Bike lanes have sped up car traffic in New York City • Hacker News Board

Re: Bike lanes have sped up car traffic in New York City

#301

Post by DannyBee » Thu, Sep 11, 2014, 11:38 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #184

DannyBee wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, cyclists can't physically cause road accidents that kill drivers? Interesting (and false :P)

I can't think of any scenario where a driver could kill somebody in an accident where the driver isn't at fault for it, except for cases where the cyclist at fault gets themselves killed. How does it work?

The argument made that i responded to was "while cyclists aren't killing drivers, because it's not physically possible"

This seems really simple: Cyclist decides to swerve across lanes without signaling, causing a car to need to break and swerve into a concrete barrier (or get hit by a truck, or whatever), and die.

Cyclist is at fault for not signaling (among other things). He caused driver to die.

I don't see why the cyclist would die in this scenario, assuming the car was successful in avoiding them prior to driver's death.

Re: Bike lanes have sped up car traffic in New York City

#302

Post by dllthomas » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 4:56 AM UTC

elblanco wrote: post #293

dllthomas wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There weren't any cops there the time I went - that could be great or go poorly, depending on the cop... but probably something worth looking into (idk if they have).

Lots of places have a dedicated community outreach officer. It would be worth calling the local precinct and finding out if they have somebody who can talk about road safety. You guys might even have some bike cops who can share and commiserate.

I'm not terribly involved, but I'll bring it up next time I get the chance!

Re: Bike lanes have sped up car traffic in New York City

#303

Post by commandar » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 4:41 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #291

commandar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Try it. You might be surprised that these bike lanes have dead ends or obstacles or just astonishingly crappy terrain. So much this. We have some fantastic bike trails in my area, but one of the primary arteries just suddenly ends about two miles from the downtown core. The official, city-endorsed route the rest of the way runs on normal surface streets. Coincidentally, the closest I've come to being involved in a s…

Also fun is when the bike lane doesn't take parked cars into account, leaving it either completely obstructed or entirely in the door zone - at which point the only safe options are take the lane or walk your bike. You see that less in new construction, these days, thankfully.

Yeah, the section of road this happened on is marked with sharrows.... which are quite possibly the most useless thing in existence to a cyclist.