Amazing news! More cyclists (and fewer motorists) on the streets creates a safer, less polluted city environment for everyone.
Or my favorite: historical buildings with equally historical distances between them. You could go deaf just from clapping your hands there.
And I've lived across from from an elevated transit line in an otherwise carless city center and it was quieter than any north american subwayless city I've lived in so this isn't even true lol.
Where I live in Germany the passenger trains (not even the tracks) got upgraded a few years ago and all those click-clack and screeching sounds are gone. What is left is a wooshing sound of the wind being pushed aside and the not-so-loud grinding sound of the thingy (collector?) that hits the power cable.
In real tests done in NYC, the mean dbA for subway platforms was 81.1 vs. 76.0 for buses (which, by definition, run on the roads)
For life in the city, it's much more pleasant to be in a foot only or mixed traffic street, even with a train nearby. There's the inherent danger of fast cars operated by non-professionals that you perceive on foot as well as the noise, neither you really need to worry about for trains. In many cities trams can run through pedestrian areas with no barricades or grade separation because they are slower and predictable. You can run cars with no separation too if you slow them down enough, but more often they are set to incompatible speeds and as a pedestrian you have all the downsides of the cars as they pass through what should really be a pedestrian space in most city centers.
The more that pedestrians and cyclists dominate, the faster the shift from ugly, dirty roads to a pleasant human centred urban environment.
* Indifference from the Police most of the time * Extreme vitriol from motorists who seem to literally believe that all harm is caused by cyclists * Illogical city planning where cyclists are constantly being moved from safe spaces directly into busy traffic.
We have a sick motor-centric society in the UK and along with the rest of climate problems that are ignored/underplayed, I don't know how long until we can say that we are a cycle-friendly country.
It is still good news. People need to find better modes of transportation for both the environment and for society. It is just that the title doesn't mean what it suggests.
I live in Cambridge and have lost count of the number of times I've had to contend with cyclists blowing through pedestrian crossings on a red light (or zebra crossings at any time) when I'm trying to walk over them, or cycling the wrong way down a one-way street - or on the wrong side of the road - or had to dodge people cycling on the pavement.
When driving I've nearly hit several cyclists. Examples include: one leapt off of the pavement out of nowhere in front of me, one blew through a red light at traffic lights with a restricted view, and one was cycling the wrong way around a roundabout. The first two of these aren't one-off scenarios. Fortunately on all occasions I was paying attention so managed to take evasive action. Similar incidents have occurred when I've been on my motorcyle, most of which have been near misses, but on one especially ridiculous occasion a cyclist ran into the back of me at a set of traffic lights.
What you say would only really be true if there weren't a portion of the population - even only a minority - who are, for want of a better word, massive dickheads (or simply very inattentive and situationally unaware). It needs to become socially unacceptable to cycle without due care and attention to the safety of others (the same way drink-driving has become, not just legislated against, but enforced against and socially unacceptable). However, unfortunately, it's not at the moment so I'm not sure that safety - particularly for pedestrians or, indeed, cyclists - is a given.
Overall it constantly shocks me how little responsibility cyclists take for their own safety.
Isn‘t the same statement true for car drivers? But the major difference is that a car turns a dickhead into a mortal danger for other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists alike, while a bike doesn‘t.
Yes. Completely.
Even before you get into discussions of selfishness/malice there are people who are just shitty at understanding how traffic works and how the different classes of traffic interact with each other. These people create problems wherever they go whether they go their on foot, two wheels or four.
In online discussions they're usually the ones screeching loudly about "rules" that get ignored contextually because they don't understand the context(s).
In the defense of bicyclists, I think a lot of this happens because the laws and roads aren't properly taking bicyclists into account. Stuff like bicycle lanes at the end of the block also becoming turn lanes for cars should just be unacceptable and provokes conflict between drivers and bicyclists.
[1]: https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/63000/63700/...
I don’t see how that squares with your statement at all.
The police don’t care. What mechanism will put him in jail?
Things like running red lights, not stopping at stop signs, and speeding are much easier for laypeople to judge, and it sounds like none of that was happening here.
This isn’t “more aggressively than I like,” this is a man put in hospital because a driver chose to ignore the UK official guidance on how to drive. Official guidance, I might add, that you must learn as part of your driving course.
Attitudes like that are exactly my point.
If you’re going to call for regulation and enforcement, where would you spend money and effort?
I know Cambridge really well and I know people that regularly race their cars on the A14 at night.
Do you really think all the people buying tuning kits are doing so because they like sticking to the speed limit?
When it comes to obeying traffic lights you won't be waiting long to see cars tailgating through amber. That happens every time.
