241–250 of 262 posts
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There are bicycles with three wheels. There are also electric bicycles with three wheels. They require neither effort nor balance to ride, make a rather large part of the city accessible if proper infrastructure exists, and they have storage capacity, e.g. for groceries.
I don't see any elderly people using them. Nice thought, but I am not convinced.
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I think hitting cyclists with cars and horrifically injuring them is inconsiderate. But each to their own.
You are putting words in my mouth. Of course I am against hitting cyclists, and I have never done so.
I was driving in Boston and stopped at a light that just turned red, while it had just started raining, so all the oil on the road had just gotten slick but hadn't washed off yet. The Boston driver who rear-ended me at the red light was furious and tried to blame me, saying "I thought you were going to run the red light too!" So yeah, it's provably true what they say about Boston drivers.
https://www.allstate.com/americas-best-drivers/index.htm
https://www.boston.com/cars/commute/2018/08/31/boston-driver...
https://www.bcheights.com/2019/11/17/why-boston-drivers-and-...
In The Netherlands, bicyclists don't need to wear helmets, because Dutch drivers don't act like Boston drivers, because they drive safely and respectfully, and don't get pissed off when bicyclists slow them down, and drivers vote for politicians who build safe bike lanes and pay taxes to fund them, which are ubiquitous and well maintained. It's a cultural thing, and the wrong kind of culture kills bicyclists.
And it's not just Boston driver culture: Rolling Coal on bicyclists is also a uniquely American Red State cultural thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHmJSsRLgj4
https://www.bicycling.com/news/a39797952/driver-posts-video-...
But then again, after looking at your posting history to see what other words come out of your own mouth, I bet you'd probably hate the Dutch culture, because it's so easy to get great health care, birth control, abortion, morning after pills, non-procreative sex is not stigmatized, same sex marriage has been legal and widely accepted for so long here, conversion therapy is banned, and of course teen pregnancy is much much lower than in the US. More of those pesky progressive cultural things that really make a big difference in the quality and duration of life.
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> Oh I’m so sorry. Clearly driver annoyance is far more important than avoiding cycle and pedestrian, death and injury. Please go right ahead, intimidate and mow those slow moving obstacles. That wasn't the point I made. People get annoyed by obstacles; it's a people reaction, not a car-driver reaction. Are you seriously saying that cyclists won't be annoyed if they were forced to share their route with much slower m…
How does annoyance justify not allowing cyclist to use the road safely? > Are you seriously saying that cyclists won't be annoyed if they were forced to share their route with much slower moving obstacles? I'm sure they would. But it's much harder to kill a person with a bike during a road rage incident, than it is to kill a person with a car. That's the fundamental difference here, cyclist annoyance has never led to…
I'm not justifying "not allowing cyclist to use the road safely", I'm pointing out that people don't like obstacles. It's not specific to cyclists like you make it seem, and not specific to car drivers like you make it seem.
It's unreasonable to expect that people not be people.
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How do protected cycle lanes mitigate the crash types in the article? I see how they may prevent getting rear ended or doored, but all the intersection conflict points remain and in many cases are exacerbated by the "protection." I've seen lane designs that force cyclists to pass right turning cars on the right at intersections. Often the barriers reduce visibility and tell drivers they don't have to be aware of bike…
Pretty simple, cycles get their own cycle on lights at crossing, and you ban right turns on red. Right turns on red are such a stupid idea, a tiny time saving for a minority of people, but a huge increase in risk for vulnerable road users. As for branch junctions along the road, priority is given to bikes going in the direction of traffic, and you build tables across the junction, reduce junction radius, both force c…
>Hans Monderman (19 November 1945 – 7 January 2008) was a Dutch road traffic engineer and innovator. He was recognised for radically challenging the criteria used to evaluate engineering solutions for street design. His work compelled transportation planners and highway engineers to look afresh at the way people and technology relate to each other.
>His design approach is the concept of "shared space", an urban design approach that seeks to minimise demarcations between vehicle traffic and pedestrians, often by removing features such as kerbs, road surface markings, traffic signs, and regulations. Monderman found that the traffic efficiency and safety improved when the street and surrounding public space was redesigned to encourage each person to negotiate their movement directly with others.
