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Comment by JohnFen | Hacker News Reader

> Don't make it a moral argument that frames drivers as sinners and pedestrians, cyclists, etc as The Good Guys.

So much this.

I live in a US city that has an atypically large number of people who bicycle as their primary transportation. I do as well, but I also have a car and drive when that's more appropriate.

The years have taught me some things about the car vs bike divide: car drivers tend to be real jerks toward bicyclists, and bicyclists tend to be real jerks toward car drivers.

It's lose-lose, particularly because it's not rare that either the car or the bike (or both) navigate dangerously as a result, increasing the chances that someone's going to have an accident, and reaffirming the negative stereotypes each has toward the other.

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I am anti-car and it has nothing to do with drivers - it has to do with infrastructure. Our cities are designed for cars, multi-ton machines the favored entity in a sea of squishy humans. I think this sets us all up to be in conflict, to force us to protect ourselves and it brings out the worst in us.

The paranoia required to just stay alive as a cyclist doesn't promote anything near to harmonious co-existence. I don't ride on roads because I can't stand the stress.

As a cyclist on the road you're inhabiting a very unbalanced risk vs reward equation.

I know the percentages are low, but one mistake from you, or more likely someone else, and BAM, life over or changed forever more. I've been involved in enough car accidents to distrust the average human's ability to drive.

I am fully on board with the notion that our infrastructure has to become less car-centric, but I wouldn't describe myself as anti-car. I'd describe myself as being in favor of appropriate transportation.

Cars, like bikes, are tools. And tools can be used appropriately or inappropriately. Having one tool to address all needs guarantees that it will be used in cases where a different tool would be much better. The US needs to have more than one transportation tool.

> Don't make it a moral argument that frames drivers as sinners and pedestrians, cyclists, etc as The Good Guys.

I agree with you, but as someone who's been vocally anti-car for a long time _without_ ever blaming drivers, I've also noticed that people make it enough a part of their identity that they will do this for you.

Most car owners are rationally responding to a powerful incentive system; many aren't on the margin where alternatives are feasible for them. But discussion of the negatives of car-oriented _systems_ is enough for most people

This isn't especially surprising. Most people aren't capable enough of processing high-dimensional concepts to separate participation in a harmful system from personal culpability for all of the harms of the system.

> I've also noticed that people make it enough a part of their identity that they will do this for you.

Yes, this is a problem. That we here in the US tend to think of cars as an expression of our identities is a deep-rooted issue. Like most social issues, this isn't one that can be resolved easily or quickly.

> That we here in the US tend to think of cars as an expression of our identities is a deep-rooted issue.

I actually don't mean it this way. The people that I'm thinking of aren't in a social class/subculture that takes pride in cars per se. Especially as my generation has urbanized so heavily, if anything having a car is coded lower-class. As an example, imagine a New Yorker/San Franciscan sniffing about how they've never owned a car and "barely even know how to drive". They're definitely not saying so in embarrassment (this caricature may or may not be closer to me than I'd like to admit...)

What I'm talking about is a broader inability to separate being stuck in a collective action problem from taking responsibility for the whole problem. Most people just don't have the moral reasoning ability to understand that "a car-oriented system is harmful" is different from "_you_ are harming people by participating in/being stuck in a car-oriented system".

Car drivers regularly kill bicyclists with little to no response from the law. The opposite isn't a thing.

Well because it's usually accidental. This idea that every death, including accidents or understandable mistake need to be met with criminal sanctions is just dumb. It's a good way to unnecessarily ruin more people's lives.

Bikers should realize they are driving a more dangerous vehicle. Bikes have no protective covering, no crash cage. Your body is exposed directly to the road...

If you want a safer bike, build a human powered car.

And yes I bike or walk most of my life so don't tell me I'm some evil driver. I'm just realistic and not vindictive.

It's weird how your solution is to replace bikes with safer, human powered cars when there are so many simpler solutions.

We could stop building suburbs, stop building massive parking lots around big box stores, add more public transportation such as light rails, make some highway lanes dedicated to bus transportation (thereby reducing induced demand for cars which would actually reduce traffic), etc.

Is there any indication that the parent comment is opposed to all of these systemic solutions, especially given that he identifies himself as primarily a biker/pedestrian vs a driver? Some people are able to consider an issue on both the systemic and the local, agent-centered level.

Thank you. I agree with the systemic critiques, I just don't see how they move us closer to a workable solution.

This is just more of the division that we do to make ourselves feel morally superior. It's the "I don't shop at Walmart like the poor's" mentality that seeks to elevate the status of the critic while ignoring the very real issues that make people want to shop at a giant big box Walmart store rather than their local downtown.

I can almost assure you that poor people would love to shop at their local downtown if they could but right now with the lack of accessible public transportation and cheap housing near downtowns, shopping at big box stores is the best they can get.

