Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill | Hacker News Reader

Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

oregonlive.com

314 pointstype0404 comments

As a bicyclist, I'm constantly told how dangerous bicycles are. Usually, I get a blank look when I explain, bicycles are very safe, it is the cars that are the dangerous part of the equation. Now I'll have to add fast billing ambulances to the list of dangers.

I think most people equate "bicycles are dangerous" with "cycling is dangerous", which seems perfectly reasonable to me. What matters is whether you'll get hurt using a bicycle, not the pedantry of whether the bicycle itself is the problem.

It's not pedantry when it's the root of the problem.

Cycling isn't dangerous, being on the street with cars is dangerous. Being on the street on a bike is dangerous, walking down a street is dangerous. Heck being in a compact car on today's streets with oversized/overweight vehicles is dangerous.

It's important to be precise about the source of the danger because it correctly identifies the problem.

There's a big push right now to ban people from buying and registering Kei cars with the argument being that they're too dangerous on american roads. If that argument holds, firstly, then it flows logically that they can nanny state people off of their bikes and motorcycles as well using the same argument. Secondly, Kei cars are not dangerous, getting hit in a kei car by an oversized SUV or "light" truck is.

>It's not pedantry when it's the root of the problem.

How is this any different than "guns don't kill people, people kill people?"

In this analogy, the bicycle is not the gun. The F-250 extended cab is.

Yup, bikes don't kill people, people in cars kill everyone around them.

You having a gun is not dangerous because of other people. You having a bicycle is dangerous because of other people.

Because whether it's people pulling the trigger or the gun itself, both are the direct source of harm. Bicycles are not the source of harm, cars are.

The analogous argument one way would be quibbling over whether it's the driver or the car. The analogous argument the other would be saying it's the shooting victims fault for being in a place where they are likely to get shot (bad neighborhood, in a position to surprise or threaten an armed individual, or maybe just in America)

Also, more pointedly, guns [EDIT: Nope!] and cars are among the top causes of accidental death in America [1].

[1] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demograph...

I don't see guns here or anywhere else on this site. Very interesting data though.

I read “fire…” and made a bad assumption.

>Bicycles are not the source of harm, cars are.

Of the 1,360 bicyclist deaths in 2022, 928 died in motor-vehicle crashes and 432 in other incidents, according to National Center for Health Statistics mortality data. Males accounted for 87% of all bicycle deaths

the other one is that flying is safer than driving, and I can bloody well promise you that there is nothing safe about flying at all. Massive amounts of attention to the job, by very tallented people who are highly trained and supported, manages to do better.....statisticaly for flying, than the abomanable record of highway saftey. And bicycles are equivilant to ulralight aircraft.Been hit twice while biking, doored a guy in my van, watched a guy on a bike get dead under a city bus late one night, front wheel and then the back ones

I mean, that statement is also true. And a huge number of gun deaths involve the shooter and victim being the same person.

One would argue it's a similar situation even further in that the SUV/Truck also isn't the problem, it's the inattentive driver that runs a person over. If you have a vehicle with the worst safety ratings on the market driven through a crowded city by someone who is adept at driving, there will likely not be an issue, just like if you have a responsible gun owner going to the range every week to fire off a few rounds, you likely won't have an issue.

People are always the problem. The regulations at play are generally built around the idea that if you don't give fallible people access to things that are either dangerous when handled by those unprepared, like an oversized truck, or things that are just designed to kill when someone doesn't really need one, that you minimize the chances of something going wrong.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/saves...

> How is this any different than "guns don't kill people, people kill people?"

In terms of guns, the reality is that people with guns kill people. An intent to kill plus an instrument designed to do so easily is often a lethal combination. People don't just kill each other more often when they have access to a firearms, they are also far more likely to kill themselves. [1]

The risk to cyclists and other road users also comes about by way of a combination of factors: poorly designed roads, lack of protected cycling lanes, lack of adequate pedestrian infrastructure, oversized vehicles, distracted drivers and so on. I suspect there are also a fair number of cases where cyclists/pedestrians make mistakes or engage in risky behaviour.

As a society, I don't think there is too much we can do in terms of altering people's behaviour. We can, however, do a great deal to alter the built environment to slow cars down and make things safer for other road users. Plenty of cities have made huge progress with this. There remain plenty that are terrible, and in my experience, many of the worst ones are in America. I think the last American city I was in was Vegas and my gosh, I would never want to cycle there. By contrast, I recently visited Montreal and was stunned by how good the cycling infrastructure was.

1: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-owner...

> People don't just kill each other more often when they have access to a firearms, they are also far more likely to kill themselves. [1]

Your footnote doesn't support the first statement you made which I don't think is accurate, at least not to a significant degree.

Because it's true in both cases. The root of the problem is something else and the thing being blamed flippantly can be much less of a worry if the root problem is addressed. People dismiss the guns don't kill people argument because it fits a simplistic ideological talking point, but it's just a basic fact that whether guns are accessible or not, the people accessing them will be the cause of fatalities if there's something wrong with their conduct and context.

With bikes, in a different context, something similar applies: What causes fatalities isn't bikes themselves but how the roads, rules, other people/vehicles and social conduct around bike use use and sharing of roads are.

Cycling is not dangerous because of nature, it's dangerous because of cars. It's not the same as "skydiving is dangerous" where the nature itself goes against you.

What matters is what we want to do as a society: leave the cars where they are as some kind of unmovable force of destiny, or actually manage them to not make them dangerous.

The blank look is probably because cars are ubiquitous, so the distinction is irrelevant to the risk profile the speaker is referring to.

The point is that cycling doesn’t have to be dangerous, it currently is due to external factors that can be fixed.

Even with cars we have a saying: "graves are filled with people who had the right of way". Physics doesn't care about whose to blame.

It's not about blame. It's about recognizing the need for safe infrastructure: physically separated bike paths, not painted gutters. Physics does care about the difference between crossing a painted line vs hitting a bollard.

And trying to pivot a conversation like that often gets... blank looks.

No need for people to find the info unknown or confusing.

“If it doesn’t damage the car, it’s not safe bike infrastructure.” someone said, and they’re right.

Dedicated bike lanes almost always share the same risks as the incident in the OP: the intersections are still shared. And sometimes driver behavior is even worse when dedicated bike lanes exist at intersections, because drivers turning right forget they are sharing the intersection with bikes proceeding straight-through from a lane on their right.

> factors that can be fixed

In the US? Not a chance. The political momentum in the US overwhelmingly does not want to fix this to the degree where cars and bikes wouldn't cross paths. Nor have I seen any proposals to do so. Even the most progressive bike infrastructure in the US still often intersects with vehicle traffic at grade.

There's only one place in the US where you can reasonably ride a bicycle for transportation and (usually) not share the road with cars, and it's a tiny island with population ~500 that banned cars in the late 19th century. And even there, emergency vehicles, like the one in the OP, still share the road with bikes.

Cars are more dangerous than bicycles because they’re larger and faster, yes. But when you compare cars vs. bicycles on the same road, together, bicyclists are in more danger. I can only surmise the people that tell you “bicycles are dangerous,” are just looking out for your well being and meant “you’re putting yourself in danger.”

Unfortunately, roads were designed for cars first. Even more unfortunate, people are not accustomed to sharing the road with bicyclists and only glance at their mirrors to check for large familiar cars. Thus, to say that “cars are the ones that are dangerous,” implies you think bicyclists have the de facto right of way and everyone should adjust to your presence.

In the U.S., roads were paved for cyclists first. There was a political fight over whether and how to regulate cars to prevent them from crowding out other road users. See "Fighting Traffic".

https://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Traffic-American-Inside-Tech...

And more broadly, paved roads were invented between 2600 and 2200 BC.

I meant to reference modern roads. Lane markings, signage, and setbacks are clearly spaced, designed, and optimized for traveling in a car. Those 45mph signs and the intentional spacing of lane markers were not designed because of bicyclists.

Bad road design. We can do better.

roads predate cars.

> you think bicyclists have the de facto right of way and everyone should adjust to your presence

They think that because that's how the law works, yes. Also many roads aren't designed for cars either, at least not in terms of safety or efficiency.

What law? Bicyclists do not automatically have the right of way. They are users of the road and must follow the same road laws as cars.

You say many roads… if you go by miles, you think major interstates weren’t designed for cars? How about rural roads… who do you think those long stretches of roads are designed for if not cars?

Slight tangent, but when I lived in a country in Europe, this was the way the law worked for car-cyclist collisions.

1. The car driver is assumed to be at fault. In absence of other evidence, the car driver is always 100% at fault for the accident. Including all consequences for hitting/killing someone. 2. If it is proved that the cyclist broke the law and acted negligently, the car driver is still 50% at fault for the accident, since they’re driving a more dangerous vehicle and should’ve actively prevented the accident.

People were extremely respectful to cyclists there, and gave a ton of space when passing

When a vehicle would have to cross other paths (bike lanes etc), the priority is: pedestrian > cyclist > car. A bike lane crossing the road always has priority over cars unless signs say otherwise. At least that's how it works in Europe.

> who do you think those long stretches of roads are designed for if not cars?

The roads are usually intended for cars, yes. But they often aren't designed for safe, efficient travel with cars. Or anyone else, really. It's possible to design roads to be safe for everyone, but they often are the opposite. Just like planners still think that adding more lanes makes travel by car faster, when in reality it's long been known that it actually has the opposite effect.

> must follow the same road laws as cars.

This actually isn't true in some parts of the US. Cyclists sometimes do have different laws that apply to them while using the road. For instance, in some places, cyclists may legally yield at stop signs. They do not have to stop at them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

"it was his fault" - not sure you want that on your tombstone.

