Whilst I agree with the concept that motorists are responsible for their own behaviour on the road and should not endanger other travellers, I believe that on a road where the speed limit is 55mph, or realistically any speed, that vehicles using that roadway should be able to maintain a safe and non-obstructive speed on said roadways. If your vehicle cannot maintain such a speed, it shouldnt be on a road with other vehicles.
Having said that, Cyclists in sydney are a menace, running red lights into traffic and pedestrians, crossing through pedestrian crossings and running into people, generally ignoring the rules of the road. If they want equal access, they need to conform to the same rules.
I live and work in Sydney and suffer near misses with cyclists on a regular basis, somehow I've never had a problem with a car running through a red light into a packed pedestrian crossing, only cyclists. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, just that cyclists seem to think road laws don't apply to them.
The transgression of cycling through a red light is much
more visible than lets say speeding, mobile phone or dangerous driving.
Yet it is also much less dangerous than any of those things.
Even if we assume that there is a massive level of red light jumping going on part of the Sydney cyclists, fatalities or serious injury as a result of this are extremely rare.
Sadly the same cannot be said for cars hitting people.
Having an obnoxious anti-cycling culture is by no means mutually exclusive with having irresponsible, law-breaking cyclists. (And in fact the latter may be a contributing factor to the former.)
Almost every time I encounter cyclists in traffic, they context switch between vehicle and pedestrian at their convenience.
If you want to be treated as a vehicle, be a vehicle. Don't block a lane between intersections and then ride the divider lines to advance ahead of cars at every intersection so they can wait and merge around you once the light turns.
As a former bike commuter, I really don't understand why bikes are required to ride the roads and behave like cars. They seem far more compatible to ride sidewalks and co-travel with pedestrians.
> They seem far more compatible to ride sidewalks and co-travel with pedestrians.
I agree. Bikes as road vehicles is a dangerous anachronism. Overtaking bikes is the most unpleasant exercise for me as a driver. Although, given the state of roads vs. the state of sidewalks, I understand why they choose the road.
The other reason cyclists choose the road is because sidewalks are frequently filled with turn-ins and turn-outs. So riding on a sidewalk, even if there were no pedestrians, would be an act of putting yourself in exactly the place motorists rush to get to/from most frequently.
> They seem far more compatible to ride sidewalks and co-travel with pedestrians.
Pedestrians and bike riders are not compatible either. I am a bike commuter as well. I live in West Germany at the moment, but I have also bike commuted to work in Australia. In general, commuting in Germany is a much safer proposition than in Australia. The German drivers seem to be more aware and tolerance to the bike commuters. The bike riding paths are also very well configured and designed, minimising the risk of accidents.
> Pedestrians and bike riders are not compatible either
Maybe you could explain what you're thinking of when you say this? My experience says that pedestrians and bikes are fully compatible; they commonly share sidewalks.
Bikes can go much faster than pedestrians. People can get seriously hurt when bikes run into them. Bike lanes are what's needed (and exist in many places).
I'd claim that cyclists tend behave a lot more like other motorists than like pedestrians The speed difference between a cyclists and a pedestrian is usually bigger than that between a car and a cyclists, at least in urban traffic. Pedestrians can be very unpredictable and they don't tend to signal very clearly what they are about to do, not to mention that a pedestrian can stop or turn around pretty much instantly.
The optimal solution is of course to build dedicated bike lanes, but if that's not a option I'd rather ride my bike on the road with other cars, than on a shared path with pedestrians. It's also a matter of attitude, roads are built to allow cars to travel between point A and point B as fast as possible. If cycling is to be seen as a form of transportation they also need to have access to proper infrastructure.
So, I live in Shanghai, which hopefully qualifies as "urban" with a population of over 20 million people (according to wikipedia, almost 10k per square mile, healthily above LA). All of the following situations are routine:
1. Dedicated bike lanes.
2. Bikes hiding along the side of a street without bike lanes, hoping not to be killed.
3. Bikes using the sidewalk.
Sharing the sidewalk is far and away the safest thing for the bikers; even if you're using a dedicated bike lane you'll sometimes have to cross car traffic (say, if you're making a left turn -- I'm willing to do this as part of a giant herd of bikes, but if I'm on my own I just use crosswalks with the pedestrians). Cars are fast; bikes aren't. I could see myself potentially injuring a small child by crashing into them with my bike; I cannot imagine seriously injuring an adult the same way. I have personally been involved in a bike crash; I crashed into a motorized bicycle going the other way in a bike lane. This is much worse in terms of speed differential than a bike hitting a pedestrian, but the total of my injuries was a bleeding knuckle.
> The optimal solution is of course to build dedicated bike lanes
This is phrased with much more confidence than I believe you can reasonably have. Maybe a better solution is to assume that bikers aren't such idiots that they'll be crushing children beneath their wheels all the time if you allow them on the sidewalks. I fairly frequently get stuck behind groups of pedestrians when the sidewalk isn't wide enough for me to go around them. I've often heard one of them say to another "hey, let that guy by". I've never heard anyone say "hey, get off the sidewalk".
> If cycling is to be seen as a form of transportation they also need to have access to proper infrastructure.
Trust me, cycling is viewed as a form of transportation here. And yes, dedicated bike lanes are all over the place. But it's still routine for bikes to use the sidewalk. There are plenty of older areas with wide sidewalks and narrow streets.
I've lived in China (Beijing and Shanghai) for ~5 years, and frequently ride bicycles and an electric Vespa-style scooter.
Bicycles and scooters on the sidewalk, ridden by inconsiderate riders, are common, irritating and dangerous. The same is true of cars driving in cycle lanes or service lanes, and the myriad other thinga car drivers do to make life difficult for cyclists.
Sure, cycling on the pavement may be in your own self-interest, but it is strictly bad for pedestrians. Why should they have to change their walking pattern for you? I will give way to electric scooters on the sidewalk, not because I don't mind them, but because it's less unpleasant than a collision or being shouted/hooted at.
I've never asked anyone to change. Note how I described getting stuck and hearing chinese pedestrians admonish each other to let me by. If I get really stuck I get off and walk the bicycle.
Bicycles on the sidewalk are fairly common. They're not dangerous.
> I've never asked anyone to change. Note how I described getting stuck and hearing chinese pedestrians admonish each other to let me by.
I've been that pedestrian. We're walking on the pavement. We become aware of someone behind us on a bicycle, who cannot get through unless we move aside. My friend suggests we stop at the side and let the bicycle pass. I reluctantly do so.
Did the cyclist ask me to change? No. Did the cyclist inconvenience me? Yes.
> Bicycles on the sidewalk are fairly common. They're not dangerous.
I was walking to work in Shanghai, ~90 minutes ago (shortly before 7am). A cyclist on the pavement nearly hit me. He was a foreigner wearing a business suit. He was cycling on a pavement which had explicit markings and bollards to separate what was a pedestrian walkway into two lanes (one for cycles). He was cycling along the (narrower) pedestrian part.
I've lived in China (Beijing and Shanghai) for ~5 years, and frequently ride bicycles and an electric Vespa-style scooter.
Bicycles and scooters on the sidewalk, ridden by inconsiderate riders, are common, irritating and dangerous. The same is true of cars driving in cycle lanes or service lanes, and the myriad other thinga car drivers do to make life difficult for cyclists.
Sure, cycling on the pavement may be in your own self-interest, but it is strictly bad for pedestrians. Why should they have to change their walking pattern for you? I will give way to electric scooters on the sidewalk, not because I don't mind them, but because it's less unpleasant than a collision or being shouted/hooted at.
off the top of my head...
* An accident between a bike and pedestrian usually results in the pedestrian getting hurt.
* Footpath is generally too crowded or too small to cater for both pedestrian and bike.
* Kids walking on the footpath are usually absent minded and not lookout for bikes.
* etc
In general, it is similar to the reasons why bike and car are not so compatible on the road.
I’m cycling to work in Munich at the moment. There’s a little piece (~800m) of one-way street with traffic lights at both ends. Due to the layout of the initial traffic lights, cyclists usually enter that street before traffic, as they have to obey their special bike-traffic-light.
On that street, cars attempt and do pass by me every day, despite there definitely not being enough room for a bike and a car to move next to each other – resulting in them passing by at distances of as little as 1m! Did I mention the speed limit of 30 km/h there and that I’m usually doing exactly that?
There’s also at least once a day some idiot who thinks he can turn right over the bike lane without checking for actual bikes on that lane and another idiot who considers the bike lane a very convenient parking spot. There are also usually two to three cases where a driver attempting to turn into the main street from the right (without right of way) stops on the bike lane and then gets upset if one attempts to drive around them.
The idea that German drivers are aware or tolerant of bikes is absolutely ridiculous – though of course they may be more aware and tolerant than Australian bikers, but I don’t know that (:
Unfortunately, policing these traffic violations seems to be perfectly uncommon here.
Of course, most of these wouldn’t be issues if we treated bikes like cars with the exact same rights and obligations as cars.
> Of course, most of these wouldn’t be issues if we treated bikes like cars with the exact same rights and obligations as cars.
Hmm, I suppose you did not mean this, but I think that mandating a bike rider's license, registration, insurance and annual tax would not help that much to remove problems.
Overall, I don't see how bikes could have the exact same rights and obligations as cars, although overall both are vehicles and should be treated as vehicles, equally. Still, you can't ride a bike on an Autobahn, and neither can you drive a tractor. You may or may not be allowed to ride bike on a road that is dedicated to buses, although you may be allowed to ride a bike there. Etc, etc. Bikes cannot and shouldn't have *exact' same rights and obligations as cars.
> Hmm, I suppose you did not mean this, but I think that mandating a bike rider's license, registration, insurance and annual tax would not help that much to remove problems.
If that means I can use inner-city roads the same ways cars can use them and that I’m not forced onto shoddy bike lanes the width of a towel, I’m happy to get registered, pay insurance etc. I somewhat expect bike insurance to be less expensive than car insurance on account of you being able to do less damage with a bike; similarly, taxes should be lower as even overland bike paths are much cheaper than anything built for cars. Overall, I’m not unhappy about the idea, though.
> Overall, I don't see how bikes could have the exact same rights and obligations as cars, although overall both are vehicles and should be treated as vehicles, equally. Still, you can't ride a bike on an Autobahn, and neither can you drive a tractor. You may or may not be allowed to ride bike on a road that is dedicated to buses, although you may be allowed to ride a bike there. Etc, etc. Bikes cannot and shouldn't have *exact' same rights and obligations as cars.
Of course there was some hyperbole there – I don’t expect to be allowed to drive on a highway, but not because I am a cyclist but because I can’t meet some minimum speed (i.e. the same rules that mean tractors can’t drive there either). However, I don’t see why I can’t drive on an inner-city road among cars which are at most allowed to drive 50 km/h and instead have to stick to a tiny bike lane next to a series of parked cars.
Regarding bus lanes, I am actually not too fond of them being open to cyclists: A single bus being slowed down annoys substantially more people than even a couple cars being slowed down and passing by a stopped bus is a major annoyance and safety issue. There’s some idea that you can promote cycling by giving out these perks (elsewhere, hybrids or electric cars are allowed to use them, too), but overall that shouldn’t be necessary in a healthy climate.
IMO, if you're going fast enough and there isn't room for cars to pass, you should be riding down the center of the lane. Especially if there's hazards in the bike lane.
Don't let people do stuff that compromises your safety.
> The idea that German drivers are aware or tolerant of bikes is absolutely ridiculous – though of course they may be more aware and tolerant than Australian bikers, but I don’t know that (:
I have heard that Munich drivers are crappy, joking :-)
I commute about 18Km into Cologne, and the traffic I come across have been pretty good. I even had the local bus follow me down a one lane street without much of a horn or flashing lights for about 1 km. In general, they treat me and the other bike riders like another car.
I have also commuted in other parts of Cologne, but also had good behaviour from the drivers.
I cycle around Seattle quite a bit and my preference is always to ride on the sidewalk. As far as I know, this is legal as long as I yield to pedestrians.
I can ride nearly the same speed as on the road, and stop or slow down at my leisure. It's much more enjoyable. I never find pedestrians to be an issue.
It's always far faster than walking and less stressful than riding in the street.
