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A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

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Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#381

Post by cup-of-tea »

jakubp wrote: post #357
cup-of-tea wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Operating a vehicle requires a licence because it is a lot of responsibility. You can kill people or do serious damage to property if you are unable to operate one safely. Riding a bike is something children can do. Do you suggest a licence to walk as well? I would like to see a road bicycle test, though. But it would be for potential motorists, not cyclists. I think if you want to operate a motorvehicle on the road…

Wow... Children can also drive cars, ride motorbikes, fly planes, perform surgery. That doesn't mean it's in society's best interest to let them without some training or examination beforehand. The difficulty in riding a bike in a city doesn't come from having to control the vehicle. Danger doesn't come from the ability to maim someone with a bike. It comes from hugely complex set of rules, dynamic nature of traffic,…

But children do manage to ride bikes safely all over the world every day without any formal training. On the other hand, adults who have had training and are licensed to drive still manage to cause accidents.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#382

Post by papermule »

cornyNetHandle wrote: post #379
papermule wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thought experiment: if you didn't have any motorised vehicles on the road, would you still want cyclists to have a licence? Of course! In a world where there were only cyclists there would still need to be a set of rules that all cyclists are required to follow. Those might include how to behave at intersections, how and when you should overtake other cyclists, and so on. To be allowed to cycle, each cyclist should…

In a world where there were only pedestrians, would you want them to start having licences? Per mile, walking is exceedingly dangerous compared to other modes of transport.

No, I don't think so?

1. Pedestrians move at much slower speeds than bicycles. If two pedestrians walk into each at 5mph the damage is much lower than if two cyclists collide at 30mph.

2. Since pedestrians move much slower than bicycles they can manoeuvre much faster. The stopping distance for a walking pedestrian is less than 1m, the stopping distance for a bycicle travelling at 30mph is much greater.

3. If two pedestrians walk into each other the chance of collateral damage is quite low. It's quite easy to walk around two people that just walked into each other.

If two cyclists collide, there is a good chance that cyclists on each side of them will get caught up in the collision, crash and injure themselves too. A good example of this are the crashes seen on Tour de France.

Of course, if people started running as a mode of transport it would become increasingly dangerous, and you'd have to start separating the walkers from the runners as the damage from a potential collision would be much greater.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#383

Post by howard941 »

klodolph wrote: post #207
mnw21cam wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why mini-roundabouts were invented.

America doesn't really have those... they would be as alien and confusing as a four-way stop in Europe. I can't imagine it not being dangerous.

I was surprised by three new mini traffic circles in Florida on a new road extension. The approaches are embellished with speed bumps. The bumps took away all enthusiasm for the thing.

(Cattlemen Rd in Sarasota)

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#384

Post by bertil »

ygra wrote: post #348
beobab wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a requirement of a year's worth of cycling on the road before you can have a driver's license would increase cycling awareness significantly. Nothing raises your appreciation of the difficulties faced by a group more than belonging to that group in a real and physical manner on a daily basis. Not that I think it would be implementable: Humans are remarkably good at rejecting constraints.

Interestingly I've become a much better cyclist after obtaining my driver's license. It made me very aware of the fact that you can't see anything from cars (compared to the elevated and pillar-free view from a bike) so you have to be aware of that fact as a cyclist and react accordingly. Some things cyclists do without thinking much are stupidly dangerous and I think this often is the result of cyclists and drivers…

> you can't see anything from cars

This is a very important difference and that’s the main reason I yearn for self-driving cars. Current vehicles are horrible to see where you are driving and drivers are in denial about it. At least, when you have engineers trying to represent a scene, they gut reaction is “No way I am dealing with such a slim view, I”m putting the camera where it can see what’s happening.”

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#385

Post by zimpenfish »

gambiting wrote: post #234
tc313 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most middle- and upper-class Americans take a driver’s education course (like what you’ve described) prior to receiving their driver’s license. In 10 years it won’t even be necessary because nobody’s going to be driving themselves anyway.

>> In 10 years it won’t even be necessary because nobody’s going to be driving themselves anyway. Try 50+ years. Driverless cars aren't happening anytime soon, and certainly not to a level where you literally don't need a licence to drive one.

