Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

bicycledutch.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 339 posts

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#311

Post by switch007 »

nedt wrote: post #300
switch007 wrote: post #110

Driving in towns and cities in the Netherlands is frightening as a foreigner not used to it as you're constantly afraid about hitting a cyclist. I drive like a grandma there. And that's how it should be. I always regret not taking the very advice I gave yesterday about European cities and parking on the outskirts!

It's much easier if you also cycle or just walk. People in cars in a city is pretty weird, we just got way too much used to it.

Absolutely. And I do most of the time in the Netherlands. But like many Dutch people, I occasionally drive too ;)

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#312

Post by dr_dshiv »

hhhAndrew wrote: post #306
dr_dshiv wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite moves is when the Dutch simply don’t provide any guidance whatsoever in certain intersections. No signs. Brick or stone paving. It really works! "When you don't exactly know who has right of way, you tend to seek eye contact with other road users. You automatically reduce your speed, you have contact with other people and you take greater care." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space

I once saw a mind blowing series of slides from a Dutch transport engineer at a conference, showing the succession of steps taken over the years on a single country lane to reduce the chance of collisions to essentially zero. It started as a one-lane-each-way road like we all know. Later ome space was shaved off the sides for bike lanes. Later the lanes were repainted (without being moved) to appear much narrower. Dr…

Haha, I know many roads like that! Often along waterways. There is enough room to navigate (unlike many Irish country roads) but you definitely drive much more cautiously

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#313

Post by globular-toast »

mattlondon wrote: post #161
globular-toast wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in the UK is a deep cultural one. First we have to understand that, all things being equal, cars "win" by default on the roads. They are bigger, heavier, faster and more powerful (thanks to burning fossil fuels), and the operators are more reckless and inconsiderate due to being shielded from the outside world. That means their presence on the roads automatically makes it more dangerous and unpleasant for…

The roads are paid for in a large part by road taxes and fuel taxes. Cyclists pay zero towards it in direct taxation, apart from general taxation that everyone pays anyway. Why should cyclists be able to free load off of infrastructure paid for by tax-paying vehicles, and dictate that they are built to favour cyclists when they are not contributing a single penny? Also your point about being "near" is kinda ridiculou…

> Life is too short to care about these trifling matters really though isn't it?

I wouldn't call people's ability to be mobile a "trifling matter". In fact, I'd say it's fundamental to a free and equitable society. People should be able to move around safely and freely and the car is failing to be the solution to that.

Life is too short to spend it in a car. People hate driving. But they do it because there's no other choice. The infrastructure is car first and their bodies have atrophied to the point they can't get around without assistance.

I've seen people literally lose their minds as they sit in their car stuck in congestion day in, day out. Driving has become an adversarial pursuit that leads to anger and frustration. This is your life, and it's happening one traffic jam at a time.

A good life is not one where you utter "you absolute bellend" at least once every single day as you make your way to work.

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#314

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

mp05 wrote: post #242
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably something about the worldwide climate catastrophe caused by humanity continuing to burn fossil fuels at an ever increasing rate.

I understand that and I don't reject this sentiment outright, but one makes enemies when engaged in a good faith argument but feels the need to shoehorn their moral stance when nobody asked about it. It is, in fact, not at all relevant to the conversation. The easiest thing is to stay on topic, wouldn't you agree?

I'm not sure that it's necessarily a moral stance for the OP to point out that the most common form of transport is partially responsible for dumping lots of CO2 into the environment, when the discussion is about junctions that prioritise active travel (walking/cycling). In motornormative countries such as the UK/USA (many others too), people are conditioned to only get from A to B via polluting methods (recognising that electric cars produce large amounts of tyre pollution which somewhat offsets their possible lack of fossil fuel use). The use of enlightened designs that work well for the Netherlands is part of the toolkit that we need to change people's mindsets if we can get past all the seductive advertising of the motor industries.

I'd put it as more of a pragmatic, forwards-looking viewpoint that a moral stance.

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#315

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

mattlondon wrote: post #257
mattlondon wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The roads are paid for in a large part by road taxes and fuel taxes. Cyclists pay zero towards it in direct taxation, apart from general taxation that everyone pays anyway. Why should cyclists be able to free load off of infrastructure paid for by tax-paying vehicles, and dictate that they are built to favour cyclists when they are not contributing a single penny? Also your point about being "near" is kinda ridiculou…

Just to reply to myself instead of each post calling me dumb individually: I said we all pay via general taxation, so yes you me everyone pays for roads if we use them or not. Vehicle users also pay in addition to general taxes the direct taxes for their usage in terms of road tax and fuel duties (N.b. that road usage fees per mile are on the cards for EVs). Cyclists pay none of these (unless they also own a car) If…

Out of interest, where do you pay direct road taxes? (I've heard that some countries do this, but I don't know which ones).

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#316

Post by peoplefromibiza »

CalRobert wrote: post #310
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually walk my friend, but nice try to shove your American way on me There's a say in my country "chi male pensa male agisce" which roughly translates to “those who think badly act badly”

I am a parent and trying to show the reasons I don’t want my kids walking on the streets. And I live in the Netherlands

I'm a parent trying to show the reasons why treating your kids as disabled people will make them grow up as disabled people.