Would you want "Enjoyed blaming the victims" in yours?

The point is blame doesn't help when you are dead. Keep safe, don't throw yourself in the path of cars with drivers who text.

Former cyclist, now zwifting instead.

> I'll have to add fast billing ambulances to the list

As another comment mentions, this is a standard vehicle-cyclist collision lawsuit with some hilarity added by automated billing.

You could say that jumping out of a plane without a parachute isn't dangerous, it's the ground that's dangerous.

Cyclists make mistakes, make bad judgments, take big risks, just like car drivers. They are human too. You could say cyclists have a bigger incentive to avoid problems, but no driver I know wants to hit someone and injure them, and cyclists I know become inured to the risks after riding for years without injury - it seems to me that human attention loses focus unless something reinforces it; as a result 1 in 1,000 risks are very hard to focus on.

Cars and bikes don't mix except when cars are going bicycle speed. If your system kills people when they make a mistake, your system is very badly designed.

> it's the ground that's dangerous

Sure, but there’s nothing we can do about the ground

I don't think I've ever met a cyclist who's opposed to separated infrastructure for bikes and cars. Every local government project I've ever seen to build this kind of infrastructure runs into issues with drivers who don't think it's necessary or would somehow ruin their lives.

Every suggestion I've seen was to make car infrastructure significantly worse in order to add a bike lane to an existing road, while also making that road significantly slower and worse for cars.

I don't think I've ever seen real suggestions to make a seperated infrastructure grid for pedestrians and bicycles that isn't just a sidewalk or bike lane on an existing road.

I'd recommend Vancouver as a decent example of how segregated lanes can work in a North American city.

That said, can you give specific examples of what you mean by "make car infrastructure worse"? Usually segregation is just a matter of putting a barrier on an existing bike lane and painting lines, which doesn't actually change anything for drivers who stay in the lines. In some cases, a lane may be converted, but this rarely impacts travel times much for the same reasons adding additional lanes doesn't improve travel times. Vancouver did lots of traffic studies on this criticism in particular that you can read if you're interested.

> add a bike lane to an existing road

Are you imagining an alternative in which a bike network is added to a city, but not using "existing roads"? Where would these entirely-new roads be placed? Would you knock down the buildings between two car-infrastructure-roads, to pave it for bicycles? I suppose you could remove the car-infrastructure-road entirely and make it just a bike-road / linear park. Or you could put the bike lane underground? Or build a separated-grade elevated parkway network above the city?

You put a sign at the start of the road. "Bike street". This means cars allowed but at bike speeds. You have different paint on the street too, to make it very different from a normal road. I have seen them popping up here and there and it works very well in the towns I bike in.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/e0qxxz/we_just_g...

As reasonable as that sounds, I think this would fall into the GP's complained-of category of "making that road significantly slower and worse for cars", and does not meet their ask for "a separated infrastructure grid for pedestrians and bicycles".

I remain very curious to hear their vision!

You don't need to make every street a bike street. It's enough if there is a way of getting safely close to your destination. Both for cars and bikes. The car drivers can drive on the next street unless this is their destination location. Works just fine in other big cities so it's just a question of getting used to a slightly different road to work/home.

To be clear, I definitely agree with you, I just don't think ThunderSizzle would. So it's ThunderSizzle's ideal that I am confused about, and trying to clarify. I think ThunderSizzle has asked for a (to my imagination) impossible-to-reach standard, and you have provided a very practical compromise, but exactly the sort that they would probably reject as infringing too much on existing car infrastructure.

I said roads, not streets. I've seen high-speed highways that have been modified to add a bike lane to the middle of no where for miles on end.

This is beyond useless, and is very dangerous as your combining high speed vehicle travel with bikes and pedestrians. The typical response is to then convert the road to a street (e.g. lower the speed limit, reduce lanes, etc) instead of moving pedestrian traffic away from roads. The traffic is still there, because it's the only route, but now you've added the occasional brave and stupid bicyclist or pedestrian.

Beyond that, it's more inefficient for pedestrians, because road layouts tend to follow inefficient directions that add unnecessary travel time for pedestrians.

Oh that makes sense. Yes, I keep seeing proposals to add bike lanes to highways and I just think, who wants to ride a bike next to all those high speed vehicles with no shade?

As a cyclist in vancouver I would say separated infrastructure is a mixed bag, I would have a car cutting me off (right hook as they say), many near misses when I had right of way several times a week on the dunsmuir bike path. I felt a lot safer biking in traffic in that area. OTOH I've enjoyed biking along the skytrain paths all the way out to surrey on occasion. The areas where the segregated path meet traffic have to be very carefully thought out.

Yeah? Except where I live, we have "bike trails" wide enough, and newly paved looking enough that I could drive my car over them, in fact! The lawncare people for my neighborhood absolutely drive their trucks on them, with enough room to let people pass them by! And yet, I still see people on the regular roads, at the worst times: early morning when most people are trying to get to work, or right as the sun is going down when it is drastically harder to notice a bicycle.

One time I was going up a hill I've been up and down a million times, only to be shocked to find, after sundown, similar road with a BIKE TRAIL, some person riding their bicycle WITH NO LIGHTS, on a road where you're expected to go 45 (its actually 55 when I googled it!) or more, giving me little time to react, I have NEVER seen someone be so careless on this road, or even ride a bicycle on it, because its not a road for bicycles. So no, it's not just the cars that are dangerous, its the carelessness of bicycle riders that is equally dangerous.

To preface, I don't know anything about your specific area, but bike infrastructure is like car infra in that there are multiple classes of infrastructure for different purposes. What are commonly called bike trails tend to be off-road paths that go on meandering paths through nice parts of the city like parks and vineyards. That's not what my post is talking about.

People going to work typically take the most direct route there, which is usually the same road cars take rather than those trails. Thus you see people cycling on the same busy roads you're rushing to work on. That's an urban planning problem and one that I've spent lots of time trying to fix in my own community. In every case it's been held up by people who don't want to spend money on bikes and in one memorable case were worried about a traffic study that estimated an additional 30s worst case scenario for commute length increases.

As for the hill thing, cyclists are not obligated to have rear facing lights in any state I'm aware of, only forward facing. They need to have a rear retroreflector for visibility in most places. These come on all bikes by default and the only way to not have them is to intentionally remove them, which is uncommon. I assume they didn't since you didn't mention it, and I'm also going to assume the road doesn't have a bike lane since you mentioned a bike trail on some similar path instead. In that case, they're probably allowed to be there (though they should have forward facing lights and safety patches for their own sake).

Your responsibility as a driver is to drive at speed where you can identify and safely react to obstacles, including bikes. It sounds like that didn't happen here, but you're blaming someone else for the near miss.

> As for the hill thing, cyclists are not obligated to have rear facing lights in any state I'm aware of

In Florida, my state, they absolutely must:

- A bicycle operated between sunset and sunrise must be equipped with a lamp on the from exhibiting a white light visible from 500 feet to the front and both a red reflector and a lamp on the rear exhibiting a red light visible from 600 feet to the rear.

- A bicyclist who is not traveling at the same speed as other traffic must ride in the designated bike lane or as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway.

See here:

https://www.flhsmv.gov/safety-center/driving-safety/bicycle-...

Edit also:

At least 24 states require bike lights during certain times of day or in limited visibility conditions, including: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, and Maine.

It's very telling that you assume drivers in the early morning are trying to get to work but the cyclists aren't.

It sounds like you live in America in which case I assure you the bike trails you speak of are inadequate to the point that using them is probably less safe than not.

Where are you getting the "expected to go 55" wording from? That's not how laws are written. If you're referring to the speed limit, that's a limit, not a suggestion. Again, telling.

Yes it is the cars that are dangerous, a careless bicycle rider is not capable of harming you in your car in any way.

Cyclists who ride without lights after dark are irresponsible, I'll give you that.

As a former bicycle messenger I'm opposed to it. The trails are filled with baby strollers and inline skaters moving in and out of lanes. typically there is no right of way when crossing roads or entrances to parking lots. Blind corners with overgrown vegetation are par for the course.

Riding in traffic is an absolute pleasure when you know how to draft vehicles. The suction created by larger box trucks can actually pull you along with minimal effort.

Dedicated bicycle lanes on existing roads are the worst. You are trapped in an area where turning vehicles are going to T-bone you. Pedestrians will tentatively step out on the the asphalt as they ponder crossing the street. Want to swerve around them? Good luck, there are bollards or other barriers now separating the cycling lane from the rest of the larger roadway.

This is why there is a common international driving etiquette to not overtake on the outer lane. Yet, safety maxi city planners, who clearly never pursued cycling at any level, insist upon building dedicated cyclist lanes on the outside. I see many accidents posted as outrage bait on Twitter caused by cyclists attempting to overtake on the outside or being overtaken by cars attempting to turn. As a professional courier, I would have never attempted such maneuvers.

Overtake on the inside, like any other vehicle. Stay behind the brake light on the inside bumper. Be prepared to weave to the inside if the vehicle slows. If you are not keeping pace with traffic, yield to the outside and do not make a pest of yourself. Unless of course there is an immediate intersection, then you should defend against a turning vehicle.

Dedicated cycling lanes have issues and bike trails often do not go to the destinations you need. It is a nice alternative for leisurely cycling, but not applicable utilitarian transportation. I often wonder if the planners of these things have ever used a bicycle to pick up groceries or run errands.