If you really do yield to pedestrians than I suppose they don't but most bicyclists are -- like smokers -- not nearly as considerate as they think they are.
My basic strategy is to wait until at least half of the sidewalk is open before passing any pedestrians. I have no problem coasting at pedestrian speed until I have a passing opportunity. It still beats walking.
Bicycles are not comparable to motor vehicles, as they are much slower (50 km/h vs ~15-20 km/h).
Bicycles are also not comparable to pedestrians, as they are much faster (5 km/h vs ~15-20 km/h).
I think it's a mistake to mix traffic that differs in speed by a factor of 3.
As someone who moved from the Netherlands to London, it has taken me years to adjust to absence of real bicycle lanes. They really do seem like the best answer to me.
Haha, I'm sure that's true (in fact, it's one of the reasons many prefer cycling), but I'd argue that the average speed matters a lot less than the top speed. Stop and go traffic, where one minute cycles whizz past cars and the next it's the other way around, is probably the worst of both worlds.
I agree. When would you like to exchange your car for a bicycle when the roads are turned back over to pedestrians and cyclists? Road bike or mountain bike?
> They seem far more compatible to ride sidewalks and co-travel with pedestrians.
I live in Tempe, AZ near ASU - one of the "most bike friendly" cities in the US, and I can't tell you how many times I've been nearly killed by a bike at full speed weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk - where it's actually illegal for them to ride.
Bikes do not belong on the sidewalk unless they're moving as slow as a pedestrian, which they never are. They're a hazard.
Many years ago I biked daily on 40 mph city streets, so I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about.
While I totally understand that it must've felt menacing to nearly have been hit by a bicycle, do you _really_ think it would've killed you?
I also think that cyclists shouldn't ride at speed on the sidewalk, but even if, cyclists causing pedestrian fatalities is extremely rare. It has happened, but it's statistically insignificant when compared to cars killing pedestrians.
There is a big difference between getting hit by 90kg at 30km/h vs 1900kg at 45km/h.
I think it could indeed kill you. It's rare, but certainly can happen:
"""
From 1996 to 2005, 11 pedestrians across New York City died after being struck by bicyclists.... 2006 to 2013, there were just four pedestrian deaths, according to the city’s Department of Transportation.
""" [0]
Very sad. However, you kind of made my point. That amounts to 0.8 pedestrian fatalities a year caused by cyclists, with a population of 8.4 million people.
In the overall road toll, hardly any fatalities are caused by cyclists. In fact, most accidents involving cyclist are caused by drivers.[1]
Don't get me wrong, all of it counts and is sad and regrettable. I do however think there is an anti-cyclist bias ingrained in the perception and reporting of it's dangers, that's out of whack with the real numbers on accidents.
What are you going on about? The person was complaining about bicycles on the sidewalk where it is illegal for them to be. Who cares if they don't kill people that often? It's not the point!
I am talking about perceived risk of cycling as a hyperbole vs actual risks that don't get mentioned. I'm pretty sure more people get killed by cars mounting the sidewalk.
Cripes, you win. I was using "nearly killed" as a figure of speech. Guilty as charged!
But here's the rub - people don't want to put up with even a 1-in-1000 chance of getting a broken arm just from walking on the sidewalk, and they don't want to constantly be on guard against bikes zipping all over the place on what should be a relaxing walk.
It's annoying, and that's why we have things like noise ordnances even though no one ever like, dies because the neighbors are too loud.
Not really the point, I don't think. I expect to be safe from vehicles walking on a sidewalk, period (that's the point of sidewalks). People in/on vehicles, whether cars or bicycles, are taking on much more risk, at their choice.
The real solution is to separate cars and bikes, just like we separate cars and people. Dedicated, buffered bike lanes and safer intersections.
Where I live we have many bike roads, and in similar way, I can't tell how many times I see pedestrians use those roads. Parents with strollers are nearly performing suicide for themselves and their children, a behavior which is likely illegal as well.
It is almost as if everyone only care about conveniences rather than safety. If only everyone followed traffic laws, had dedicated roads for each kind of transportation, and maintenance for each kind of road was identical, then we would not be in this mess. As it stand, people are a hazard to each other when traffic of one kind mixes with an other.
Some boroughs have already completed the move (i.e. the link above) and others are following.
Traffic in London rarely gets above 20mph anyway, so it barely impacts. As a driver it makes driving more relaxing and hasn't impacted travel times. As a cyclist, it's a joy to not have vehicles racing to overtake in appropriate places.
One of the main problems is that the road have not been designed for cyclists at all. In Denmark there is dedicated bike lanes, and cyclists like you describe is for the most part not a problem at all.
I agree they're the biggest nuisance, but.. they're just a nuisance. I'm not fearing for my life from bikes like I do from cars all the time at almost every intersection.
Yes! I have so much dislike for cyclists because they run red lights, they drive between cars, and they flit about. I can't ever predict what they're going to do because they don't seem bound by the same rules I am bound by in my car.
Taking a lane while riding a bike is the safest thing to do when the road is too narrow because it prevents drivers from trying to "squeeze" by. It's also how people claim they want bikes to act, just act more like a car, unless it slightly annoys me. In which case, move over, ride on the shoulder while people blow by you without slowing down from going 15 over in a 30 mph zone.
Lane splitting/filtering at stop lights puts bikers in a safer and more visible position, in front of, instead of between vehicles. When I attempt to queue at lights, the car behind me will often inch up until I'm uncomfortable. If there is a car coming, I often wonder whether they "see" me, or whether I'm about to get caught between two cars having a fender bender, and end up leaving with two broken legs.
Sidewalks are not meant for bikes. The offset from the road, and expectation that traffic on them will move slowly leads to drivers pulling into them without actually checking for traffic. On many occasions while jogging I've almost ended up on someones hood, add a bike, and I'd have been across the hood and on the left side of the car before the driver even looked to his right for traffic.
Everyone should be responsible for their personal safety, regardless what everyone else says. But beyond that, i guess this piece is pushing for more responsibility on the motorist end.
Because it shouldn't be a defence of a driver to say "Sorry mate, I didn't see you". And if that is a defence, then isn't it a form of victim blaming? And what measure would be enough to allow the cyclist to ever prove that the driver must have seen the cyclist? Surely lights would be enough, but enough London cases about cycle deaths would appear to show this isn't enough... cyclists with lights are still killed.
I don't get your argument. Just because the lack of X does not excuse behavior Y doesn't mean that the presence of X isn't advisable. For instance, if you collide your automobile into another automobile because you didn't have a rear view mirror, that obviously is not an excuse. And yet, it is still reasonable to advise (and indeed require) that automobiles have rear view mirrors.
A cyclist in London died. I can't recall the guys name but probably can find the information for you if you insist.
He had a Flare rear light, reflective jacket, and even during the court case witnesses testified to the brightness of the light and it's effectiveness. The weather and conditions were good.
The driver still used the SMIDSY defence, still walked free with little more than a fine.
At what point do we stop and say that perhaps it isn't enough to be dressed as a clown and lit with everything possible... perhaps the responsibility to not hit a cyclist should be with the driver to drive with care and attention?
There's no contradiction here. I think that the case as you described it is ludicrous, and I still think it's prudent for cyclists to take measures to increase their visibility.
He's not in arms against the tech, but rather against the laws that make them mandatory. Because it encourages motor vehicle drivers even more to not properly pay attention because they're not the ones at fault when hitting a cyclist.
Or, and here's a shocking concept, motorists could actually pay attention to their surroundings. Cyclists are not difficult to spot if you are paying proper attention while operating your vehicle.
Sure, that would be nice. But I'm gonna make damn sure that people see me. Being the smallest one on the road is bad enough, now you want me to trust that they'll all do the right thing all the time?
In fact, I think cycling at night is safer because my flashing lights and reflectors are in their eye. During the day, I just blend into the background. This is also why I keep my car's lights on when driving in the day.
No, he really does seem up in arms against the tech even when it has no relation to laws making the tech mandatory. He writes:
> That’s just the beginning! Because now Volvo — those endearingly safety-minded Swedes — wants cyclists to take “safety” a step further and spray themselves with something called “Lifepaint” so they glow in the dark.
> This is just another way for drivers to outsource any and all responsibility for what they do with their cars to other road users. The giveaway? Volvo’s promotional video is full of testimonials, including this one from a driver: ...
I've repeated this dozens of times whenever Americans come up with lame excuses for why cycling is dangerous in the US: in the Netherlands cyclists still share the road with cars a lot of the time. The rules however are very simple: as a driver, you're not allowed to hit weaker traffic like cyclists and pedestrians. Period. If it happens, the burden of proof that you could do nothing about it is on you.
Is this insane and unfair? No, it's about the responsibility that comes with driving a big, dangerous hunk of metal amongst unprotected civilians. For a country where most people believe that they can be considered responsible enough to own firearms, that responsibility for something that is potentially equally deadly shouldn't be that big a burden.
The notion that you can legally run down and kill a child on a bicycle just because that child was "wrong" is what's insane.
Do cyclists in Netherlands skip traffic lights and act like they have a chip on their shoulder?
Well American ones do.
If cyclists are going to share the road, they would see fit have their bicycles registered, pay yearly fees and purchase insurance - both for themselves and the ones they cause harm to [1] - just like motorists do.
Anything else is just favoritism. Won't stand in a court of law, here.
The next time a cyclist injures someone - fatally or not - I can see the auto lobby getting behind efforts to requiring cyclists treated as motorists. I will gladly chip in for that.
It is notable, though, that almost all London bike deaths seem to be from being run over by HGVs. Cyclists (stereotypically) loathe cars, but are not killed by cars.
I don't really have own experience of London traffic, but from reading newspapers, it looks like you should do less to cars and more to heavy goods vehicles and buses.
It really is just the HGV, and the construction industry related HGV at that.
"You should"... well I and very many others are. However the essence of the issue appears to come down to a mix of the economics of being a HGV driver, local politics, and the nature of congestion and traffic in an old city.
The economics is that HGV drivers are paid by the job. They are effectively incentivised to complete a job as fast as possible to increase their earnings. Being paid to go faster isn't very compatible with driving safer.
The politics is a blend of TfL (Transport for London) not having the authority to re-design many junctions, local councils wishing to maximise traffic flow, and residents not wishing to tolerate construction traffic outside of work hours. This means that construction traffic can only operate during the work day (when it's most congested), on roads that were not designed for such a volume of HGV traffic, with junctions not designed for cyclist safety or space. A very recent HGV fatality is directly contributable to Westminster Council refusing to implement recommendations by TfL to make a junction next to a bridge safer... this was last week, you'll find the info online easily enough.
The last point relates to the city itself. You'll see from other comments that the best thing to do is to segregate cyclists from the motorised traffic, but that requires space. London is an old city and we cannot move buildings and streets to accommodate this segregation outside of more than a handful of wide boulevards and roads (such as the Embankment where it is being done). We can only achieve segregation by turning 2-way streets into 1-way streets (as is being done on Tottenham Court Road), but even then that adds pressure to surrounding roads. There are limits to what can be done to provide extra space and re-designs to existing junctions and roads.
Possibly the best thing is the cross-London move to a 20mph speed limit.
But the biggest remaining thing that could be done might be to change the economics of the construction industry in London. Perhaps just place an outright ban on HGVs that do not meet some strict requirement for operating in such a busy metropolis. Perhaps just change the status of road fatalities by HGVs such that they are considered a Health and Safety issue of the work-site that the work is being done for... i.e. if the victim's family can sue the construction site for death then perhaps that will change the job incentives enough to bring in safety features, etc.
Interestingly enough, over here (Helsinki) we have lots of segregated bike/pedestrian paths, and many cycling activists want to remove them from inner city and have bicycles on the street among other vehicles, "to be equal".
Personally, I think they're nuts. The separate paths are good, even if we still have to watch out in intersections.
But I feel like the causal direction might be mixed up here. There are two phenomena: Netherlands is safer for cyclists, and Netherlands punishes automobile drivers more for hitting a cyclist. You seem to be implying that the latter causes the former. But it seems to be that both could be caused by a third (potential, I don't actually know) phenomenon: that the ratio of cyclists to automobiles in the Netherlands is much higher than it is in the US. It's easy to see why this third phenomenon could cause the first two.
