous the roads can be while on a bike.