Finally I'd point to the number of drivers still on the road with more than 12 points on their licence. They just plead extenuating circumstances in court and get away with it. They almost never find themselves in gaol. The real kicker is that those that do end up in prison on a Dangerous Driving charge never permanently loose their licenses.
In theory I agree with you, but in practice the behavioural differences are noticeable, at least in Cambridge.
One example (admittedly anecdata from somebody who spends a lot of time on the road using different modes of transport, including foot): lots of cyclists blow through red lights, (relatively speaking) very few car drivers do so. Of course, the stakes of a car driver blowing through a red light are arguably higher, so it's still not great.
What I'm contending against is not cycling as a mode of transport, but the assumption that with greater adoption of cycling comes greater safety. That's not what I see because of cultural issues (behaviour) surrouding cycling in this area. Possibly the accidents would be less severe, but there would still be plenty of accidents if everybody was cycling.
OTOH, and again it's small numbers/anecdata so take with a pinch of salt, but over 20 years in Cambridge I know more people who've been injured in cycling accidents that haven't involved motor vehicles, as those who've been injured in cycling accidents where motor vehicles have been involved. A couple of those people have blacked out even though wearing helmets because, e.g., their head hit the pavement. Causes of accidents are a bit of a mixed bag: road conditions aren't great around here (potholes, gravel on road, etc.)[0], one clipped by another cyclist on a cycle path (other cyclist didn't stop), etc.
I'm very pro-cycling but, as I say, from an empirical standpoint I'm not convinced it's necessarily that much safer. I'm sure there's data that, in some area or other, would prove me "wrong". But so much of it is down to cultural and behavioural issues, as well as cycling infrastructure and road quality, that I don't think it's valid to just forklift figures from one area and say, well, if everybody in Cambridge cycled we'd see X% fewer injuries from collisions on our roads. Unless other factors are taken into account it's very faulty reasoning.
[0] On the road conditions point, you're much more vulnerable on a bike than you would be in a car. If you're a driver and you hit a big pothole, you might damage your car, but you'll probably be OK. If you do the same on a bike you are much more likely to fall off and injure yourself.
Yes.
I know.
If you actually read what I said carefully you'll note that I said some portion of the population: a very general statement which is inclusive of both cyclists and motorists. I am an equal opportunities disparager.
The Netherlands has a massive cycling uptake and has some of the safest roads in Europe. What you say simply doesn’t hold water. Cyclists are simply not killing in the numbers that car drivers are.
For one, The Netherlands has great cycling infrastructure, at least places where I've been: Cambridge, UK doesn't.
Again, from what I've seen, cyclists in The Netherlands tend to behave quite a bit better than they do here in the UK (drivers too, for that matter).
Moreover, what condition is the infrastructure in? I don't know about The Netherlands but I can tell you that in Cambridge, UK, it's littered with potholes, and often to some extent multi-modal.
You can't just forklift an insight about cycling in The Netherlands and expect things to work the same somewhere else without making a whole load of stuff happen beyond just encouraging lots more people to cycle if you want to actually make it safer. In Cambridge, UK, we need both solid investment and cultural change (both cyclists and, yes, motorists too) for cycling to become a safer option.
Am I being clear enough for you now?
And that‘s where the Netherlands differ: Everyone cycles. You get a better cross-section of the population, kids, families. The infrastructure is much better, all around. It’s designed to reduce conflicts. And it‘s very likely that you‘d see similar effects in Cambridge as well. Build safe infrastructure and the normal people will show up.
We've been indoctrinated into motonormative thinking because most of us have lived our entire lives surrounded by cars.
I can stand at my local crossing on Old Kent Road and there'll be non-zero cars jumping the red light (often accelerating from a good ways back) or entering the junction without a safe exit blocking the crossing, a bus lane, and another junction (in peak time this will often get into double figures). Multiply that by all the crossings and you'll absolutely dwarf the amount of cyclists doing similar (and in my 20+yrs experience as a pedestrian + cyclist in London, it's not nearly as bad as motor vehicles.)
> It needs to become socially unacceptable to cycle without due care and attention to the safety of others
Let's start with the heavy motor vehicles first, eh.
So SUVs, Trucks and Electric Vehicles?
Also, once police are no longer occupied ticketing motorists, I hope cyclists are prepared for actually being held accountable to laws. The police budget isn't going to refill itself.
Or maybe we prioritise the class of vehicles responsible for almost 5 fatalities and 75 serious injuries a day[1]?
For comparison, [2] says that 30 pedestrians were killed and 1093 serious injuries involved cyclists in eight (8) years. In 416 weeks, that's less than one (1) week of car deaths (0.2% ratio) and two (2) weeks of serious injuries (0.4% ratio).
Anyone that says "we should prioritise X and 416*X the same" is either not arguing in good faith or should be nowhere near decision making.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... - 1760 fatalities, 28044 serious injuries.