Cars are a requirement for living in modern cities if you're poor (with more money you can afford to live closer to work and public transportation). That fact alone is extremely hostile to poor people because it add 100s of dollars to their monthly bills in car payments, maintenance, and insurance.

That doesn't fit in with the empirical data that has shown us that -- country wide right now -- people have fled the cities for the burbs. You can make up an anecdotal poor, but that doesn't mean it matches reality. By and large, those with means have left the city, and it shows

> I can almost assure you that poor people would love to shop at their local downtown if they could but right now with the lack of accessible public transportation and cheap housing near downtowns, shopping at big box stores is the best they can get.

You don't think people get any value out of a single store, with every product you may want, and much lower prices? This runs contrary to every piece of anecdotal and non-anecdotal evidence I've seen about the way consumers behave en masse. Hell, there's even an upper-income analogue in Amazon's explosive success over the last decade.

I personally think that most of the effort put into making these minor improvements don't come close to addressing the massive systemic problems with urban planning today. It's a bit frustrating seeing people make the argument that the systemic solutions are too difficult so we shouldn't try them.

I'm not someone who'd ever engage in 'cycling advocacy', so you haven't lost anyone, believe me.

None of those things are simple. They require immense top down effort whereas starting a company providing a safer bike is able to be done right now by a small group of individuals without any political approval or lobbying or legislation.

Like I said in an above comments we can sit around and think about what we should have done, or we can make suggestions based on what we have. One is more constructive than the other.

> Bikers should realize they are driving a more dangerous vehicle. Bikes have no protective covering, no crash cage. Your body is exposed directly to the road...

These are only a problem if you build your society such that bikes are traveling physically next to fast cars.

But that does not mean biking is unsafe—it just means our current setup forces all traffic into a single unprotected road next to fast cars.

Okay and we can sit here and pontificate on how the way things should have been done or we can think about things we can do today based on what we have.

I accept that you want to look back and lament what we didn't do. I find that depressing, so I'd rather think about what we can do right now based on the infrastructure we have to encourage people to adopt people centric modes of transit.

Having a safer bicycle would get us there. It would keep people closer to homes, encourage the creation of smaller business centers instead of massive strip malls, and revitalize downtown streets as more people decide to opt for the convenience and enjoyment of the human powered methods.

> I accept that you want to look back and lament what we didn't do. I find that depressing, so I'd rather think about what we can do right now based on the infrastructure we have to encourage people to adopt people centric modes of transit.

This isn't revanchist thinking. This is simply the advocacy strategy used in the Netherlands to pivot from a car heavy society to a bicycle heavy one. It's used as a model of advocacy for many pro-mode-share groups throughout the Western world.

https://www.dutchreach.org/car-child-murder-protests-safer-n...

> Bikers should realize they are driving a more dangerous vehicle.

So you think bikers should care more about making themselves save isntead of car owners about making everyone save?

In general I think most people would be best served by focusing on their own behavior rather than complaining endlessly about the behavior of others while making no changes to themselves. This philosophy extends to all areas of life, whether transport, finances, happiness, etc.

deference to a high speed armored vehicle always?

I will contend that "pedestrian" is the base state of a human who may also be a "driver" when seated in a vehicle. Cities are designed for whom?

We err in allowing cars and pedestrians or cyclists to intersect at all. Cars belong in tunnels or highway-like contained danger zones where high-velocity armored vehicles are the only objects moving there.

All the "group dynamics" is the worst thing about humans. Drivers vs Riders vs Skaters vs Pedestrians vs etc.

I walk, skate, ride bicycles and motorcycles, drive a car. I choose my mode of transport by perceived benefit rather than tribal group.

I see people playing stupid games in each group too. I won't "choose a group" and be associated with them any closer than "being human" already does.

Edit:stick to one point.

I agree -- those are all examples of tribalism, and I am of the opinion that excessive tribalism is one of the largest social problems we have right now.

We already have cyclists coming through town and heading up to the Olympic Peninsula and the like, as is documented in the Project Bike Rack post. I think if businesses are informed that people want bike racks, they might be willing to supply them as a low cost means to attract more tourist dollars with less environmental burden.

Cataloging existing bike racks and "bike rack wanted" sites will take time. And then I need to figure out how to connect with businesses and there are no doubt many other details still to be uncovered.

This is a brand new project but it grows out of a lot of research. I think it holds promise for actually making a difference while being a lightweight solution.

I've also noticed that murderers tend to be real jerks to non-murderers, and non-murderers tend to be real jerks to murderers. There's a true moral equivalence there.

> car drivers tend to be real jerks toward bicyclists, and bicyclists tend to be real jerks toward car drivers

I wish you would be jerks to me, but nobody even thinks about us motorcyclists.

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