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Comment by _the_inflator | Hacker News Reader

> If they must share, bikes are much closer to pedestrians than cars

I disagree. Aggressive and fast driving cyclists are in no way less dangerous to pedestrians than a car. Keep the cyclists away, in their own area. This makes for easier rules based on consistent behavior of the participants.

Sometimes I wonder, why cyclist complain about the dangers of cars, while on the other hand they are a thread to pedestrians.

I think that every form of mobility has its own rules. Pedestrians walk fast at around 6km/h. Average is maybe around 4. A cyclist is way faster than that.

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> Aggressive and fast driving cyclists are in no way less dangerous to pedestrians than a car.

That's just not true. A car weighs well over a tonne, and can comfortably travel at twice the speed any random bike can in a city (15mph on a bike in a city center is snappy, 30mph in a car is achieveable by the time you've cleared a junction). The impact of being hit by a car at 20mph and being hit by a cyclist at 20mph are also completely different for a pedestrian. You are far more likely to sustain serious injuries by being hit by a ton and a half of metal than 100kg of metal and squish.

And how many cars are in a car-free zones can hit you?

Biggest problem with cyclist is not what they are fast driving and behave aggressively. It is what they do it where people don't expect them.

And your whole comment reads like "You were made to an improvised bowling pin by a 100kg person a on a 25kg bike? Praise God it wasn't A CAR".

"Well thanks. Maybe a car would have been better, because it just would had driven over me and killed me, instead I'm now have a broken base of the skull and disabled down the waist."

> And how many cars are in a car-free zones can hit you?

That's not OP said, they claimed "Aggressive and fast driving cyclists are in no way less dangerous to pedestrians than a car".

Which is assuming the conclusion - yes, that kind of cyclist would be dangerous but their number and danger is vanishingly small compared to aggressive and fast drivers (50x more numerous and 10x more dangerous).

In the UK, drivers kill about 500-1000 pedestrians a year, cyclists maybe 10 at worst...

Indeed, there's a survivorship bias with cyclists.

If you've ever been hit by a cyclist going too fast, you'll have a very opinionated story to tell. If you've ever been hit going by a car too fast, you're just a faceless member of one of our more embarrassing statistics.

Please see the comment in the neighbouring thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30415828

In the UK many pedestrians are killed by motorists illegally driving on the pavement (sidewalk) every year. The only example of a pedestrian being killed by a cyclist I can think of happened on the road, and was so rare it was a major news story.

You clearly missed "Well thanks. Maybe a car would have been better".

I don't say cyclists kills people, of course not, you need to have a very bad circumstances for it to happen (mostly - hit the head on the pavement or have a great weight disparity, like running over a kid), but arrogance of many cyclists (just as like as arrogance of many pedestrians, especially on bicycle lanes TBH) coupled with speed and weight is a dangerous combination.

OP's comment has a light "bicycles are less dangerous than cars" fleur in it. Sure, of course 1000kg would always be heavier than 100kg (m * v = F; I know), but the problem is what we don't (or at least shouldn't) compare cars with bicycles here. We should compare how dangerous are both to pedestrians.

It appears a cyclist has never zoomed past you on a path downhill. If for whatever reason you step in a direction the cyclist doesn't expect and you collide, at the bare minimum both of you are going to the hospital.

Happened all the time to me on the way to work (cyclists zooming by, no collision fortunately, but some VERY close calls). Not the best to be honest.

Physics says that if a car and a cyclist hit you at the same speed you will come off worse from the car. Cars weigh a hell of a lot more than bikes.

The only way you get equal outcomes is that if both impacts will kill you.

And if a car is zooming down said hill, you're dead. That's the difference.

The KSIs would show otherwise. More pedestrians are killed on pavements (i.e. not whilst crossing the road) by drivers than cyclists.

There's a fundamental difference between the danger posed by cyclists and the danger posed by motorists. Cyclists have significant 'skin in the game' and can easily be hurt more in a collision with pedestrians. Motorists, meanwhile are unlikely to be hurt when colliding with either pedestrians or cyclists and so they can often get complacent about the danger they are presenting.

The UK is currently re-wording some of the Highway Code and an important part of this is the concept of responsibility - the faster, heavier vehicles bear more responsibility to keep everyone safe. HGVs>cars>cyclists>pedestrians

This couple of comments sums up the problem with cycling so well.

Cyclists are neither pedestrians nor cars, and (I assume?) generally both groups would prefer the other had to deal with them. So, as a cyclist, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

> Sometimes I wonder, why cyclist complain about the dangers of cars, while on the other hand they are a thread to pedestrians.

Because, statistically speaking, cars are a way bigger threat to cyclists than cyclists are to pedestrians. Here's an article fearmongering against cyclists [1] (notice how even the link says "cyclist-killed...two-pedestrians-every-week", even though the true figure is "killed less than 10 pedestrians every year, compared with hundreds killed by cars"), compare it with the government's report for road casualties [2].

[1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/863550/cyclist-killed-bicy...

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...

> Aggressive and fast driving cyclists are in no way less dangerous to pedestrians than a car.

Although I agree with your larger point, this is obviously not true.

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