Comment by vfclists | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vfclists | Hacker News Reader

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If it is a proper bike lane, ie a physically separated bike lane that shouldn't happen. If the speed at which you are allowed to drive at is high enough that colliding with a pedestrian or cyclist will cause them serious injury or death then the road design is wrong.

Simple fact is people make errors in judgement, suffer lapses in concentration, or even develop strokes when they are on the highways. A person moving around on urban roads who suffers such an event should not suffer life-changing injuries or death from it.

A safe road environment which pedestrians and cyclists are allowed to use is one in which the horizontal impact of a collision shouldn't result in serious injury or death. Death should only come from an impact which involves in serious head injury, such as the head striking the sidewalk, a heavy vehicle rolling over a person, or the case of a frail elderly person.

If you get back to UK law for instance, there are 19th century laws(they still on the books) which forbade "furious riding" on public highways which should tell you that riding at a gallop on a public road was illegal, and would be even more so in a built up area shared with pedestrians and other horse carriages. There were no cars or even bicycles them. It is one of the laws under which cyclists can be prosecuted.

Cars doing 30mph outpace galloping horses which should tell you that even at 50kph cars are driving at speeds considered dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists around them.

Yet a cyclist who has no more protection than a pedestrian is supposed to share a road with 2+tonne vehicles of reinforced steel travelling at speeds far faster than a horse rider or carriage driver riding furiously.

How does that make sense?

I see you are Walter Bright of Zortech C++ infamy and the D language ;)

> Cars doing 30mph outpace galloping horses

> Yet a cyclist who has no more protection than a pedestrian is supposed to share a road with 2+tonne vehicles of reinforced steel travelling at speeds

By speed alone, bikes are to pedestrians what cars are to bikes. A pedestrian will walk at 3-5km/h. A bike will be 5-7 times faster than that at 15-35km/h (especially since the advent of e-bikes which ignore assist requirements). Cars will be 1.5-4 times faster at 40-50km/h. Where I live I feel less safe as a pedestrian sharing the sidewalk with a bike lane than I feel on the bike sharing the street with cars (except car doors randomly opened in my path, that's what terrifies me). Not a day passes without a cyclist almost running me over when I cross on a green light, or because they try to squeeze around on the sidewalk at unsafely high speeds.

When it comes to protection, the usual killer is a strong hit on the head. You don't need too much speed to cause a fall. But despite cyclists riding and implicitly hitting the ground at higher speeds, protecting the old melon with a helmet is still seen as optional (embarrassing, unfashionable, uncomfortable). Cyclists take fewer precautions than drivers while exposing themselves to higher risks than pedestrians.

Can't tell you how many times I was asked why am I bothering with the helmet, "I'll get suntan stripes". In my circle of friends the only other one wearing a helmet for city riding (everyone wears it on the long roadbike rides) is one who has a lot of kids as is terrified of leaving them without a father. Everyone else rides as if the epitaph of "The other guy should have paid more attention" will give anyone consolation.

The classic one is the number of cyclists riding along with their helmet dangling from the handlebars.

I've been told by a cyclist that a lot of Seattle bikers have implants for front teeth.

Which shows that there is something wrong with Seattle. In my city the vast majority of people cycle. In my 42 years, I can only remember one person who lost a tooth cycling. We were kids and there was no car nearby.

I cannot even think of many people with a serious injury at all. And me and my peers started cycling when we were 4 or 5 and most still do it daily (it’s the primary means of transportation within the city).

Build a bike infrastructure, make car drivers more responsible. People will be healthier because they have daily workouts.

If only the speed was the big issue, but mostly it is the mass. Even with all the reckless cyclists there are very little fatalities where cyclist runs over pedestrian. Ultimately separating all groups would be the best, but heavy consequences for the heaviest road users is ultimately the solution.

> Ultimately separating all groups would be the best, but heavy consequences for the heaviest road users is ultimately the solution.

I agree that physical separation would be the best, with curbs or fences not just painted lines.

As a pedestrian I would very much like to not share the sidewalk with any vehicle under any circumstances. Most people riding a vehicle on the sidewalk have no real legal constraints and the least respect I've witnessed anyone having towards the rest of the people. Pedestrians come in all shapes, sizes and ages, can't walk like robots and will easily step into the bike lane, or drop something, or a child will run around, etc. Riding at 30km/h in that environment is common and stupid.

