Bicyclist pisses everyone off by ‘legally’ riding in the street (2020)
nypost.com
nypost.com
I often take up the middle of the lane at stopping intersections so that I get a turn in the queue and I have direct visual communication with drivers, and to eliminate at least one of the potential conflicts at the intersection. (Right hand turners from beside/behind in your lane.) I sometimes use a car in my lane as a "blocker" if I'm convinced it's not turning to help shelter me from other potential conflicts. I generally ride with aggression and quick acceleration in these situations.
If no one is behind me, I also take the middle of the lane to avoid doors. When someone is behind me, and I'm not riding at the speed of traffic, I get the fuck out of the way and I let them through, being cognizant of the proximity to doors, then bump back to the center until the next potential passer. This is courteous, costs me basically nothing and keeps everyone traveling efficiently. On gridded streets with stops at every intersection, this is usually a non-issue because cars don't have the distance to exceed my speed anyway. I'm not afraid to assert my space in the middle of the lane when it doesn't impeded anyone, but I also make effort to be courteous.
My only take is that I wouldn't be comfortable doing this if I didn't have proper lighting (front headlamp + Garmin Navia rear radar is huge confidence boost) and comfort in demanding drivers acknowledge my presence.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18273894...
Can’t take the lizard brain out of the human behind several tons of metal, so put in firm infra guardrails (literally) to mitigate harm.
Streets that are cyclist-friendly are also pedestrian-friendly.
But they have more speed and more weight too, and their greater distance doesn't compensate, so if you look at who kills you with their carelessness, the answer is plain: Motorists.
Cyclists are careless and give you a bruise or a fractured wrist.
Few agree, but as a bicyclist I much greater enjoyed being a part of traffic than assigned to a small narrow detached lane that has to at evey junction re-assess speedy mortal death threats abundant. Having freedom of the road & being part of the stream of traffic felt way better to me than being cordoned to a 2 ft wide lane that still regularly crosses the irresponsible/reckless/jerkwad zone. Having one multi-speed lane of traffic feels less complex to me, easier & safer than having a lot of different paces, different decoupled lanes: dealing with one another & sharing the space felt simpler easier & better, evemngiven how broadly ignorant rude & useless drivers were with their death metal machines versus bikes. But my city is pretty advantageous naturally towards bikes; cars just dont matter, are always slow, always encumbered, & bicyclists co-relationship is much better, much less limited & obviously more free, just mnturally.
The bicyclists co-relational advantage is basically ignored & unappreciated. The scariness of drivers is overwhelming. They behave horribly & are constant terrible mortal threat. So we each need separate lanes. Even though they are very limiting & scary, create totally different systems of people not recognizing & seeing each other that are so horrible, but limited to intersections & crossings, versus a pattern of coexistence. As a bicyclist, I preffered coexistence, but drivers are absurs insane disrespectful manslaugtering easily triggered monsters with little perception or awareness & worse behavior.
So! Separate lanes it is. I liked where we were better; I'd risk it. But I get why separate lanes is the shitry pathetic place we have to be to make this all reasonable. To defend against abundantly terrible & killing drivers.
If we just respected each other, it's easy to share.
And I say this as someone who rides both, about equally.
I think the things to break it will be a) better mass transit options b) more WFH and c) cheaper e-bikes so longer commutes/grocery trips can be done without a car.
I'm definitely not as fast as I was when I was a teenager in 1985.
I'm even slower when carrying a kid on the back.
Looks like Google Maps uses 20 kph for their average bike speed. (I measured a rails-to-trails route; 12.3 miles in 1 hour = 19.8 km.)
I know about that google thing, and similar sites. They are useless to me, because I'm always 3 to 4 times faster.
/me shrugs and thinks most of you are doing it wrong
and/or have terrible bicyles.
That's 40 to 45 kph.
https://www.road-bike.co.uk/articles/average-speed.php says "Quite competent club rider, some regular training likely, medium-long distances (say 50-60 miles): 20-24 mph" (for "'mixed' terrain (ie rolling hills about 30% of the time, and pretty flat the rest of the time").
That's 32 to 39 kph.
Have you considered that Lance Armstrong might not be a good baseline for the median bike rider on the streets?
