341–350 of 363 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So do bicycles need airbags and side impact protection and abs too then?
Bike lanes.
Even the Netherlands doesn't. So what are you advocating? That bikes be banned until that infra is on place, or forcing all bikes to have the same safety standards as new cars (because old cars don't have all this stuff)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the same applies to every other vehicle, but I suppose you would still get in a car on a rainy day? You adjust speed and cycling style to the conditions, and for winter cycling there are plenty of good options for studded tires. The Nordics have succeeded in making winter cycling a more common activity, and you might want to check out the "winter cycling capital of the world": Oulu, Finland.
Last year a friend broke 2 ribs and forearm by slipping over some wet leaves on a bycicle - I don't see how that's comparable to a car. Also I don't have windshield wipers on my face (or windshield for that matter) - but maybe I'm just wired like that.
I have a non-zero chance of getting into an accident, but on the other hand, I haven't been so fit in 30 years.
My guess is that my expected lifespan is increased by this decision. (I would add that I live in a very bike-friendly city.)
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There's a further ethical calculation I would do, which is that using a car is wildly irresponsible giving that we are systematically eating through our resources and destroying our climate and with it our biosphere. (Electric cars are better, but still tremendously consumptive of resources.)
So even if I were less safe and the fitness issue were less important, I would still choose not to use a car, like I have chosen for my entire life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good for you. That does not invalidate the point of a mean of transport alternative to big empty cars riding one person each and to bikes, that ride one person each and have no trunk. Bikes are also more dangerous than small slow 4 wheeled vehicles. Because, you know, bikes don't stand on their own, their braking abilities are very limited due to very thin tyres, they have no stop and turn signals, no rearview mirror…
I used to take the subway in Paris. Now I ride a bike, carefully. I don't ignore traffic lights. And even riding this way I am always surprised that I'm faster than the subway. No connections, no wait, arriving directly at the exact destination helps. Not to mention no need to stand in an overcrowded metal box.
yeah, the subway in Paris is not great, but that's mainly because a lot of people use it.
one particular reason people feel they are fast using bikes is because a few people use them.
it's always underestimated by bike users how terrible bike jams are.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/resizer/2nIUJ2wOHIuaxiM6vvCL...
https://www.fastcompany.com/3052767/this-is-what-rush-hour-l...
If you are the only one crossing a street with your bike, good, if you are in a lane with hundreds other people, not great.
Paris has that problem with the subway, doesn't mean that the subway is slow, it is simply crowded.
Bikes also seem faster because they break every rule in traffic, stopping at the traffic light is mostly about biker's own safety, but skipping traffic lanes it's not permitted by any traffic regulation and yet every biker does it (every two wheeler actually).
This is what the average traffic light stop looks like where there are a lot of bikes or motorbikes.
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/crowd-motorbikes-stand-red-t...
https://cdn.road.cc/sites/default/files/styles/schema_org/pu...
Even in the presence of bike lanes, everyone tries to be in front, of course they are faster, they are literally cheating.
I would be the fastest in every line, if i could skip it and pass in front of everyone else.
Truth is other people would not like it, but we tolerate it for bikes (and motorbikes) for reasons I still don't fully comprehend.
Paris has one real feature: it's a greatly enjoyable city to walk and a terrible city for bikes (or cars)
So if you are in Paris, walk!
Nobody can steal your feet!
- As bicycling boomed in the French capital during the Covid pandemic, so has the number of stolen bikes.
- “This is the worst place for bikes, The mafia networks are organized to steal them. With everyone currently riding bikes in Paris, it’s become a simple and easy way for thieves to make a lot of money.”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would prefer a bullet too, compared to an e-bike, at any speed. Does that mean we should all ride bullets traveling at 20 km/h?
I'd rather not. Never rode one, but I heard bullets are really impractical vehicles. My bike seems much more comfortable.
cars are much more comfortable than bikes though.
so ranking things by speed we get
- bullet +3
- car +2
- bicycles +1
ranking them by comfort
- car +3
- bicycle +2
- bullet +1
final ranking
- cars +5
- bullet +4
- bicycle +3
cars win, bikes come last.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bike lanes.
What country on earth has a full bike lane network? Even the Netherlands doesn't. So what are you advocating? That bikes be banned until that infra is on place, or forcing all bikes to have the same safety standards as new cars (because old cars don't have all this stuff)?
The ultimate stage of evolution in personal urban transportation is the golf cart. On one end you have increasingly fat cargo bikes - some have roofs or windshields. On the other there are kei-cars, heavy quadricycles like the Twizy and now this. Like sea creatures evolving into crabs, it's converging into the perfect form.
The only issue is you still end up with all the issues cars have, especially the inefficiency of having people in a dense urban areas get around by standing in line 20 feet apart from eachother, which is what private vehicular traffic basically is, and of course the need for having some place to store the golf cart wherever you go on the other end. At least with bikes you can compress the peleton quite a bit at a lig…
https://jsgolfcarts.com/blog/golf-cart-dimensions/
You could comfortably fit three of them on two lanes, and believe me people will do it. Italians generally drive smaller cars than other Europeans and that's what happens there on intersections.
Actually, considering the dimensions, a fully packed four-seater has a smaller footprint than the equivalent bicycles - even Dutch ones.
If you put everyone in two-seaters riding alone, then indeed you'll have 1/3 the density of bicycles, but that's the lower boundary!
Personally I don't see the point of maximizing it any further than what golf carts achieve. Especially that they provide appropriate comfort and stability.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I am a big human-powered-transportation supporter, feeding a human is generally more expensive than paying for gas to have a machine do it. A human needs some 2kJ / kg / km to ride. That's 1.6MJ. A car needs ~15L gas per 100km, so that's 45MJ for a 10km ride. While the car uses 30x as much energy, it will only cost you $1.30. The human needs 1.6MJ of food. That's about a grilled chicken sandwich. Which will cos…
What about the e-bike, how many MJ goes to electricity and how many to human power? (Also for the human-powered case, biking often displaces some other exercise. And of course using gas is bringing about the climate catastrophe so it's unethical, money isn't everything)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> let's buy a car and fuck the planet There’s currently football matches being played in Qatar in stadiums with AC set to 20°C in 32°C weather. Thousands of people have travelled there by plane. Me having a car is fine.
The two aren't mutually exclusive
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> let's buy a car and fuck the planet There’s currently football matches being played in Qatar in stadiums with AC set to 20°C in 32°C weather. Thousands of people have travelled there by plane. Me having a car is fine.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as
Using fallacies to invalidate arguments should be a fallacy by itself. Maybe my argument is a fallacy logically speaking, but in the real world, not everything is ruled by formal logic. If A is completely negligible compared to B, the « A not as bad as B » fallacy doesn’t apply anymore.
Huh. I owned a Citroen Ami back in the seventies. It was a gas car (two cylinder air cooled engine), much like the 2CV but made to look a bit more like a conventional car. Interesting that they decided to reuse the name.
