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Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

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Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#421

Post by Mawr »

nandomrumber wrote: post #146
Arubis wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not work both ways. One party to this is a high-inertia, potentially high-velocity metal box that, in an impact with the other party, typically results in an property insurance claim. The other is a low-inertia flesh bag that, in an impact with the other party, results in a medical insurance claim, and possibly a funeral.

All the more reason to be aware of who you’re sharing the road with. I spent a decade cycling for commute in a capital city in Australia. I’m also a tradesman, so I’m well aware that some people actually work on the road. By being a pedestrian or cyclist, you’re literally in other people’s workplace . Delivery drivers, construction workers, breakdown services, road maintenance, electricians, crane operators, cars for…

> By being a pedestrian or cyclist, you’re literally in other people’s workplace.

Are you actually serious right now? If I'm walking/cycling to work, which I usually am, then what? Is your job more important than mine? How can you possibly tell where I work or where I'm going? Ridiculous.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#422

Post by Mawr »

slibhb wrote: post #160
spankalee wrote: post #59

Cities that want to keep cars out of bike lanes should keep all cars out of them, autonomous or not, by ticketing them. But they don't, so taxis and delivery drivers stop in them. That's traffic enforcement's fault. Given that human drivers stop in bike lanes, Waymo then has a tradeoff: 1) Be the only ones to follow the letter of the law, break a lot of people's expectations, and catch backlash for disrupting traffic…

I agree with your analysis but I just want to point out that, as a general rule, cyclists do not follow traffic laws. They don't stop at stop signs/red lights. They weave in and out of traffic. They often bike the wrong way down one-way bike paths.

As a general rule, the the frequency illusion[1] and the negativity bias[2] are a thing and combined make shallow, single-datapoint arguments like yours instantly invalid.

[1]: "The frequency illusion is a cognitive bias in which a person notices a specific concept, word, or product more frequently after recently becoming aware of it."

[2]: "The negativity bias, is a cognitive bias that human cognition is relatively more affected by a negative affect than an equally potent positive affect."

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#423

Post by pandaman »

kelnos wrote: post #418
pandaman wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You described cars violating rules, but what is your remedy for that, not to stop? How is it going to help with the cars blowing their stops?

Yes, it absolutely helps, because when the cyclist doesn't stop, the driver doesn't get as impatient, and won't try to get around and blow by the cyclist.

I've seen people blowing stops with zero bikes stopped at the intersection, people blow stops regardless if there is a bike present and its state of motion. With bikes not being able to break as fast as cars and not having side airbags you might want to consider what's going to happen when you enter the intersection in front of such a driver before finding that empirically.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#424

Post by Mawr »

slibhb wrote: post #253
TulliusCicero wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drivers generally don't follow traffic laws. They text on their phone while they drive. They routinely go over the speed limit. They go through red lights. They go into or park in bike lanes. They tailgate other drivers. They don't signal before turning or changing lanes.

Drivers generally follow the rules. It's considered bad form when they don't, and they're occasionally ticketed. This doesn't apply to bikers. No one even expects them to follow the rules. I'm not anti-bike. I bike a bit and I got hit by a car last year. Some crackhead turned left across the opposite lane right into me. I'm just reporting what I see -- bikers do not generally follow the rules, and I find this interes…

Well, if you genuinely find it interesting, I can explain why they don't:

1. Cyclists live and die by inertia. Getting up to speed on a bike requires a lot of effort and every application of brakes erases that spent effort, which feels really bad.

In a car, it doesn't matter — you stop and accelerate with exactly the same trivial effort of pressing a pedal.

So all the grandstanding that cars stop at stop signs (since when, but ok), and cyclists don't is like bragging that you beat a disabled person in a 100m sprint. Good job, I guess.

2. Stop signs and traffic lights are made for cars, because of their speed, how dangerous they are, and how bad their visibility is. Cyclists are like pedestrians in that they do not need traffic lights, they can navigate just fine with just body language.

Telling whether running a red light would be safe in a car is essentially impossible, you're going too fast and can't see much, can't hear anything either. But on a bike you have perfect visibility, there's no box of metal all around you. You can hear quite well too.

Stop signs are an even better example. Literally the only reason for their use instead of yield signs is that the visibility at the intersection is bad enough that you need to stop to be able to yield. But that is only the case because your visibility is so bad in the first place.

Stop signs literally never make sense for bikes — there's no "hood", so your head is basically where the vehicle starts and you can lean forward to make that literally true if really needed, and you've got perfect visibility all around, no blind spots.

Hence why in a lot of places cyclists can legally treat red lights like stop signs and stop signs like yield signs.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#425

Post by Mawr »

throw_a_grenade wrote: post #239
danny_codes wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems irrelevant, we’re talking about cars. Also, of course bikers don’t follow car rules. Those rules are nonsensical for cyclists.