Now, granted, the author's complaints about US automobile manufacturers' influence on society can still apply, because that can at least partially explain the lower ratio of bicycles to automobiles in the US. There are undoubtedly other contributors to this low ratio, like the significantly higher median income and vastly lower population density of the United States.
The dutch have done significantly more to encourage bicycle trips than this one law. Bike paths, separated bike lanes with independent signals, removal of (previously existing) automobile-focused infrastructure in cities, etc. These changes were fought for and implemented with the absolute intent of increasing bicycle access and they have been wildly successful.
I'm a cyclist in the U.S., but have no problem admitting that probably 90% of the time, the cyclist is at fault. I've ridden bikes in Europe with real bike lanes—U.S. urban cycling culture is not Dutch cycling culture. There is not a culture of responsible cycling. We don't have real bike lanes. We don't stop for red lights. We don't stop for pedestrians. As a result, the U.S. also does not have many drivers or pedestrians that are sympathetic to cyclists. In general, I am ashamed of my fellow cyclists in the U.S..
Come to NYC. We have Citibike here and messengers and delivery people on bikes.
And it's horrible.
The bicyclists ROUTINELY violate nearly every sane traffic law on the books. They go the wrong way against traffic, refuse to stop for stop lights or pedestrians in crosswalks, ride on sidewalks, have few if any safety features like headlights or taillights, and on and on.
If cyclists would simply follow the traffic laws that already exist, there would be many fewer deadly accidents between cyclists and pedestrians (yes, you read that right) and cyclists and cars.
In New York cars routinely violate every law on parking, they break the speed limit on every block, change lanes without signaling, and block intersections.
If cars would simply follow the laws that already exist there would be many fewer deadly accidents between cars and people who die when hit.
> If cyclists would simply follow the traffic laws that already exist
Yes, but bicycles are no cars. So the city need also to come up with bike lanes and adequate regulations. It is too easy to blame the participant which has no real place in traffic.
"There were no pedestrian deaths from cyclists in 2010, 2011 or 2012, according to city data."
I live in the Netherlands now but lived in NYC for 15 years and biked a lot while I was there. I'm not going to argue that NYC cyclists are perfect and follow all the traffic laws all the time, but at the same time, they're really not much different than Dutch cyclists. When it comes down to it, cyclists do what they have to do to get where they're going and avoid getting hit by cars. Some differences I have noticed: in the Netherlands, it's explicitly allowed for cyclists to bike against traffic on one way streets. Many more bikes in the Netherlands do have lights because 1) it's a 60 EUR fine otherwise and they enforce it and 2) the heavy dutch style bikes just tend to have them built in, whereas on the typical NYC bike, they're externally mounted and will get stolen off your bike in a heartbeat. The Dutch actually can be very aggressive cyclists, cruising through red lights when there's no traffic coming, passing suddenly and closely, flying through crowds of people, squeezing past trams, and generally inducing mild heart attacks in someone like me watching, but they're also extremely skilled since almost all of them have been biking nearly everywhere they go nearly every day of their lives since they were small children. They pull off complex maneuvers that I would never dream of and do it while texting. The final difference is that pedestrians here tend to be a bit more aware and will be careful to stay out of the bike paths.
I'm a cyclist and I completely disagree with this. I've biked thousands and thousands of miles in SF, and I think probably 80 or 90% of cyclists are responsible and law abiding. There are maybe 10 or 20 percent who are bad, run red lights and do other crazy shit. They are not the majority.
And if you want further proof, just read the list of bicycle fatalities in SF [1] and see who is at fault. Most of the time it is the vehicle. And guess what happens when a vehicle is ruled at fault and kills a cyclist? Nothing [2]:
> Unfortunately, the lack of charges in this tragic case is par for the course in our justice system which continually fails to prosecute traffic cases as the crimes that they are. Four people were killed while biking in San Francisco last year, and no charges were filed against the drivers in any of these cases.
The myth that all cyclists are irresponsible and reckless is untrue and needs to die. Most cyclists are drivers and thus can emphasize with drivers and understand and predict what they are doing. However, most drivers are not cyclists, and often think a cyclist is doing something wrong when they are not. Or maybe they only notice when cyclists are doing something bad and their selective memory is reinforced. The point is, most drivers are good and most cyclists are good. A little more empathy on both sides would go a long way towards improving the situation, and untrue claims like "90% of the time the cyclist is at fault" is not helping.
Maybe cyclists in SF are so special, but in LA I have yet to see a cyclist stopping at a stop sign. I walk to/from work about 2 miles each way and see about a dozen cyclists every day. Sure, cars some times do not stop at the sign either but I don't see this happening nearly as often as I see cyclists just happily cycling through stop without even an attempt to slow down. And I see much more cars than bikes.
Safe bike culture varies wildly form city to city within the US. People in Portland are mad considerate (I've seen cyclists chide other cyclists for failing to use hand signals). NYC? I've seen bikers go the wrong way down Broadway in the UWS splitting lanes during rush hour.
Do you think there is a correlation between lack of usable infrastructure (even in the past) and rule breaking?
When I grew up in Germany, infrastructure was good and people obeyed traffic signs etc, when I lived in London it was every man for himself, as abiding by the rules was often more dangerous than not, and sometimes not even possible.
Of course you have seen a bicycle stop for a stop sign. No need to lie, it throws away all points you're trying to make. Besides, this is the typical confirmation-biased anecdotes that pollutes these discussions.
Have you thought of why this is so common? A bicycle uses human power, stopping is a much bigger hassle than sitting lazily in a car. And a bicycle approaches a stop sign much slower than a car, this having a better overview before crossing.
The bicyclist also enjoys a higher vantage point and less restrained view than the driver of a car. In some places the practice of rolling through stop signs on a bicycle is already being codified into law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop).
If I have seen - I don't remember doing so. As for why are they do not stop - I don't really care. The message I replied to said 90% bicyclists don't drive illegally, which contradicts my experience.
Cyclists do not _want_ to be hit by vehicles - if they are not stopping, they have looked around and deemed the situation to be safe enough.. That's not to say it's legal, but they do not have a death wish.
Not really the point (though I agree with you): the grandparent suggested that 80-90% of cyclists follow the rules of the road. The parent (and I) disagree with that; no one's suggesting those people want to get hit or are inattentive, just that they're not abiding by traffic laws.
In fact, it's somewhat telling that most bicycle fatalities don't involve a cyclist doing something stupid: most cyclist law-breaking is done when the cyclist believes it's safe to do so, and they're usually very attentive and aware of their surroundings for the duration. It's when the cyclist is in a normal state, and has no reason to expect a surprise attack-by-car, that the fatalities happen.
(As a pedestrian, I very much sympathize with this. I tend to jaywalk quite often when walking, and when I do, I'm super attentive and ensure it's safe before crossing. It's probably more likely that I'd get hit by a car when I have the right of way than when jaywalking. But I'm still breaking the law, as is the cyclist when he/she runs a stop sign.)
No one said they don't, and I'd agree with that. I think the whole law-abiding nature (or lack thereof) is a bit of a red herring when talking about this sort of thing. It's really just inattentiveness that causes drivers to hit cyclists, and a lack of awareness of cyclists in general. If a driver is about to make a right turn, he's often not thinking that a cyclist could be coming up on his right, from behind, so he doesn't even look there. That sort of thing is the real problem that needs to be fixed.
I'm a pedestrian in SF and disagree with this. I tend to walk anywhere between 4-8 miles per day, just as a matter of course, and I see dozens and dozens of cyclists. A significant number of them do not stop at red lights when traffic is light. A majority do not stop at stop signs. When it comes to stopping, cars are much more law-abiding (likely because the penalty is worse, not because of any desire to be safer). Many cyclists make unsafe turns; I've had a few close calls while walking. Many ride on the sidewalk. I even occasionally see a cyclist riding the wrong way on a one-way street (though most will move to the sidewalk instead of doing this, which is just as bad).
And if you want further proof, just read the list of bicycle fatalities in SF and see who is at fault. Most of the time it is the vehicle.
This point has nothing to do with whether or not the majority of cyclists are responsible and law-abiding. All it does is suggest that drivers are inattentive, and that the state is strongly biased toward drivers and wrongly backs them up when they kill someone.
I wouldn't say that most cyclists are irresponsible (more that they tend to take risks, risks which may actually be reasonable and acceptable), and I certainly don't believe that most cyclists are at fault when there's a fatality involving a car (quite the opposite). But suggesting that most cyclists habitually follow the rules of the road... that's just absurd in my experience.
probably 80 or 90% of cyclists are responsible and law abiding. There are maybe 10 or 20 percent who are bad, run red lights and do other crazy shit
Just to be clear, your statistics don't actually disagree with each other. It's entirely possible -- I'd even say likely -- that the 10 or 20 percent of cyclists who "do crazy shit" are involved in and responsible for 90% of bicycle-involved accidents.
No idea about SF, but where I live, cycle-related facilities are split into 20% that are clearly the cyclist's fault, another 20% that are clearly the driver's, and 60% that either involve a combination of errors or where the details are difficult to ascertain, particularly since one person involved is dead.
If you assume that the 20% of fatal accidents that are purely the driver's fault are evenly distributed among cyclists, can you also assume that any 10-20% of cyclists are involved in 90% of accidents?
Fatal accidents don't have to be like general accidents. But.
Is that cause or effect, though? The environment is hostile to cyclists, so do you only get those who will be as hostile as they need to be in return to survive?
I work as a messenger and yes - the way to avoid being turned into (the main issue, if you are on the inside of someone who can't see you or someone doesn't signal) is to push in front of and into the flow of traffic. I have no doubt that it is concerning and annoying to drivers, but they have then seen me.
It's funny how the exact same "Bicyclists don't respect any rules and are always at fault"-attitude exists here in Finland. Yet it turns out that drivers are at fault in 70% of all bike-car crashes.
Note, however, that few of (fatal) accidents are with cars. Cars do injure bicyclists, but lorries and buses are the deadly ones. For some reason, cyclists focus on opposing cars, not on reducing bike-LGV accidents.
I commute to work every day on my bike, and I live in Houston, which is probably about as car-friendly a city as you can get.
Most of the cyclists I see are pretty well-behaved, stopping at lights and behaving nicely.
The drivers, though, have no idea what to do with this strange two-wheeled human-vehicle centaurish thing which randomly appears on the road with them.
They'll swerve out into oncoming lanes of traffic if I'm by the side of the road. They'll pull to a near crawl and form a column behind me. They'll speed up and buzz my bike going 40 mph. They'll honk at me as they come up behind me, pass me, and drive past. One nice lady tried to run me down in her SUV because I had the gall to pass on her right. And if there're two (two!) bikes sharing a lane? They'll completely lose their minds at the sight of such a miracle.
Let's use hand signals, and show which way we're going--haha, just kidding, no drivers in the city seem to understand the difference between "I'm turning left", "I'm turning right", "I'm about to brake", and "being on a bike is so awesome I'm just going to flail my left arm around".
Also, the roads here are just barely good enough for cars--on bikes, you'll merrily eat a pothole and go flying, or bend a rim, or whatever. The sidewalks are even worse, otherwise we'd be on those.
And then there are the pedestrians! If drivers are clueless, people that are ambling around or jogging are malevolently stupid. Call out your passing side ahead of time, and they stop and crane their head around trying to see if God himself was talking to them--instead of, you know, moving out of the way in the indicated direction. Then there are the uppity joggers who will get in your face for sharing a dirt path ~4m wide.
The biking culture is getting better here, but it can really grate on one's nerves.
> And then there are the pedestrians! If drivers are clueless, people that are ambling around or jogging are malevolently stupid. Call out your passing side ahead of time, and they stop and crane their head around trying to see if God himself was talking to them--instead of, you know, moving out of the way in the indicated direction. Then there are the uppity joggers who will get in your face for sharing a dirt path ~4m wide.
You completely lost me with this paragraph as your attitude to pedestrians is almost an exact reflection of the problematic one that many drivers have to cyclists.
Unfortunately, we are accepted neither by the drivers nor the pedestrians...I would be happy to stay off the sidewalks entirely (there being other safety issues with them) were the roads not so much worse.
