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Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

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Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#261

Post by Moru »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #178
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every suggestion I've seen was to make car infrastructure significantly worse in order to add a bike lane to an existing road, while also making that road significantly slower and worse for cars. I don't think I've ever seen real suggestions to make a seperated infrastructure grid for pedestrians and bicycles that isn't just a sidewalk or bike lane on an existing road.

> add a bike lane to an existing road Are you imagining an alternative in which a bike network is added to a city, but not using "existing roads"? Where would these entirely-new roads be placed? Would you knock down the buildings between two car-infrastructure-roads, to pave it for bicycles? I suppose you could remove the car-infrastructure-road entirely and make it just a bike-road / linear park. Or you could put th…

You put a sign at the start of the road. "Bike street". This means cars allowed but at bike speeds. You have different paint on the street too, to make it very different from a normal road. I have seen them popping up here and there and it works very well in the towns I bike in.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/e0qxxz/we_just_g...

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#262

Post by Moru »

kmoser wrote: post #217
nl wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no driver I know wants to hit someone and injure them As a cyclist I don't think this is completely true. I've been in cars with drivers who do dangerously close passes on cyclists and the common excuse is "oh I just want to scare them" or similar. So while I guess it's technically true that even these drivers don't technically want to hit the cyclist the distinction is somewhat moot.

There is something about bicyclists, and especially skaters, that leads to active hostility from drivers. On at least two occasions, I've had cars purposely try to hit me when I was skating. I know it was on purpose because in one case the driver said "you're not a vehicle" as he came within inches of hitting me, and in another case the driver, completely unprovoked, began cursing loudly and tried to run me off the r…

It takes a lot more than just separating the trafic in different lanes. The whole climate is getting harsher between humans. We are experts of dehumanisation of our fellow humans.

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#263

Post by Boltgolt »

CrimsonRain wrote: post #257
fiala__ wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, in most of Europe it’s the richer folks that foot the bill for the poorer ones. That’s a system based on solidarity - you contribute to our collective ability to treat our sick and injured, according to your financial means. EDIT: at least that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory. Of course the richest people don’t foot the bill for anyone but themselves.

In practice, it is healthy people making "sacrifices" to not eat shit and do exercise are footing biils for couch potatoes who eat shit all day.

Ah, so exactly like health insurance?

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#264

Post by Fricken »

sottol wrote: post #138
ggreer wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the NTSB, cyclists have 79 deaths per billion miles traveled. For comparison, cars were 11 per billion miles. Around 2/3rds of bicycle fatalities involved a motor vehicle. So even if we solved car-bicycle collisions, the fatality rate per mile would still be much higher than driving. Bicycles are great, but compared to cars they are dangerous. 1. See page 39 of https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/…

I don't think you can 1:1 compare those stats. Most people just wouldn't have the time to travel as far by bike as they do by car, even if they wanted to. They'd take some other form of transit for long drives. Car drivers do 13500 miles/year on average, even at a very sporty 20mi/h per (average!) a cyclist would have to ride full 29 days/year non-stop to match that. Thus, a better measure would be accidents/hour of…

We can do a 1:1 comparison of the lifespans of regular cyclists vs. the lifespans of non-cyclists. In these studies the average cyclist lives longer.

https://www.menshealth.com/uk/health/a39726399/cyclists-live...

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#265

Post by karussell »

tjpnz wrote: post #32
rNULLED wrote: post #2

guys new startup idea

A Free Ambulance service? Limited international growth prospects given the number of established players.

It could be a success in the US if you let people pay to not get hit ;) (people buy a tracker). Maybe this is the way to finally introduce universal health care.

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#266

Post by ygra »

Gud wrote: post #211
seer wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that in a lot of places in the west bicycles are forced to mix with motor vehicles, and away from pedestrians. This always seemed like a weird trade off to me - “you are inconveniencing some pedestrians, so go in this other lane where you can die” I grew up in Eastern Europe, where technically the laws are similar, but no policeman is going to stop you for riding on the sidewalk. So you natural…

Bicycles and pedestrians should absolutely not be mixed! What needs to happen are dedicated bicycle lanes and reduced car traffic.

They can be mixed off traffic is rather low and the path is wide enough (basically plan for the encounter of a pram in one direction with a cyclist with trailer in the other direction). But that typically doesn't work for sidewalks in many cases because they're either too narrow or have too much foot or bike traffic.

E-bikes and cargo bikes are also a lot heavier than other bicycles and are getting more common. Due to higher mass and being powered they're quite a bit more dangerous to pedestrians.

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#267

Post by Moru »

viraptor wrote: post #253
tmnvix wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's just not possible to solve in practice. It is never a necessity to drive so close to people that 10km/h is too fast to notice someone who may veer into the path of your vehicle without you having the ability to stop. Likewise to drive at a speed at which someone could appear from behind a nearby obstacle leaving you no time to react. It is a convenience that most people assume they are entitled to - largely…

I'm not talking about the cases where you have any choice about what's going to happen or your safety margin. A person jumps from a place fully obstructed by a truck, 1cm in front of your car - it doesn't matter how slow you're going - you're going to hit them before you register what happened.

That is why you don't drive past busses parked at a bus stop. There is always someone late for class or work, running out of the bus, and then across the street behind or in front of the bus. I'm even slowing down if I'm in the opposite lane meeting the bus because this happens so frequently. And the law (here in Sweden) says I should drive no faster than that I can stop on the road surface I can see. And that I have to antissipate people jumping out in front of the car from behind obstacles. Busses are luckily pretty high from the ground so you can see legs sticking out under it, this makes it a bit safer if you remember to look out for them.

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#268

Post by secretsatan »

Reminds me of what happened to a friend of mine in Switzerland. He was walking (perhaps staggering) home drunk one night, and a police car drove by to ask if he was alright and perhaps he wanted a lift home? The guy said alright and they drove him perhaps 500m.

Couple of days later he got a bill for the ride.

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#269

Post by jart »

epistasis wrote: post #188
mmooss wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say that jumping out of a plane without a parachute isn't dangerous, it's the ground that's dangerous. Cyclists make mistakes, make bad judgments, take big risks, just like car drivers. They are human too. You could say cyclists have a bigger incentive to avoid problems, but no driver I know wants to hit someone and injure them, and cyclists I know become inured to the risks after riding for years without i…

That's a pretty weak example; gravity is a physical force of nature and inescapable. Cars are a political choice that we made but don't have to make. But that the comparison seems apt is pretty endemic of how cars are treated: an absolute must, as if they were a force of nature. Never mind that a huge chunk of our population can not drive, and are therefore excluded from society by cars. Car dependency is a very excl…

Saying cars are a political choice assumes we live in a command and control society.

Saying "we" in this context assumes you have political power.

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#270

Post by Moru »

scott_w wrote: post #259
Moru wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't hook up on the wrong thing here. Everyone makes mistakes but the cyclists pay with their life. Is it a well designed system when a little mistake costs your life? The cyclists have a better understanding and overview of the trafic sittuation so from the car drivers view it looks like they take bigger risks.

The car driver’s view is irrelevant when determining who made the mistake, only the facts of the matter. And in the vast majority of cases, it’s the car driver.

I get the impression you read "Cyclists make mistakes" and commented without reading the rest. We all agree on what you are saying. That is what I'm objecting to.

"Cyclists make mistakes, make bad judgments, take big risks, JUST LIKE CAR DRIVERS."

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