Finally, all of the people crying about how dangerous cycling is, will most likely still complain or find other excuses to not ride their bike. That's fine. I'm not here to convert everyone into a cyclist. Personally, I have no issues sharing the road with cement trucks. "I would start riding my bike to work, if only you built me...", becomes, "It is too hot, cold or rainy to ride bikes" or, "I can't carry groceries on a bicycle, are you crazy?". It is much like the chronically overweight or those who claim they want to quit smoking. These people don't actually want to ride bikes. That's fine, but we shouldn't attempt to accommodate their excuses by wasting money building infrastructure which creates dangerous expectations for motorists and cyclists.

Stated preferences are not always what users want or need.

I think you need to cycle in a country with good infrastructure and laws that protect cyclists. Most countries’ “cycling infrastructure” is a pathetic joke.

Of course you are opposed, you are not the target audience. Bike infrastructure is there to let your average person bike at 10mph to work/school/the grocery store. It's not supposed to be a racing track.

> Riding in traffic is an absolute pleasure when you know how to draft vehicles. The suction created by larger box trucks can actually pull you along with minimal effort.

Well, I chuckled ;) Just FYI, if you're "drafting" you're probably well within the "if they brake hard, I'm running into them" territory. Proceed at your own risk.

>Be prepared to weave to the inside if the vehicle slows.

Box trucks are good for beginners because you do not need to be nearly as close. Slightly ahead of the boundary area of the aerodynamic turbulence feels optimal. In dusty conditions you may be able to visually observe this. Also, they generally cannot stop as quickly. Truck drivers know their routes and will more likely hit all of the lights at a uniform speed. You'll more easily hear their motor and gear shifts.

Yes, there are idiots who will try to brake check you, but they are mostly driving cars. A slight turn allows you to pass on the inside. The entire maneuver happens faster than braking. Braking is actually a mistake here, because you can loose traction and the ability to avoid obstacles.

For the rest of your comment, casual cyclists should prefer lower traffic streets and routes. By working incrementally they can build up their comfort levels. Again, the idea that they shouldn't gain the ability to ride in traffic or should have an expectation to never encounter traffic is a recipe for disaster.

It isn't about racing or being the fastest, but learning to cycle, feeling comfortable, interacting with traffic safely and not making a pest of yourself. That can only happen with the right set of expectations. Separate infrastructure doesn't help novices develop the necessary skills.

Damn! I never messengered, just commuted for a few years in a city. I've always had this kind of eye-roll reaction to the ever-growing number of bike lanes, especially poorly done ones now that they've reached the 'burbs, even though there was only a handful when I was seriously riding. I never fully reflected on why, apart from the obvious just-wide-enough-to-get-doored and having to do explicit lane changes to deal with double parking and other shit in the way. You put it really well! I mean, if you don't hear an ambulance approaching from behind and think "this is my ticket for getting through this traffic quickly and safely", are you even riding?

> I don't think I've ever met a cyclist who's opposed to separated infrastructure for bikes and cars.

Then I think you've never met a cyclist. As in actually riding a lot, not as in owning a bike and having occasionally achieved the balancing act. I know enough cyclists to hear about someone getting hit by a car multiple times a year and a large majority of those cases are getting hit in intersections (and in interactions with driveways) while traveling on "separated" bike infrastructure. Because the reality is that it's never really separated, intersections do exist. That "separated" infrastructure? It's merely out of sight out of mind for the drivers. Which would be an effective strategy if your goal was to maximize accidents. Those people who keep getting hit on separate bike lanes? They already make bike lane avoidance a factor in their route selection and yet still most of their hits happen on the small subset of their miles that are on "separated" infrastructure, not on the many, many miles done in the lane.

Yes, some separated bike infrastructure feels nice to use. And a subset of that even happens to not be inherently dangerous. But that's only where that is easy to do. Yes, on an high traffic road that is so close to limited access design that it's always miles per instead of intersections per mile, yes, a well-built bike lane is nice. Even when it's separated. But those that keep cruising side streets, driveways and the like? They are dangerous thrill courses hated by all cyclists but a tiny minority. The tiny minority that sees themselves more like pedestrians who happen to sit while while almost walking than like actual cyclists.

And yes, I know the Netherlands exist. Safety in numbers can move the threshold and the exact same bike infrastructure that would be a bone-crushing through thrill course under little use can become quite tolerable when it's used so much that "out of mind" can never happen. But until you get there, prefer building better bike infrastructure over building more. And better means about separation except where it's for beyond the slightest doubt.

I've been urban biking for years. It's no doubt dangerous. I don't think you become complacent like you do when when driving. You are pretty aware that these heavy fast moving vehicles are on the same road as you. Part of my commute was on a path off the roads, it was nice. I always leave plenty of time when riding so im not rushing.

even when there are separate lanes it's important to stay alert for cars turning onto side streets etc. (As a driver those right turns across a bike lane can be tricky, especially since really fast scooters are using those lanes too)

> I've been urban biking for years. It's no doubt dangerous. I don't think you become complacent like you do when when driving.

Also: motorcycling.

Generally recommended to always assume you're invisible. There's even an acronym for it: SMIDSY, Sorry mate, I didn't see you.

* https://www.brm.co.nz/s-m-i-d-s-y-road-craft/

* https://www.webbikeworld.com/scientific-studies-explain-smid...

SMIDSY is one very good reason for ATGATT

Not quite an acronym but to complete the trifecta, sometimes nobody was at fault and you just haddalayerdown (because we all know steel and human flesh are much better at slowing a motorcycle down than wimpy old rubber)

Cue an extremely vivid memory of a rainy drenched Washington DC street awash with glare and sparkle from the street lights. Car in front of me lit the brakes, and I grab the front handbrake on my little 250 to.... nothing. No result. "uh" escaped my mouth as I grabbed a somewhat panicked handful of brake and slammed on the rear again to.. absolutely nothing except a lighter rear wheel. Finally had to just lean into a quick hard veer into the oncoming lane cause the wet and my small bike was just gliding. I learned that day that my last word will probably be "um"

I've a similar story, but 35 years ago, a situation which was entirely my fault, 100cc and 'shit'.

Ended up with a sore knee, bent forks and a realisation that leaning plus braking in the wet is a great way to make a nice groove into the asphalt!

That sounds dignified. I had a 911 a few years ago and it aquaplaned on the motorway at ~160-180kmh, spun 180º, and sent me into the central barrier.

I learned my last words were "AAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

When you say 'gliding' you mean the... what? I'm confused. When you lock the front in the wet, 'nothing' is the best possible outcome and even then doesn't last long enough. I'm assuming your 250 had ABS and the 'nothing' was it not dramatically flopping you onto the road. (As an aside, I used to hate ABS and I've now totally come around to it. New ABS is so incredibly much better than old ABS.)

Also there's no such thing as a quick hard veer in the wet, the road is like oiled glass.

No ABS on the 250 and I agree, I won't buy anything without it ever again.

By "gliding" I mean the acute sensation of the loss of weighted-ness on the road. Like when you hit a patch of ice in a car or when you're at a severe lean angle and the tires start to skip a little.

Let me assure you, there very much is such a thing as a quick hard veer in the wet. My fingers on the keyboard right now are proof, ha-ha

Oh god, that quite literally figuratively literally gave me whiplash. I've heard that "had to lay her down" line and... there is no, absolutely NO situation in which you have to "lay her down". Well okay, maybe if you're trying to slide under a semi-trailer, Bollywood style. Exception that proves the rule, and all that.

Edit: You do definitely hear that, though. Not saying it doesn't fit, just that I don't like it. :D

Exactly this.

Part of the experience of riding a motorcycle is being acutely aware of your surroundings at all times.

I rode a motorcycle as my daily commute for years, and then when I switched to a car it felt oddly strange how little I had to pay attention:

(Possibly controversial belief: riding a motorcycle makes you a better car driver. Motorcycling has made me pick up habits like always looking over my shoulder and not solely trusting my mirrors when changing lanes)

> (Possibly controversial belief: riding a motorcycle makes you a better car driver. Motorcycling has made me pick up habits like always looking over my shoulder and not solely trusting my mirrors when changing lanes)

I hope that's not controversial, I fully agree with it. Riding a bicycle does pretty much the same thing, even though the evasive maneuvers take a different form. Motorcycles probably train some instincts that are more relevant to driving a car, though, given the speeds involved. Also, motorcycles train people better because they apply more selection pressure: there are plenty of inattentive bicyclists, and most of them are still aboveground. The inattentive motorcyclists, on the other hand, aren't around anymore to drive cars.

Not controversial as far as I'm concerned. I used to say, only half joking, that all car drivers should have to learn to ride a motorbike.

I stopped riding a motorbike when I had kids. I was a pretty safe rider and still nearly got hit twice by car drivers assuming that, if cars weren't moving, nothing else on the road would be.

Once by someone in stationary traffic deciding he'd had enough and was going to turn and drive the other way without checking his mirrors (I was going slowly enough that I could just about stop although I came off the bike). And once when a driver suddenly shot out of an invisible side road at speed (again, no cars were moving on the main road).

Completely agree:

1. Finding the gaps in traffic, and hanging out there and chilling. Cars always cluster together. If I crash when I'm in a gap, it's my own fault. But I'm not going to crash because someone veers into my lane while watching Youtube.

(Benefit of motorcycling where lane splitting is allowed: the gap may be ahead, as well as behind. Plus it feels really good to get in front of everyone else when they're all jockeying together to get ahead.)

2. Following distance. Why does everyone follow one car length behind? This is basic driver's ed. If I'm further back I've got time to dodge obstacles, account for slowdowns and react to crashes ahead. This is closely related to #1.