Anyways, gripe as I do, I still consider it my responsibility not to hit pedestrians, since I'm the larger vehicle.
Yes, agree that cyclists often occupy an unhappy middle position between cars and pedestrians.
My position is that walking is humanity's natural way of moving around and that urban landscapes where they maintain primacy are by far the most pleasant in which to exist and move around. We obviously also need other modes of transport in our modern world but every effort should be made to keep these other modes of transport from taking over primacy. Unfortunately this is exactly what cars have done. There is much less of a threat from cyclists to pedestrians but still, as a cyclist, I feel that is up to us to respect pedestrians and not the other way round. Of course, I would also like to see car drivers demonstrate the same attitude towards cyclists (and, of course, pedestrians).
The Dutch >50% rule was introduced after a randomish clump of accidents in which adults in cars survived and children on bicycles died. There were many mortal accidents year after year, a lot of Dutch felt that car drivers weren't behaving sympathetically, and that particularly gruesome clump of accidents drove public opinion far enough to pass the >50% law.
THEN the culture changed, AFTER the change in rules.
Cycling locals in Amsterdam are far from 'responsible'. People cross with red lights constantly, to the point where there is a social pressure to conform or be seen as either a tourist or just annoyingly in the way. People actively scare pedestrians by passing them close by and at high speeds (I've done this in... lesser moods, and I'm not proud of it).
The reason this causes relatively few accidents is because people driving cars in cities are extra careful.
Because of this I'm inclined to believe that the safety of cyclists is a result of regulation much more than 'responsible' cycling.
In most place where this could happen there is speed limit, probably to 30 kmph. At that speed you won't kill that kid. Most probably you will even manage to avoid it completely.
Even if there's no speed limit - driving in a middle of town, near a path or pavement lined with trees you should be careful, and slow down.
And in rare case that there's a tree near motorway and somehow a kid on a bike managed to get there and hide - you will manage to explain yourself before court.
What's important is the attitude. IMHO the attitude "anybody who misbehaves on a road deserve to die" is more insane than having to explain yourself after you killed someone, even if it's not your fault.
> the attitude "anybody who misbehaves on a road deserve to die"
You are putting words into mouths.
It's more like, "acknowledge that if you misbehave on the road, your chances of getting killed increase and it may be your fault." I don't know why it's impossible for some people to hear that without imagining the "deserves" part.
I agree 100%, and it's the reason I love, love, love the intersection at 10th and Pike in Seattle (which is arguably a "shit show" for all the odd things that happen there) because it's people first; people can just start walking out into traffic and traffic stops for people. It's a very interesting demonstration.
> It is clearly the fault of the bicycle if he runs into it.
In the Netherlands, we would say check the street before opening your car door. If you open your car door on a narrow street and a car hits it, is the driver of the other car also responsible?
As a motorist (with the licence to drive a bus) and a cyclist, I must stress that it is incredibly hard to see unlit cyclists at night. Particularly on raining nights it is practically impossible. I don't want to hit a bike, and neither does anyone else. But I think putting a focus on making them more visible is a good thing.
Then again, I live in Denmark, so my views might be a bit skewed.
Not sure that makes sense in this context, or even reflects actual traffic law. A pedestrian is easily more maneuverable than a car (I can turn on a dime when walking, but a car needs much more time and space), but the car should never have automatic right-of-way over a pedestrian.
In France, in case of an accident between a car and a "non-car" (be it a cyclist, pedestrian, skater...), the car is considered responsible by default. Of course they will be a police investigation, but if the police can find any evidence of the "non-car" fault, the car is considered faulty.
I was cycling south on the bike path, against the flow of the traffic in the lane of the road closest to the path when a work van pulled into the path at speed and nearly killed me (I managed to move over into the median between the path and road in time to avoid a collision).
The rest of the bicycling scene was fantastic, but given my short period there, it was quite an experience to record.
Last time I mentioned this to a Nederlander they said I must not have had the awareness of a native (I did not link the location that time), but it seems clear enough that a vehicle had no business pulling onto that path to travel (of course they might pull across it into a house or whatever).
At first I thought this was going to be a parody of "anti-rape-culture" campaigns (e.g., "teaching women to defend themselves from rapists is wrong, because we should be teaching men to not rape women"), but much to my surprise it seems that the author is serious.
And so I really have to wonder about his grip on logic: The whole purpose of making cyclists more visible is to prevent drivers from hitting them! Driving around Vancouver -- a city with a large (by North American standards) cycling population, I have on many occasions come across cyclists who were visible only thanks to the lights on their bicycles. Fortunately those lights were all I needed; but on one occasion I passed a cyclist whose rear light had burnt out, and thanks to his black clothing, the lack of street lights, and the overcast night, I had no idea he was in the road until I passed him -- even though I had been looking directly at him prior to passing.
How, pray tell, am I supposed to avoid hitting invisible cyclists?
Far from being a parody, it seems to employ the same arguments as the worst of those campaigns, namely, that any advocacy of prudent behavior is tantamount to blaming the victim or removing blame from the antagonist. Of course, in reality, you can have both without any contradictions. It is possible and reasonable to recommend that people avoid scenarios where there is a high risk of being victimized, while at the same time placing full legal (I'll leave moral up to other people) responsibility on the antagonist.
By driving more slowly, under street lights, in a separate lane.
You're right. Just saying "drivers should be more careful!" isn't going to have any effect. We need to change transportation infrastructure to be safer for non-automobile traffic.
If I drive on a road, and it does not have street lights, how do I start driving on it under street lights? It does not have them.
Face the reality. Where there is enough traffic to warrant it and the community can afford it, there are street lights and separate bike paths. But in many places, we don't have them. It is reasonable to require bikes to have lights in the dark, so that others can see them.
I ride bike to work, >10km one way, and 98 % of the route has bike or bike/pedestrian paths. But I still have a) lights in my bike, b) reflective jacket, c) helmet. In the winter, I occasionally have trouble with pedestrians just because I don't see them (even with the good lights I have in my bike).
Two thirds of bike fatalities here happen without a collision with a motor vehicle (i.e. bike hits another bike, a pedestrian, a stationary object, or just otherwise dies while riding). Of collisions with motor vehicles, the fault is usually with the driver, but not exclusively. Intersection + truck/bus is the dangerous combination.
The current safety technologies like lights and brakes are absolutely necessary but they only work up to a certain point. The rest are human factor. But to say that cyclist should stay safe by spraying paint on their body is getting a bit too far.
As both a cyclist and a driver, I agree with you to a point. However, the wife of an ex-colleague of mine cycles to work every day. She was knocked off her bike by a car one dark morning (luckily not hurt, just a bit shaken up). She had lights front and back on the bike, was wearing a high visibility jacket, had a head mounted light, and little lights on her body. Basically, she was lit up like a Christmas tree. The drivers response after hitting her - "sorry, I didn't see you".
Sure, and there's a point where "I didn't see you" means "I was negligent and not paying attention" rather than "You weren't visible". I'm not saying that motorists have no responsibility to look for bicycles; rather, that there is a shared responsibility: Motorists should look for bicycles, and cyclists should ensure that, if looked for, they will be seen.
Quite right. There are some cases where the cyclist is actually not visible enough (no lights, no reflectors). But more common is 1) the driver didn't look, 2) the driver didn't look carefully enough, 3) the driver couldn't see even if he/she was careful.
There is a 100$-200$ fine where I live if you drive around a car without working lights. The same law is used if the rear light of a bicycle is not working.
So, to answer your question, people in traffic should follow traffic laws.
I agree. But lights burning out happens, and it's far more dangerous on a bike than on a car -- because a car is likely to have other lights and otherwise be large enough to be easily visible anyway.
Driving on the motorway without functional lights is extremely dangerous. Bikes can use the side-walk or stop when meeting traffic, but cars do not really have that option when dealing with broken down equipment.
That said, the law is the law. You have to be visible in traffic. If the light burns out, then maybe its a bad idea to be out in traffic at night.
How, pray tell, am I supposed to avoid hitting invisible cyclists?
You're not. In your example with the cyclist with a burnt-out light, dark clothing, and dark night, if you had hit him, I would very clearly assert that the cyclist was at fault.
I'm fine with requiring cyclists to have front and rear lights in the dark and/or rain (hell, this is already required of cars), but requiring clothing with reflective paint on top of that? It's a bit ridiculous, IMO. Lights are more than sufficient to make a cyclist visible, the rest of the burden should be on drivers to actually pay attention to what they're doing
I love it when people wear lights on themselves at night (pedestrians too!) It makes my job much easier whenever I am operating a car or a bicycle. However, if I realize that I have not noticed someone in the street until I am passing them that is an indicator that my speed is unreasonable for the conditions and I would immediately slow down.
This article is mostly nonsense. The way I look at it, mandatory helmet laws are protecting not only cyclists but also drivers by reducing the likelihood of a serious injury resulting from an accident.
In regards to improving bike-ability, adding more bike lanes is certainly the best way forward. Meanwhile we can encourage responsible bike use for those who share the roadways with motor vehicles. I'm frankly appalled at the general disregard to bike safety and traffic laws by NYC cyclists. A policy of early education and strict traffic law enforcement would likely alleviate a significant portion of the problem.
As a side note, the CitiBike program has done nothing but encourage terrible bike usage behavior and dangerous habits.
To justify the cost of these additional bike lanes and infrastructure you'll first need people actually riding their bikes. A change of mentality is required here. As a cyclist you shouldn't feel so unsafe that you have to put on a helmet and war paint.
The money spent on ridiculous bike laws and expensive special infrastructure should first be allocated to educating all drivers. There needs to be a shift in attitude towards cyclists so they can feel safe again. All these passive-aggressive comments against cyclist are very sad to read. I guess you have to be a little insane and have a certain negligence about rules to comfortably ride your bike and be able to ignore all the maniacs behind the wheel.
Yeah. That was basically the entire point of the article. That the roads didn't always belong to motorists. That the idea of the roads being car-centric is a fairly recent development in human history. One of my favorite examples is Las Vegas and Moscow, Russia. In the case of Las Vegas they've built entire elevated sidewalks with escalators and elevators. Cars rule in a city where people could, in theory, walk between casinos, restaurants, etc. In Moscow there are many many large sections of the city where the only way to cross the street is to go through the subway. On the upside that city has a pretty great subway system, so it makes some sense.
Either way the point of the article (which a shocking number of people in the comments here and on the article missed) is that it's this chicken and the egg problem that needs to be addressed.
There's some fascinating data hinting that drivers behave more recklessly towards cyclists who wear a helmet, presumably thinking that a collision won't be so big a deal if the cyclist is "protected".
This is one of the nice things about moving to France.
You can ride your bike on a narrow road without a shoulder where cars routinely pass you going 70mph, and never really worry about being taken out. Bikes are things that are found on roads here, so cars just go around them. Usually all the way over in the far lane.
I've never had a car come closer than 2m when passing me on the road. No surprise, since they have signs posted every few miles reminding drivers that that's the minimum legal amount of space that you need to give a bicycle.
I cycle to work nearly everyday in the UK. Locally we have crazy cycle lanes that at junction take you off the road and then have to yield to crossing traffic at junctions whereas if I stayed on the road I have right of way.
I always stop at red lights. I ride the road so follow the rules of the road.
However as a cyclist I also have to take command of a lane to prevent vehicles trying to squeeze by between a central reservation. Only for me to catch them up and overtake then at the next set of lights.
Urban speed limit is 30mph and usually less when traffic is heavy. I can cycle to and from work faster than I can drive. So I get annoyed when I see the same car make a bad overtake 3 times while I am riding. If they travelled with me they would arrive no later.
I stick my arm out to turn right (we drive in the left) and vehicles will continue to overtake me even as I pull out to the centre of the road.
I wear a helmet and a hi-vis jacket. I also have insurance. Even so I have around 2 near misses a week and so far this year been clipped twice from behind.
On the flip side I see stupid cyclists darting across lights, bunny hoping on and off pavements and weaving in lanes. So I can see why motorists get angry when sat in there cars. I have also had a couple of disagreements with other cyclists who are setting a bad example. They generally have a "give a shit" response.
"It’s just that cars are like white people and Wall Street — they don’t need any more defending from anybody."
