And I wish they also tell us how many accidents do bikers cause themselves as they are notorious for not following any traffic rules - thereby endangering the live of others.
Guess what, drivers are also notorious for not following traffic rules -- not using blinkers, not stopping fully at a stop sign, driving above speed limits, running a light after it's already turned red -- thereby endangering the lives of others.
It's not about whose fault things are -- it's just people being people. It's about designing a system and incentives that saves lives overall (driver's licenses, bike lanes, speed limits, ticketing, etc.).
Yes, but cyclists try to act like pedestrians and move at speeds typical of vehicles. Pedestrians typically move between 2 to 6 mph. Cyclists move between 10 to 30 mph.
While a motorist can see a pedestrian approaching a crosswalk and yield to them, it's much harder for them to see a cyclist in time to yield to them because of how much faster they move.
Also, if cyclists switch between pedestrian mode and vehicle mode constantly, it makes it much harder to predict what they will do for both motorists and pedestrians. When people can't predict what will happen, then a collision is much more likely.
It's not productive to lump every cyclist together, or every driver together. At the end of the day, people are people, and some people who happen to be cyclist are shitty, while others who happen to be drivers are assholes. But that doesn't mean ALL cyclists are assholes, or all drivers.
In fact 5 of the last 8 years had zero pedestrian deaths due to collisions with cyclists. [1]
Cyclists in NYC (and I imagine most cities) do not, and have never had, a history of "endangering the lives of others."
[1] https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/bikestats.shtm...
Not saying it's a high probability, especially as compared to motor vehicles, but to state the opposite -- cyclists don't have a history of endangering the lives of others -- is also false. They can and do kill pedestrians.
Again, his exact statement was: "Cyclists in NYC (and I imagine most cities) do not, and have never had, a history of 'endangering the lives of others.'"
He's stating unequivocally that cyclists do not have -- and have never had -- a history of endangering the lives of others.
They kill people. I certainly call that endangering the lives of others.
They don't kill a lot of people. Neither do sharks -- in the US they only kill about 1 person a year. That doesn't mean sharks are not dangerous or don't have a history of endangering people.
If you or he want to make a statement about the low probability of such an event -- fine. Or compare cyclists to far more dangerous motor vehicles, also fine. But to say that cyclists don't and have never endangered pedestrians is not factually accurate.
At the end, you write "don't and have never never endangered", which is something only you are saying.
It's not something "only I am saying." Cyclists have a history of endangering pedestrians...it's a low probability event but by any rational definition of "history" it's a track record aka history.
Not sure why people are so eager to defend cyclists they're willing to overlook the fact that they can and do endanger pedestrians and now -- in your case -- pretend they have no "history" of doing so because it's not happening often enough for your satisfaction.
And it looks like this parent comment was deleted and this thread is now detached -- I'm assuming the moderators also had a problem with that original statement.
As a pedestrian I have been struck by a delivery bike running a red light exactly twice. The more egregious incident: I assumed he was going to stop, he decided he was not going to stop. Frogger ensued. I was flattened. He also went down and yelled at me. We were both "fine" other than getting a little bit of NYC on us. I know a couple of people have died from these guys, but I don't think it is a significant number.
The real problem IS the cars generally, but the semi-regulated taxis specifically.
As a biker I have been struck by a car also, exactly twice. Both times by a non medallion wearing driver, both on my way from the bike rack on 53rd to port authority (~11 super short blocks), both I was inside the bike lane on 9th avenue. One on instance the driver blindly turned without a blinker from the not turn lane. I saw it happening, but citibikes aren't known for how reliable their brakes are, and we collided at a VERY low speed. I was able to hop off before I fell. The bigger issue on 9th avenue is the turn lanes that are IN the bike lane... The other time I was hit, I was side swiped as the driver decided to not look that I was in the lane. I had my umbrella in hand as I was being side swiped and was swinging it against his driver window. He then flipped me off and pull further into the lane. Knocking me into another biker and we both went down.
I know these are anecdotal, but the 11 blocks I would ride a citi bike could have killed me twice in 2 years. I have been almost killed 0 times by delivery bikes in NYC for the thousands of miles I walked. I will side with bikers over cars in NYC any day of the week.
People look at me crazy when I say I feel safer around scooters than bicycles and this is why. Cycling inertia makes you super-reluctant to slow down or stop. Whereas with scooters all you have to do is twist the throttle to speed back up.
Not saying that there for is such a culture, only that it is certainly a popular complaint, and if there is truth for it we should factor that into our decisions.
For my own reference as much as others:
Florida study on rates for people driving vs cycling: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/03/study-cyclists-dont-b...
Wesley Marshall (Univ of Co) surverying 18k people: https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-18/survey-finds-bicyclis... (I haven't found the actual paper on this one)