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Comment by enraged_camel | Hacker News Reader

As a cyclist you may have less than one second to avoid an opening car door. You can't always give a wide berth because bike lanes in the US are usually very narrow.

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> You can't always give a wide berth because bike lanes in the US are usually very narrow.

That doesn't mean you can't give wide berth. Take the lane if the bike lane puts you too close to car doors. If there's one thing I've learned from biking in US cities, it is to never trust bike lanes to be safe.

>>That doesn't mean you can't give wide berth.

You can't give wide berth because most bike lanes in the US don't have enough space.

And let's face it: would you rather risk getting hit by someone opening their car door, or getting clipped by a vehicle moving at 40 mph plus?

The latter. That’s my point.

You can have all the time you need, if you slow down.

Do you apply the same logic to intersections? You never know when someone might blow through a red light, so you'd better go through every intersection at 2MPH so you have enough time to stop if they do.

I do when I’m driving, I slow enough so I can clearly see both ways before I go through.

You do realize that unexpected slow downs also result in many accidents, right? The behavior you just described is more risky than the default.

no it’s not, i’m not stopping in intersections. I’m not exceeding the speed limit, I’m going a little less. Fast enough to see oncoming traffic and not to be rear ended.

Going a little less than the speed limit is not nearly enough. If someone stopped at the perpendicular red light suddenly floored it, you wouldn't have enough time to stop. The maximum safe speed through a typical intersection is probably only about 10MPH. Less if there's not much room between the stopped traffic and your lane.

Right, the problem with infrastructure today is that cyclists are just riding too dang fast.

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