This kind of lame trolling really should stay on blogs and off of national newspapers.
"it won’t be long before you need a license and registration to operate a bicycle, and you’ll be wearing a giant Dayglo bodysuit with illumination circuitry, one of those Australian “smart hats,” and a GPS beacon up your posterior so you don’t get hit by an Apple iCar."
The people who oppose bicycle lanes [or even bicycles in general] won't even get pissed off by this stupendously unlikely suggestion. It's only designed to get angry bicyclists to vehemently agree with the general position based on emotional resonance and not any sort of logic. It's fodder for more angry bike people to read his bike blog.
I almost completely agree with the author's policy recommendations and criticisms of US car culture, but I find many of his arguments and implications to be fairly troubling.
> We’re already at the point where every car-on-bike “accident” (police always assume it’s an accident; drivers are allowed unlimited “oopsies”)
Is he implying that some significant portion of alleged car-on-bike accidents are actually purposeful assault from the automobile driver? I find that very difficult to believe.
> That’s why whenever you read about a cyclist who’s been injured or killed, the article mentions helmets, regardless of whether this detail in any way relevant. (“The cyclist’s legs were flattened by the runaway steamroller. No criminality suspected. The victim was not wearing a helmet.”)
I question whether media reports of a victim not wearing a helmet when a helmet clearly would not have helped are actually that common, or if this is just the author's bias (i.e. he notices and remembers these reports more than others).
> Here’s why the auto industry, the insurance industry and the officials they lobby want helmet laws. First, forcing people to wear helmets shifts responsibilities onto cyclists and absolves governments from having to build better cycling infrastructure and drivers from having to obey traffic laws.
I have little doubt that the auto industry wants helmet laws, but I highly doubt that shifting responsibilities onto the cyclist has anything to do with it. The second reason the author provides ("helmet laws discourage people from using bicycles for everyday transportation by making it inconvenient") feels like a sufficient reason to me.
> Meanwhile, in countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, where lots and lots of people ride bikes, a helmeted bicyclist is about as rare as a helmeted driver here in America. And yet they seem to be managing pretty well — maybe because they’ve got bike infrastructure, and because they still subscribe to the notion that the person operating the giant machine on public roads needs to be responsible for not killing people with it.
As I mentioned in another comment, all these phenomena might be caused by the fact that the Netherlands simply has (and has had for some time) a higher ratio of bicycles to automobiles than the United States. Of course, this ratio is likely affected by the US auto industry, as well as other things like income and population density.
> What? How oblivious are you? Nobody should have to “scream out” to you to get your attention while you’re driving a car. You should already be giving it, and undividedly so.
By that same logic, we shouldn't have horns, brake lights, reflective lines and road markers, or anything else that might help focus a driver's attention and thus increase the odds that the driver behaves in the manner he or she already should already behave.
> Is he implying that some significant portion of alleged car-on-bike accidents are actually purposeful assault from the automobile driver? I find that very difficult to believe.
As someone who has ridden many miles in the US (and many kilometers in Italy), I don't find it such a stretch. There are a lot of pissed-off drivers. Everyone who has ridden a bike enough has stories of being harassed for no reason. Once, for instance, I was riding with a few friends, single-file, lined up as close as we could get to the right side of the straight road, and this guy buzzes us with inches to spare, and no oncoming traffic in the other lane. If he'd "miscalculated" he could have easily injured or killed us.
> Is he implying that some significant portion of alleged car-on-bike accidents are actually purposeful assault from the automobile driver? I find that very difficult to believe.
No, he's not. He's implying that instead of motorists being charged with reckless driving or other similar charges, they're most often not even charged. I once had a car make a left turn across 4 lanes of traffic and a turn lane and t-bone me while I was cycling. He couldn't be bothered to make his way safely to the turn lane, pause, then turn left. He just swung across the entire road and hit me. He didn't even get a ticket because he told the officer the sun was in his eyes. I left the scene of the accident in an ambulance and was unable to function normally for over a year. It's not equal.
I have no complaints about the claim that drivers should more often be charged with reckless driving, but that's very different than suggesting that a significant portion of these incidents are purposeful collisions initiated by the automobile driver.
> I have no complaints about the claim that drivers should more often be charged with reckless driving, but that's very different than suggesting that a significant portion of these incidents are purposeful collisions initiated by the automobile driver.
I don't believe the author was saying that. He said...
> We’re already at the point where every car-on-bike “accident” (police always assume it’s an accident; drivers are allowed unlimited “oopsies”)
I believe what the author meant is that there's an accident and then there's something far less than accident that's more the result of reckless driving, poor driving or aggressive driving. And yet the law always errs on the side of it being an unavoidable accident.
Perhaps we are quibbling over the definition of "accident." I would consider an unintentional collision to be an accident even if one person was driving recklessly. As far as I can tell, that is standard usage of the word, especially in the context of vehicle collisions.
Unintentional doesn't mean no fault. The fact that it is standard usage is the whole point -- it shouldn't be. Drivers do not pay attention, they do not look when they change lanes, and they hit bicycles and motorcycles and it is called an accident, as if the driver had no control of their vehicle.
I don't understand. My point is that "accident" just means that something is unintentional. It doesn't mean there is no fault. Calling a traffic collision accident does not imply that the driver had no control over their vehicle. It only means that the driver did not intend to have the collision.
> - 184 cyclist deaths in 2013 (out of +- 10 million active cyclists)
Um, isn't that actually quite a LOT. Do we really want to emulate that?
The annual cyclist death toll in San Francisco looks to be under 10 people a year. Right about the same level as the fatal car crash death toll per year.
Complaining about something that really looks purely accidental from a statistical viewpoint is not going to make people very sympathetic.
Someone once told me that bicycles have no business being on the road at all. I thought they were just bitter due to an altercation, but the more I thought about it - it's entirely logical. Most roads are simply not built for bicycles and that is why they shouldn't be allowed at this point. They become a hazard because they can't attain the proper speed and they are allowed to flop between acting like a cyclist and acting like a car as another poster mentioned.
It's hip to give bikers the nod because they are green and healthy but it's not feasible in most areas because it's simply not safe for both parties.
I looked into getting one of those GE electric vehicles but guess what - you can't take those on most roads because they aren't fast enough (even though they are faster and safer than most bikers). You even have to pay to register them and carry insurance (which bikers don't). Why pays when a cyclist causes an accident? If you drive your car 25 under the speed limit, you can get a ticket. People on bikes want to be congratulated for doing so and have everyone yield.
You can't run down the middle of the road even if you are faster than some cyclists. Nobody has a right to the roads. It's a privilege and most roads were designed for cars.
I'd rather see bikers using the sidewalk with pedestrians yielding to them and let them use designated bike lanes on roads (and lobby for more if they choose). More and more areas are becoming friendly to cyclists but to give nearly free reign to cyclists is absurd IMO.
The reality is - too many people suck at driving and you aren't getting rid of cars unless you're Venice, Italy. Even if you can go the same speed as legally required for cars (say on a motorcycle), it's pretty much only a matter of time before you get pasted on the asphalt because some idiot driver didn't see you, was distracted with their phone, or is just a bad driver. The notion that cyclists can avoid that fate is silly. Personally I'd love to have a motorcycle, but it's too risky here in California.
I guess the right stays in the middle. We have to make drivers more responsible with cyclists, but on the other hand cyclists have to play following rules. I don't think is always drivers' fault or vice-versa, we should evaluate case by case, but admit that sometimes, some cyclists, are even more dangerous than cars for pedestrians, is not crazy. I saw bike-couriers in London, NY and even here in ZH completely ignoring signals, jumping on sidewalks, avoiding kids with emergency maneuvers. I am not pro-drivers or pro-cyclists, but we have to find the right balance to share streets.
The article calls for crackdown on drivers and may be rightfully so, but. I came to the US from the country where road laws are based on the concept of "operator of the dangerous machine". Such an operator is at fault by default and have to prove their innocence. End even if they do, they still have to compensate medical expenses. Such compensations are not as ridiculously high as they are in the US but still may be quite expensive for the person who _wasn't guilty_ at the first place. And if they were guilty the future of the unfortunate car driver is much more grim. Courts routinely convict such drivers for 1-2 years behind bars (there even special "prisons" for such "criminals" which do not even look like prisons, more like military camps behind barbed wire). If the driver was drunk that could easily become 4-5 years or more.
And you know what? Wikipedia says there're 13 deaths per 100k vehicles in the US and 55 in the country I came from (Russia).
Go figure.
What I'm trying to convey is that the article says "don't do , stop other party from doing the wrong thing". Okay. Stop investing money into Falcon landing, just make fricking rocket booster land straight onto the platform at sea. Stop making cars safe, just make them not to crash into each other. Etc. Sure! Where do I sign up?
The author fails to deliver the answer "how". "Invest in the infrastructure" is not enough.
as a native of the coutry ywhich is generally considered cyclist heaven (netherlands) bike lanes are quite nice. i did not have any problem cycling to work today. its safe and i get my exercise. infrastructure works.
and yes cars are dangerous machines. people should be careful with them. its a lot of responsibility. but criminalisation is just stupid. that doesn't happen in countries which prioritize road safety.
Hm, why do you have such impression? Killing someone while driving drunk is quite a felony in my book. But breaking someone's arm just because you were not able to figure out where the lane markings are is not okay too, but doesn't sound like a felony punishable by the jail time.
Also, the standards of sobriety are very different in different countries. In Russia you're technically drunk if you had a bottle of yogurt for breakfast. And they _will_ use that against you in court, it's not just a "fun fact".
It's fascinating how the mostly-subconscious bias shows in news articles about driver-cyclist and driver-pedestrian collisions. The driver (and their responsibility) is abstracted away by just referring to a "car", and even when it is clear that the driver broke the law it is rarely mentioned. Phrases like "a driver hit a cyclist" are almost never used; at most it's something like "A cyclist collided with a car" and often even worse - using formulations that imply that cars are some sort of an agency-less force of nature like lightning - getting hit is either an unfortunate accident or recklessness on the victim's part. Almost always the cyclist is victim-blamed for not using a helmet.
I've seen a few comments here using the example of "I see cycle couriers doing X, therefore cyclists are at fault". It's worth being cautious trying to learn much from the example of cycle couriers: they're disproportionately visible members of the cycling population, they spend all their working days on bikes so they're disproportionately good at it and very confident in their skills, added to which they are stereotypically young, male, and have a strong financial incentive to bend the rules to get wherever they're going quickly.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 217 ms ] threadHaving said that, Cyclists in sydney are a menace, running red lights into traffic and pedestrians, crossing through pedestrian crossings and running into people, generally ignoring the rules of the road. If they want equal access, they need to conform to the same rules.
From what I have seen Sydney has a really obnoxious anti-cycling culture and a dismal level of cycling infrastructure.
This culture of "THE ROAD IS MINE, GET OUT OF MY WAY" is part of what leads to dead cyclists.
If you want to be treated as a vehicle, be a vehicle. Don't block a lane between intersections and then ride the divider lines to advance ahead of cars at every intersection so they can wait and merge around you once the light turns.
As a former bike commuter, I really don't understand why bikes are required to ride the roads and behave like cars. They seem far more compatible to ride sidewalks and co-travel with pedestrians.
I agree. Bikes as road vehicles is a dangerous anachronism. Overtaking bikes is the most unpleasant exercise for me as a driver. Although, given the state of roads vs. the state of sidewalks, I understand why they choose the road.
Pedestrians and bike riders are not compatible either. I am a bike commuter as well. I live in West Germany at the moment, but I have also bike commuted to work in Australia. In general, commuting in Germany is a much safer proposition than in Australia. The German drivers seem to be more aware and tolerance to the bike commuters. The bike riding paths are also very well configured and designed, minimising the risk of accidents.
Maybe you could explain what you're thinking of when you say this? My experience says that pedestrians and bikes are fully compatible; they commonly share sidewalks.
The optimal solution is of course to build dedicated bike lanes, but if that's not a option I'd rather ride my bike on the road with other cars, than on a shared path with pedestrians. It's also a matter of attitude, roads are built to allow cars to travel between point A and point B as fast as possible. If cycling is to be seen as a form of transportation they also need to have access to proper infrastructure.