Your kids are humans and can learn stuff, if you think they can't learn to cross a street or that drivers are out there to chase and kill specifically your children or that the probability of being run over is higher than falling off a bike and dying (ironically in recent years, more cyclists were killed in the Netherlands than car occupants [1]) you are a very anxious parent, hence a bad parent.

Sorry.

Yeah, it might be true that bike accidents are caused by cars (even though the stats of your Country say that only half of them are due to a motorized vehicle) but teaching them to walk to school it's still an order of magnitude safer than any other means of transport.

Don't you want them to be free and independent? why?

p.s. as a side note, in the Netherlands road deaths are growing (despite what the bike heaven propaganda says) [1]

Maybe, just maybe!, it's safer for your kids to walk to school.

[1] https://etsc.eu/dutch-road-safety-thrown-back-in-time-15-yea...

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#317

Post by lawaaiig »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #222
mattlondon wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The roads are paid for in a large part by road taxes and fuel taxes. Cyclists pay zero towards it in direct taxation, apart from general taxation that everyone pays anyway. Why should cyclists be able to free load off of infrastructure paid for by tax-paying vehicles, and dictate that they are built to favour cyclists when they are not contributing a single penny? Also your point about being "near" is kinda ridiculou…

I always find this argument really funny because I wholeheartedly agree that taxes should be relative to the usage/damage of roads. But when you actually look at the numbers pretty much anywhere in the world it's always the cars and trucks being subsidised by the rest of the population. YES, PLEASE let me pay for only bicycle infrastructure, I hate having to pay for your car.

Wouldn't know about 'pretty much anywhere', but assuming you're from the Netherlands you might want to reconsider: https://www.kimnet.nl/binaries/kimnet/documenten/rapporten/2...

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#318

Post by vanderZwan »

eru wrote: post #302
vanderZwan wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Dutch person... this is sadly not just 100% accurate, it's almost part of our culture by now, hahaha. For example, in Gerard Reve's "De Avonden" ("The Evenings", a literary classic in the Netherlands from 1947) the daily bland dinners are described like a recurring cynical joke. Apparently World War 2 is to blame for the shift in food culture. Somehow we never recovered from that. I think we just internalized th…

From what I've heard, people also blame Britain's modern bland food on WW2. I wonder why Belgium (and France and Germany etc) didn't suffer as much long term damage to their cuisine? Stroopwafels are ok in small amounts. The Pannenkoeken are great, but pretty much the same experience as what I ate growing up in Germany, so they are practically 'invisible' to me. > [...] focus on getting good food from other cultures…

The Netherlands had a famine (created by the Nazi occupiers) that lasted for one winter[0]. England had to ration their food. I did a quick look for famines in WW2, and Germany, Belgium and France are not mentioned as having similar experiences[1].

Then again, skimming through the article: Greece and Austria did have a famine (with more deaths than the Netherlands too), Germany experienced a famine in 1918, and in Italy "food consumption fell from a pre-war mean of about 2,600 calories a day to 1,900 calories by 1944; classic famine symptoms may have been absent, but both infant mortality and deaths from infectious and respiratory diseases rose"

So clearly this isn't the whole story since I've never heard anyone complain about Austrian or Greek food. One thing that stands out to me is that the "bad food" countries the religiocultural heritage is mainly protestantism, whereas in the "good food" countries it is catholic (or orthodox in the case of Greece). I can't speak for England, but Dutch Protestantism has the mentality of "having fun is a sin, so don't", whereas Catholicism is more like "sure, but Jesus died for our sins so bring on the indulgences!" if I understand correctly. So that might be a part of it. At the very least the protestants lack events like carnival that celebrate good food!

How does Germany's northern (protestant) food culture compare to its southern food culture? That might be a decent litmus test for this.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944%E2%80%931...

[1] https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/famines-wwii

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#319

Post by vanderZwan »

Vinnl wrote: post #284
vanderZwan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without any cultural baggage of "being one of those bicycle people" Arguably you technically do have that cultural baggage, it's just that it's a core part of the Dutch national identity so it doesn't stand out ;)

I have some American "bicycle people" as colleagues, and most Dutch people certainly aren't "bicycle people" like they are, even if they cycle every day, just like how people just driving a car aren't necessarily "car people".

Ah, those kind of "bicycle people". I suppose survivor bias makes that kind of inevitable. The bicycle people who aren't scared off by environment that is extremely hostile to bikes and pedestrians are more likely to be really into bikes.

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#320

Post by [deleted] »

naming_the_user wrote: post #299

Very cool, but to me it kind of illustrates a common pattern of thought on here which is that there's theoretically some sort of "optimum" city design which works for everyone which is a fallacy. There are costs and benefits to everything. In London you can walk ten minutes, jump on the train, get where you want, have a walkable (ish) town centre, go home drunk, and it's accessible to the poor (if we assume away rent…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN