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Comment by parineum | Hacker News Reader

I support the efforts to make cities more friendly to cyclist traffic but the increased popularity of both ebikes and electric scooters in downtown areas has made life as a pedestrian and a motorist stressful, especially around closing time. All the things that annoy me about cyclists (running stop signs when driving in the street and driving on the sidewalk are my two biggest annoyances) have gotten worse.

Cycling advocates like to talk about sharing the road but I've yet to see any sort of acknowledgement that there's plenty of bad behavior on the part of cyclists that needs some curbing as well.

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That's generally because of terrible infrastructure. Lanes designed for cars are everywhere. Most cities, sidewalks are just about everywhere.

What percentage of streets have physically separated lanes for biking, the way we have them for walking?

Bikes don't fit well with pedestrians or cars, and painted bike lanes are a joke -- imagine if you replaced every sidewalk with "painted walk lanes".

In places where there is good infrastructure, like the Netherlands, cyclist reputations for behaving badly are basically no different from pedestrian or motorist reputations.

You're not going to get any push back from me that bike lanes aren't plentiful or especially safe. The push back you get from me is that "the streets are dangerous" isn't an excuse to make sidewalks dangerous.

Well put. Shifting the problem around doesn't solve it.

It does reduce the total danger. Cyclists are killed by cars all the time, whereas pedestrians dying to bikes is extraordinarily rare.

In Germany, protected bike lanes are mostly extensions of the sidewalk, and while it's not ideal, it still works pretty well.

> It does reduce the total danger.

I think that's kind of missing the GP's point. AIUI they weren't saying cyclists shouldn't move to the sidewalk when necessary. They were saying cyclists should do so with respect for the sidewalk's primary users especially with regard to safety. A sidewalk is a kind of commons, to be shared. "I need this now so you all get out of my way" isn't good sharing, and in many places (where the law explicitly gives pedestrians right of way) should deserve a ticket.

Oh, absolutely. I try to be respectful when I ride on the sidewalk.

But realistically, "cyclists should be nicer" isn't a policy prescription. We're just shouting into the void here, you can't actually accomplish anything significant with, I dunno, billboards shaming dickhead cyclists. Whereas zoning or road design changes could result in actual, meaningful change. And that would also result in cyclists being a lot nicer.

> "Cyclists are killed by cars all the time, whereas pedestrians dying to bikes is extraordinarily rare."

Evidence I can find suggests that's not entirely true. While pedestrians dying to bikes is extraordinarily rare, police reports of crashes in the UK in 2019 involving a (pedal cycle, pedestrian) pair happened 375 times and killed 4 pedestrians (~1%). Crashes involving a (car, bike) pair happened 13,336 times killed 48 cyclists (~0.3%).

That is (bike, pedestrian) happens 35x less often than (car, bike) but is fatal to the weaker party 3x more often when it does happen.

This dataset is particularly "accidents involving a pedal cycle and pedestrians which don't involve any other vehicles" so it excludes car -> bike + walker, kills walker situations.

(Injuries are another matter).

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/reported... looking at sheet RAS40004: Accidents, vehicle users and pedestrian casualties by severity and combination of vehicles involved (ODS, 105KB) with Vehicle A being Pedal Cycle -> Single Vehicle accident with Pedestrian and Pedal Cycle -> Two vehicle accidents with Car.

This ignores the fact that bikes are so much less dangerous than cars that most crashes that involve a bike but not a car will not be reported. Your average time a cyclist runs into a pedestrian will be only an annoyance.

Also, note that super bike-friendly Netherlands has 1/10th the pedestrian fatalities with 1/4th the population of the UK. If bikes are that dangerous, why would such a bike-focused country have radically fewer pedestrian fatalities?

From what I've seen, the data is pretty consistent, in that more car-focused countries tend to have more pedestrian fatalities.

Being a pedestrian around cyclists is dangerous, but not as dangerous as being a cyclist around cars. So I find it hard to fault cyclists who go onto the sidewalk.

In the UK it's illegal to bike on the pavement. [1] says "Rule 64. You MUST NOT cycle on a pavement. Laws HA 1835 sect 72 & R(S)A sect 129" (exception: combined bike lanes and pavement, if the cyclist stays in the bike section).

Saying "the way things are is dangerous for me, so I'm going to break the law and be a danger to others instead because I'm what matters here" is not ok behaviour. If cycling is too dangerous for you, don't cycle. You don't get to say "driving in traffic is dangerous so I'm going to drive in the bus lane where there's less traffic", right?

[1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-cycli...

Insisting that people risk their lives because "the law says you have to put yourself in mortal danger, therefore you're morally obliged to comply" is blind obedience of the dumbest degree.

or the other option - walk on the pavement, with your bike.

That's definitely the preferable path if there are significant numbers of pedestrians, yes. If the sidewalk is basically empty, I think it's okay to ride. And there are some 'multi-use paths' I've seen that are basically still just sidewalks where bikes are explicitly permitted.

Half the people that you "share the road" with in your metal box think that is exclusively where bikes must ride? This is getting a bit schizophrenic.

Most bikers only use the sidewalk when the road infrastructure as-is isn’t safe enough for bikers.

And I fully agree that there are a lot of bad bikers, but a bad biker is a nuisance to a driver while a bad driver is a potential fatality to a biker.

> a bad biker is a nuisance to a driver while a bad driver is...