1. Dedicated bike lanes.
2. Bikes hiding along the side of a street without bike lanes, hoping not to be killed.
3. Bikes using the sidewalk.
Sharing the sidewalk is far and away the safest thing for the bikers; even if you're using a dedicated bike lane you'll sometimes have to cross car traffic (say, if you're making a left turn -- I'm willing to do this as part of a giant herd of bikes, but if I'm on my own I just use crosswalks with the pedestrians). Cars are fast; bikes aren't. I could see myself potentially injuring a small child by crashing into them with my bike; I cannot imagine seriously injuring an adult the same way. I have personally been involved in a bike crash; I crashed into a motorized bicycle going the other way in a bike lane. This is much worse in terms of speed differential than a bike hitting a pedestrian, but the total of my injuries was a bleeding knuckle.
> The optimal solution is of course to build dedicated bike lanes
This is phrased with much more confidence than I believe you can reasonably have. Maybe a better solution is to assume that bikers aren't such idiots that they'll be crushing children beneath their wheels all the time if you allow them on the sidewalks. I fairly frequently get stuck behind groups of pedestrians when the sidewalk isn't wide enough for me to go around them. I've often heard one of them say to another "hey, let that guy by". I've never heard anyone say "hey, get off the sidewalk".
> If cycling is to be seen as a form of transportation they also need to have access to proper infrastructure.
Trust me, cycling is viewed as a form of transportation here. And yes, dedicated bike lanes are all over the place. But it's still routine for bikes to use the sidewalk. There are plenty of older areas with wide sidewalks and narrow streets.
Bicycles and scooters on the sidewalk, ridden by inconsiderate riders, are common, irritating and dangerous. The same is true of cars driving in cycle lanes or service lanes, and the myriad other thinga car drivers do to make life difficult for cyclists.
Sure, cycling on the pavement may be in your own self-interest, but it is strictly bad for pedestrians. Why should they have to change their walking pattern for you? I will give way to electric scooters on the sidewalk, not because I don't mind them, but because it's less unpleasant than a collision or being shouted/hooted at.
/rant
Bicycles on the sidewalk are fairly common. They're not dangerous.
I've been that pedestrian. We're walking on the pavement. We become aware of someone behind us on a bicycle, who cannot get through unless we move aside. My friend suggests we stop at the side and let the bicycle pass. I reluctantly do so.
Did the cyclist ask me to change? No. Did the cyclist inconvenience me? Yes.
> Bicycles on the sidewalk are fairly common. They're not dangerous.
I was walking to work in Shanghai, ~90 minutes ago (shortly before 7am). A cyclist on the pavement nearly hit me. He was a foreigner wearing a business suit. He was cycling on a pavement which had explicit markings and bollards to separate what was a pedestrian walkway into two lanes (one for cycles). He was cycling along the (narrower) pedestrian part.
Bicycles and scooters on the sidewalk, ridden by inconsiderate riders, are common, irritating and dangerous. The same is true of cars driving in cycle lanes or service lanes, and the myriad other thinga car drivers do to make life difficult for cyclists.
Sure, cycling on the pavement may be in your own self-interest, but it is strictly bad for pedestrians. Why should they have to change their walking pattern for you? I will give way to electric scooters on the sidewalk, not because I don't mind them, but because it's less unpleasant than a collision or being shouted/hooted at.
/rant
In general, it is similar to the reasons why bike and car are not so compatible on the road.
On that street, cars attempt and do pass by me every day, despite there definitely not being enough room for a bike and a car to move next to each other – resulting in them passing by at distances of as little as 1m! Did I mention the speed limit of 30 km/h there and that I’m usually doing exactly that?
There’s also at least once a day some idiot who thinks he can turn right over the bike lane without checking for actual bikes on that lane and another idiot who considers the bike lane a very convenient parking spot. There are also usually two to three cases where a driver attempting to turn into the main street from the right (without right of way) stops on the bike lane and then gets upset if one attempts to drive around them.
The idea that German drivers are aware or tolerant of bikes is absolutely ridiculous – though of course they may be more aware and tolerant than Australian bikers, but I don’t know that (:
Unfortunately, policing these traffic violations seems to be perfectly uncommon here.
Of course, most of these wouldn’t be issues if we treated bikes like cars with the exact same rights and obligations as cars.
Hmm, I suppose you did not mean this, but I think that mandating a bike rider's license, registration, insurance and annual tax would not help that much to remove problems.
Overall, I don't see how bikes could have the exact same rights and obligations as cars, although overall both are vehicles and should be treated as vehicles, equally. Still, you can't ride a bike on an Autobahn, and neither can you drive a tractor. You may or may not be allowed to ride bike on a road that is dedicated to buses, although you may be allowed to ride a bike there. Etc, etc. Bikes cannot and shouldn't have *exact' same rights and obligations as cars.
If that means I can use inner-city roads the same ways cars can use them and that I’m not forced onto shoddy bike lanes the width of a towel, I’m happy to get registered, pay insurance etc. I somewhat expect bike insurance to be less expensive than car insurance on account of you being able to do less damage with a bike; similarly, taxes should be lower as even overland bike paths are much cheaper than anything built for cars. Overall, I’m not unhappy about the idea, though.
> Overall, I don't see how bikes could have the exact same rights and obligations as cars, although overall both are vehicles and should be treated as vehicles, equally. Still, you can't ride a bike on an Autobahn, and neither can you drive a tractor. You may or may not be allowed to ride bike on a road that is dedicated to buses, although you may be allowed to ride a bike there. Etc, etc. Bikes cannot and shouldn't have *exact' same rights and obligations as cars.
Of course there was some hyperbole there – I don’t expect to be allowed to drive on a highway, but not because I am a cyclist but because I can’t meet some minimum speed (i.e. the same rules that mean tractors can’t drive there either). However, I don’t see why I can’t drive on an inner-city road among cars which are at most allowed to drive 50 km/h and instead have to stick to a tiny bike lane next to a series of parked cars.
Regarding bus lanes, I am actually not too fond of them being open to cyclists: A single bus being slowed down annoys substantially more people than even a couple cars being slowed down and passing by a stopped bus is a major annoyance and safety issue. There’s some idea that you can promote cycling by giving out these perks (elsewhere, hybrids or electric cars are allowed to use them, too), but overall that shouldn’t be necessary in a healthy climate.
Don't let people do stuff that compromises your safety.
Trust me, they are.
I commute about 18Km into Cologne, and the traffic I come across have been pretty good. I even had the local bus follow me down a one lane street without much of a horn or flashing lights for about 1 km. In general, they treat me and the other bike riders like another car.
I have also commuted in other parts of Cologne, but also had good behaviour from the drivers.
I can ride nearly the same speed as on the road, and stop or slow down at my leisure. It's much more enjoyable. I never find pedestrians to be an issue.
It's always far faster than walking and less stressful than riding in the street.
If you really do yield to pedestrians than I suppose they don't but most bicyclists are -- like smokers -- not nearly as considerate as they think they are.
Bicycles are not comparable to motor vehicles, as they are much slower (50 km/h vs ~15-20 km/h).
Bicycles are also not comparable to pedestrians, as they are much faster (5 km/h vs ~15-20 km/h).
I think it's a mistake to mix traffic that differs in speed by a factor of 3.
As someone who moved from the Netherlands to London, it has taken me years to adjust to absence of real bicycle lanes. They really do seem like the best answer to me.
I live in Tempe, AZ near ASU - one of the "most bike friendly" cities in the US, and I can't tell you how many times I've been nearly killed by a bike at full speed weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk - where it's actually illegal for them to ride.
Bikes do not belong on the sidewalk unless they're moving as slow as a pedestrian, which they never are. They're a hazard.
Many years ago I biked daily on 40 mph city streets, so I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about.
I also think that cyclists shouldn't ride at speed on the sidewalk, but even if, cyclists causing pedestrian fatalities is extremely rare. It has happened, but it's statistically insignificant when compared to cars killing pedestrians.
There is a big difference between getting hit by 90kg at 30km/h vs 1900kg at 45km/h.
I've almost been knocked into a busy 50 mph street by sidewalk cyclists, so yeah.
""" From 1996 to 2005, 11 pedestrians across New York City died after being struck by bicyclists.... 2006 to 2013, there were just four pedestrian deaths, according to the city’s Department of Transportation. """ [0]
0: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-23/pedestrian...
It is entirely possible that the low bike-on-pedestrian fatality rate is due in part to the law mandating that cyclists and pedestrians be segregated.
Don't get me wrong, all of it counts and is sad and regrettable. I do however think there is an anti-cyclist bias ingrained in the perception and reporting of it's dangers, that's out of whack with the real numbers on accidents.
[1] http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3758...
But here's the rub - people don't want to put up with even a 1-in-1000 chance of getting a broken arm just from walking on the sidewalk, and they don't want to constantly be on guard against bikes zipping all over the place on what should be a relaxing walk.
It's annoying, and that's why we have things like noise ordnances even though no one ever like, dies because the neighbors are too loud.
The real solution is to separate cars and bikes, just like we separate cars and people. Dedicated, buffered bike lanes and safer intersections.
It is almost as if everyone only care about conveniences rather than safety. If only everyone followed traffic laws, had dedicated roads for each kind of transportation, and maintenance for each kind of road was identical, then we would not be in this mess. As it stand, people are a hazard to each other when traffic of one kind mixes with an other.
A gradual move to 20mph on all roads is being introduced: http://www.islington.gov.uk/services/parking-roads/street_im...
Some boroughs have already completed the move (i.e. the link above) and others are following.
Traffic in London rarely gets above 20mph anyway, so it barely impacts. As a driver it makes driving more relaxing and hasn't impacted travel times. As a cyclist, it's a joy to not have vehicles racing to overtake in appropriate places.
Please, no. The biggest nuisance I experience as a pedestrian are cyclists riding on the sidewalk.
Lane splitting/filtering at stop lights puts bikers in a safer and more visible position, in front of, instead of between vehicles. When I attempt to queue at lights, the car behind me will often inch up until I'm uncomfortable. If there is a car coming, I often wonder whether they "see" me, or whether I'm about to get caught between two cars having a fender bender, and end up leaving with two broken legs.
Sidewalks are not meant for bikes. The offset from the road, and expectation that traffic on them will move slowly leads to drivers pulling into them without actually checking for traffic. On many occasions while jogging I've almost ended up on someones hood, add a bike, and I'd have been across the hood and on the left side of the car before the driver even looked to his right for traffic.
It actually does make sense to blame the driver for their behavior.
He had a Flare rear light, reflective jacket, and even during the court case witnesses testified to the brightness of the light and it's effectiveness. The weather and conditions were good.
The driver still used the SMIDSY defence, still walked free with little more than a fine.
At what point do we stop and say that perhaps it isn't enough to be dressed as a clown and lit with everything possible... perhaps the responsibility to not hit a cyclist should be with the driver to drive with care and attention?
In fact, I think cycling at night is safer because my flashing lights and reflectors are in their eye. During the day, I just blend into the background. This is also why I keep my car's lights on when driving in the day.
> That’s just the beginning! Because now Volvo — those endearingly safety-minded Swedes — wants cyclists to take “safety” a step further and spray themselves with something called “Lifepaint” so they glow in the dark.
> This is just another way for drivers to outsource any and all responsibility for what they do with their cars to other road users. The giveaway? Volvo’s promotional video is full of testimonials, including this one from a driver: ...
Is this insane and unfair? No, it's about the responsibility that comes with driving a big, dangerous hunk of metal amongst unprotected civilians. For a country where most people believe that they can be considered responsible enough to own firearms, that responsibility for something that is potentially equally deadly shouldn't be that big a burden.
The notion that you can legally run down and kill a child on a bicycle just because that child was "wrong" is what's insane.
Well American ones do.
If cyclists are going to share the road, they would see fit have their bicycles registered, pay yearly fees and purchase insurance - both for themselves and the ones they cause harm to [1] - just like motorists do.
Anything else is just favoritism. Won't stand in a court of law, here.
The next time a cyclist injures someone - fatally or not - I can see the auto lobby getting behind efforts to requiring cyclists treated as motorists. I will gladly chip in for that.
[1] http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Bicyclist-sentenced-for-...
