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Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

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Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I'm overall in favour of promoting cycling as a way of getting around, in preference to motor vehicles, I'm not sure I entirely agree with "safer". I live in Cambridge and have lost count of the number of times I've had to contend with cyclists blowing through pedestrian crossings on a red light (or zebra crossings at any time) when I'm trying to walk over them, or cycling the wrong way down a one-way street -…

> What you say would only really be true if there weren't a portion of the population - even only a minority - who are, for want of a better word, massive dickheads (or simply very inattentive and situationally unaware). Isn‘t the same statement true for car drivers? But the major difference is that a car turns a dickhead into a mortal danger for other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists alike, while a bike doesn‘t.

>Isn‘t the same statement true for car drivers?

Yes. Completely.

Even before you get into discussions of selfishness/malice there are people who are just shitty at understanding how traffic works and how the different classes of traffic interact with each other. These people create problems wherever they go whether they go their on foot, two wheels or four.

In online discussions they're usually the ones screeching loudly about "rules" that get ignored contextually because they don't understand the context(s).

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#152

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

>- Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; It's interesting you mention that. When I took up cycling to work in Manchester, I started struggling to fall fully asleep because I'd have short pseudo-dreams about the POV of cycling on wet, dark, busy roads & jerk awake, scared that I was falling asleep at the handlebars.

It goes away after some time. It's almost as if you unlock a lot of stored energy just by moving. After a while the extra energy is gone and you will sleep right away.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#153

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

Don't have to worry about theft?! Wow, Europe must be so different than North America. I'm much more worried about my biker being stolen (has happened about a dozen times in my life) than my car. If the former happens you get absolutely zero support, while if the latter happens the police will actually try to do something.

bike thefts happen in the Netherland (once I saw a 50+ year old guy walking around inspecting bikes in a student neighbourhood + multiple bike thefts in that area). Also in Bulgaria where I am from :) but I can't say where it happens more or what the chances are.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#154

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

>you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking;

You may, especially that ebikes are hella fast. Dont ride after alcohol.

In my country you would lose car license if they caught you driving a bike while drunk

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Berlin, within the Ring (for those familiar with the city). I don't own a car, I have multiple carsharing subscriptions and I have two children, 1 and 4. We have a cargo bike to move them around and do groceries, almost in any weather (as long as it doesn't rain), otherwise we have public transport as a backup.

Where do you live for those of us unfamiliar with the city? Paris? More on topic - Bikes make a lot of sense in the city but if you add kids to the equation the safety risk just becomes too high to stomach IMO.

Reference is the s-bahn ring:

https://oxyi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/map-of-berlin-co...

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#157
post #140
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live within London transport zone 1, it's quite likely to be a zero-car household, simply because of the difficulty in keeping the car somewhere.

That doesn't quite make sense, "it's difficult to avoid having a car because you can't store it"? Can you elaborate? I'm interested what life is like in these cities that charge drivers so as to reduce cars in the road.

Congestion charge makes car ownership easier in that area it is pretty cash anyways. The land is so valuable that you rather fit other things than cars there, e.g. apparments with even more people.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#159
post #96

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

About not killing someone if you ride after drinking, Obviously it is ver difficult for a bike to directly kill someone other than the rider (as opposed to a car, where this is very easy), but a drunk cyclist can still hurt other people directly or indirectly (causing a bigger accident by forcing someone to avoid them). Even on a city free of private cars, you’d still share the road with pedestrians, other cyclists,…

You can hit a pedestrian

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I'm overall in favour of promoting cycling as a way of getting around, in preference to motor vehicles, I'm not sure I entirely agree with "safer". I live in Cambridge and have lost count of the number of times I've had to contend with cyclists blowing through pedestrian crossings on a red light (or zebra crossings at any time) when I'm trying to walk over them, or cycling the wrong way down a one-way street -…

> What you say would only really be true if there weren't a portion of the population - even only a minority - who are, for want of a better word, massive dickheads (or simply very inattentive and situationally unaware). Isn‘t the same statement true for car drivers? But the major difference is that a car turns a dickhead into a mortal danger for other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists alike, while a bike doesn‘t.

I'd love to see fewer cars and more bicycles. That said, at least in the US and in SF in particular, I've encountered way more blatant violations off traffic laws by bicyclists. There were so many times I had to jump back from an intersection where I had a green light as a pedestrian because a bicyclist decided to race through at full speed. They probably thought it was safe, but I certainly felled endangered.

In the defense of bicyclists, I think a lot of this happens because the laws and roads aren't properly taking bicyclists into account. Stuff like bicycle lanes at the end of the block also becoming turn lanes for cars should just be unacceptable and provokes conflict between drivers and bicyclists.

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