So, long story short: growing up more or less disinterested in TV, because small B&W only at home, having more fun playing with my classmates in the forest and so on, I've been mostly unimpressed with TDF and similar. Even on larger color-tv when at home of some of classmates. You know why? Because I couldn't afford expensive bicycles, had no cars following me with spares, which in turn required maximum attention of my driving, and lastly I did not dope ;-> Oh, and running marathons instead if temporary lack of funds required waiting until I could repair my bicycle, because there was always something to fix/exchange, at least the way I've driven. Which came up to 300km a day, not every day, but often. Which in turn I didn't even notice, because I just didn't care about trip distance, instead being fixated on pushing the needle of the tachometer to the right as often and as long as possible :-) My neighbour noticed instead, and couldn't believe it. This went on for years, at least during school times, then went down a little because of real life constraints like work, time, etc.
So TDF and the likes just made me think: So what?
But still 100km is nothing special at all, and 50km are nothing. 160km I do notice, but hey, 3-speed from 1985, who cares? :-) Oh, and I drive during all weather, even on ice, but that is rare.
I am neither some hulk, nor some doped bicyling celebrity. Just fit, born in 1969, 181cm tall, and usually weighing somewhere between 81 to 85kg(83 atm).
Oh, and this 3-speed bicycle from about 1985 I'm speaking of I bought used for 150€ in 2005, which the shop keeper has shown me, after I've been unsatisfied with the 100eds of trash bikes on display, asking for something 'usable' and 'normal' instead. They just aren't built like that anymore!
(Frame of Randonneur, 27"x1 1/4 wheels, classic handlebar, Sachs Torpedo 3-speed hub with coaster/back pedal brake, feeble front wheel brake, mudcatchers, siderolling front dynamo, lights, porter/carrier with wirebasket fixed to it with cable ties, heavy saddle with steel springs, 12.5kg! Has been sold as "Deutschlandrad" by Kalkhoff at the time)
edit: Ring, Ring!
Your humblebrag about your lived experience DOES NOT MEAN that choeger's "about 30km/h" is indeed anywhere near the right speed for the large majority of cyclists.
Even in places like Amsterdam and Copenhagen where it's flat, a lot of people do daily bike commutes, and they own no car.
That depends on ones point of view I guess. Besides that I don't want to add. I'd favour substracting cars, because they are like the plague, a nuisance, and loud if going fast enough, no matter if ICE or BEV.
Furthermore I'm thinking of anybody thinking of 30kph as absurdly fast for a city bike as an outlier, even if they are the majority.
That is not my world, LOL :-)
Its a fine of ~$150, but hardly enforced.
I rarely ride my bike on the road in my home country, Australia, for fear of my life. Instead I travel to bike-friendly countries, like Japan and the Netherlands, to do my cycling. The difference is night and day. Somehow in countries where cycling is normal drivers just don’t seem to have an issue with you taking up space on the road. (As the guy in the video says, “I am traffic.”)
It’s a great shame that the most efficient and environmentally friendly form of transport is so despised in so many places. And that’s a massive understatement.
And I've never once had a single car get mad at me - quite the opposite they are respectful of me, as I am of them.
I am aware that I drive slower than cars, and I act that way. Cars don't get mad a bikes for being not-a-car. They get mad at bikes for being slow.
I also drive, and when I see a bike acting like he's a car, I also get annoyed - and I'm a bicyclist too! A bike is not a car, and should not act like one.
In my city there's growing respect towards cyclists since the gig economy and the onset of bicycle delivery. 80% of cyclists are delivery persons.
It reads like the law wasn't allowing something which was previously illegal, but was setting limits on an action which used to be legal.
That is, cyclists used to be able to be in anywhere in the lanes of traffic going the appropriate direction. Now they have to have a reason for not being on the right.
And wanting to avoid running into car doors opened suddenly is still a valid reason - it was never declared illegal.
Is that how you prefer to live your life, in a constant war?
How about each side respect the other - cars give bikes space, and bikes move over for faster moving cars.
The central issue here is that it’s simply not safe to ride over to the side, being constantly passed by fast moving cars.
As demonstrated in more civilised places, it’s easy for cars and bikes to coexist if people just adopt a different attitude. And that is, essentially, that the drivers must drop their insane entitlement and realise that being stuck behind a slower moving vehicle for a 30 seconds (or even a couple of minutes!) will have almost no effect on their life.
That's like asking, how is a motorist giving another motorist space, if he expects a motorist moving at 8 mph to pull over?
The faster motorist expects the slower one just to give up a portion of the space, for just a couple of seconds, to let them pass. Afterward, the slower one can have that space all to themselves until the cows come home, right?
"I need it for 3 seconds to get by; you can have it all day" is more than reasonable.