How is that when car drivers decide the rules are nonsensical it's bad, but when bicycle drivers decide the rules (that, please note, apply to everyone on the street, car or not), it's somehow A-ok?

Hmm well, we have some "smart traffic lights" where I live that are always red unless a vehicle goes over a metal detecting loop under the road in front of them. Guess how well that works for any vehicle that's not a car.

Rules of the road are generally designed in the same way — for cars. Nobody cares about carving out obvious exceptions for bikes, like the Idaho stop.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#426

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dangus wrote: post #396
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every day new land is developed that perpetuates these choices. Every day we decide to keep things the same or implement change This is a great argument. Retrofitting America is one discussion. But building new developments such that they don't require a car–at least within themselves–should be doable.

I still think it’s worth observing the Netherlands as an example because they also had mid-century car-oriented development that they successfully retrofitted. And of course, also, this doesn’t mean “nobody owns a car in the Netherlands.”

Do you have a good source on that retrofit?

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#427

Post by fc417fc802 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #343
gpm wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In dense cities deliveries to front doors shouldn't be done by cars, yes. They take up too much space and cause too much inconvenience. For dense-deliveries (e.g. mail) park legally and walk some sort of cart along the sidewalk for blocks. For sparse-deliveries (e.g. food) ebikes work great. For medium density (e.g. puroloator) cargo-ebikes at least greatly increase the number of out of the way spots you can park. La…

This is pretty idealistic. What winds up happening around me is the amazon guy parks their car in the middle of the road AND also has a cart to hit multiple houses at the same time in that region. Furniture deliveries or even moving trucks can block our street for 30 minutes at a time. It is almost as bad as garbage day (ya, you aren't getting through our street on Tuesday morning if you time it wrong). This would al…

> if we just had delivery parking spaces and got rid of on street parking for everyone else.

The complaint I keep seeing is one of public subsidy. So you're suggesting we subsidize deliveries but not general parking? (To be clear I think it's all just anti-car absurdity.)

Of course merely repurposing a few spots to "commercial deliveries only" every few blocks would probably work. I've seen that done in a few places. I think it comes down to a planning and administration failure.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#428

Post by fc417fc802 »

jasomill wrote: post #319
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC used to (or still?) enforced strictly parking violations by delivery companies. But they did it so evenly the companies just considered it a cost of doing business, and raised their rates accordingly. Not violating the law and still being in the business wasn’t an option, so no competitor could undercut the other by following the rules and not paying the fine.

Sounds like a scenario where something other than fines should be applied. Revoke plates fleetwide, tow any delivery trucks caught on the street with a mandatory 72 hour minimum impound time, with no access to the contents of the vehicle. And so on.

If Amazon then started marking packages as delayed with a video of the truck being towed I imagine the voters would quickly "fix" the enforcement "problem" in the delivery companies' favor.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#429

Post by seanmcdirmid »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #427
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty idealistic. What winds up happening around me is the amazon guy parks their car in the middle of the road AND also has a cart to hit multiple houses at the same time in that region. Furniture deliveries or even moving trucks can block our street for 30 minutes at a time. It is almost as bad as garbage day (ya, you aren't getting through our street on Tuesday morning if you time it wrong). This would al…

> if we just had delivery parking spaces and got rid of on street parking for everyone else. The complaint I keep seeing is one of public subsidy. So you're suggesting we subsidize deliveries but not general parking? (To be clear I think it's all just anti-car absurdity.) Of course merely repurposing a few spots to "commercial deliveries only" every few blocks would probably work. I've seen that done in a few places.…

I am claiming we should subsidize short term drop off/pick up use of limited street front space (not just deliveries, but ride share/taxi pickup/dropoff also) rather than waste it on someone parking their car for 72 hours because they can't be bothered to pay for a parking space.

But ya, if you want to roll back car use, you can do that fastest by restricting free parking. Your community better be prepared for that with adequate public transit investments. Better to just roll back free parking slowly while ramping up public transit investments, but America always messes it up one way or the other.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#430

Post by [deleted] »

Teever wrote: post #409
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the fines in the world won’t save you from getting mowed down by a distracted driver on their phone. Drinking and driving has heavy fine deterrents, yet people still do it anyway. You know what stops a drunk or distracted driver from killing someone? A cement barrier

That's the wrong way to look at it. People still drink and drive because the deterrents aren't heavy. It's a bit tautological but if they were heavy enough then by definition they would be deterrents, but they aren't, so they aren't. The correct solution to this kind of problems and others is to fix the obviously broken fine system. The first fine for anything should sting and it should make anyone who gets it think…

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