Pedestrian fatalities are rising in the US
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Put into that a maximally polarized society that for one half gets all woke and concious now, trying to navigate this maze by bike that was never meant for it — while the other half upgrades their housewive tanks to completely new levels of ridiculousness every year to assert their dominance over the helpless and celebrate contempt.
What could possibly go wrong?
EDIT: Putting some constructive criticism here: Effecting change is possible. It just takes the ingredients univerally loathed in the US: Coordinated city planning and lots of regulation plus one or two decades until the results are visible, „big government“ at its finest. Currently I don't see the slightest hint of buy-in possible for that.
I still remember photos of cars passing through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in the 90s, that would be unimaginable right now if you stood there.
The buy in for lots of regulation and coordinated city planning is so pervasive that you’re like a fish unable to see the water.
The good news is that you don’t really need to change the degree of the regulation or the bureaucracy responsible for administering it. You just need to replace every rule with its opposite.
I'm not sure this actually needs a significant increase in regulation or "government". The government already builds and maintains infrastructure on government-owned land, according to planning rules. The change that"s needed is a change to the existing rules and reallocation of that existing land and money to more diverse modes of transit. The tough part is convincing drivers that taking some of "their" lanes of car infrastructure and parking and dedicating them to bike and pedestrian infrastructure will benefit everyone because people who drive and walk to their destination aren't taking up space on the road.
I guess when private organisations do it it's all fine, but god forbit government tries to implement regulations.
[0] https://thewaroncars.org/2019/10/04/the-problem-with-public-...
If you can afford to live downtown and you work downtown (which is a very, very small percentage of the Austin population) then yeah maybe you can bike to work, but like I said in my previous comment that is basically an edge case.
Riding in 2020 when everything was abandoned was great. I was in a hotel near Blackfriars during the first lockdown, and rode along Oxford street, barely any traffic at all - it’s normally chock full of buses attempting to kill you.
Ride confidently, take the lane, ignore the bus and taxi drivers who think they own the road, and it tends to be fine.
Outside of london there’s a big problem with car drivers though - every year in the U.K. about 40 pedestrians are killed by car drivers while they are on the pavement, yet we continue to turn a blind eye to drivers who drive on the pavement, and even those who attempt to murder people with their car get off with less than a year in prison
https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/dad...
Because people take time to change, I think the two bandaids for the social problem are expanding separated bike lanes and then dropping people into pedestrian/cycle shared streets, not the roads.
I know I know, you didn't buy the Ultegra gear set just to sit on the big ring dodging foot traffic, but a cycling city will need to cater to the majority of commuters not the speed machines. Most potential cycle commuters are just everyday people wanting to meander into work and around the city centers.
Over here in Paris, there still are many bike-related fatalities, and most cars are smaller than in the US, biking has been more popular (and feasible) for longer, etc. Yet people still don't pay attention. And by "people" I mean car drivers [0], bike riders [1] and pedestrians. [2]
Regarding pedestrian / cycle shared streets, it may overall be better that sharing with cars, but there have been quite a few cases involving scooters (as in Lime and the sort) and pedestrians, some of them fatal, on this kind of shared roads.
Not sure what the best approach would be to help change mentalities.
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[0] As a motorcyclist I try to make sure people have seen me / are going to stop and check / etc and the number of people I see completely absorbed by their phone seems to be climbing every day. Also, a new fashion in Paris for the last few years is running red lights.
[1] A few years ago I started seeing signs on trucks and buses along the lines of "blind spot / if you can't see my mirrors I can't see you / don't overtake on the right", usually with some cyclist behind. I've always been surprised by this, I thought people had figured that out. My motorcycle instructor taught us to be sure to be able to see a truck's mirrors when behind. My reaction was "duh", to which he responded "you'd be surprised".
[2] Many people walk into traffic without paying attention. The City has recently started deploying blinking lights on the border of sidewalks synchronized with traffic lights.
It took 20 year to La Rochelle to have a really good bike infra and to get people to not be reckless.
My point is that people should really have this ingrained, and not put down the phone / not do stupid things just because there's a cop looking. Because as soon as the cop turns away / is on break, the bad behavior happens again. Also, being on the lookout for cops so that you can scroll your FB feed without getting fined only detracts from paying attention to the road.
Let's also not forget how incredibly empowering bikes are for kids, essentially they can get anywhere they want to if they can ride around on a bike.
About French drivers, I have the feeling that French drivers are very inconsiderate to every one not just bikes at least for urban traffic.
That's true on paper, but note that in the outer suburbs, towns are usually small and kids would have to ride quite long distances (>10 km) to get anywhere useful. And winters here can be rough. Add to that narrow streets and careless drivers, and I can totally understand why you don't see many kids cycling.
Regarding rough winters, I grew up in Germany and live in Sweden now, so saying winter in France is rough is quite funny (my French partner is laughing quite hard now)
I don't know where you grew up in Germany nor am I familiar with the country, but the places I've visited (in Baden-Württemberg, around Schwäbisch Hall mostly) had amazing bike infrastructure, with paved paths in very good shape and several meters away from car roads, separated by grass, dirt, etc. I can see why parents would have absolutely no problem letting the kids bike around these paths. Also, drivers seemed much less crazy than around Paris.
The difference is not having to worry about the weather (too hot, too cold, wet) and even aside from that, carrying an extra set of clothes even in ideal conditions. And you’re obviously limited as to how much you can carry.
Speaking as someone who cycles as a hobby and for transport around the city (commuting and leisure).
