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Things people blamed on bicycles

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Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#691

Post by Apes »

diarmuidc wrote: post #460
bluGill wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I find it interesting that no one in The Netherlands wears a helmet when cycling and yet serious cycling injuries don’t seem to be a common thing Neurosurgeons in the Netherlands disagree with this, and are begging locals to wear helmets. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/10/neurologists-launch-ca... I don't know how rates of injuries compare between countries, but that is irrelevant.

No it's not irrelevant. If helmet wearing is linked to higher per capita head injuries, mandatory helmet wearing should be discouraged.

You're right in the sense that if you die because your head cracked open like a watermelon on the pavement, that doesn't count as a head injury - it counts as a fatality.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#692

Post by ryukafalz »

celtain wrote: post #646
ricardobeat wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cycling already has the lowest percentage of road traffic fatalities compared to other modes. The highest is pedestrians - should pedestrians wear helmets? A helmet requirement is wholly incompatible with the role of cycling in NL. You hop on a bike anywhere, regardless of what you're wearing. It's a casual transportation mode, just like walking, not a sport activity. This proposal can only make sense for people who…

>A helmet requirement is wholly incompatible with the role of cycling in NL. You hop on a bike anywhere, regardless of what you're wearing. I don't really understand this. I keep my helmet clipped to my handlebars, so if I have my bike, I have my helmet. Is it really so much of an inconvenience? I'm sympathetic to the overall anti-helmet-requirement position, even seemingly trivial concerns like "it messes up my hair…

If you’re using a bikeshare system, you may not have a helmet with you because you didn’t bring your bike with you.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#693

Post by the_gastropod »

neutronicus wrote: post #468
DonHopkins wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

FWIW, I live in one of the least right-wing cities in the US (Baltimore), and cyclists here report that aggressive driving towards them is common. A few have reported that pedestrian aggression towards them is common, too.

Yea. I lived in Brooklyn, NY for many years, and definitely experienced aggressive driving there, too. Often times, the offenders would complain that the bike lanes were new and bicyclists were guilty of gentrifying the neighborhood. Now I live in Virginia, and it's usually huge trucks or SUV's with Trump stickers that tend to be the most aggressive.

Anti-cycling sentiment seems to be one area where the "both sides" argument has at least a hint of truth to it.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#694

Post by playingalong »

nuclearwast wrote: post #536
mauvehaus wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a market for buying used Dutch city bikes elsewhere in Europe. I guess some of them are stolen goods.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#695

Post by DubiousPusher »

This is why I cringe a bit at those bemoaning the horrible, awful, traumatic fate of journalism. Journalism is stupid. It always was stupid. It always will be stupid. That's not to say it has no value. But the reader has always been and always will be responsible to sift through the heaping mounds of dumb and find that value. I'm not exaggerating when I say, the New York Times, our paper of record has published some of the stupidest things you may ever read. Papers schilled for business, hacked for parties and confabulated for themselves since always.

On the other hand, the decline of local journalism is a serious crisis. Particularly the death of local investigative journalism. I would be very surprised if in 30 years or so we don't look back and see a noticable increase in local corruption correlated with the decline in local journalistic accountability.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#696

Post by someweirdperson »

UncleEntity wrote: post #622
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed: A bit like how wearing a flak jacket is correlated with being shot, and use of scuba tanks are correlated with drowning underwater.

I’ve only ever been shot at while wearing a flak jacket…

A flak jacket is not a bulletproof vest.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#697

Post by II2II »

ricardobeat wrote: post #556
bluGill wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I find it interesting that no one in The Netherlands wears a helmet when cycling and yet serious cycling injuries don’t seem to be a common thing Neurosurgeons in the Netherlands disagree with this, and are begging locals to wear helmets. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/10/neurologists-launch-ca... I don't know how rates of injuries compare between countries, but that is irrelevant.

Cycling already has the lowest percentage of road traffic fatalities compared to other modes. The highest is pedestrians - should pedestrians wear helmets? A helmet requirement is wholly incompatible with the role of cycling in NL. You hop on a bike anywhere, regardless of what you're wearing. It's a casual transportation mode, just like walking, not a sport activity. This proposal can only make sense for people who…

> In addition, as mentioned by another commenter, when the dutch traffic rules were written decades ago, it was found that helmet usage correlated to increased accident rates - people take more risks when they feel safer, and that in turn makes pedestrians less safe.

I'm probably a bit of an oddball in this respect, but I do not regard helmets as a means of preventing injury. Reducing the severity of an injury, sure, but even then they are of limited scope (i.e. they are only really useful if there is a direct impact to the head).

Helmets are not an excuse for taking risks. They are a means of reducing the impact of accidents.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#698

Post by [deleted] »

celtain wrote: post #656
bnralt wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You almost never see a bunch of drivers arguing that it's OK to run red lights. It's quite common with cyclists; you can even look at the comments here and see several arguing that it's not a problem for cyclists to run red lights. Whether or not they're correct, it at least indicates that the behavior is much more common among cyclists.

I often see drivers arguing that not only is it ok to speed, but that drivers who obey the speed limit are actually doing something wrong! I don't think I've ever heard of a cyclist getting mad at another cyclist for stopping at a red light. The propensity to violate traffic laws seems to be higher among drivers than cyclists.

[deleted]

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#699

Post by tablespoon »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #600
tablespoon wrote: post #479

https://twitter.com/mstyczen/status/1561856668450754562 : > Biking linked to impotence IMHO, that one's probably true: https://www.webmd.com/men/features/biking-and-erectile-dysfu... : > ...too many hours on a bicycle saddle can compress the artery and vital nerves leading to the penis. > The result? A risk of numbness, pain, and erectile dysfunction. > Male cyclists can place a significant percentage of their weight…

This is why male saddles have a channel down the middle these days versus the old brooks style saddle

> This is why male saddles have a channel down the middle these days versus the old brooks style saddle

The article says those are actually worse:

> Bike saddles that feature a groove down the middle or holes in the center to alleviate pressure can actually make the problem worse by increasing pressure on either side of the groove.

> "They feel better," Schrader said of the grooved seats. "With the traditional saddle you're sitting on your internal penis. You can feel it. When it drops into the groove it feels better, but if you're increasing the pressure on either side, you're still compressing the artery and the nerves. The wider the seat, the farther back you sit, the better off you're going to be."

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#700

Post by yamazakiwi »

philwelch wrote: post #494
micromacrofoot wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 in 3 car drivers admit to running a red light in the past month (33.3%) in 2017 over 900 americans died in accidents involving running a red light https://newsroom.aaa.com/2019/08/red-light-running-deaths-hi...

It’s surprising how low that is. As a point of comparison, in 2008, 809 Americans died tangled in their bedsheets (which correlates to total revenue generated by skiing facilities: https://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=1864 )

That 809 number is mostly Elderly and Infants. I'm not trying to imply anything, I just find it interesting.
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