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Comment by ousta | Hacker News Reader

As a pedestrian in paris I'd say the presence of bicycle is a BIG reason I feel less safe.

Most of the cyclists are unaware of the rules. pass on red and on pedestrian way carelessly. worst ones are the users of the free bikes (mostly tourists who never biked since they left the 90s and listening to nirvana) who are the most dangerous drivers on paris streets.

I'd rather have a city center as it is now than the one i experienced during free car day where it was like the far west with cyclist not respecting any rules and biking between buses and pedestrians

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I think you meant "unsafe", and I agree with you. I too am very annoyed when I stop at a pedestrian crossing (or at a red light) only to have the bike behind me zip past me, creating a VERY unsafe situation for people trying to cross. (I sometimes feel I betray pedestrians at crosswalks without red lights when I stop--they thank me, they start crossing, and are almost hit by a passing bike or motorbike that didn't stop! In this case, I have created an unsafe situation... in a weird way).

I think a lot of people on bikes disrespect pedestrians. I find it reflects very badly on cyclists who do respect other people with whom they share public space, and on Parisians in general. People have priority, not least because I as a cyclist have a machine to help me move about and pedestrians don't. There's also civility and just being nice to one another in general.

I actually think words like "pedestrian", "cyclist" and "motorist" create unnecessary conflicts of interest between people who live in the same city. Everyone is at some point a pedestrian -- we're pedestrian by nature!

Having said all this, I think people on bikes would be less likely to be as aggressive if cars were less aggressive towards them. (It's a vicious cycle, and in the end nobody wins and everybody is stressed).

I'm actually working on an article on this for the French press, to look at this situation from a UX pov.

> People have priority, not least because I as a cyclist have a machine to help me move about and pedestrians don't.

On the other hand, it's much more demanding for a cyclist to emergency stop (presumably at high gear) and then start again than for a pedestrian. When I'm on foot I try not to make cyclists stop for no good reason when I can just wait a few seconds more.

At low speeds bikes also often have a longer stop distance than cars (especially since they often go faster), which sometimes makes it difficult or impossible to stop in time once you notice that the car on your left is stopping for the pedestrian waiting on the right. It actually happens to me not unfrequently, especially since most often cars will not stop, so it makes no sense to stop every time as a cyclist. I try to apologise to the pedestrians when I'm not able to stop in time, they usually seem more amused or impressed by the skidding than angry at me.

I bike daily to work in New York, and I don't buy the argument that it's that hard to stop. Assuming your bike has gears it's almost no effort to get started again from gear 1. I fully stop at every light. I have very little physical endurance (I can't jog for more than 1 minute without panting), but doing this repeatedly doesn't cause me to even break a sweat. I bike at roughly 10-12 MPH on a heavy bike.

Not yielding for pedestrians is common among bikers here, but very rude and dangerous. I've had a lot of close calls as a pedestrian with bikers blowing through red lights. I wish the police would crack down on it.

> Assuming your bike has gears it's almost no effort to get started again from gear

I specifically mentioned "emergency stop (presumably at high gear)". Unless you have a very sophisticated bike, you can't change gears once stopped.

Obviously I never talked about going through red lights, since for red lights you always have time to switch to a lower gear beforehand, and stopping isn't optional anyway.

> Obviously I never talked about going through red lights, since for red lights you always have time to switch to a lower gear beforehand, and stopping isn't optional anyway.

Sorry, I misunderstood you since this isn't obvious in New York: plenty of bikers don't slow down to go through red lights. They trust that the cars are going slow enough that they'll stop for them -- it's a fairly safe assumption, but very rude.

Personally I walk and cycle a lot in Paris, I don't drive myself but do get Ubers fairly often.

Pedestrians: what's wrong with half the people, it's almost more common to see people walking into each other than stepping around each other, constant lack of what I'd consider in England to be common courtesy when walking near other people on pavements.

Cyclists: what's wrong with half the bikers, they ignore lights, wriggle around cars, go shooting past pedestrians too fast, etc. Actually some cyclists are like that most places I think. Some of us aren't idiots, though.

Drivers: what the fuck, the fuck, is wrong with Parisian drivers. Never seen such bad average driving competency in Europe before. Only slightly less crazy than I've witnessed in China. Doesn't matter whether you drive a smart car, land rover, bus or taxi, it seems if you drive in Paris you are constantly trying to edge ahead of anyone you can, overtake if there's a tiny gap, honk your horn all the time... wow.

My personal experiences: when I'm in a taxi I find poor driving (often of my driver just as much as other vehicles) annoying as hell but only a couple of times a little scary.

As a pedestrian I don't really have issues... if I step into the road I look first, simple.

As a cyclists I'm constantly dealing with cars to my left and people on the pavement to my right, mostly people who are more than happy to take two steps backwards onto a road without looking while stood chatting to friends. And on top of that you have the really dangerous car drivers, of which I've been seriously frightened quite a few times now...

All in all, I get pissed off by idiots in each group, but it's when I'm cycling that it affects me the most by far.

Another perspective: Parisian traffic has a high tolerance of bikes and pedestrians in general. As other readers will attest, some countries are down-right hostile (US, UK, Australia..)

The recent advent of allowing bikes to run through certain red lights is an official acknowledgement of what has happened for a long time.

Personally, the tolerance that the traffic has for the Velib' / Tourist bikes is part of what makes the city welcoming. It's a good thing, not a bad thing.

Not sure about UK being hostile to cyclists. Is it as good as the Netherlands or Denmark? Certainly not. However we do have an extensive cycle network that continues to grow:

http://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map?lat=56.54737192673878&lng...

You totally overlook the most disrespectful users of all : pedestrians, they do cross whenever they want or wherever they are, but it is a long held social norm, cyclist are newer here.

This is mostly because the pedestrian and bicycle spaces are very badly mixed.

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