It's called the cycle hire scheme.
In this time, not a single cyclist has been tried for anything, and yet several of them have been killed by HGVs.
Registrations aren't stopping cyclist fatalities.
I don't really have own experience of London traffic, but from reading newspapers, it looks like you should do less to cars and more to heavy goods vehicles and buses.
It really is just the HGV, and the construction industry related HGV at that.
"You should"... well I and very many others are. However the essence of the issue appears to come down to a mix of the economics of being a HGV driver, local politics, and the nature of congestion and traffic in an old city.
The economics is that HGV drivers are paid by the job. They are effectively incentivised to complete a job as fast as possible to increase their earnings. Being paid to go faster isn't very compatible with driving safer.
The politics is a blend of TfL (Transport for London) not having the authority to re-design many junctions, local councils wishing to maximise traffic flow, and residents not wishing to tolerate construction traffic outside of work hours. This means that construction traffic can only operate during the work day (when it's most congested), on roads that were not designed for such a volume of HGV traffic, with junctions not designed for cyclist safety or space. A very recent HGV fatality is directly contributable to Westminster Council refusing to implement recommendations by TfL to make a junction next to a bridge safer... this was last week, you'll find the info online easily enough.
The last point relates to the city itself. You'll see from other comments that the best thing to do is to segregate cyclists from the motorised traffic, but that requires space. London is an old city and we cannot move buildings and streets to accommodate this segregation outside of more than a handful of wide boulevards and roads (such as the Embankment where it is being done). We can only achieve segregation by turning 2-way streets into 1-way streets (as is being done on Tottenham Court Road), but even then that adds pressure to surrounding roads. There are limits to what can be done to provide extra space and re-designs to existing junctions and roads.
Possibly the best thing is the cross-London move to a 20mph speed limit.
But the biggest remaining thing that could be done might be to change the economics of the construction industry in London. Perhaps just place an outright ban on HGVs that do not meet some strict requirement for operating in such a busy metropolis. Perhaps just change the status of road fatalities by HGVs such that they are considered a Health and Safety issue of the work-site that the work is being done for... i.e. if the victim's family can sue the construction site for death then perhaps that will change the job incentives enough to bring in safety features, etc.
But yeah, we are on it.
Interestingly enough, over here (Helsinki) we have lots of segregated bike/pedestrian paths, and many cycling activists want to remove them from inner city and have bicycles on the street among other vehicles, "to be equal".
Personally, I think they're nuts. The separate paths are good, even if we still have to watch out in intersections.
http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/10/24/no-a-bike-license-fee-...
Now, granted, the author's complaints about US automobile manufacturers' influence on society can still apply, because that can at least partially explain the lower ratio of bicycles to automobiles in the US. There are undoubtedly other contributors to this low ratio, like the significantly higher median income and vastly lower population density of the United States.
And it's horrible.
The bicyclists ROUTINELY violate nearly every sane traffic law on the books. They go the wrong way against traffic, refuse to stop for stop lights or pedestrians in crosswalks, ride on sidewalks, have few if any safety features like headlights or taillights, and on and on.
If cyclists would simply follow the traffic laws that already exist, there would be many fewer deadly accidents between cyclists and pedestrians (yes, you read that right) and cyclists and cars.
If cars would simply follow the laws that already exist there would be many fewer deadly accidents between cars and people who die when hit.
But a cyclist running a red light is so commonplace in NYC that they think that it's not even a ticketable offense.
http://nypost.com/2014/09/24/most-cyclists-are-still-ignorin...
Yes, but bicycles are no cars. So the city need also to come up with bike lanes and adequate regulations. It is too easy to blame the participant which has no real place in traffic.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzE-IMaegzQ
"There were no pedestrian deaths from cyclists in 2010, 2011 or 2012, according to city data."
I live in the Netherlands now but lived in NYC for 15 years and biked a lot while I was there. I'm not going to argue that NYC cyclists are perfect and follow all the traffic laws all the time, but at the same time, they're really not much different than Dutch cyclists. When it comes down to it, cyclists do what they have to do to get where they're going and avoid getting hit by cars. Some differences I have noticed: in the Netherlands, it's explicitly allowed for cyclists to bike against traffic on one way streets. Many more bikes in the Netherlands do have lights because 1) it's a 60 EUR fine otherwise and they enforce it and 2) the heavy dutch style bikes just tend to have them built in, whereas on the typical NYC bike, they're externally mounted and will get stolen off your bike in a heartbeat. The Dutch actually can be very aggressive cyclists, cruising through red lights when there's no traffic coming, passing suddenly and closely, flying through crowds of people, squeezing past trams, and generally inducing mild heart attacks in someone like me watching, but they're also extremely skilled since almost all of them have been biking nearly everywhere they go nearly every day of their lives since they were small children. They pull off complex maneuvers that I would never dream of and do it while texting. The final difference is that pedestrians here tend to be a bit more aware and will be careful to stay out of the bike paths.
And if you want further proof, just read the list of bicycle fatalities in SF [1] and see who is at fault. Most of the time it is the vehicle. And guess what happens when a vehicle is ruled at fault and kills a cyclist? Nothing [2]:
> Unfortunately, the lack of charges in this tragic case is par for the course in our justice system which continually fails to prosecute traffic cases as the crimes that they are. Four people were killed while biking in San Francisco last year, and no charges were filed against the drivers in any of these cases.
The myth that all cyclists are irresponsible and reckless is untrue and needs to die. Most cyclists are drivers and thus can emphasize with drivers and understand and predict what they are doing. However, most drivers are not cyclists, and often think a cyclist is doing something wrong when they are not. Or maybe they only notice when cyclists are doing something bad and their selective memory is reinforced. The point is, most drivers are good and most cyclists are good. A little more empathy on both sides would go a long way towards improving the situation, and untrue claims like "90% of the time the cyclist is at fault" is not helping.
1: https://medium.com/improving-our-cities/a-list-of-people-kil...
2: https://www.sfbike.org/news/statement-on-lack-of-charges-in-...
When I grew up in Germany, infrastructure was good and people obeyed traffic signs etc, when I lived in London it was every man for himself, as abiding by the rules was often more dangerous than not, and sometimes not even possible.
Have you thought of why this is so common? A bicycle uses human power, stopping is a much bigger hassle than sitting lazily in a car. And a bicycle approaches a stop sign much slower than a car, this having a better overview before crossing.
In fact, it's somewhat telling that most bicycle fatalities don't involve a cyclist doing something stupid: most cyclist law-breaking is done when the cyclist believes it's safe to do so, and they're usually very attentive and aware of their surroundings for the duration. It's when the cyclist is in a normal state, and has no reason to expect a surprise attack-by-car, that the fatalities happen.
(As a pedestrian, I very much sympathize with this. I tend to jaywalk quite often when walking, and when I do, I'm super attentive and ensure it's safe before crossing. It's probably more likely that I'd get hit by a car when I have the right of way than when jaywalking. But I'm still breaking the law, as is the cyclist when he/she runs a stop sign.)
And if you want further proof, just read the list of bicycle fatalities in SF and see who is at fault. Most of the time it is the vehicle.
This point has nothing to do with whether or not the majority of cyclists are responsible and law-abiding. All it does is suggest that drivers are inattentive, and that the state is strongly biased toward drivers and wrongly backs them up when they kill someone.
I wouldn't say that most cyclists are irresponsible (more that they tend to take risks, risks which may actually be reasonable and acceptable), and I certainly don't believe that most cyclists are at fault when there's a fatality involving a car (quite the opposite). But suggesting that most cyclists habitually follow the rules of the road... that's just absurd in my experience.
probably 80 or 90% of cyclists are responsible and law abiding. There are maybe 10 or 20 percent who are bad, run red lights and do other crazy shit
Just to be clear, your statistics don't actually disagree with each other. It's entirely possible -- I'd even say likely -- that the 10 or 20 percent of cyclists who "do crazy shit" are involved in and responsible for 90% of bicycle-involved accidents.
If you assume that the 20% of fatal accidents that are purely the driver's fault are evenly distributed among cyclists, can you also assume that any 10-20% of cyclists are involved in 90% of accidents?
Fatal accidents don't have to be like general accidents. But.
Most of the cyclists I see are pretty well-behaved, stopping at lights and behaving nicely.
The drivers, though, have no idea what to do with this strange two-wheeled human-vehicle centaurish thing which randomly appears on the road with them.
They'll swerve out into oncoming lanes of traffic if I'm by the side of the road. They'll pull to a near crawl and form a column behind me. They'll speed up and buzz my bike going 40 mph. They'll honk at me as they come up behind me, pass me, and drive past. One nice lady tried to run me down in her SUV because I had the gall to pass on her right. And if there're two (two!) bikes sharing a lane? They'll completely lose their minds at the sight of such a miracle.
Let's use hand signals, and show which way we're going--haha, just kidding, no drivers in the city seem to understand the difference between "I'm turning left", "I'm turning right", "I'm about to brake", and "being on a bike is so awesome I'm just going to flail my left arm around".
Also, the roads here are just barely good enough for cars--on bikes, you'll merrily eat a pothole and go flying, or bend a rim, or whatever. The sidewalks are even worse, otherwise we'd be on those.
And then there are the pedestrians! If drivers are clueless, people that are ambling around or jogging are malevolently stupid. Call out your passing side ahead of time, and they stop and crane their head around trying to see if God himself was talking to them--instead of, you know, moving out of the way in the indicated direction. Then there are the uppity joggers who will get in your face for sharing a dirt path ~4m wide.
The biking culture is getting better here, but it can really grate on one's nerves.
You completely lost me with this paragraph as your attitude to pedestrians is almost an exact reflection of the problematic one that many drivers have to cyclists.
Unfortunately, we are accepted neither by the drivers nor the pedestrians...I would be happy to stay off the sidewalks entirely (there being other safety issues with them) were the roads not so much worse.
Anyways, gripe as I do, I still consider it my responsibility not to hit pedestrians, since I'm the larger vehicle.
My position is that walking is humanity's natural way of moving around and that urban landscapes where they maintain primacy are by far the most pleasant in which to exist and move around. We obviously also need other modes of transport in our modern world but every effort should be made to keep these other modes of transport from taking over primacy. Unfortunately this is exactly what cars have done. There is much less of a threat from cyclists to pedestrians but still, as a cyclist, I feel that is up to us to respect pedestrians and not the other way round. Of course, I would also like to see car drivers demonstrate the same attitude towards cyclists (and, of course, pedestrians).
The Dutch >50% rule was introduced after a randomish clump of accidents in which adults in cars survived and children on bicycles died. There were many mortal accidents year after year, a lot of Dutch felt that car drivers weren't behaving sympathetically, and that particularly gruesome clump of accidents drove public opinion far enough to pass the >50% law.
THEN the culture changed, AFTER the change in rules.
The reason this causes relatively few accidents is because people driving cars in cities are extra careful.
Because of this I'm inclined to believe that the safety of cyclists is a result of regulation much more than 'responsible' cycling.
Even if the kid say, hides behind a tree then decides to cut across traffic without warning?
The fact that I'd go to jail for that is what's insane.
Even if there's no speed limit - driving in a middle of town, near a path or pavement lined with trees you should be careful, and slow down.
And in rare case that there's a tree near motorway and somehow a kid on a bike managed to get there and hide - you will manage to explain yourself before court.
What's important is the attitude. IMHO the attitude "anybody who misbehaves on a road deserve to die" is more insane than having to explain yourself after you killed someone, even if it's not your fault.
Death has smaller utility than discomfort.
You are putting words into mouths.
It's more like, "acknowledge that if you misbehave on the road, your chances of getting killed increase and it may be your fault." I don't know why it's impossible for some people to hear that without imagining the "deserves" part.
Edit: s/waking/walking/
For example, a bicycle is moving much faster than a person opening a car door. It is clearly the fault of the bicycle if he runs into it.
Now see the problem?
The reality is that cars and bicycles do not belong on the same roads. Period. Bicycles need bike lanes that are separated from roads.
In the Netherlands, we would say check the street before opening your car door. If you open your car door on a narrow street and a car hits it, is the driver of the other car also responsible?
Then again, I live in Denmark, so my views might be a bit skewed.
