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Comment by anonymou2 | Hacker News Reader

Cycle lanes are a trap for those who do not know. What exactly are the skills that you need to ride your bike in the normal road that are not needed when you ride on a bike lane?

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> What exactly are the skills that you need to ride your bike in the normal road that are not needed when you ride on a bike lane?

There should not be a set of skills to acquire to be on a road with cars. Roads in city centers should be safe enough for children to cycle to school.

For bigger arteries, this is achieved with segregated traffic in bicycle lanes. For smaller roads, this is achieved with sane city centre speed limits and respectful driving. That is the way it is implemented in countries like the Netherlands and they are in no way achieving this with extraordinarily skilled drivers or cyclists.

Your skills on a bicycle should be as basic as keeping safety distances and signaling your intentions. If I am putting 3 tonnes of metal in motion, it is ny duty to not act recklessly. This is the mindset that needs to change (on top of the infrastructure change).

So do you mean to say that bicycles do not collide with each other and therefore there is no need for them to have rules to share the road/bike lane or whatever? So, for example If I am being passed by another cyclist, can I just turn left without looking behind? I think you may wish that there was no need for skills, but that's just not reality. You need to know how to keep riding on a straight line for example, because other drivers of bicycles, cars, or whatever, expect that you won't suddenly cross their trajectory without warning. Since you also need to change your lateral position, regardless if you are riding on a bike lane or a normal road you need to be able to ride a straight line while looking behind, for yielding or lane negotiation. Also you need to do the same things when on a curve trajectory. Of course you need to be able to calculate the speed of other vehicles. For example, when entering a roadway, bike path, or whatever, you need again to be able to yield properly. I mean, we are talking about vehicles, I am not talking about fooling around in the park. In fact, it turns out that bike paths require additional skills. It requires additional skills because you need to figure out when its design contradicts the rules of the road. For example, when you have a right turning lane, that is exterior to a bike lane that just goes straight. That's a very dangerous situation where cyclists and motorists have to outsmart the engineer to avoid the right hook type of accident. Again, the bike lane discourse that bike lanes are easier to use is just false.

> So do you mean to say that bicycles do not collide with each other and therefore there is no need for them to have rules to share the road/bike lane or whatever?

Not to be rude, but is the worst example I've ever seen of arguing against the weakest possible reading of something the comment you are replying to didn't say.

I've raced bikes and been in bike-on-bike crashes at 70km/h, and I've been hit by a car when I was riding at about 20km/h. Give me the bike-on-bike crash any day.

I'm not a huge fan of bike lanes, but OTOH I have to admit I've basically stopped riding most roads after being hit and having constant near misses.

You need mainly velocity and acceleration. Unless you have a powerful ebike, most bikers accelerate 5x slower than usual car, even slower than scooters, and max speed around 25-30kmh on flat road. So they become obstacle that is often difficult to avoid safely in the car.

There are +-2 countries that I've seen implement bikes seriously - Netherlands and Denmark. Both have more bikes than residents AFAIK. The magic is to have dedicated bike lanes that nobody else uses. You only slow down/stop on intersections with car roads or pedestrian paths, otherwise its all for you, wide enough to overtake slower biker.

It’s absolutely untrue to say that cyclists are ‘difficult to avoid safely’.

Every time I drive I encounter cyclists. Sometimes I have to drive more slowly than I might want to for a short time, while I’m waiting for a safe opportunity to overtake. Not once, ever, have I found it difficult to avoid the cyclist safely. Anyone who finds this difficult would not be fit to operate a motor vehicle.

So are you saying that when a driver of car encounters slower traffic they collide with it? I don't think that's the case. In fact I've been driving my bike daily to work for 13 years, and never been hit from behind by a car. I've had a few close calls and they've always been on intersections with cars coming from the front turning left or from the sides. So velocity and acceleration are not important when sharing the road. Vehicles of different kinds have always shared the road without any problem. If you encounter a vehicle slower than you, you just need to slow down, adapt your speed and pass if safely to do so. It's that easy. By the way, those countries already had cyclists before they kicked them off the roads. Do they have more now or less? Also how do cyclists interact with other cyclists? don't they have to follow any rules either? don't they need any skills?

From my experience, as a cyclist speed and acceleration helps with avoiding car-related danger. If you're fast enough, cars won't needlessly overtake you (in rush hour, most car traffic may not exeed 30 km/h for example due to roads being packed too full, that's easy to match for a trained cyclist).

Also at intersections, being really quick at acceleration allows you to get out of the danger zone of cars crossing your path before there's a conflict. Think about right-turning trucks starting after a red traffic light.

I think fitness (and maybe reaction time) is some reason why severe cycling accidents seem to happen to older cyclist at a higher rate. In Berlin out of 15 cycling deaths this year, more than half of them are age 60 and higher [1], 3 are beyond 80 years of age.

[1] https://adfc-berlin.de/radverkehr/sicherheit/information-und...

+ Belgium

How about the skill to pedal 80km/h?

That's not a necessary skill. You know, there is a principle of traffic engineering that says: First to come first to be served. That means, if you are using the road, and you find a slower vehicle in front of you you are not allowed to run over him or kick him out of the way in any way. You are allowed to pass if safe to do so or just wait behind if not safe.

There is a principal in motorcycling that says: it doesn't matter if you had the right of way, you are the one who will wind up in the hospital, and the car driver will be fine.

I'm an avid cyclist & ex-motorcyclist. Self preservation & being a courteous road user tops what I might technically be entitled to do.

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