I don't understand where you're coming from. What if the cyclist comes to a complete halt and just stands there with the bike? Gee, how are you giving them space if you expect them to just stand off to the side and let other road users pass?
If the cyclist is not occupying an actual lane to themselves then they are constantly being passed too close by fast moving vehicles, and in danger of running into the suddenly-opening doors of parked cars or surprise pedestrians.
Seriously, if you go somewhere where drivers are respectful of cyclists you’ll see it’s just so easy for it all to work smoothly and safely. The impatience of drivers, at the expense of others safety, is astounding to me.
Also it should be noted that motorists give each other space for selfish reasons; they may damage their car or themselves if they collide with another car. If they hit a cyclist chances are they’ll kill or permanently maim the cyclist, but do little damage to their car, and so they have little reason to care. (!!!!!!)
Don't go down roads where it's impossible to pass you, unless you can do the speed limit there. Don't go down roads where there are parked cars, but only a small clearance between parked cars and traffic moving faster than you. Or any analogous situation: like small clearance between a concrete wall and traffic or whatever. Find roads where there aren't parked cars, or else where there is a generous space between the parking strip and traffic, so that you can avoid doors, and there is room to pass you. Where I live, many of the larger streets that have two lanes in each direction, and a solid car's width between parked cars and traffic. Someone opening a small door will not door you, and you have time to avoid a large door being swung fully open. You can also find roads where there is simply not much traffic, so you can have them all to yourself most of the time.
Drivers are not supposed to approach you closely when they pass; that's against the traffic code where I live, and likely in most places. A cyclist or motorcyclist must be passed as if they had an invisible car around them, so to speak. However, by straying farther into the lane, you're encouraging a reduction of the space between you and and the car that passes you anyway, which is counterproductive.
Parked cars are a menace, no doubt. In some countries, they don't allow street parking in cities. To register a car, you must prove that you have some place off the street to stash it when you're not driving it. North American cities should follow suit.
> little damage to their car, and so they have little reason to care
You're simply a lunatic with this remark. Most drivers are normal people, not psychopaths, and are absolutely terrified of the idea of injuring or killing a pedestrian or cyclist. That's still true even if some of their behaviors need improvement.
You say I’m a lunatic, but my experience and the scientific community research shows that drivers often don’t view cyclists as humans, nor do they accurately assess the risk of driving too close to (or even ramming or side swiping) cyclists. (You can find several papers on this, or just ask any cyclist.)
By the way, even if it’s only 1 in 100 drivers who hold this attitude, a cyclist encounters hundreds of drivers during a typical trip. Those are not good odds.
Cycling simply is not safe without investment in safe cycling infrastructure. It's a risk-taking activity like mountain climbing and skydiving.
The cyclist do a degree (perhaps an excessive one) relies on trust in the behavior of motor vehicles. The rest of it is up to the cyclist and their choices: which way to go, at what times, in what manner, helmet or not, mirrors or not, condition of bike, crappy rim brakes in wet weather or discs, etc.
Few of us here remember a world without cars; it's just a dream of the past. It's not realistic to return large urban areas to car-free status. At least not instantly. Cars are becoming electric, free of exhaust gases and engine noise. Thus certain arguments against keeping them out of cities are weakening.
It's also not realistic to just slow down traffic to match the slowest pedaler on every route; that is simply not a viable cycling safety plan. People have places to go. For most people, communting is pure overhead. They would rather be at their destination already doing something else.
More and more electrified bicycles are appearing. These can easily keep up with city traffic. They are changing/confusing driver perceptions of what a bicycle can do. Drivers are going to be less patient with motorless cyclists due to being accustomed to motorized cyclists. They will also make poor time/distance judgments due to the variation in capability. A driver who thinks he can pass a cyclist like the cyclist is standing still will miscalculate if that cyclist has a motor and is rapidly accelerating.
Electric bicycles are a threat to cyclists, and a threat which follows them right into safe cycling infrastructure. Just when you have escaped the cars and are pedaling away in a dedicated bicycle path, you're faced with marauding yahoos on what are de facto motorcycles, easily capable of going 50 km/h or more. Cycling infrastructure is still being planned for pedal bicycles, in terms of the dimensions of the lanes and whatnot. You need full roads, if the bicycles are motorized.
Nearly everything we do has no near- or long-term effect. I'm a bicyclist, but also an organism whose time-distance feedback loop is jarred by a sudden obstructionist anomaly.
"Motorists, unable to control their feelings, contrary to the law, harass, attempt murder, and assault a man riding a bike".