It is essentially "Marine Law" - the most maneuverable must make way way for lesser. Perfect common sense.
With boats, maneuverability. With "road sharers", survivability.
People start riding a bike when they are 2 years old. So everybody knows how fragile you are on a bike.
Most roads cars and cyclist share are 30 km/h roads.
You need to have lights while driving at night.
And so on.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/3739+Hollandsche+Rading,+N...
I was cycling south on the bike path, against the flow of the traffic in the lane of the road closest to the path when a work van pulled into the path at speed and nearly killed me (I managed to move over into the median between the path and road in time to avoid a collision).
The rest of the bicycling scene was fantastic, but given my short period there, it was quite an experience to record.
Last time I mentioned this to a Nederlander they said I must not have had the awareness of a native (I did not link the location that time), but it seems clear enough that a vehicle had no business pulling onto that path to travel (of course they might pull across it into a house or whatever).
And so I really have to wonder about his grip on logic: The whole purpose of making cyclists more visible is to prevent drivers from hitting them! Driving around Vancouver -- a city with a large (by North American standards) cycling population, I have on many occasions come across cyclists who were visible only thanks to the lights on their bicycles. Fortunately those lights were all I needed; but on one occasion I passed a cyclist whose rear light had burnt out, and thanks to his black clothing, the lack of street lights, and the overcast night, I had no idea he was in the road until I passed him -- even though I had been looking directly at him prior to passing.
How, pray tell, am I supposed to avoid hitting invisible cyclists?
You're right. Just saying "drivers should be more careful!" isn't going to have any effect. We need to change transportation infrastructure to be safer for non-automobile traffic.
Face the reality. Where there is enough traffic to warrant it and the community can afford it, there are street lights and separate bike paths. But in many places, we don't have them. It is reasonable to require bikes to have lights in the dark, so that others can see them.
I ride bike to work, >10km one way, and 98 % of the route has bike or bike/pedestrian paths. But I still have a) lights in my bike, b) reflective jacket, c) helmet. In the winter, I occasionally have trouble with pedestrians just because I don't see them (even with the good lights I have in my bike).
Two thirds of bike fatalities here happen without a collision with a motor vehicle (i.e. bike hits another bike, a pedestrian, a stationary object, or just otherwise dies while riding). Of collisions with motor vehicles, the fault is usually with the driver, but not exclusively. Intersection + truck/bus is the dangerous combination.
For case 3) and HGV, a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzL0Kyk4m-8
So, to answer your question, people in traffic should follow traffic laws.
That said, the law is the law. You have to be visible in traffic. If the light burns out, then maybe its a bad idea to be out in traffic at night.
You're not. In your example with the cyclist with a burnt-out light, dark clothing, and dark night, if you had hit him, I would very clearly assert that the cyclist was at fault.
I'm fine with requiring cyclists to have front and rear lights in the dark and/or rain (hell, this is already required of cars), but requiring clothing with reflective paint on top of that? It's a bit ridiculous, IMO. Lights are more than sufficient to make a cyclist visible, the rest of the burden should be on drivers to actually pay attention to what they're doing
In regards to improving bike-ability, adding more bike lanes is certainly the best way forward. Meanwhile we can encourage responsible bike use for those who share the roadways with motor vehicles. I'm frankly appalled at the general disregard to bike safety and traffic laws by NYC cyclists. A policy of early education and strict traffic law enforcement would likely alleviate a significant portion of the problem.
As a side note, the CitiBike program has done nothing but encourage terrible bike usage behavior and dangerous habits.
Chicken-and-egg. On the other hand, to get people riding their bikes, you need to offer them an infrastructure that feels safe enough to get started.
Either way the point of the article (which a shocking number of people in the comments here and on the article missed) is that it's this chicken and the egg problem that needs to be addressed.
1) "that guy wears helmet; he seems to be a law-abiding cyclist who knows what he's doing and behaves in a predictable way"
2) "that cyclist doesn't seem to control his vehicle; I need to pass by a wider margin".
You can ride your bike on a narrow road without a shoulder where cars routinely pass you going 70mph, and never really worry about being taken out. Bikes are things that are found on roads here, so cars just go around them. Usually all the way over in the far lane.
I've never had a car come closer than 2m when passing me on the road. No surprise, since they have signs posted every few miles reminding drivers that that's the minimum legal amount of space that you need to give a bicycle.
I always stop at red lights. I ride the road so follow the rules of the road.
However as a cyclist I also have to take command of a lane to prevent vehicles trying to squeeze by between a central reservation. Only for me to catch them up and overtake then at the next set of lights.
Urban speed limit is 30mph and usually less when traffic is heavy. I can cycle to and from work faster than I can drive. So I get annoyed when I see the same car make a bad overtake 3 times while I am riding. If they travelled with me they would arrive no later.
I stick my arm out to turn right (we drive in the left) and vehicles will continue to overtake me even as I pull out to the centre of the road.
I wear a helmet and a hi-vis jacket. I also have insurance. Even so I have around 2 near misses a week and so far this year been clipped twice from behind.
On the flip side I see stupid cyclists darting across lights, bunny hoping on and off pavements and weaving in lanes. So I can see why motorists get angry when sat in there cars. I have also had a couple of disagreements with other cyclists who are setting a bad example. They generally have a "give a shit" response.
This kind of lame trolling really should stay on blogs and off of national newspapers.
"it won’t be long before you need a license and registration to operate a bicycle, and you’ll be wearing a giant Dayglo bodysuit with illumination circuitry, one of those Australian “smart hats,” and a GPS beacon up your posterior so you don’t get hit by an Apple iCar."
The people who oppose bicycle lanes [or even bicycles in general] won't even get pissed off by this stupendously unlikely suggestion. It's only designed to get angry bicyclists to vehemently agree with the general position based on emotional resonance and not any sort of logic. It's fodder for more angry bike people to read his bike blog.
> We’re already at the point where every car-on-bike “accident” (police always assume it’s an accident; drivers are allowed unlimited “oopsies”)
Is he implying that some significant portion of alleged car-on-bike accidents are actually purposeful assault from the automobile driver? I find that very difficult to believe.
> That’s why whenever you read about a cyclist who’s been injured or killed, the article mentions helmets, regardless of whether this detail in any way relevant. (“The cyclist’s legs were flattened by the runaway steamroller. No criminality suspected. The victim was not wearing a helmet.”)
I question whether media reports of a victim not wearing a helmet when a helmet clearly would not have helped are actually that common, or if this is just the author's bias (i.e. he notices and remembers these reports more than others).
> Here’s why the auto industry, the insurance industry and the officials they lobby want helmet laws. First, forcing people to wear helmets shifts responsibilities onto cyclists and absolves governments from having to build better cycling infrastructure and drivers from having to obey traffic laws.
I have little doubt that the auto industry wants helmet laws, but I highly doubt that shifting responsibilities onto the cyclist has anything to do with it. The second reason the author provides ("helmet laws discourage people from using bicycles for everyday transportation by making it inconvenient") feels like a sufficient reason to me.
> Meanwhile, in countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, where lots and lots of people ride bikes, a helmeted bicyclist is about as rare as a helmeted driver here in America. And yet they seem to be managing pretty well — maybe because they’ve got bike infrastructure, and because they still subscribe to the notion that the person operating the giant machine on public roads needs to be responsible for not killing people with it.
As I mentioned in another comment, all these phenomena might be caused by the fact that the Netherlands simply has (and has had for some time) a higher ratio of bicycles to automobiles than the United States. Of course, this ratio is likely affected by the US auto industry, as well as other things like income and population density.
> What? How oblivious are you? Nobody should have to “scream out” to you to get your attention while you’re driving a car. You should already be giving it, and undividedly so.
By that same logic, we shouldn't have horns, brake lights, reflective lines and road markers, or anything else that might help focus a driver's attention and thus increase the odds that the driver behaves in the manner he or she already should already behave.
As someone who has ridden many miles in the US (and many kilometers in Italy), I don't find it such a stretch. There are a lot of pissed-off drivers. Everyone who has ridden a bike enough has stories of being harassed for no reason. Once, for instance, I was riding with a few friends, single-file, lined up as close as we could get to the right side of the straight road, and this guy buzzes us with inches to spare, and no oncoming traffic in the other lane. If he'd "miscalculated" he could have easily injured or killed us.
No, he's not. He's implying that instead of motorists being charged with reckless driving or other similar charges, they're most often not even charged. I once had a car make a left turn across 4 lanes of traffic and a turn lane and t-bone me while I was cycling. He couldn't be bothered to make his way safely to the turn lane, pause, then turn left. He just swung across the entire road and hit me. He didn't even get a ticket because he told the officer the sun was in his eyes. I left the scene of the accident in an ambulance and was unable to function normally for over a year. It's not equal.
I don't believe the author was saying that. He said...
> We’re already at the point where every car-on-bike “accident” (police always assume it’s an accident; drivers are allowed unlimited “oopsies”)
I believe what the author meant is that there's an accident and then there's something far less than accident that's more the result of reckless driving, poor driving or aggressive driving. And yet the law always errs on the side of it being an unavoidable accident.
- After dark, head- and taillights are mandatory for cyclists, and you will be fined if you don't have them.
- Cycling on the sidewalk is prohibited. This too is enforced.
- Cyclists in the Netherlands are not generally very respectful of traffic laws - they will run red lights when they can.
- Practically nobody wears helmets.
- 184 cyclist deaths in 2013 (out of +- 10 million active cyclists)
But people rarely drive on sidewalks, they don't need to with bicycle paths being really everywhere.
On the other hand you get scooter drivers speeding crazily on the very same bike paths. I've heard it's actually legal but I'm not sure.
Um, isn't that actually quite a LOT. Do we really want to emulate that?
The annual cyclist death toll in San Francisco looks to be under 10 people a year. Right about the same level as the fatal car crash death toll per year.
Complaining about something that really looks purely accidental from a statistical viewpoint is not going to make people very sympathetic.
Out of how many active cyclists?
The SFMTA estimates that 16% of San Francisco residents are "frequent cyclists", defined as cycling two or more days per week.
That means ~135k frequent cyclists.
184:10,000,000 = .0184 per 1,000 10:135,000 = .0741 per 1,000
SF = 4x higher
For SF to be safer than the Netherlands, bike deaths need to pretty much disappear.
Okay. Kind of makes the ranting of the whole article pointless, though.
It's hip to give bikers the nod because they are green and healthy but it's not feasible in most areas because it's simply not safe for both parties.
I looked into getting one of those GE electric vehicles but guess what - you can't take those on most roads because they aren't fast enough (even though they are faster and safer than most bikers). You even have to pay to register them and carry insurance (which bikers don't). Why pays when a cyclist causes an accident? If you drive your car 25 under the speed limit, you can get a ticket. People on bikes want to be congratulated for doing so and have everyone yield.
You can't run down the middle of the road even if you are faster than some cyclists. Nobody has a right to the roads. It's a privilege and most roads were designed for cars.
I'd rather see bikers using the sidewalk with pedestrians yielding to them and let them use designated bike lanes on roads (and lobby for more if they choose). More and more areas are becoming friendly to cyclists but to give nearly free reign to cyclists is absurd IMO.
The reality is - too many people suck at driving and you aren't getting rid of cars unless you're Venice, Italy. Even if you can go the same speed as legally required for cars (say on a motorcycle), it's pretty much only a matter of time before you get pasted on the asphalt because some idiot driver didn't see you, was distracted with their phone, or is just a bad driver. The notion that cyclists can avoid that fate is silly. Personally I'd love to have a motorcycle, but it's too risky here in California.
And you know what? Wikipedia says there're 13 deaths per 100k vehicles in the US and 55 in the country I came from (Russia).
Go figure.
What I'm trying to convey is that the article says "don't do , stop other party from doing the wrong thing". Okay. Stop investing money into Falcon landing, just make fricking rocket booster land straight onto the platform at sea. Stop making cars safe, just make them not to crash into each other. Etc. Sure! Where do I sign up? The author fails to deliver the answer "how". "Invest in the infrastructure" is not enough.
Also, the standards of sobriety are very different in different countries. In Russia you're technically drunk if you had a bottle of yogurt for breakfast. And they _will_ use that against you in court, it's not just a "fun fact".