And public transport definitely isn't going to be taking up the slack given the catastrophic decline in public investment therein.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#386

Post by revelation »

pc86 wrote: post #367
hesk wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the speed and the weight of the vehicles driven by motorists are generally so large that they tend to kill people in a collision. The same is not true for cyclists.

A pedestrian struck by a bicycle can absolutely be killed. It's not an uncommon occurrence, and it doesn't happen more often only because it's easier for a pedestrian to get out of the way of a bicyclist.

It is a highly uncommon occurrence and it doesn't happen more often precisely because of the vastly diminished kinetic energy involved.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#387

Post by rout39574 »

papermule wrote: post #366
chimprich wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why shouldn’t cyclists need a license to ride on the road? Thought experiment: if you didn't have any motorised vehicles on the road, would you still want cyclists to have a licence? In a general case though, requiring cyclists to have a licence would reduce the number of cyclists, probably significantly. This would correspondingly increase the number of motorists. This dual effect would have a number of negative i…

> Thought experiment: if you didn't have any motorised vehicles on the road, would you still want cyclists to have a licence? Of course! In a world where there were only cyclists there would still need to be a set of rules that all cyclists are required to follow. Those might include how to behave at intersections, how and when you should overtake other cyclists, and so on. To be allowed to cycle, each cyclist should…

> Of course! In a world where there were only cyclists there would still need to be a set of rules that all cyclists are required to follow.

What about walking? People can run into other people, knock them down stairs, it's a risk...

I think that most observers find the idea that bike use is a public hazard, and must be restricted to be obviously ludicrous.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#388

Post by Sean1708 »

jackvalentine wrote: post #320
lagadu wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're still a risk. Not knowing the rules can cause a motorist who did absolutely nothing wrong to kill said cyclist or swerve away from the cyclist and kill someone else not even involved, all because of a negligent cyclist. That said, demanding a license for cyclists I agree is completely unreasonable.

In my country all school children are taught the rules of the road at traffic school where they ride their bikes around a miniature road layout that comprises of most road scenarios.

To be fair that happens in Britain too, or at least it did at both my primary and secondary school.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#389

Post by ptaipale »

Xylakant wrote: post #351
ptaipale wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, that 2/3 is mostly not due to lack of knowledge. Over here (Finland), driving license training and testing nowadays has increased "attitude" training, as that is seen becoming more important than knowledge of traffic rules etc. Here, a motor vehicle was involved in 62 % of all bicyclist deaths over the period 2011-2015 (116 cases). Motor vehicle was not the guilty party in all of those (but in roughly 2/3 o…

> So, motor vehicle driver was at fault in about 40 % of cyclist deaths. Without any breakdown of who was at fault in the other accidents your stats still indicate that in comparison between bikes and motor vehicles, motor vehicle drivers are still twice as likely to be at fault. Retrain them before you retrain cyclists.

In a large majority of the remaining cases it is the cyclists who is at fault. There are a few cases where a pedestrian causes a cyclist death, but they are rare. The list includes those cyclists who are run over by a train, for instance, but we don't really expect trains to swerve to avoid cyclists, and such a collision is the cyclist's fault.

I don't necessarily say that requiring a license from cyclists is what I want. However, I do think that some training and education of cyclists would certainly help. I also see some cyclists who have clear attitude problems. So retraining - or perhaps re-orienting - everyone would help.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#390

Post by dagw »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #381
jakubp wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow... Children can also drive cars, ride motorbikes, fly planes, perform surgery. That doesn't mean it's in society's best interest to let them without some training or examination beforehand. The difficulty in riding a bike in a city doesn't come from having to control the vehicle. Danger doesn't come from the ability to maim someone with a bike. It comes from hugely complex set of rules, dynamic nature of traffic,…

But children do manage to ride bikes safely all over the world every day without any formal training. On the other hand, adults who have had training and are licensed to drive still manage to cause accidents.

But children do manage to ride bikes safely all over the world every day without any formal training.

Certainly when I was kid, bike and traffic safety was taught in school from 1st grade.

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