(As a kid I was ticketed while on rollerblades for speeding in a 15kph zone. In many jurisdictions the rules apply to everyone.)
(As a kid I was ticketed while on rollerblades for speeding in a 15kph zone. In many jurisdictions the rules apply to everyone.)
That does not match my experience. Drivers in my area go 5, 10, and even 15mph over the legal limit with seemingly no repercussions[1], even in school zones. And yet excess speed is a contributing factor in many of the road deaths here.
(Whereas drivers or cyclists "rolling through" stop signs at ~4mph when no one is waiting don't seem to be nearly as deadly so I'm less concerned about that.)
We are in agreement that there is a culture of lawlessness on many roads and that better traffic enforcement is sorely needed. But personally I would begin by enforcing those laws that will save the most lives.
[1] The exception being US military bases. An MP can and will pull you over for going 1mph over the limit on a downhill. And your CO may be informed. I've never seen such well-behaved drivers! It makes military bases one of the safest places to drive/bike/run/walk.
I have a 4 year old, so that's my metric as well: how often do I have to help him not get seriously injured? The answer is multiple times a day with cars and maybe once in his lifetime for everything else.
That brings me to the second flaw: you have to compare the risks to others — that is, after all, why we care in the first place. A bicyclist, even on an e-bike, is much, much, much safer than someone driving a car for many reasons:
1. they're accelerating slower to a lower maximum speed
2. they're exceedingly unlikely to be distracted by a phone or entertainment system
3. they have far less kinetic energy because the combined weight is a tiny fraction of a car or especially the massive SUVs and trucks which have become endemic
4. they need far less distance to stop
5. they aren't insulated from their surroundings with metal and glass (no blind spots) and not having engine noise or a sound system means they can hear other people, too
6. they have better steering
7. they need need far less space, which means that it's far more likely that they can avoid a collision, especially combined with the previous points making them more likely to notice in time to react.
Put all of that together and you are left comparing people driving cars, who kill the equivalent of a medium-sized city and severely injure an order of magnitude more people every year, to bicyclists causing a tiny fraction of those injuries. While it certainly makes sense to build infrastructure which improves the safety, it's nonsensical to ignore the cause of almost all of the roadway deaths
There was a Muni Metro light rail train (eastbound) stopped at the red light with passengers disembarking onto the narrow island, there are no cars in the lane between the island and the sidewalk so folks are crossing the street after leaving the bus.
Young (20's) guy on his bike comes zooming down the hill (from the West), sails through the people crossing the street and through the red light (blind, because of the train and the slope of Victoria st.) He's got both hands off the handlebars, holding his phone, texting or whatever, his eyes are on the phone not on the road, he's got headphones in, and the icing on the disaster cake: no helmet.
"Life's pretty cheap with that sort."
Someone on a bike (or skates or...) is slower and has better use of their hearing and is less deadly to others, but has to work harder to get going again from a dead stop.
Cyclists and cars have different "superpowers", like how bikes can share a footpath with pedestrians and cars get to go 80mph down a freeway. It's reasonable.
I've never met a cyclist that doesn't slow, look both ways, etc, at city intersections. This demand that we come to a complete stop every 30 seconds while navigating dangerous city roads could only come from those who do not use this vastly safer and greener form of transportation.
Nor does my motorcycle, which is narrower than many of the bicycle+cart/recumbent bike combinations I see these days. And my car weighs far less than "many tons", less than two in fact.
> This demand that we come to a complete stop every 30 seconds
Maybe for pushbikes. But "bicycle" now includes all the electric bikes that, imho, are getting close to motorcycles in terms of speed (ie they can maintain the speed limit). Stopping every thirty seconds is just the price of using the road. If you don't want to stop then lobby for and use separate bicycle paths away from the street.
But to your anecdote, it's not altogether surprising that someone driving an illegal motorcycle is also willing to break traffic laws.</strike>
My mistake, I misread 45 as 45mph. I agree that anyone riding like you describe is breaking the law and should be ticketed/fined. (Personally I would not consider a fat bike that can be throttled up to 28mph to be a "bicycle" in any meaningful sense of the word, but I acknowledge that is a semantic battle that has already been lost.)
(Though I am curious where you are that has a 28mph ebike limit but that uses kph measurements.)
Just 2 days ago I had to swerve to avoid a cyclist who came into an intersection without slowing down against a traffic light, with a phone held to her ear with one hand, and only one hand on the handlebars.