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Things people blamed on bicycles

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Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#521
post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if a driver has to 'squeeze past', they are a bad driver if they do not kill you, they are not. or maybe if you are scared of other road users and need a "safe space" you aren't a good road user. just maybe > if a driver is driving so close that they couldn't react to a cyclist falling, they are a bad welcome to the reality. I'm not driving too close to you, you are zig-zaging in the middle of the street and you we…

You're the kind of driver who makes me want to kick cars off of roads in densely populated area. What a ridiculous notion that it's the soft participants in traffic that need to heed the hard ones!

> You're the kind of driver who makes me want to kick cars off of road

I'm also the kind of driver that when you trip from your bike because you are on death on wheels vehicle, stops and helps you

And when you burn. ared light, brakes

and when you miscalculate a turn and go wide, leaves you room, because I an actually looking around me when I drive, you aren't, because you don't care.

maybe I should stop doing all that, I guess a couple of weeks with a broken leg teach a lot of lessons to people like you.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#522

Think folks are missing the point here. The idea of this thread isn’t that bicycles are uniquely singled out for ridicule. These article snippets all come from a time when the bicycle was just invented and usage was growing fast (eg like any new tech). In fact, I think they were taken from a defunct Twitter account called pessimists archive. The point is that mass media will always court controversy and bemoan any ne…

Precisely. See this same trend with online shopping, social media, and app-based food delivery. If they sucked, they wouldn't be so ubiquitous. But they are.

[deleted]

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#523
post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> car squeezes past you at high speed many cyclist don't understand this because they are bad drivers the point of passing a bike on the road is to avoid the danger you as a driver pose for the bike in the case of an unexpected event. like if the biker falls. clearing up the way as fast as possible is safer for both. Doesn't matter who's faster in the end, if that was the purpose, it would suffice for drivers to not…

If you wanted to keep cyclists safe, you would just stay behind them at a safe distance until a safe passing moment appears, just like you must do for cars. It sounds to me like you aren't keeping a safe distance and you are percieving the risk you are putting on others. At a safe distance, the problem you describe is not an issue. When I am near cyclist or motorbikes there is a lot of ways I can not put them in dang…

> If you wanted to keep cyclists safe, you would just stay behind them

if they wanted to be safe, they wouldn't go when cars are allowed to go 90km/h, side by side.

if you are suicidal, I don't wanna be part of your plan.

> Cyclists are doing the best with an infrastructure built in favour of cars,

that's so boring that is gives me nausea

Americans don't understand that they are not the center of the world.

Most of the bikes accidents in.my country happen far away from cities.

Most of those roads are the same that 200 years ago were used only by mules and cows

people didn't complain at the time when they used them with bikes, but complain now that bikes are 100x times better and roads are 100x times easier and safer.

the only "new" infrastructure have been highways in the 60s of the 1900

Viale Trastevere is kinda new in Rome, it was made by Mussolini in the late 1920s

that's the "infrastructure" you're talking about.

It just happens that now the main users of roads are cars, get over it, they won and will keep being the most used vehicle's form factor even after the electric transition.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#524

Cycling is cheap, often faster than driving (in my city), healthy, less noisy, creates vastly less pollution, less dangerous to pedastrians... And I'd guess that about 95% of drivers that I come across are respectful of the danger they present - overtaking with enough space, and not at too high a speed (my city doesn't have great bike lanes). Unfortunately, a typical journey involves passing more than 20 cars, which…

The problem of dangerous interactions between drivers and cyclists is much smaller here in the Netherlands, mainly due to two reasons. The first reason is the infrastructure, both visible and invisible. Separated bicycle lanes are commonplace and in the few places where they intersect with car traffic, care is taken to make crossing safe and comfortable. This visible infrastructure is complemented by the concept of "…

Everyone is a cyclist and therefore drivers are very empathetic towards cyclists: a couple hours later or earlier they were the cyclist, and the cyclist was the driver.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vote for politicians who promise punishing bike theft with multi-year prison sentences Please don't - this is typical 'tough on crime' trick: promise long sentences, so easy - longer sentence-less crime, right? Wrong. Sentenses are useless if no-one ever gets caught. Look at countries with the toughest sentenses in the world, and you will find they have loads of crime You actually have to use your brain, and think…

Idk, it seems theft is low in countries where they cut hands for it. Bike theft is a very harmful crime. It stops the move to healthier lifestyle, it leaves people, often poor ones who don't have cars without means of transportation and it cause many to not commute by bike. I want aggressive policing, including trap bikes set up by the police to fish out potential thieves and lock them for years once caught, alternat…

> Bike theft is a very harmful crime.

Yes it is, but I disagree that turning bike theft into a 20-year sentence is going to help.

> Idk, it seems theft is low in countries where they cut hands for it.

Russia has 99% conviction rate, long sentences and torture in prisons, yet crime rate is sky high. US has more prisoner and tougher sentenses than UK, but UK has less crime

Half the people here are engineers, think like one, about systemic solutions and not revenge. Crime is a business, it only happens because its profitable.

You could setup a city-wide LoRaWAN bike tracking network for $100,000, you could hand out $20 trackers to every cyclist and weld them to the frame, from the inside if you have to. You could produce airtags-compatiable trackers, register every bike and check them periodically, etc.