He’ll in central london it’s faster to walk than get a bus, and buses he special lanes to bypass the traffic!
They should get ride of bus lanes and use the lane for bikes and escooters. Put buses in with the delivery vans.
The countries that got cycling infrastructure right are the Dutch and Danish. Also Germany and Sweden are improving a lot with their infrastructure.
However, we also need to change attitudes and enforcement of rules toward cyclists. The problem is that often police and judges also only drive cars and walk, which leads to cases where cyclists are hit hard for infarctions, but drivers or pedestrians get a slap on the wrist even if their actions result in serious injury.
And of course! That's the way it has to be. It is so easy to accidentally kill someone when you are driving a big vehicle that in order for anyone to drive at all, they need some degree of protection from the law.
Despite the GP's hyperbole if you kill someone in any sort of circumstances that are not highly sympathetic you are in for a bad time with the courts.
Anecdotally, I've noticed an uptick in bikes in the area, and I've witnessed many drivers (including myself) get into close calls. While the other comments about urban planning and properly designing "bike friendly" streets are correct, bikers must share some responsibility and avoid making bad decisions.
Also, on the topic of pedestrians: there are unfortunately many people who hold a "car first" mentality, and simply won't stop for walkers. Fatalities among pedestrians and bicyclists in the US have a significant cultural component that mustn't be overlooked. Perhaps better pedestrian infrastructure would encourage better behavior.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br8u7u35weA
He delves into a movement known as "Strong Towns" that look to undo a lot of the mistakes city planners have been making for the last half century.
Edit: Here's a link to another of his videos where he shows why it is dangerous to walk in many North American cities:
Turn on red while the pedestrians get the signal to walk.
Drunk driving is very common.
Driver licensing requirements are extremely low (you have a pulse) and driver education is ridiculous compared to any other developed nation.
Road and intersection design is deadly wrong just about everywhere, traffic moving while people crossing, etc.
You could look at how other countries are improving this (look at Sweden) but let's be real - the US will never learn from other countries, that would obviously be a sign of some sort of weakness - redesigning roadways, nah, it's cheaper for people to die.
Most importantly, in the quest for safety, convenience for non-car traffic is almost always sacrificed, making car travel all the more enticing. This is the wrong feedback loop to have.
Semi-recent example. Problem: number of accidents involving people crossing the street too high. Solution: remove zebra crossings. Now don't get me wrong -- this has reduced street crossing accidents. But it has also made foot travel much more inconvenient, because you now have to either walk much longer to find a crossing, or wait for all traffic to pass and then make a mad dash for it. (As a side effect, car travel got a bit more convenient because there are now fewer places you're expected to stop.)
This repeats in all shapes and styles constantly. In the name of safety, cyclists are re-routed for almost a mile (!) around what was previously a hundred-yard straight line.
The underlying problem, I think, is that planners see that car people are trying to get somewhere. They don't seem to realise that pedestrians, cyclists, etc are also just trying to goddamn get somewhere. These activities are almost universally treated as a hobby or pastime. (You see this even on the local Craigslist-type sites, where bicycles are not under the "vehicle" category where I would expect them, but under "hobby".)
Ideally pedestrian and cycling should be prioritized and vehicle traffic should be separated by rerouting, bridges, tunnels, barriers, and other physical means (probably cycling / pedestrian too).
This is an almost daily problem for me as a pedestrian. A high proportion of drivers are, unfortunately, assholes. It's baffling to me that they can't bear to wait 5 or 10 seconds at a light.
I am always baffled by some of the driving coming from supposedly super-duper-AI-enhanced cars. You would have thought that it would be impossible for a Tesla to break the speed limit, burn over a pedestrian crossing that kids are waiting at, or to make a turn without using a turn signal, yet you see this happening fairly often.
(And relative deprivation for why it never improves.)
Disclaimer: I’m an NYC-SoCal transplant. But god damn I wish these drivers weren’t so bloodthirsty for road rage ultra kills.
Even now, I don't pay attention to speed limits because nobody is enforcing them, at all.
I don't flagrantly break traffic laws, but see it everyday. People running red lights like they don't exist. And nothing.
It feels like a breakdown of society, and I hope the tide turns soon.
I care little about speeding, but red lights being run is unacceptably dangerous and needs to stop.
Texting is too specific, it's smartphones in general...
I don't use my phone when I'm walking.
This is unfortunately very true, even for societies which are much more sensitive to this issue. As a regular cyclist in my hometown of Berlin/Germany I sometimes see so much as every third car driver looking at or obviously typing on their phone although this is illegal and of course dangerous.
I generalize but infrastrucures changes everything to a point where a city can easily get rid off car (give us a few years...). It's all infra since that's the only thing that changed here in the past decade: we finally dare to bike now, only because it's protected enough we don'fear for our life every few meters nowadays. For this reason, biking has become the default for most of my friends and colleagues. And the last few who haven't swichted are either taking the metro/RER or walking. The last drivers are professionals (who need to move heavy things and the infra does not support electric cargo bikes yet), old and fuck-you-momey rich boomers who still see biking as being weak, some families (who can afford to still live in Paris?!) but same issue as cargo bikes, and lost tourists (why the hell do huuuge tourist buses are allowed in so dense blocks?!).
I haven’t heard of any of them being put in place for actual enforcement yet though.
Second, I support any legislation to penalize texting and driving with penalties similar to or beyond what drunk driving currently gets. I am happy to support a criminal penalty of second-degree murder (i.e. ~25 years in prison) for impaired driving leading to death.
What more can I do? I'm happy to.