3. Using my turn signals, religiously. I turn them on well before a lane change or turn.

4. Memorizing my route, to avoid distractions. When motorcycling, I don't want my phone out. I need to be caffeinated, laser focused, and geared up for battle.

5. Being comfortable going slow. If I wanted to be fast, I should have put on my helmet :)

You don't get a Swedish license if you don't turn your head when switching lanes. It's weird that the country of driving has so low requirements and quality of driving

This is true in the US as well. It's just that people don't always drive like they do during their test.

I take it one step further: I'm not only invisible but am being actively targeted with prejudice by those who can see me. You very quickly develop a knack for predicting what "cages" will do at any given moment.

As a pilot, there is a sense of "falling behind the aircraft" when your situational awareness diminishes --- getting ahead of the plane by 30 seconds, then 5 minutes, and then 30 minutes translates to non-flying tasks/jobs too. It's a great mindset for "incident management" in any field.

Except if you’re wearing black: then drivers and pedestrians will scream at you to tell you how invisible you are.

No complacency is very real and necessary. When I bike everything is my responsibility, my life is in my hands, so I’m not looking to finger-point when a driver does something stupid or rash — it’s on me to be notice, anticipate, and react so that I don’t get killed.

> "I've been urban biking for years. It's no doubt dangerous... Part of my commute was on a path off the roads, it was nice."

Ironically, in 10+ years of cycling in London, the worst accidents I've ever personally witnessed were bike-on-bike crashes on the crowded cycle lanes! Broken bones, possible head injuries, ambulances and police called. I do recall one near-miss involving a bus and a few dooring accidents but nothing the cyclist didn't walk away from.

I think the problem is that in a lot of places in the west bicycles are forced to mix with motor vehicles, and away from pedestrians.

This always seemed like a weird trade off to me - “you are inconveniencing some pedestrians, so go in this other lane where you can die”

I grew up in Eastern Europe, where technically the laws are similar, but no policeman is going to stop you for riding on the sidewalk. So you naturally mix with pedestrians - that means you travel slower but a lot safer.

I remember going to Barcelona ~ 10 years ago and renting some bicycles to explore the city. I knew that this would be a different experience since the laws are different, but my partner at the time just didn’t care to follow local laws, so she just went on and started going on the sidewalks. The locals were _very_ strict in directing you off of them, no police got involved but I could see that happening if you tried to do that more.

Now I went there last year, and it was like the locals have “lost the war” on that - maybe because the city has built enough bike lanes that the few places where you _had_ to go on a sidewalk you weren’t that much of a nuisance or because the sidewalks themselves got bigger or something else, but the experience was a lot more pleasant than anywhere else I’ve cycled.

Bicycles should _not_ mix with cars in my opinion - let those travel at high speeds, just make mixing of pedestrians and bicycles regulated and safe and all would be well.

Mixing pedestrians with bikes runs into its own set of issues, at high enough density bikes simply can’t be ridden.

Really there’s no one solution that works at every scale. Bikes on sidewalks are also far less safe in deaths per mile than it seems.

> Really there’s no one solution that works at every scale

Get private cars out of cities. That works

Cities are more than just ultra dense urban cores and megacities. Cars work well for stand alone cities under ~500,000 people.

That said, America relies heavily on public transportation even in smaller communities we just call them school buses and ignore em. So cars aren’t the cheapest option even at these scales, but they can be quite convenient when there’s minimal traffic issues.

I live in Thessaloniki, where you can get pretty lucky: The city is built along the coast, so there's a large boardwalk spanning the entire coast, it's pretty broad and has a nice bike lane. You can cycle from one side of the city to the other in 20 minutes or so, and the boardwalk is so broad that pedestrians tend to have enough space to stay out of the bike lane. It's an extremely pleasant way of transportation.

If you cycle anywhere other than the boardwalk, though, Greek drivers are going to kill you, but I've developed coping strategies (using side-streets).

Bicycles and pedestrians should absolutely not be mixed! What needs to happen are dedicated bicycle lanes and reduced car traffic.

They can be mixed off traffic is rather low and the path is wide enough (basically plan for the encounter of a pram in one direction with a cyclist with trailer in the other direction). But that typically doesn't work for sidewalks in many cases because they're either too narrow or have too much foot or bike traffic.

E-bikes and cargo bikes are also a lot heavier than other bicycles and are getting more common. Due to higher mass and being powered they're quite a bit more dangerous to pedestrians.

This generally works were the traffic is low, in sub urbs and on specific paths(not sidewalks in metropolitan areas). combined pedestrian walk and bicycle paths are possible, in sub urbs and in more rural areas, though even there they should generally be split and only used for overtaking:

https://www.osteraker.se/images/18.5bb0400617c11d33b551007/1...

In bigger cities where the foot traffic is high, it's absolutely not possible, in my opinion.

I'm very much an "old school" commuter cyclist, I started way before this current movement towards vision zero and separated bike infrastructure, to provide context. Bicycling is my main transport and has been for 15 years now.

I practice "vehicular cycling" and love being in the road. I also choose routes where I can maintain at least 75% of the speed limit, so lots of 30mph roads.

It's definitely sketchier than the new style infrastructure that's popping up, but it's also way faster. I use a radar and mirror for safety and I keep the speed delta between traffic and myself at a minimum. Only serious injury I've had was getting creamed by an incoming drunk driver at speed.

Best world would be keeping pedestrians, cyclists, and cars all separated for maximum convenience. But failing that, I'd much rather be in a painted bike lane than on a sidewalk.

I think it depends if I'm coming home from the gym late at night I might be less aware than when I'm my usual self. Especially if the roads are quiet. I've had two near calls in London - once an uber driver swung in front of me out of nowhere to pick up a passenger and it was wet so my bike couldn't stop in time and I went into the back of them. The other a car was parked in the cycle lane and they opened their door just as I was passing.

I am now even more aware and paranoid when cycling but my real solution has to optimise my routes for reduced stress rather than speed or distance - I'll happily take a longer route if I know it's much more chill

> I've been urban biking for years. It's no doubt dangerous

Yes

I gave up using my bicycle in the city. It was very good for me, but one mistake and it would be very bad, easily terminal

It is easy to make bicycling safe(r): get rid of the cars

Cycling isn't very dangerous. The average cyclist will outlive the average driver. The health benefits of regular cycling over a lifetime outweigh the risks.

It’s not symmetric though. In a car your mistake has a much higher ceiling to the negative consequences.

And with great power comes great responsibility.

I’ve been honked for waiting for a safe way to pass a cyclist. The car behind me then just zooms past the cyclist after I make a manoeuvre. It’s not like all driver are out there trying to be responsible as much as possible.

When I stop to make way to either pedestrian or bicycle or kid (that is more dangerous than a pedestrian) I position my car in such a way that the car after me is as blocked as possible.

That means going more to my left (but not to much as to leave enough space on my right), turning a little (the car takes a little more space) and even turning on the turning signal (not the parking signal)

They get pissed (the cars. Walking Grandmas wave at me to greet me), so I hope I don't get shot at some point.

Most roads aren’t even meant for cyclists but they feel so entitled as to take up entire lanes sometimes.

Depends on the local laws, but mostly likely they are entitled to take the lane.

If there's not enough room for a car to pass safely (e.g., a wide shoulder, a bike lane, etc.), cyclists are encouraged to ride in the middle of the lane. If the cyclist rides on the side, cars try to squeeze past and eventually the worst will happen. Remember, 99% safety is almost certain death for a regular cyclist.

Also though, if a slow-moving vehicle is impeding other traffic, they should pull over at the next safe opportunity and allow traffic to pass.

It’s not really safe to pull over for a bicycle in most street configurations in the US because that puts you squarely in the dooring zone of the parked cars.

I'm simply stating what the traffic laws state. A slow-moving vehicle has the obligation to get out of the way when it can, to allow other traffic to pass.

Here's one example:

https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61.427

right, but in effect that's basically zero percent of the time on a street with parked cars. pulling into the front of a driveway is also not safe. And safe passing in WA is three feet.

From WSDOT:

> Pass at a safe distance. Leaving an extra safety buffer in time and space when passing people gives you more ability to see and react, and it’s also the law. Be aware that a bicyclist needs to be positioned in the lane a safe distance away from opening car doors, grates, and other hazards not visible to a driver. Drivers need to move into the other lane when possible or leave at least three feet while passing (RCW 46.61.110). Darkness and weather conditions may affect a driver’s ability to gauge distance.

The reason is that most of the time inside lane is occupied by parking cars, which either outright block the bike or you get into door zone.

>>> Most roads aren’t even meant for cyclists

Source?

You're supposed to take the lane if it's unsafe to pass.

So entitled because that is frequently the codified law. Often the exact same law that allows people to drive cars on the road. In other words they are just as entitled to the road as any other road user. Can you point to some source that indicates that most roads aren’t for cyclists?

In all of the places that I have commuted as a cyclist the rule is that cyclists are to ride “as far to the right as is practicable” or similar. Meaning the lane positioning is for the cyclist to be as far to the right as they judge is ‘practicable’, not as far to the right as is possible. Sometimes it is not ‘practicable’ to be on the shoulder or in the right side of the lane.

Can you point to which law made cycling on the road illegal ?

What state do you live in?

The roads are paid for by my taxes so I'll use them fully, thank you very much.

It's rare that riding on the side is viable. Easily 90%+ of drivers do not know when and how to pass a cyclist so I have to play babysitter and manage their behavior by positioning myself appropriately.

The ground is inevitable. Cars and people in a rush are not.

I know plenty of drivers who rather risk hitting someone that take a couple of extra seconds to drive safely. It seems to be give or take half of them, depending on the area.

"But even those try not to hit people, and they go around more people than they hit!" - that's how I read GP's post and that's how I think they believe that they are right. They think it's a glass half full/glass half empty situation. When the glass is a rocket fuel tank and you want to go to the moon.

One time when I stopped to let a pedestrian cross at a crosswalk with button activated flashing lights that were flashing.

While stopped, I watched not one, but fifteen freaking cars proceed through the crosswalk without stopping...in a 15 mph speed zone..with a giant box truck stopped in the opposite lane waiting...with flashing lights that clearly indicate tou are required to stop. I was absolutely blown away.

Then there's the seeming 3/4ths of drivers who don't look straight in front of them when they start driving to make a right turn when waiting for a gap in traffic. I've put dents (deliberately) in several of their hoods since I watch for this like a hawk and am ready to yell and smack their hood as soonnas they start moving. I've had them yell at me when it was my fault for not making eye contact, when I literally watched their eyes the entire time I approached and they never once moved them from staring left to see if there were pedestrians.

I don't understand why dangerous driving gets so little enforcement and why the penalies are slaps on the wrist. Let's revoke licenses and confiscate cars.

I wonder if too much of the workforce would essentially be incapable of getting a new driver's license just if standards were made closer to Germany's.

If that's the case, then so long as most of the economy needs tons of replaceable, underskilled, underpaid drivers IN ADDITION to virtually everyone requiring a car for basic autonomy in most of the country, i see perfectly why there'd be so little enforcement -- it's just perhaps very cynical.

It’s not the jumping out of the plane that’s dangerous, it’s the landing!

I agree, the system is very badly designed. Cars and bikes don't mix without carefully designed roads that make the lazy/default decision and the safe decision the same thing, because eventual complacency is human nature.

> You could say that jumping out of a plane without a parachute isn't dangerous, it's the ground that's dangerous.

In that metaphor cars are a force of nature. I've also heard "the laws of physics trump the law of man", and "what's more important: being right or being alive". People choose to drive; people choose to cycle; and people choose to walk. When I choose to drive, I have the means to kill someone else and I'm damn well responsible for that risk. After all, the person I hit didn't choose for me to drive.

> When I choose to drive, I have the means to kill someone else and I'm damn well responsible for that risk.

I agree, and part of my GP point was, I think almost every driver agrees, even in different words: Drivers are very adverse to hitting humans, whether walking or biking.

I am honestly not so sure. What's the evidence for this claim?

Do you see drivers regularly hitting people? You don't think almost anyone would be horrified if they hit a person?

I don't have evidence, but let's not imagine people are the sociopaths they claim to be on the Internet.

Most drivers are reasonable, but some use their vehicles as weapons to punish cyclists for slowing them down -- even though in SF, you're likely to end up at the same stop light in 30 seconds.

When I bicycle commuted in the city, I had about one incident a week of a driver close passing or cussing me out. In one incident, a driver revved their engine at me and followed me home because I reminded them that they had to give three feet of space when passing. I thought I was going to die when they went for their glovebox. If I ever cycle commute again, it will be with a concealed weapon.

In other contexts, using violence for political ends would be called terrorism. On our roads it's just another day.

The driver who hit me on my bike didn’t give a shit, and only even came back because a friendly motorcyclist chased and caught him. The driver who hit me on foot also didn’t care, and didn’t have insurance, and had multiple previous violations - and both his parents had hit pedestrians before as well.

I do see a lot of drivers opting to buy vehicle designs that entirely and unnecessarily disregard the safety of people outside of the vehicle. And I also note that about 7,000 pedestrians die each year being run over by motorists (in the US alone).

I see drivers regularly perform dangerous overtakes. They do these stuffs and expect the other person to avoid them instead. To me that is very much not "drivers are very adverse to hitting people".

Do they understand the danger? I think most drivers, having never been out there, vulnerable, on a bike, don't grasp the risk and the alarm they cause.

YouTube is littered with examples of drivers and their passengers attacking cyclists.

There is a whole industry dedicated to selling cameras and warning radar for cyclists because driver attacks are so common in fact.

Every serious cyclist I know has a few stories. One of mine includes a passenger leaning out of a car trying to put a plastic bag over my head.

Another has a builder stop his van to threaten me with a claw hammer.

These days I have cameras too.

Youtube and social media have all sorts of things that are badly misrepresented, especially sensationalized paranoid stories. I wouldn't take social media as evidence of anything.

I know plenty of cyclists. While some have had accidents with cars, some drivers have driven away rather than face the consequences, I've never heard these stories of naked aggression. I've heard of the occasional argument, but often a self-righteous cyclist is involved.

There’s a good reason “I’ve heard” is always discounted in court as hearsay.

I know what I know from first hands experience.

I don’t think that anything I could have possibly done could be self-righteous enough to justify the actions of those involved but that’s just my opinion.

I have a long commute, I see drivers almost kill someone multiple times a day, every day. Most of the time there's no accident.

To be clear, I'm not talking about mistakes. There's 10x more of those. I'm referring to just people taking dangerous actions with no regard for the safety of anyone.

Cars isolate their occupants from the environment. Not just physically, but psychologically - drivers are less aware of their surroundings and unable to communicate with other road users using body language.

I think that is the leading cause of road rage and the disregard drivers have towards pedestrians and cyclists.

Most are. A few are not averse.

It only takes one to end your life and all you have to do is read Facebook or Twitter comments to see how many harbour a deep fantasy to murder cyclists. Phil Gaimon has done videos describing his experiences, too. If you’d like to experience the difference in person, ride a bike in the U.K. with and without cameras. You’ll see how a marked difference in the space drivers give you. Pick a region with decent enforcement like London or the north east.

I don’t have the inclination to look but I’d put good money on statistics showing a negative correlation between enforcement of driving offences against cyclists and cyclist deaths or injuries.

You don't want to hit people because you'll feel bad about it? That's good, but you have nothing at stake. You will not be the one dead/injured and the laws are on your side. Drivers have little incentive to care and it shows.

> you have nothing at stake. You will not be the one dead/injured and the laws are on your side.

Drivers have very much at stake. They could be accused, tried, and possibly convicted of homicide, and even the first two can dramatically change lives. And nobody wants to kill someone, and live with that trauma for the rest of their lives, and always be known as someone who killed.

All of the dangerous interactions that I've had while riding were caused by automobile drivers, and not myself.

Unless you have very little experience riding around cars, here's how I read that comment: 'I'm either too defensive/argumentative to tell the truth or I'm not honest with myself.'

Analogously: Since the the election, I've seen endless people blaming Biden, 'the media', etc etc. The only one I'll take seriously is the person who says: 'I failed; I should have done better.'

I have tens of thousands of miles of experience, and have studied the law and best practices around cycling.

I vividly remember exactly the circumstances of each.

Most involve me riding as far to the right as practicable while someone driving a car hits me from behind, or quickly passes and does a right hook.

My favorite was the national parks employee who was drunk driving in Yosemite and hit me from behind. I'd love for you to explain how that one was my fault.

Ok so it still seems easier to blame the people forcing bikes onto roads than to blame the people with the least capacity to hurt others.

Must we blame someone?

> Cars and bikes don't mix except when cars are going bicycle speed.

Which is why infrastructure in cities should not mix cyclists and cars. That is the real reason why cycling is safer in the Netherlands with separate bicycle paths and bicycle traffic signal.

I don't agree. Some of the safest places to cycle have about 0 infrastructure. What matters are driving culture, speed limits (and enforcement of those) as well as lesser numbers of "modern" cars on roads (cause those have bad visibility, a lot of distractions and too much insulation causing people to underestimate their speed.

Given the person cited the Netherlands, a nation widely lauded and know for its excellent infrastructure and low pedestrian/cyclist deaths, I’m going to need you to cite some evidence here.

And no, I’m not going to accept statistics showing a small town in the middle of nowhere is safer. It’s self evident that you’ll not get run over in a place where there are no cars to run you over.

I don't know why you think Netherlands is known for ow pedestrian/cycling deaths. Here is some data: https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021...

You can say more people cycle in Netherlands but then a lot of people cycle in Spain or Northern Italy as well and those are more populous countries/regions. It's just very hard to get data that include all factors but the data we do get is not so good for Netherlands.

I have cycled in many EU countries and in many areas of those as well. I am 500+ hours on the bike throughout the year and talk to a lot of people who do the same. This is experience worth more than some stereotypes about Netherlands being good for cyclists or whatever. What is good for cyclists are drivers who are careful, don't speed and respect your right to be on the road. This is why Spain doesn't have as many cycling deaths even though tons of people cycle there. It would be even more apparent if you split Spain into regions. Same with Italy (North is good, South not so much).

Poland gets quite a bit of cycling infrastructure now (because that's the only way to get EU funding for roads for cars - what the government really wants). The infrastucture is terrible and dangerous. People die and get hurt because of it every day. It would be much better to just change the law to: "cyclist can be on the road whenever they please and can take the lane when they think it's for their safety".

Now when you have both the data and words of someone who is actually experiencing it every day are you willing to reconsider?

> Now when you have both the data and words of someone who is actually experiencing it every day are you willing to reconsider?

No because the data has a gaping hole: it records cyclist deaths per capita, not cyclist deaths per cyclist.

The UK looks “good” but cyclist uptake is like 1% compared to Dutch uptake which is FAR MORE than 1%. You expect more people to die doing a thing if more people do a thing. Dutch cyclists are also more common than Spanish cyclists, again so you’d expect to see higher numbers.

