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

Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 969 posts

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#361

Post by em500 »

slothtrop wrote: post #270
matsemann wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - might be impossible depending on work or children; The newer style of cargo bikes can for many families replace a car. Have two kids seated in the trunk of the bike and drop them off at kindergarten, then continue biking to work and pick them up on the way home. Those are a bit on the pricier side, though. Still cheap compared to a car, but people often look at them as something "extravagant" or "in addition" to…

Can't understate the temporal dimension to owning a car. When dropping and picking up a kid at daycare, you want to move fast, if you work for a living.

This depends very much on local circumstances. In our local daycare in Amsterdam, probably 3/4 of dropping and picking up was done by bike. Even at that level, using a car is often slower due to tightness of parking space.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#362

Post by pclmulqdq »

scott_w wrote: post #311
pclmulqdq wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because an accident and a traffic violation are different. Minor accidents are usually handled without police intervention, and this is by design.

See my other comment: he pulled out without looking because he was in the middle of cutting up other road users (me in this case). That’s driving without due care and attention which is a traffic violation in the U.K. The police don’t care. What mechanism will put him in jail?

"Driving without due care and attention" sounds like a statute that has a much more specific interpretation than you think, and the police probably aren't the ones who misinterpreted that here. "Careless driving" and "reckless driving" are against the law in many states in the US, but both actually have very specific interpretations that are not entirely contained in the text of the statute. This is the joy of living in a common law country.

Things like running red lights, not stopping at stop signs, and speeding are much easier for laypeople to judge, and it sounds like none of that was happening here.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#364

Post by danjoredd »

mrpopo wrote: post #53
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…

1 car/household is still entirely feasible with children (and the norm for many lower-class in Europe). We live with 1 child and no car and it's been working fine thus far. You have to be careful about where you live and work though, but I'd say the added quality of life of living car-free (in a car-free city) is all worth it.

Growing up my family was mostly a one-car family. I was homeschooled so that made it a lot easier since nobody had to pick me up at school, and my mom was stay-at-home. I totally understand why a public schooled family where both parents work might need two cars though. It would be a pain to drop your kids off at school, drop your spouse off at work, THEN head on to work and then pick them all up at the end of the day when traffic is clogged.

It depends pretty heavily on family situations and all

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#365

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

idopmstuff wrote: post #245
Tade0 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I think we will see a shift in where people settle, where they will no longer base their lives around owning multiple cars. Not if real estate in cities remains as expensive as it is now. That's one of the main reasons why so many people move out and choose to spend so much time commuting. Cars are just a means to an end, which is not living in a one-bedroom apartment as a family.

Yeah, unfortunately it seems very much like we're heading the opposite direction. People largely congregated in cities because of proximity to work, but as remote work increases that's becoming less of a factor. As people try to find cheaper property and more land, they're going to end up in places where bikes are a whole lot less practical.

bikes are great in small towns with decent infrastructure. the range from 20k to 100k people is kind of perfect for biking because they are a bunch smaller than big cities. in actually rural and suburbia they aren't as good but small towns are perfect.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#366

Post by thomasahle »

nonethewiser wrote: post #142
jerrre wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't most of you points also apply to drunk walking?

The damage is a function of mass and speed. Obviously walking < e-bike << car

The argument above was that you can still hurt a bus driver psychologically by having them kill you. So it doesn't really matter that an ebike is heavier.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#367

Post by thomasahle »

nonethewiser wrote: post #142
jerrre wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't most of you points also apply to drunk walking?

The damage is a function of mass and speed. Obviously walking < e-bike << car

The argument above was that you can still hurt a bus driver psychologically by having them kill you. So it doesn't really matter that an ebike is heavier than walking.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#368

Post by bertil »

margorczynski wrote: post #209
orobinson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in London. We have three kids, no car and an electric cargo bike which they can all fit in. It's brilliant and all we need for getting around London. I've also used it for picking up furniture and building materials - such a versatile vehicle and much more enjoyable to use than a car.

Aren't you wary that the bike doesn't offer almost any protection at all when an accident happens? Something that causes minor or no damage when inside a car can easily cause serious injury on even death when on a bike.

The problem is not what happens to a bike or a car in a comparable accident. The problem is that some car drivers somehow believe that bikes don’t belong on the road.

They display two very distinct and easy to notice behaviour:

1. They deny bike presence on the road: They refuse to yield, don’t check their mirror, and run them over as if the bike is not there. When you point out the discrepancy, they just affirm that cyclists have to yield to more important traffic no matter what the condition.

Another symptom of that is drivers thinking that bikes should not be on the road and harassing them with honks, and revving their engine. When they pass them, or on-line, they loudly claim that bikes are not allowed on the road or have a (non-existent) obligation to move away of a far more important car drivers threatens them. In that process, they speed (which is illegal), pass dangerously (also illegal) and threaten people with bodily harm (again, illegal). Retraining, license ban and jail sentences are easy ways to get dangerous people like that to not put people’s lives in danger.

A third symptom is that they claim that “no one” is using bike infrastructure (in spite of evidence like what we see in London) because they refuse to see it. They see no issue with routinely parking on bike lanes or blocking bike-only passages. This complete denial of another humanity is hard to imagine if you haven’t witnessed it, but it’s very common.

2. They have a cop-out of thinking that bikes are “dangerous” because they project their own dangerous and unhealthy driving habits as “normal” and impossible to modify——denying that those habits mean they break the law in several ways. Crash don’t just happen: drivers choose to not pay attention. Actually supportive drivers are not pretending they care: they are enthusiastic about cycling because when they are around bikes, drivers don’t honk, threaten or put cyclists’ lives in danger. And they can’t imagine that anyone would.

It’s very simple for cyclists to be safe: drivers should look at them and thing “This is a human, going from somewhere to somewhere else, like me. I should not kill them.” If they don’t, the cyclist is not the one in danger: the driver is.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#369

Post by olivermarks »

Make sure you charge your ebike battery outside and/or in a steel ammunition box to mitigate fire risk.

What's driving the battery fires with e-bikes and scooters?

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/11/1162732820/e-bike-scooter-lit...

The problems seem to be more with low end Chinese ebikes.

Hopefully LEVA will produce some standards as Light Electric Vehicles are very unregulated right now.

https://levassociation.com/

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#370

Post by dsfyu404ed »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #276
yourusername wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Said someone that has never lived across the street from a elevated subway, on a street with a streetcar or near a bus stop.

The saying isn't "only cars are loud" smartass. And I've lived across from from an elevated transit line in an otherwise carless city center and it was quieter than any north american subwayless city I've lived in so this isn't even true lol.

[flagged]
Post reply on HN