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Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

forbes.com

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Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#791

Post by Macha »

britzkopf wrote: post #131
raphaelj wrote: post #36

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.

> If the former happens you get absolutely zero support, while if the latter happens the police will actually try to do something.

The sad thing here is that it's not even triaging by property damage. Your €1000 fifth hand car will get more police attention if stolen than a €3000 ebike.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#792

Post by szundi »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #721
yohannparis wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the same boat. Now I'm the proud owner of two Urban Arrow cargo bikes (His and Hers) and I don't know how to live without it.

Larry vs Harry Bullit rider here. my wife and I even rode it from London to Berlin (cheated with the ferry and train a lot) when we moved in late December. We have 2.5 kids. No car. I use car sharing when I need a van or wanna drive to the airport. Life is good

Condolences for losing half a kid ;)

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#793

Post by selimthegrim »

zip1234 wrote: post #759
scythe wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes. What kind of cycling clothes will mitigate a 40 C / 70% humidity afternoon in Memphis?

Memphis is full of underutilized 4 lane roads--remove 2 lanes and add a bike path + trees. The difficulty is that unless there is a bike network, it will get limited utilization. Need to build out a way to get places and people will use it.

New Orleans is trying this and facing a lot of pushback.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#794

Post by LightBug1 »

LightBug1 wrote: post #215
raphaelj wrote: post #36

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; Please don't take that attitude ... I have a work colleague who basically had an ankle tendon sliced by just such a person. The very likely outcome now is that they will never walk or run normally ever again.

Interesting.

I genuinely couldn't give af about points on these kind of websites, but I've noticed the count on this comment vary up and down.

What kind of @sshole would disagree with the sentiment?

I do worry about those who walk among us.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#795

Post by Gigachad »

madeofpalk wrote: post #129
secretsatan wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also noting on drinking and riding, in Switzerland, it's possible to lose your drivers license if caught doing it, I kinda think thats unfair and not very sensible at all as a policy.

What if you just don't have a drivers license?

At least in Australia, you get the fine, and your ability to get a license is suspended same as if you had one.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#796

Post by asdff »

lacker wrote: post #417

I'm worried about riding my bike in the city. A friend of mine died on her bike when hit by a truck in Seattle a few years ago and since then I just don't feel okay biking alongside cars any more, especially with kids. I know this is fundamentally born of emotion rather than rationalism, but still, it does seem like riding a bike is much more dangerous than driving. Bicycles are somewhere from 3x to 11x more dangerou…

I have this feeling that part of the high case of bike fatalities is a lack of education or really good intentions of a lot of bike riders I see. I take my lane and follow the laws of traffic on a bike. It results in pretty safe passage even if there isn't bike infrastructure, since cars now have to change lanes if they want to find room to get around me, and I am generally more visible to turning traffic and am outside as many blindspots as possible. They still honk and yell "fuck you" either way, but now they give me room instead of ramming me into the gutter or into a door, and they actually see me.

On the other hand, no one is taught how to safely ride a bike after they figure out how to pedal one the first dozen feet, unlike cars where you have to pass exams or have classes. I hardly see anyone taking a lane when biking. I hardly see anyone with lights. I hardly see any signalling. I see a lot of people riding against the flow of traffic even. I see people riding without helmets. I even see people who are clearly intoxicated on something or another swerving over a 5 lane road. If these people sorts of bikers I see anecdotally are any way representative to your average bike rider, then I'm surprised the number is only 3x higher.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#798

Post by Fricken »

pastage wrote: post #525
tigeroil wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Though to be fair, having a bike is so much cheaper than a car that even if it did get stolen it'd still be cheaper to replace it than run a car.

Having a bicycle stolen is actually a frequentl reason people stop cycling. Getting a new bike sucks.

A year of public transit in my city costs $1200, which is commensurate with the most I've spent on a commuter bike. I've had 7 bikes stolen in a quarter century of commuting, and I feel like I'm getting a pretty great deal when it comes to transport costs.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#799

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

Mashimo wrote: post #508
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one major difference is that someone who is incredibly drunk can still drive a car at 100kmph, but they can't balance well enough to ride their bike.

You have to be really plastered to not ride a bike any more. Like a lot, a lot.

That's true, but most fatal car crashes happen for people who are very drunk https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... reports that in the US, of the 2019 crashes of drivers who had a BAC above .01, 68% had BACs of .15 or higher (and about half were .20 or higher). That's a group that would have a pretty hard time riding a bike at high enough speed to do much damage. None of this is to say that biking while drunk is a good idea. It probably at least triples your likelyhood of being hit and killed by a car. Defensive riding is one of the things I would expect to be significantly impaired by relatively little alcohol, and it's probably dark out which makes everything riskier.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#800

Post by alexanderchr »

nec4b wrote: post #626
lenlorijn wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see lots of folks in the comments assuming what would happen when you bike drunk, seemingly not ever having done so themselves or seen it. I live in a student city in the Netherlands (Groningen), where most students go out on the town by bike. It's really not much more dangerous than walking drunk. And it's very much preferable to driving drunk. Thousands of students park their bikes in the city's central undergrou…

Hitting a pedestrian when riding a bike at 25 km/h has life threatening consequences for the pedestrian. Pedestrians do die when hit by bikers. Especially elderly which have worse awareness around them and are more fragile.

People here (northern Europe) don’t bike at 25 km/h while drunk, if at all (unless racing/exercising), so it’s not really an issue.
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