There’s no breakdown by country and by other party involved in there. Just separate charts, so you can’t say more drivers are running over more cyclists because it’s just not in the data.

Also, I’ve experienced cycling in different European countries and you don’t need 500 hours to see the stark difference between countries that get it and countries that don’t.

> The infrastucture is terrible and dangerous.

This doesn’t surprise me, most countries are shit at it.

> It would be much better to just change the law to: "cyclist can be on the road whenever they please and can take the lane when they think it's for their safety".

This is the law in the UK. Read some Twitter threads and you’ll see drivers don’t appreciate it. The only thing keeping us safe is cameras with good police enforcement.

Oh my.

First of, the statistics you point to are terrible. It's not the first time I've seen EU statistics on cycling be utterly incompetent either, it's weird.

Anyhow:

"Although there are no data available at EU level on the trend in cycling kilometres travelled, it is widely recognized that cycling has increased in popularity over the past decade."

There you go, the entire dataset is invalid.

As a curiosity, please point your attention to the graph of the distribution of fatalities over age categories.

> It's just very hard to get data that include all factors but the data we do get is not so good for Netherlands.

The data is easily accessible and robust: [1] [2].

> This is experience worth more than some stereotypes about Netherlands being good for cyclists or whatever.

Relatively to basically everywhere else, the Netherlands is good for cyclists. That's a fact, not a stereotype.

> Poland gets quite a bit of cycling infrastructure now (because that's the only way to get EU funding for roads for cars - what the government really wants). The infrastucture is terrible and dangerous. People die and get hurt because of it every day. It would be much better to just change the law to: "cyclist can be on the road whenever they please and can take the lane when they think it's for their safety".

If the infrastructure is terrible, the solution is to make it not terrible. Changing laws is a lazy, ineffectual cop-out. It is always more effective to change the infrastructure. Regular people are not going to be cycling amidst vehicles.

---

[1]: https://english.kimnet.nl/publications/publications/2023/11/...

[2]: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2024/03/06/cycling-safety...

>>If the infrastructure is terrible, the solution is to make it not terrible. Changing laws is a lazy, ineffectual cop-out. It is always more effective to change the infrastructure. Regular people are not going to be cycling amidst vehicles.

Changing the infrastructure is very hard though. Changing laws so car drivers doesn't feel entitled to the road or feel justified committing violence towards cyclists is easy. It just requires political will.

That's a pretty weak example; gravity is a physical force of nature and inescapable. Cars are a political choice that we made but don't have to make.

But that the comparison seems apt is pretty endemic of how cars are treated: an absolute must, as if they were a force of nature.

Never mind that a huge chunk of our population can not drive, and are therefore excluded from society by cars. Car dependency is a very exclusionary way to build a town. (Note that there is a difference between allowing cars, and car dependency. Making cars the only permissible way to navigate is car dependency. And it's possible to allow car travel without forcing car dependency, but it requires work and is not the default in the US)

> Cars are a political choice that we made but don't have to make.

Ambulances aren't though. Same with delivery vehicles. Public transport is, but typically one associated with less cars.

All of these are both dangerous to cyclists and essential in a functioning city.

over here in the civilised world, we have bicycle lanes.

and the cyclists still don't respect pedestrians and abuse their privilege and oftentimes cut them off on pavements and zebra crossings when they feel like it.

I would still bet way more pedestrians are killed or injured by car drivers than bicyclists.

It's a weird context for the bet. What's your point on cyclists not respecting pedestrians even though when they've got more bike lanes? I bet their attitude hasn't changed with the grown number of dedicated lanes. Are you arguing that as long as pedestrians are not being killed at the same rate, being disrespectful to them and causing danger by another kind of a higher risk vehicle is fine?

somehow they manage to handle it just fine in Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general. maybe Americans are just very rude and entitled?

For several years now I have commuted almost exclusively by biking and walking to & from work, and I can say that both the pedestrian and biker populations have a small but very noticeable number of idiots in them who just don't seem to care.

On one long bridge here, pedestrians and bikes have dedicated roads, on the opposites sides. I regularly see bikers use the sidewalk side, and the same with pedestrians on the biker side; neither is "fun" nor safe. I've actually been yelled at by a biker on the pedestrian side for not noticing him zipping by me... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Elsewhere, I regularly see people walking in the middle of the bike lane, where it's a mixed use sidewalk. The road is clearly marked, yet these people are walking there, playing chicken with each cyclist, on purpose.

The reality is that these people are a fairly small minority, but we tend to notice them. So, I wouldn't make blanket statements.

I've been told to get off the pavement by a pedestrian while on a shared path with an actual sign up right in front of us both - I pointed at it and laughed at him.

Cyclists use a higher risk vehicle, pedestrians have a natural right to higher priority on shared use paths and in crossings, by the virtue of using the most harmless means of moving in space. That means giving way to pedestrians when they need it, keeping a safe distance, and not causing dangerous situations for them. If you think otherwise, by that same token you'll have to convince all the cyclists around you that cars overtaking cyclists on shared roads, or cutting them off on turns is a fine attitude as well.

you made up a story in your head and then ran with it.

I did not do anything to put said pedestrian cunt at risk. the shared path was wide enough for 5 people, and I passed far enough away from them that I was in no danger of hitting them. I also passed them at barely over walking speed, because I always slow down when passing potentially inattentive creatures.

he, like you, assumed too much and make a fool of himself.

I've seen plenty of pedestrians just begging to get run over - no spatial awareness, just randomly dancing across the shared path or straying into the bike lane.

I'm paranoid though and just assume hostile intentions. I slow down to walking speed or even just stop until I'm certain they're clued in.

I've seen plenty of cyclists just begging to get run over by cars or collide with pedestrians - no spatial awareness, just randomly chosing their way, without realising they use a higher risk vehicle, and that pedestrians have a natural right to higher priority on shared use paths and in crossings, by the virtue of using the most basic and harmless means of moving in space.

This happens when there is no bike lane. Cyclists take the pavement because the street is unsafe.

Cyclists shouldn't take the pavements whatever the reason, they operate a higher risk vehicles, and spreading those risks on pedestrians who didn't chose to pick a higher risk for the purpose of moving around is exactly the disrespectul attitude I mentioned in my original comment.

> they operate a higher risk vehicles

Are you serious? How can you say that? Cars are, by themselves, much higher risk than bikes. If bikes are dangerous at all is because of cars. The main--heck, I'd say the only--spreaders of dangerosity are cars. In a car-free city, none of the main causes of premature death would be traffic-related.

You ignore the existence of intersections.

Last year in my neighborhood we had a cyclist die from making a sharp left turn straight into a tram. It was a track x cycle lane intersection and between the tracks and cycle lane parallel to it from which he turned there's a strip of pavement, so unless you really cut that turn, the tram should be in your field of vision.

Also there's a yield sign for cyclists, but obviously that didn't work.

trams are pretty damn loud as well, but I guess people can be very distracted. to be fair though, getting hit by a tram in a car instead of on a bike probably wouldn't be any more fun.

Survivability is much greater though. Funnily enough it happens approximately 100 times every year in my city of 650k, but fatalities are rare (I'm not aware of any). Pedestrians are less fortunate, as a few die annually being hit/run over by a tram.

But I would rather restrict cycling than trams, as the latter perform a valuable service.

I helped build and operate a medium sized art car at Burning Man. We had a guy on a bike ride directly into the rear of our extremely well lit, loud, and (relative to the bike) large art car. We were parked.

He got up and rode away with no explanation.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that drugs were involved.

would you restrict pedestrians too?

people forget that cyclists can also get off their bikes and push them along like pedestrians. just put a big sign, and if needed, post a policeman with a ticket book. or make the pavement bumpy enough and they'll get off voluntarily.

That's a silly false choice, there's no reason to restrict either. Trams (nor ambulances) are not killing cyclists at notable rates.

All that's needed is for city infrastructure designers to take into account the existence and needs of cyclists. An impossible challenge for 99% of them, sadly.

I can imagine someone thinking to put traffic lights there so that the tram would have to yield - fortunately that didn't happen.

There are ways that this would not happen. There are ways to not have cars and cyclists on the same level as each other for example, then you don't have to worry about that. Or just kick all the cars off the street.

Not just lanes! We have entire routes exclusive to bicycles and use bicycle lanes only as a fallback where there are none

We could choose to replace all Ambulances with Hospital Helicopters. We would just have to exchange one set of tradeoffs with another, and probably realize Ambulances have their time and place, and are worth the cost.

Of course they are a political choice that we can make or not make.

And we can have ambulances (or not have them!) with or without car-dependent infrastructure. It turns out that non-car-dependent areas also have ambulances and get people to medical care quickly.

And we could get rid of ambulances and even still keep rapid emergency response by having mobile doctors distributed close to people.

Plus, ambulances are not dangerous to bicyclists. Come on. The danger is distracted drivers without blaring sirens on top of them.

Saying cars are a political choice assumes we live in a command and control society.

Saying "we" in this context assumes you have political power.

You are free to drive any car you want on private roads.

And we can make political decisions about any non-private road

You're acting like politics has no place on government built and regulated roads.

All the decisions are politics by definition.

We do have political power; if you’re in the US, you had the opportunity to exercise it in the last week. Your local elected officials make the plans for roads and bike lanes and zoning and parking lots and variances; and they are usually quite responsive to the voting public.

lol that voting is power. double lol if you think local elected officials plan anything.

Mine do. There is a political process via the legislature and executive, a public planning process that includes multiple technocratic agencies, and then often another political process when citizens who ignored all that realize what's about to happen. Where I live, people complain that there is too much planning and it takes too long (except when it's something they don't want!).

