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Things people blamed on bicycles

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Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#531

Post by admax88qqq »

alistairSH wrote: post #498
baxtr wrote: 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.

The other theory is that helmet laws reduce casual cycling by adding an impediment to just hoping on and going. And that those short trips to the strore tend to be safer.

Personally my wife can't find a helmet that fits, Asians have rounder heads and north American helmet manufacturers are oblivious. As a result we never cycle.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#532

Post by fluoridation »

vetinari wrote: post #311
ginko wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile there's over 2000 deadly car accidents a year in Poland, 20% of which are pedestrians[1], meaning there's more than one pedestrian killed by a car every day. [1] https://notesfrompoland.com/2021/11/23/road-deaths-in-poland...

How many of these pedestrian were hit on sidewalk? How many on pedestrian crossing? And how many on roads, outside of crossing? I would guess that the stats would be radically different, if we took only pedestrians on sidewalks, as was the case above.

Yes, collisions between vehicles and pedestrians happen where the two interact, and the places where they do can be different for different classes of vehicles. What's your point?

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#533

Post by crtasm »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #503
tcfhgj wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are not up to date with the UK traffic rules: > Cars must leave at least 1.5 metres room when passing bicycles - while revised guidance also says "it can be safer" for cyclists to ride two abreast.

Yeah. and it's usually much more than that, because people know that bikers can't go straight and compensate for that. But cyclists will always complain, because they don't talk about reality. they talk about their perceptions because they are scared and need to blame someone. Cyclist also make the worst drivers I know, because they really can't stop thinking they are the victims.

I feel compelled to ask, how much time have you spent experiencing the reality of cycling yourself?

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#534

Post by JackFr »

DontGiveTwoFlux wrote: post #516
JackFr wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cycling is cheap, often faster than driving (in my city), healthy, less noisy, creates vastly less pollution, less dangerous to pedastrians... As a pedestrian in Manhattan I am in much more danger from cyclists that from cars, trucks and buses. Literally every single day I will see a dozen cyclists run red lights, go the wrong way down one way streets and ride on crowded sidewalks. While bicycles are much lighter a…

Drivers killed about 200 times as many people as bicyclists over a 15 year period. You are misplacing your fears. https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-pedestria...

Well, yes and no.

- I care about injuries other than just fatalities

- Non-fatal injuries due to being hit by cyclists are underreported

- Those statistics are for all of NYC - the pedestrian experience in much of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, and all of Staten Island is similar to the pedestrian experience in suburbs - and I'd agree there my danger is greater from cars.

- Those statistics pre-date the dramatic rise of e-bikes on the streets of Manhattan

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#535

Post by mytailorisrich »

bluecalm wrote: post #526
mytailorisrich wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

You're citing a stat that has nothing to do with my comment. You've picked deadly outcomes, which obviously favours bikes.

As a pedesrian, the risk of being hit by a bike riding on the pavement is higher than by a car driving on the road. As a pedestrian I can tell you that I have been hit by bikes several times but luckily never by a car.

That makes bikes more dangerous to me than cars are.

Cyclists are not forced on pavements, by the way. They make a conscious decision (even if that breaks the law). Sometimes they are allowed to ride on the pavement but unfortunately many are not considerate of pedestrians.

Ideally pedestrians and cyclists should be physically separated. When not possible cyclists should be very careful and considerate. Just common sense, really.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#536

Post by nuclearwast »

mauvehaus wrote: post #363
antihero wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just need a way to deal with bike theft. My number one concern is parking my pretty decent bike within view of where I’m sitting or not leaving it unattended for over five minutes. I’m insured, but I have a bond with my wheels! If anyone has recommendations for stealth theft detection/tracking devices I’m all ears.

In my experience it's mostly a matter of not having the most desirable bike or the shittiest lock. Put a $100 u-lock on a $300 bike, and you can almost be assured that you'll have neither. Put a nice enough lock on yours, and you can be pretty sure you won't have the most easily stolen bike either. At least in the US, road bikes are pretty much immune to being stolen because they're seen as terminally uncool by the l…

This is something I never understood. Why so many bike theft? a regular new one is 3-4 hundred$ and cannot be sold that easily (Say vs electronic goods). Why theft is so popular?

I mean thief can steal one for their own purpose, but then what? He steal another one every weeks?

I dont get it.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#537

Post by ghaff »

andsoitis wrote: post #470
DoubleFree wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "…

My experience in Amsterdam is that the cyclists are exceptionally rude and dangerous to pedestrians.

I can't say I've experienced that. But there are a lot of bicycles which you need to be aware of as a pedestrian to a much greater degree than many other places.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#538

Post by stevenwoo »

rimliu wrote: post #295
laputan_machine wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And just like that, you've proven his point. This guy doesn't run reds, I don't either. Apparently that's irrelevant because some cyclists do (and here's a bunch of anecdotes) so it's not a problem to harrass cyclists. Right on!

I see a car passing red light maybe twice in a year. I see a cyclist doing the same twice a week.

I live in suburbs between San Jose and San Francisco, and haven't driven in a while but on a typical car trip I see someone run almost every other light at busy intersections, seeing a motor vehicle come to a full stop at a stop sign is rarity as well unless there is a law enforcement vehicle watching. I have learned to wait after a light turns green for me defensively to make sure someone else has not decided to gun it and run the light.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#539

Post by bluecalm »

kuschku wrote: post #313
desas wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally the guidance that every police force in the UK work to, you need to leave a space of 1.5 metres between your car and the cyclist when overtaking at 30mph. It might be that our road lanes are narrower than yours of course. See https://www.northants.police.uk/police-forces/northamptonshi...

It’s the same in Germany. Also, cyclists have to keep roughly the same distance from parked cars (“reasonable distance”, OLG Düsseldorf ruled 2018 that this means 1.5 meters from parked cars or 80 cm from a curb if there are no cars). With those two rules combined, in most city streets bicyclists require a full lane.

A safety rule every cyclist understands after a close call or two. Don't ride too close to the curb and especially not if there are cars parked. Very nice you have that codified in law.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#540

Post by peoplefromibiza »

adrianN wrote: post #199
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #180

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 drivers overtook cyclists for the cyclists' safety you'd expect them to tailgate cyclists much less often. Literally nobody keeps the necessary distance to the car/cyclists in front of them in city traffic. That's why rear-end collisions are so frequent. Between two cars at city speeds that not really dangerous. When a cyclists falls in front of a car it's fatal.

> you'd expect them to tailgate cyclists much less often.

that's absurd.

ever seen a traffic light from a car?

> Literally nobody keeps the necessary distance to the car/cyclists in front of them in city

you mean literally no cyclist keeps the distance between them and the car in front of them, tailgate them at traffic lights, and then keep everybody else stuck because they are slow to move?

they are forbidden by the law to pass other vehicles in my country and keep the right lane, they never do it.

have you ever seen a bike wait behind a slower car or in line at a traffic light?

cameras could fine cars not behaving, but bikes?

> When a cyclists falls in front of a car it's fatal.

then why they do it all the time?

because I literally saved tens of them in the past 30 years.

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