As a cyclist I'd much rather have the cycling lane on the street. Cars are more dangerous but also generally more predictable than pedestrians on a narrow sidewalk. Driving also has more regulation and enforcement. From my experience cars are a danger to me as cyclist at intersections (the dreaded right turn) and a terrifying thought when it comes to doors opening in front of me.

As a driver I'd rather lose a driving lane to a cycling one than to have cyclists randomly bobbing in and out of my lane, crossing my path after crossing a red light, or after ignoring the right of way.

> By speed alone, bikes are to pedestrians what cars are to bikes. A pedestrian will walk at 3-5km/h. A bike will be 5-7 times faster than that at 15-35km/h (especially since the advent of e-bikes which ignore assist requirements). Cars will be 1.5-4 times faster at 40-50km/h.

When it comes to collision you should remember the formula "half m v squared". A cyclist with his bike is usually less than 100kg which yields on impact. A collision with a pedestrian can be as bad for the cyclist as it is for pedestrian.

A car will be at least 20 times heavier and twice as fast as the cyclist and will not yield on impact. The bonnet and windscreen maybe, but not the chassis after the bumper yields.

> Where I live I feel less safe as a pedestrian sharing the sidewalk with a bike lane than I feel on the bike sharing the street with cars (except car doors randomly opened in my path, that's what terrifies me). Not a day passes without a cyclist almost running me over when I cross on a green light, or because they try to squeeze around on the sidewalk at unsafely high speeds.

Statistically you are in far more danger of getting killed by a motor vehicle on the sidewalk or an intersection than you are by a cyclist riding the sidewalk or jumping a red light. A cyclist will usually inflict a painful bruise on collision. Even needing to be hospitalized is unlikely.

Despite the blatant and often overlooked red light jumping by cyclists on busy city streets, how many fatalities occur from that behaviour, compared with those from motor vehicles?

Another thing to be said. The danger from the cyclist stems primarily from the cyclists riding manners, and has more to do with the social and cultural attitudes. The danger of the motor vehicle comes from the nature of the motor vehicle itself, its mass, steel reinforcement and speed which is compounded by the attitudes of drivers.

The average speed of a cyclist on urban streets is roughly that of a top level marathon runner if not less, and how scared are you by the danger a marathon runner with a metal bar held in front of them poses in a collision?

> Can't tell you how many times I was asked why am I bothering with the helmet,

On the matter of cyclists wearing helmets, how different is a cyclist riding on a narrow road without a sidewalk differ from pedestrian walking the same road? Does the absence of a safe sidewalk to use mean the pedestrian should wear a helmet in case they collide with a car?

Helmets worn by cyclists are no different from those worn by horse-riders or in other high impact sports. They serve to protect the helmets from impacts incurred on their own account, not from collisions with motor vehicles, although they do help in the latter.

> When it comes to collision you should remember the formula "half m v squared"

Of course a car is faster, heavier, and more dangerous but spherical cow and all that. I've never seen a "frontal" collision between a pedestrian and a cyclist. And 99% of incidents I've witnessed between cars and cyclists were side swipes (the car slides into the cyclist's path and the contact is on the side) or the car flat on cutting off the cyclist who subsequently hit the side of the car like a wall. Neither are influenced much by speed.

> how different is a cyclist riding on a narrow road without a sidewalk differ from pedestrian walking the same road?

About 25km/h of difference. Meaning anything the cyclist does happens 7 times faster than with the pedestrian. Hit a pothole? You fly over the handle bars for some meters at 25-30km/h instead of 1.5m under pure gravity.

> They serve to protect the helmets from impacts incurred on their own account

Helmets are there to protect your head from an impact. They don't bother to assess blame.

You're really taking this as "but that's worse so nothing else matters". And this makes you forget one obvious thing: everyone is a pedestrian, not everyone is a cyclist or a driver. Whether you're 8 or 80 years old you're a pedestrian so there's no excuse to endanger them because "it could be worse". And another big difference is street traffic is regulated, sidewalk traffic is not. A cyclist among pedestrians is a more immediate and unpredictable danger to pedestrians (sure, not deadly, a broken wrist is just really unpleasant).

The bottom line is that from my personal experience looking around as mainly a pedestrian and a cyclist, this conversation withstanding, cyclists are the group of people who always expect the favorable treatment even though the cyclist who respects the law is more of a mythical creature. On the street the cars are bigger and faster so should pay more attention. On the sidewalk the same logic no longer applies, the bike is "not that fast or heavy", the injuries aren't "that serious" so the pedestrians should pay attention instead.

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