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Things people blamed on bicycles

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Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#541

Post by aendruk »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #475
pessimizer wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drivers go out of their way to pass me on a motorscooter , I guess because I remind them of a bicycle. My scooter accelerates from 0-60 before you can say "zero to sixty" and tops out at 80mph. Sometimes they're driving so dangerously that I slow down to let them pass both because they might hurt someone, and because I don't want somebody so crazy behind me. I find it bizarre how much some drivers feel like they're i…

I was on an ebike doing 32km/h in a 30 zone and cars keep overtaking me The entitlement of car drivers in unbelievable, they feel like they own the ourdoor space, park on sidewalk, and the only reason we havent paved every forest and ocean is their mercy

Around here you’d be passed by the majority of traffic regardless of vehicle for going “only” two over the limit.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#542

Post by BlargMcLarg »

navane wrote: post #524
DoubleFree wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem of dangerous interactions between drivers and cyclists is much smaller here in the Netherlands, mainly due to two reasons. The first reason is the infrastructure, both visible and invisible. Separated bicycle lanes are commonplace and in the few places where they intersect with car traffic, care is taken to make crossing safe and comfortable. This visible infrastructure is complemented by the concept of "…

Everyone is a cyclist and therefore drivers are very empathetic towards cyclists: a couple hours later or earlier they were the cyclist, and the cyclist was the driver.

This is a highly idealistic myth. Most drivers are not "cyclists a few hours earlier/later", and many definitely aren't empathetic. The split between bike lanes and car lanes, as well as the law favoring cyclists, should make that obvious. Cyclists even get away not showing their direction despite this being taught from early age.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#543

Post by yrro »

xattt wrote: post #433
bsagdiyev wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kinda feels like a no true Scotsman, if it walks quacks and flies like a duck it doesn't matter. Edit: I say this a cyclist myself. I see other people on bikes do some dumb shit, we can't say they aren't real cyclists because they do something that makes us look bad.

I am a cycling idealist and I struggle with outcasting a group. However, e-bikes can give unconditioned people “superhuman” strength and endurance. Physical training tends to give individuals intuitive limits for personal safety, but using a modified e-bike short-circuits this intuition. I am thinking that limits on stuff like diameter of frame tubing or tire width (which would not stand up to riding at speeds outsid…

They can't help. My friend sells second hand bicycles recovered from the police. A couple of weeks ago they gave him an e-bike. This thing had been modified with a twist throttle, 1 kW motor and a maximum speed of 62 MPH.

He took it up to 40 MPH (on his own private land) before chickening out. The chain would simply not stay on the cassette at that speed. He reckons that if you did drive it to the limit, you'd go through a brand new set of disc brakes and calipers in a week, if you didn't manage to boil half the hydraulic fluid off in the mean time!

But to a non expert this thing looks exactly like a regular bicycle--because it is (or was, before it was illegally modified to be a motorbike).

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#544

Post by JumpCrisscross »

DoubleFree wrote: post #194
montebicyclelo wrote: post #114

Cycling is cheap, often faster than driving (in my city), healthy, less noisy, creates vastly less pollution, less dangerous to pedastrians... And I'd guess that about 95% of drivers that I come across are respectful of the danger they present - overtaking with enough space, and not at too high a speed (my city doesn't have great bike lanes). Unfortunately, a typical journey involves passing more than 20 cars, which…

The problem of dangerous interactions between drivers and cyclists is much smaller here in the Netherlands, mainly due to two reasons. The first reason is the infrastructure, both visible and invisible. Separated bicycle lanes are commonplace and in the few places where they intersect with car traffic, care is taken to make crossing safe and comfortable. This visible infrastructure is complemented by the concept of "…

> Because everyone is a cyclist and there are cyclists everywhere, cyclists are equal participants in traffic and are treated with care and respect

Dutch cyclists are also more observant of the rules. In New York, cyclists regularly blow through red lights and cross walks going through wrong way and at high speed.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#545

Post by peoplefromibiza »

_joe wrote: post #232
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> car squeezes past you at high speed many cyclist don't understand this because they are bad drivers the point of passing a bike on the road is to avoid the danger you as a driver pose for the bike in the case of an unexpected event. like if the biker falls. clearing up the way as fast as possible is safer for both. Doesn't matter who's faster in the end, if that was the purpose, it would suffice for drivers to not…

Acting like what makes Rome's traffic dangerous are cyclists or moped drivers (even if those can often be quite reckless) is basically victim-blaming. We should never take such posts too seriously.

it's too many vehicles in general, too many, not a.specific kind of vehicle

when lockdown happened, cars weren't around, people started using electric scooters, with no cars around

results?