Local elected officials decide whether or not individual apartment buildings are allowed.

It's all there in the public record, easy to find.

The omni-presence of cars in US is from "command and control" through laws and the legal system, and in particular the planning system. Our planning system mandates all sorts of things about the built infrastructure that a purely market based society would not choose on its own. This sort of command and control mandates the exact number of parking spaces required for a shoe store versus a bowling alley, versus any other type of land use.

In nearly all of the US it is literally illegal to build out infrastructure with out prioritizing cars and car infrastructure over everything.

This was a political choice that we made, as we do live in a representative democracy.

> no driver I know wants to hit someone and injure them

You must not be riding your bike a lot then. Most recently I had a guy follow me around and threaten to get his gun if I didn't get off the road

When you speed, use your phone when driving or ignore basic safety rules then you can't really say you don't want to hit someone or injure someone.

I mean you can say that but it's as believable as shooting your rifle without looking in general direction of a crowd of people and then saying you really didn't mean to shoot anyone.

I see cyclists using their phones - looking at them - while riding on streets.

Yeah, some do. They are not going to kill anyone though unlike drivers. We know where the problems is: cars and drivers. Focus on that instead of derailing the discussion. There are lives and health of people on the line.

> We know where the problems is: cars and drivers.

We don't, and cyclists will get nowhere until they take responsibility and stop acting like victims. Everyone who drives around cyclists sees how badly many of them act - on average, IME, much worse than drivers.

Man, we have stats on that. Drivers cause majority of accidents. They cause almost 100% of fatal ones where the innocent party dies/get hurt.

It can't really be clearer.

>>Everyone who drives around cyclists sees how badly many of them act - on average, IME, much worse than drivers.

I am sorry but you are just so biased you can't tell black from white. Car drivers speed, don't pay attention, are on the phone all the time. Your view is so far detached from reality is like saying water isn't wet. Again, we have stats, we know who dies, we know who causes more danger. Cyclists and pedestrians are victims of careless drivers every day. You are just spewing complete nonsense that if repeated makes people less safe.

"My fist isn't dangerous. Failing to move your face out of the way of my fist is dangerous."

Nice, dude.

> no driver I know wants to hit someone and injure them

As a cyclist I don't think this is completely true. I've been in cars with drivers who do dangerously close passes on cyclists and the common excuse is "oh I just want to scare them" or similar.

So while I guess it's technically true that even these drivers don't technically want to hit the cyclist the distinction is somewhat moot.

There is something about bicyclists, and especially skaters, that leads to active hostility from drivers.

On at least two occasions, I've had cars purposely try to hit me when I was skating. I know it was on purpose because in one case the driver said "you're not a vehicle" as he came within inches of hitting me, and in another case the driver, completely unprovoked, began cursing loudly and tried to run me off the road.

You might argue that the first one didn't actively "want" to hit me, but he certainly wouldn't have cared if he did.

> Cars and bikes don't mix except when cars are going bicycle speed.

I wouldn't want to get hit by a car going 15 mph. Or even 1 mph. So I would say cars and bikes don't really mix at all, especially since many drivers are either actively hostile to bikers and skaters, or indifferent about hitting them.

It takes a lot more than just separating the trafic in different lanes. The whole climate is getting harsher between humans. We are experts of dehumanisation of our fellow humans.

> I wouldn't want to get hit by a car going 15 mph.

Agreed, f=ma and the car has 10x the mass of you and your bike.

I meant that if they are moving at the same rate then accidents are much less likely. Even when it's just cars and no bikes, if most cars are moving at 80 km/h then a car moving at 20 km/h creates much higher risk of accidents.

The "you're not a vehicle" stuff is pretty amusing considering that bikes are, actually, legally classified as vehicles in the US and you can get ticketed while riding one. (I have also been yelled at for the same reason.)

Of course no one wants to hit and injure other people. But every one want to get ahead of traffic, and then ignore the fact that more dangerous maneuver = more chance of hitting someone. Saying "no driver I know wants to hit someone and injure them" is just playing with semantics.

Yes, there are other motivations, but I think the desire to avoid hurting someone is a powerful one.

> But every one want to get ahead of traffic

They should get a bike! :)

> Cyclists make mistakes

Stats in the UK show that the majority of car/bicycle collisions are due to driver error, not cyclist error. Given the USA standard of driving is much lower, and policing is much less consistent, I’d put good money on that being higher in the USA.

> Cars and bikes don't mix

Yes but you’re looking at the wrong category of people making the mistake.

Don't hook up on the wrong thing here. Everyone makes mistakes but the cyclists pay with their life. Is it a well designed system when a little mistake costs your life?

The cyclists have a better understanding and overview of the trafic sittuation so from the car drivers view it looks like they take bigger risks.

The car driver’s view is irrelevant when determining who made the mistake, only the facts of the matter. And in the vast majority of cases, it’s the car driver.

I get the impression you read "Cyclists make mistakes" and commented without reading the rest. We all agree on what you are saying. That is what I'm objecting to.

"Cyclists make mistakes, make bad judgments, take big risks, JUST LIKE CAR DRIVERS."

No, we don’t agree. The original post only pointed out cyclists as the ones making mistakes. You’re trying to both sides the issue. I’m saying that the VAST MAJORITY of mistakes are committed by drivers. Those three positions are not the same.

It seems irrational and transparently self-righteous for cyclists to claim to be victims or somehow superior.

Why would Homo sapiens on bicycles be any less prone to error or negligence or aggression than those in automobiles? Often, the same person does both (at different times)!

Because the statistics show that more pedestrians are killed by drivers on the pavement (sidewalk for Americans) every year than are killed by cyclists. Studies show that cyclists break the law at a lower rate than drivers, too.

> pedestrians are killed by drivers on the pavement (sidewalk for Americans) every year than are killed by cyclists

There are many more cars, and bike accidents don't tend to kill people.

> Why would Homo sapiens on bicycles be any less prone to error or negligence or aggression than those in automobiles?

For a few very obvious reasons:

1. Cars have significantly less visibility. Often cars run into other cars at speed without having ever even seen them. Now imagine bicycles.

2. Cars are much faster, so mistakes are amplified. Often with cars you're forced to commit to bad decisions because you're simply too fast to abort.

3. Cars are much more powerful, which may bring aggression in people. This is opinion but from my life this is plainly true with everything. The more perceived power something gives a person, the more prone to aggression that person is.

Perfect vision without blind spots, unimpeded ability to hear, able to communicate via body language with pedestrians. Yes, biking is superior in city environments and should be encouraged.

> Perfect vision without blind spots, unimpeded ability to hear, able to communicate via body language with pedestrians

That's all exaggerated, but generally I agree. Also bikes are silent, hard to see, especially among cars or at night ...

There are advantages and disadventages to all technology, and it's not a genuine analysis unless we look at them all.

Cycling is analogous with skydiving without parachute?! Why not suicide?

Poor choice of synonym.

But true, the system is very badly 'designed' in lots of places. Mostly where they just wanted to pretend having a system, but not really putting the efforts into (e.g. UK and its 'making bicycle infrastructure by lines painted on pavement' attitude)

Except with bicycles you very well can find a plane to jump out with no ground to be seen.

Your analogy is car brained and bad.

I live in germany and have an extremely safe bike commute.

I would not commute by bike in the US tho

US cities, infrastructure, and political attitudes are irreparably predisposed to support the dominance of the automobile. The problem here is simply not fixable on any scale larger than a neighborhood-level during any of our lifetimes.

>no driver I know wants to hit someone and injure them

Spend any time at all on social media and you'll see how untrue this can be. If you think people are lying about their daydreams of assaulting cyclists, just go on YouTube for days of content of drivers swerving at cycliste, throwing things at them, dumping pollutants into their lungs, intimidating them, assaulting them, and more.

The potential consequences of a driver's mistake are ~20x greater than a cyclist's in a city environment. Do cyclists make 20x more mistakes than drivers to make up for that?

So indeed, drivers complaining about cyclists is a joke. In the event of any sort of a collision with a car at all it's the cyclist that loses. Always.

> drivers complaining about cyclists is a joke

The 'victim' perspective - I'm pure and harmless because I'm the injured party - is always in error.

Self driving cars are amazing in SF. I cycle there I feel much safer when there’s a self driving car behind me. Waymos, zooxes and cruises never accelerate hard to suddenly cut a turn in front of me rather than waiting behind me to turn across the cycle lane. They never get angry when there is no cycle lane and I’m forced to take up a full lane for a stretch. They have cold machine patience and attitude and to get away from my own anecdote the statistics just plain say they are safer.

They are expanding the areas the self driving cars can operate in year by year.

As much as I hate nanny state laws and acknowledge that self drivings not there yet I can see a future where humans are barred from driving. 40k deaths a year in the USA from humans driving and a fear of rightfully using the road for non driving activities due to poor human behaviour. I’m actually pretty hopeful we get there.

A waymo hit a cyclist in San Francisco a few months ago, by failing to anticipate that there may be traffic behind a turning truck and accelerating into it.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/7/24065063/waymo-driverless-...

The statistics are still in their favour even at this early stage when the bugs are yet to be fully figured out though. There’s good reason today to feel safer around self driving cars even with the above example.

As self driving becomes more and more commonplace and even safer we’ll likely be focusing more on the 40k human caused fatalities.

Just noting that the bicyclist is fully at fault for trying to jump the queue at a 4 way stop, and it sounds like they were going in a different direction than the turning truck as well. Hard to pin that one on Waymo, though I do feel like Waymo cars tend to drive a bit "city aggressive" at times, like asserting their right of way, sticking close to the car in front, etc.