You're leaving out an entire category of users. Not that I'm surprised, having been in many of these debates regarding the multi use path near my home. "Share the road" turns into "get off the path" rather quickly, in my experience.

> Most bikers only use the sidewalk when the road infrastructure as-is isn’t safe enough for bikers.

You have to see how this is a completely selfish position right?

The road is dangerous for cyclists so cyclists make the sidewalk dangerous for pedestrians. Sure there's a difference in degree but that's not a justification.

> And I fully agree that there are a lot of bad bikers, but a bad biker is a nuisance to a driver while a bad driver is a potential fatality to a biker.

To me, the "bad cyclist" is generally creating havoc on both the sidewalk and the street, alternating between street, sidewalk, crosswalks, alleys, etc. as it's convenient. This is really what I'm referring to when I said "especially at closing time". Those people are creating a dangerous environment for even safe drivers who may either hit them or get in an accident avoiding them.

I don't often find the hobbyist biker doing things like that which are dangerous to themselves except treating stop signs like yields.

I'm not nearly as concerned about the hobbyist as I am about the guy who thinks driving his ebike home from the bar is a great way to get home without drinking and driving. And that is definitely happening, especially with electric scooters.

> You have to see how this is a completely selfish position right?

That depends how busy the sidewalk is, and how the cyclist behaves. Conversely, I see videos of many places in North America where cycling on the road, even in dedicated cycle lanes, is a suicidal activity.

> You have to see how this is a completely selfish position right?

> The road is dangerous for cyclists so cyclists make the sidewalk dangerous for pedestrians. Sure there's a difference in degree but that's not a justification.

Have you ever tried biking on a 45/50mph road? The chance of you not being hit at the end of the day is not high. I'm not sure where else would one bike when there's such a large speed difference.

And in some US cities there really are no alternative roads with lower speeds limits to bike on.

You are assuming that people using the sidewalk are doing so in a reckless manner.

Well, humans are selfish, regardless of their mode of transportation. That's why we need infrastructure (and laws) that ensures that the selfish choice is the socially beneficial one too.

For what it's worth, in the state I live in it is legal for bike riders to treat stop signs as yield signs. It started in Idaho in the 80s and has been adopted by a growing number of states since then.

It's also legal in my state to ride bikes on the sidewalk. That doesn't cause much of a problem for pedestrians because unfortunately there are few bike riders or pedestrians.

I only mention this to make people aware that what's legal depends on where they live.

As much as I appreciate the freedom e-bikes provide to people who wouldn't otherwise venture outside, without proper cycling infrastructure, e-bikes are quickly becoming a serious hazard to pedestrians. As a long-time runner who is usually struck by at least one cyclist on the sidewalk per year, e-bikes are in a completely different class. The other day, a kid on an e-bike was careening down a bridge while my kids and I were running up. I'm a decent judge of speed, and the cyclist was definitely going over 40 km/h with dog walkers and other children nearby. I didn't do the math, but that's a great deal of kinetic energy to transfer to a pedestrian (I assume e-bikes are heavier, and most cyclists going that fast are dedicated cyclists on the road). I caught up to another e-bike at a stop light and asked him why he wasn't on the road, "Too dangerous," was his answer - sadly typical. A non-trivial number of cyclists are adopting the "Uber" mindset - break the law until laws or infrastructure changes, but with complete disregard for fellow citizens in the meantime. I've expressed my concerns several times on local biking forums (when a "cycling on the sidewalk doesn't hurt anyone" message is raised)- it's usually met with ridicule, anger and disbelief, but I experience it practically every day.

Regarding running stop signs, "Why Bicyclists Hate Stop Signs" is an important read: https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Fajans-J.-and-M...

I've ridden a bicycle before, I don't need this explained to me. Unfortunately for cyclists (including me), it being more strenuous to obey the law isn't an excuse to not obey it.

Unfortunately, it being more strenuous to obey the law will reduce the number of people obeying it, whether it's an excuse or not.

When deciding policy, one cannot afford to frame things in terms of personal responsibility.

The law is there as mandate from the people. If it isn't working, or seriously inconviences a particular demographic, it can be changed. Note that cyclists have no problems with circles/roundabouts...

I find it odd that stop sign is a go to complain about cyclists, given that those do nothing for bike. And I say that as someone who drives car way more often as bike. Cyclist ignoring stop sign is not an issue at all, stop signs exists because of cars.

The red light, yes, that is valid complain. But stop sign, meh.

But also, pretty much any transport mode features people with bed behavior: cars, pedestrians, roller skaters. Those people are not even that much demographically different, unless the transport ends up tied to politics.

Maybe because it's because within the three groups (cyclists, drivers, pedestrians), cyclists are the only ones who haven't got their own infrastructure.

If cyclists had 90% of the road, and cars were forced to share the remaining 10% with pedestrians, everyone would be complaining (with reason) that's it's incredibly dangerous

I thought this video addressed nicely this criticism of cyclists https://youtu.be/HT_KdFCVEdc

It doesn't. The law is that they have to stop. Motorists should stop too.

If basically 100% of people are breaking a law dozens of times per day, the law is wrong.

The law is that nobody goes above the speed limit as well, I hope you never do that since you seem to be an absolutist on this? Because from what I've seen, 95% of cars break the speed limit. I'd even argue it's a higher percentage than bicycles who blow through stop signs.

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