You could install safe cycle storage throughout the city, that is alarmed and has cameras and calls the police when it detects sound of angle grinder.

Thousands of different solutions are possible.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#526

Cycling is cheap, often faster than driving (in my city), healthy, less noisy, creates vastly less pollution, less dangerous to pedastrians... And I'd guess that about 95% of drivers that I come across are respectful of the danger they present - overtaking with enough space, and not at too high a speed (my city doesn't have great bike lanes). Unfortunately, a typical journey involves passing more than 20 cars, which…

"Less dangerous to pedestrians"... that really depends. Here many cyclists like to cycle on pavements, making bikes more dangerous to pedestrians than cars!

And yet when you look at statistics it's almost solely drivers killing pedestrians even though the car infrastructure is 100x better and cars aren't forced to go on sidewalks.

No one likes cycling on a sidewalk. People do it because either a bike path ended in a random place and they ended up on a sidewalk or they feel it's very dangerous to be on the road.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#527
post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Going out for drinks? Bike. As long as you don't actually drink anything hah. Everyone's a designated driver with bikes.

ANother anecdote from The Netherlands: when we go out to drink we go by bike so everyone can drink! Worst case scenario: you bike there and walk back again. You can't take a car with you when you're walking. Personally, while drunk, I lose the ability to walk straight before I lose the ability to bike.

And presumably you can walk with your bike.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#528
post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discouraged?

Yes, note he stated "if head injuries are more common with helmets". There have been some studies that correlate higher levels of head injuries with mandatory helmet laws. The thesis was that wearing a helmet induces more reckless cycling (higher speeds, etc) due to feeling safer. I don't remember seeing any good follow-ups studies either way and don't necessarily agree with the study.

[deleted]

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#529

Think folks are missing the point here. The idea of this thread isn’t that bicycles are uniquely singled out for ridicule. These article snippets all come from a time when the bicycle was just invented and usage was growing fast (eg like any new tech). In fact, I think they were taken from a defunct Twitter account called pessimists archive. The point is that mass media will always court controversy and bemoan any ne…

Those headlines look silly now, but they ... were featured in reputable publications at the time , said by reputable and in some cases domain expert people at the time . I say that not to be one of those "mainstream media blah blah" people, its just that when it comes to new things or change in general nobody has a f'ing clue.

The scary thing about your knowledge, is that you don't know what you don't know.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ride daily through my country's largest city. I'm not scared. I don't need a 'safe space' (or your desire to start a culture war, as your provocative wording imples). I don't jump red lights. I pull over if the road is busy and fast and wave drivers to overtake if possible. I'm simply asking that, given we share the road, people should drive with some damn courtesy rather than entitlement? Most people think they ar…

> Most people think they are good drivers and its "the others" Most cyclists think they can ride a bike and it's the cars. How is that different? The main issue is don't harm.other road users, you don't do that? Fine with me I've never been in an accident that was my fault in my career as a driver, than now spans 3 decades. The only accidents I've been were: - a bike hit me laterally because the rider was going too f…

> Most cyclists think they can ride a bike and it's the cars.

The consequences of riding a bike badly are much lower. 10kg bike vs 1500kg car? ~14mph cyclist vs ~30mph+ car?

> I've never been in an accident that was my fault in my career as a driver, than now spans 3 decades.

That doesn't say _anything_ about whether your driving caused an adverse reaction from other road users. Merely that there was nothing severe enough to legally mark you as 'at fault'.

> people are people, people make mistakes, people who think cars are dangerous for bikes usually aren't aware how shitty as cyclists they are, I'm sure they are bad drivers too.

Cars _are_ dangerous. Cars cut across cyclists path (hence why the UK highway code received clarification/updates this year). Cars pass without enough space and clip cyclists (which you just seem to completely ignore and think it's "safe enough" and "the bloody safe-space demanding cyclists' fault").

> Riding is dangerous, do it at your own risk, but nobody is really trying to kill you, because you are not that important.

Riding, in general, isn't dangerous. For the average cyclist who is using it for commuting, and _maybe_ getting up to ~20kmh? Other than slick road surfaces from spilled oil or deep rain puddles or ice, there's not much that would cause random danger.

> have you noticed that in motor sports at 300km/h nobody dies while every year in professional bike competitions someone dies or injure himself badly? Because bikes are dangerous.

Road racing, where the racers are travelling in bunches of 40 cyclists at average speeds of 30mph, deliberately taking risks to try to win, is _nothing at all_ like typical road use for a commuting cyclist. You seem determined to strawman cyclists, and think that cyclists should just accept dangerous roads. You seem utterly unwilling to accept that car drivers can be a significant danger.

I accept that there can be bad cyclists. I shake my head if I see one jump a traffic light. How much of your perception of cyclists is just because you _expect_ car drivers to be bad, and whatever way they behave is just 'typical' so doesnt stand out to you...but when you see a cyclist it's obviously different, so much more memorable? In the UK there were more than 150,000 road traffic accidents in 2019. In Italy, around 190,000. That suggests to me there is a lot of bad driving.

My general position is that most road users (not just cars) are incredibly entitled and so we should figure out ways (such as the Netherlands' road design) that make everyone's life better, rather than just accepting things are shit and saying "suck it up and find a safe space".

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