Hans Monderman: Rethinking the design of streets and public space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjBGokenEhQ
Unexpected interview in Groningen (Homage to Hans Monderman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQASVz4xun8
HANS MONDERMAN ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN INTERACTION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqGMFNxCJyQ
Monderman (3of10) - Drachten Roundabout Traffic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGCE6vI5j68
Monderman (5of10) - Drachten Intersection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L39gNtsaZfI
Road signs suck. What if we got rid of them all?
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> some cars will pass you then slow down to walking speed in front of you. I have never heard of this happening to anybody.
Do you drive much in the States? The amount of insane hostility that I see on the road in general, not even directed toward cyclists, is mind boggling. For instance, I would never respond to anything with any sort of escalation of anger, because people literally get shot and killed over it in my state on a regular basis. Here are a few recent incidents, just in my city alone: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/a…
Step N+1: advocate for better cycling infrastructure in your area / town / city. Places that are bike-friendly don't rely on driver or cyclist behaviour to prevent collisions; they build separated lanes, provide bike boxes in front of stopped cars, reduce speed limits, install automated speed enforcement, connect cycling paths through parks, and so on.
"Better cycling infrastructure" should mean an effectively car-free network of streets . Yes this can be achieved while still allowing cars to access residences on these streets. This is what has been frustrating for me as a life long advocate for decades . People think bike lanes are a solution. They are not, bike lanes are for cars, not for bikes. Bikes and public transit should each get about 5%-10% of car-free su…
p.s. - i got buzzed by an SUV riding my bike today. i caught up at the light and yelled at him but that's little consolation for such a dangerous action.
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That is why I suggested: > Avoid crossing street at intersections that are not ultimately regulated by traffic lights. Instead try to find a crossing, preferable with traffic lights, on a street with enough distance to intersections where cars could suddenly appear from. And a car driving on sidewalk should be super focused. I mean the car does not belong there at all!
Your suggestion is just nonsense that you haven't bothered to think through at all. You'll find the most traffic lights down arterials, but all the side roads feeding into the arterial will have stop signs so that the arterial can move faster. Dunno why you're talking about cars driving on sidewalks. I was talking about when I bike I sometimes do use the sidewalk when the street is a mess. You also have to bike the w…
I am a bicylce rider, that wants to survive. I dont drive by car. Some car drivers are reckless and the cars they command are pretty dangerous. That makes me avoid car lanes.
My prefered solution is separate bike lines - separate from cars, separate from pedastrians. To avoid #1 problem listed on the page I prefer crossings that are ultimately regulated by traffic lights, i.e. no free right turn when light is red. Otherwise the safest spot to cross a street is on official crossings, best is with traffic lights, where you have enough distance to road turns or intersections. So that car drivers have a lot of time to see you crossing the street and you can see cars coming on both lanes when checking in both directions. When it is too close to a turn, a car can appear from around the corner without you being able to see each other first. A bit like the "right cross" and "crosswalk slam" issue from the website. Almost all the other issues are related to driving on the car lanes, hence the call for separate bike lanes.
I know it is not applicable everywhere - what can you do when there are no bike lanes... Fortunately in my home town we have enough space allocated for those and lots of traffic lights.
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>Novice riders are trained to stick to an invisible (or painted) bike lake which ends up with them being far less visible than they need to be. I don't think it necessarily has to do with being a novice, sometimes it's just the law. I bike mostly in Oregon and as far as I am aware you have stay in the bike lane if there is one, unless you are passing it the lane is blocked. ORS 814.420
And I believe what the OP and the article are saying in spirit (if not explicitly) - it's OK to break stupid laws in the interest of your own safety. Laws are just a bunch of words that may or may not be on paper. Not all of them are equally useful or thought-out. Many won't be upheld in court, depending on circumstances. In 99.9% cases, it's better to break a law than risk injury/death.
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I don't see any elderly people using them. Nice thought, but I am not convinced.
How many elderly people do you see at all ? If you think about it, you might realize there are several explanations other than "nobody uses those things"
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I don't see any elderly people using them. Nice thought, but I am not convinced.
My mother uses one.
My father used to be a doctor in a place that got converted into a pedestrians only area, he reported that a lot of people had issues. Business for other shops also declined.