[2] https://www.nationalworld.com/news/politics/pedestrians-kill...
What percentage of cyclist do you think are breaking the law?
> The police budget isn't going to refill itself.
Ticketing is not the main source of revenue for policing (thank goodness)
Your attempt to classify my post as whataboutism is in incredibly poor faith.
I'm very pro-cycling, but it would be foolish to ignore the very real and observable safety concerns that occur because of factors such as poor behaviour (and also, although I didn't mention them originally, issues like infrastructure and quality of road surfaces).
You cannot simply assume that within a particular context or location that more peope cycling equates to greater safety. There are too many other factors at play, and those need to be addressed in order to ensure that cycling is a safer option for everybody.
You'll no doubt be able to point to the statistics that back up these very real safety concerns.
You could start with the number of KSI caused by cyclists compared with motor vehicles
Cyclist involved KSIs, 2013-2020: 1123 (30 + 1093)
All road KSIs, 2020: 24989 (1460 + 23529) (and this was a quieter than normal year on the roads)
I make that a factor of 8 * (24989 / 1123) or 178x difference.
The rule that I personally follow: always behave like a car (albeit one that rides far over to the side of the road most of the time), and if I really feel an overwhelming urge to act as a pedestrian, time to fully dismount and walk the bike for a bit.
As someone who walks a lot, I find this very frustrating, as a lot of cyclists think it's okay to ride on the sidewalk at road speeds. My ideal world would have the urban core be restricted to pedestrians only. Or at the very least speed restricted to 5 mph. Cyclists could stop, lock up the bike and walk. Or walk the bike.
As a tip for dealing with cyclists: continue your movement as a pedestrian: they'll go around you. Most pedestrians have headphones in/little awareness of their surroundings, and as a cyclist I always assume I'm invisible to them and to cars.
>As a tip for dealing with cyclists: continue your movement as a pedestrian: they'll go around you. Most pedestrians have headphones in/little awareness of their surroundings, and as a cyclist I always assume I'm invisible to them and to cars...
But much worse were the ones who'd wake up enough to spot you at the last minute and then suddenly jump to the side --usually the side I was just about to swerve round them on.
Just keep on walking in your own oblivious bubble. I saw you about 1/2km ago and have already planned to my route round you!
No. Pedestrians don't have a monopoly on obvlivion. But neither do cyclists. Some of the things I saw people doing behind the wheel of their cars or lorries, as I cycled past them would put you off going out on a bike for life.
As a pedestrian (I am not wearing headphones) please ring your bell if you are passing me on a shared path.
It is very frightening to have a cyclist suddenly appear in your field of vision, from behind, terrifying.
Something that worked comparatively well for me it so shout “I’ll pass on your (left/right)”
That will do.
- Ringing the bell
- Asking nicely too quietly
- Asking nicely too loud
- Just passing
You can’t win.
Ultimately people just don’t want you to cycle. This is very much a cultural thing. Anyone cycling past age 15 or so is either poor or dangerously counter cultural. One of the most interesting things about the Netherlands is that is very little bike culture! You don’t see people signalling with messenger bags, cycling caps, bike brand stickers etc. because choosing to cycle is not unusual.
Please, please tell that to my local cyclists. Especially the commuters. The norm here is "ON YOUR LEFT!" about 1.5 seconds before blowing by at 25 mph with two feet of clearance.
How about when you're going to pass a pedestrian, you give them a lot of space and slow down to 5 mph.
When cyclists kill or maim 5 people per day, I’ll be the first calling for regulation. Until that day comes, the focus needs to be on the most dangerous mode of transport: private cars.
That disparity in itself will change the behaviour of motorists: I'm used to checking every single direction for cyclists before I make a move, even as a pedestrian, because there are just so many of them everywhere.
It's also why you see "Think Bike!" signs along routes popular with motorcyclists. Lots of places in the country there just aren't that many of us compared with car drivers, so people become unused to looking out for us, with sadly predictable consequences.
That's not to excuse drivers in Newcastle, by the way. It's just to point out that you probably see more drivers behaving badly compared with cyclists because of the differences [apologies, my bet on the differences] in the numbers (which I did do a search for but couldn't find anything useful or authoritative).
Cyclists violating traffic rules is frequently cited in anti-cycling astroturf, of which you can find current examples and a deep archive at StreetsBlog.
This "Overall it constantly shocks me how little responsibility cyclists take for their own safety." just screams "I'm a dickhead driver likely to hurt someone and I want a defense."
https://www.roadpeace.org/pedestrian-pavement-deaths-2/
> This "Overall it constantly shocks me how little responsibility cyclists take for their own safety." just screams "I'm a dickhead driver likely to hurt someone and I want a defense."
You didn't twig with "When driving I've nearly hit several cyclists"