ER saw a spike of brain I juries because people where falling from them!

Is that the cars fault or it's people that are reckless?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/25/rome-to-impose...

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#546

Post by yrro »

bsagdiyev wrote: post #315
yrro wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't cyclists -- they are motorists using illegal uninsured vehicles. [In the UK, electrically assisted pedal cycles must cut out after 15.5 mph; the max motor output is 250 W; and the motor must solely be activated by the action of turning the pedals; vehicles that don't comply with these rules are illegal]

This kinda feels like a no true Scotsman, if it walks quacks and flies like a duck it doesn't matter. Edit: I say this a cyclist myself. I see other people on bikes do some dumb shit, we can't say they aren't real cyclists because they do something that makes us look bad.

Other replies have made the point that they look like, but don't quack like ducks. I just wanted to point out that I was speaking from a legal perspective: specifically, "[those] who uncapped their limiters and installed 1000 W motors for their “sleeper” builds" are motorists, and they are prosecuted as such when caught (which is not often, because cuts to police, CPS, courts and legal aid have effectively decriminalized most crimes in the UK).

You have identified that they give cyclists a bad reputation, and we all suffer due to it. :(

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#547

Post by F2hP18Foam »

seszett wrote: post #439
slingnow wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if energy output is your reasoning: then it's orders of magnitude more energy for a car to come to a full stop and re-accelerate than it is for a pedestrian to let it pass. Should cars then have priority over people in a crosswalk?

I hesitated talking about this in my post, but I should have. There are two different reasons to consider for pedestrians having priority over cars, unlike over bikes. First, as the sibling comment says, there is no energy personally spent by the driver to stop and start their car. It's effortless, while in the case of a bike, the energy is the biker's own. The other reason is that it is generally more difficult to c…

Why is energy expenditure the metric we're using to judge who should stop? In my opinion the metric should be this: whoever has the highest capability to cause injury to another person should be the one who has to be more careful and considerate. Injury is more consequential and potentially life-altering than energy expenditure. From this perspective, motor vehicles should give way to bikes, bikes to pedestrians.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#548

Post by colechristensen »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #271
pembrook wrote: post #178

Think folks are missing the point here. The idea of this thread isn’t that bicycles are uniquely singled out for ridicule. These article snippets all come from a time when the bicycle was just invented and usage was growing fast (eg like any new tech). In fact, I think they were taken from a defunct Twitter account called pessimists archive. The point is that mass media will always court controversy and bemoan any ne…

It just shows that people were confusing correlation and causation for far longer than we could have imagined.

It has been the entire history of the human species.

We are slightly overtuned to find patterns, and apparently that has allowed us to exist better. The cost of missing something seems to have been higher than the cost of false positives. Having a bad explanation for something was better than no explanation and the struggle now is to teach people to know the limits of their knowledge and be comfortable with just being unsure while pursing the truth.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#549

Post by paulgb »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #514
paulgb wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or maybe if you are scared of other road users and need a "safe space" you aren't a good road user. It’s not cyclists who feel the need to bring a climate-controlled metal protection bubble onto the road with them. Fear of other road users is in part what is fueling the SUV boom.

> It’s not cyclists who feel the need to bring a climate-controlled metal protection bubble onto the road with them what foes that even mean? do you live in the woods and only feed yourself with carcasses? > Fear of other road users is in part what is fueling the SUV boom. maybe in America here it's micro cars that are booming because after all SUV are stupid cars for stupid rich people with small dicks

> what foes that even mean?

Your implication is that cyclists who don’t want to be close-passed are wimps who shouldn’t be on the road. You used the term “safe space”, which is usually pejorative. My point is that those cyclists are braver than the drivers who wouldn’t be on the road without a protective, climate-controlled bubble (their vehicle).

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#550

Post by whatever1 »

Bicycles convert their owners to horrible people.

And I speak from personal experience, when I ride my bike I always become super angry at others.

Cars that might cut me off (ok that is mostly fair), but I also get angry with pedestrians, traffic lights, uphills, bad paving etc.

I think know why, because any of the above require me to pedal even harder, when I am already tired.

Maybe e-bikes are a better option for me.

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