I don't know what happened in this case, but it's possible that the bicycle stopped at the stop sign before the Waymo did, and then proceeded (behind the truck), entering the intersection before the Waymo. If so, there's nothing wrong with the cyclist's actions.

What I mean is: if the bicycle got to the intersection before the Waymo, then it would have had right of way.

Of course, it's also possible that the cyclist failed to stop at the stop sign.

But neither of us has seen footage of what happened. Presumably Waymo has a recording but, if the cyclist was hidden by the truck, that won't show what happened.

That’s not the law. Vehicles take turns at an intersection - there’s no total queuing order based on arrival time.

At a contended intersection, it should never be the case that two vehicles coming from the same lane take consecutive turns.

  That’s not the law. Vehicles take turns at an intersection - there’s no total queuing order based on arrival time.

No, 'taking turns' is not codified in the law or mentioned in the DMV handbook.

If the Waymo stopped at the intersection after the bicycle stopped at the intersection, or if the Waymo's path was blocked and it was thus not entering the intersection, the bicycle would not be required to yield.

  At a contended intersection, it should never be the case that two vehicles coming from the same lane take consecutive turns.

Are you sure about that? Consider the sequence of events in this hypothetical scenario:

1. The lorry arrives (from the North) first and stops at the stop line.

2. The lorry begins turning at the intersection, and is completely past the stop line but still in the intersection.

3. The bicycle arrives (from the North) and stops at the stop line.

4. The Waymo arrives (from the South) and stops at the stop line.

5. The Waymo waits at the stop line because, if it were to proceed, its path would intersect with the turning lorry's path.

6. The bicycle proceeds into the intersection, following the lorry.

How would the cyclist's actions in this scenario violate something in California Vehicle Code sections 21800 to 21809?

DMV handbook: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/california-driver-handboo...

Law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...

If the Waymo could not see the bicycle then them cyclist could not see the Waymo. So at best the fault lies with each party to make visual contact and determine who goes first.

  If the Waymo could not see the bicycle then them cyclist could not see the Waymo.

If the cyclist cannot see the Waymo, then either:

A) There is no Waymo, and the cyclist need not yield, or

B) There is a Waymo, but its path is blocked by turning lorry, and the cyclist need not yield.

So either way the bicycle has priority, no?

B sounds wrong to me. That would mean if you had enough lorries blocking the next one's sight they could all go through at once.

I don't think you're supposed to start moving again until you can see whether a waiting vehicle would intersect your path.

  B sounds wrong to me.

But can you explain your objection in terms of the actual law?

This whole sub thread started because someone claimed the bike must have broken the law. I'm trying to explain why that's not necessarily the case. Most people 'stating the law' are making things up that aren't written in the law.

I am honestly curious to know what I may have misunderstood, but based on the actual law not based on what seems to make sense if we were to design ideal laws.

> No, 'taking turns' is not codified in the law or mentioned in the DMV handbook.

Even if it's not explicitly written, it's a natural consequence that once two opposite cars go, the perpendicular cars were there before the replacements, so they get to go first, and it falls into taking turns.

> Consider the sequence of events in this hypothetical scenario

They meant when vehicles are waiting for each other the entire time, since obviously with nobody waiting multiple vehicles can go the same direction. In your scenario nobody is waiting after step 2.

In my scenario, both the Waymo and the bicycle are simultaneously stopped at their respective stop lines. That counts as 'contended'.

> Just noting that the bicyclist is fully at fault

I disagree. Legislation does not abrogate drivers of all moral responsibility. Quite frankly, if a child jumps out from behind a parked car and you hit them despite following the law to the letter, you share some of the blame. I would argue that in all cases where a driver hits someone, they share some blame, because they chose to drive at a speed beyond their ability to react. It is the driver after all that causes the damage.

Obviously, the only solution is to drive at a much, much slower speed, which at some point becomes impractical, so we don't do this.

> because they chose to drive at a speed beyond their ability to react

That's just not possible to solve in practice. Unless you're moving at an extremely slow pace, there's always the lag of noticing + decision + activation. You can drive 10km/h and if someone walks right in front of you, there may be physically no way for you to prevent a collision.

Sure, slower speeds prevent many accidents, but always sharing the blame is a very bad idea.

You’ll be appalled. Germany has a notion of “Allgemeine Betriebsgefahr” which encapsulates the general danger of operating dangerous machinery. For a car/bike accident, the default minimum damages split is at least 20% for the car, even if the driver has complied with all rules. In the Netherlands, it’s even more strict: accidents between cars and anyone below 14 are automatically considered 100% the drivers fault for damages, unless you can prove that the accident was caused deliberately and maliciously by the child. For accidents with > 14 years olds, it’s still at least 50% automatic damages, unless you can prove reckless or deliberate behavior.

This is intended to reflect the inherent danger of driving a heavy machine in a public space.

> That's just not possible to solve in practice.

It is never a necessity to drive so close to people that 10km/h is too fast to notice someone who may veer into the path of your vehicle without you having the ability to stop. Likewise to drive at a speed at which someone could appear from behind a nearby obstacle leaving you no time to react. It is a convenience that most people assume they are entitled to - largely due to it being codified in law (there are lots of things we do that are like this).

You may consider it to be a necessity, and I would have once too. But I never do this now. I gave up the convenience - something I couldn't have done if it was a necessity.

I understand this is not a choice everyone feels free to make. But it is a choice.

I'm not talking about the cases where you have any choice about what's going to happen or your safety margin. A person jumps from a place fully obstructed by a truck, 1cm in front of your car - it doesn't matter how slow you're going - you're going to hit them before you register what happened.

That is why you don't drive past busses parked at a bus stop. There is always someone late for class or work, running out of the bus, and then across the street behind or in front of the bus. I'm even slowing down if I'm in the opposite lane meeting the bus because this happens so frequently. And the law (here in Sweden) says I should drive no faster than that I can stop on the road surface I can see. And that I have to antissipate people jumping out in front of the car from behind obstacles. Busses are luckily pretty high from the ground so you can see legs sticking out under it, this makes it a bit safer if you remember to look out for them.

You're assuming you've always got the choice to keep the distance. Sometimes you don't. If you get in a tight alley where you have to pass a truck, you can't do it differently. Whatever safety system you use, one day it either won't help in the situation, or you'll forget about it. Overconfidence in your control may give you a really bad lesson in humility.

You can also see the recent video of a Tesla avoiding a person falling onto the street and crashing into another car. There's no reason to keep the speed lower in that area, no extra space to be away from the sidewalk and no time to react to the change.

In the UK the highway code was changed recently and pedestrians then cyclists have highest priority in all circumstances.

> Legislation does not abrogate drivers of all moral responsibility. Quite frankly, if a child jumps out from behind a parked car and you hit them despite following the law to the letter, you share some of the blame.

There is a legal doctrine in the US called the 'last clear chance'. Even if the other person was breaking the law, you still have the responsibility to avoid an accident if you can.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/last_clear_chance

4 way stops are such insane traffic flow devices. Love the comedy, Larry David vibes but c’mon America.

Believe it or not, it's not allowed to drive in a manner which kills other road users breaking the rules of the road.

If not, I would be well within my rights to push speeding drivers (the vast majority in my experience) off the road when I drive, and I'm for very obvious reasons not allowed to do that.

That was nine months ago. How many human drivers in SF do you wager have struck a cyclist since? It’s easily in the hundreds.

Self driving cars do not eliminate risk to pedestrians or cyclists but they reduce it by multiple orders of magnitude, and they are trending in the right direction, whereas human drivers seem to be trending in the wrong one.

> yet I can see a future where humans are barred from driving

Increase the unsupervised driving age to 18 (unless in an area with no robotic transport) and massively increase penalties for driving infractions. As in you lose your license on your second DUI or third at-fault collision, reckless-driving ticket or cell phone violation. (Maybe make a DUI count as two infractions for the second list.)

People drive with a suspended license all the time. How else are getting to your job? Getting groceries?

We pretend like driving is only a privilege, but it's more necessary than most rights that OSHA or other agencies have "discovered".

> People drive with a suspended license all the time

And if they’re not getting in accidents more frequently than population, that’s fine. I didn’t include this common citation for good reason.

> How else are getting to your job? Getting groceries?

Calling (or buying) a robotic car. We’re looking decades into the future when manually piloting a car is a privilege. (Or less than a decade in cities with public transit.)

If you’re driving drunk, hitting things, recklessly speeding or texting while driving, you shouldn’t be driving. We tolerate it, extraordinarily, because driving is almost a right in America. What’s changing is it’s going from a necessity everywhere but New York to a necessity where there isn’t Uber.

(In practice, at least from the few folks I know close to the incoming White House, it will happen through increasing liability for insurers. Nobody will be banned. It will just become expensive to human pilot. Or, if your FSD or equivalent isn’t engaged, hard to dispute fault.)

> Calling (or buying) a robotic car.

If it's cost effective, sure.

Until that's significantly cheaper, people need to drive.

> increasing liability for insurers. Nobody will be banned. It will just become expensive to human pilot.

Why would human driving insurance cost significantly more than it does today?

> Until that's significantly cheaper, people need to drive

Not in cities, even today. That region is simply broadening.

Public car insurance for poor, risky drivers has zero popular appeal. This will happen gradually then quickly.

I didn't mean everyone, I meant it was the typical case.

And it's only some cities where it's similarly or more affordable to not have a car. Not nearly as many as it should be.

That sounds like a nice future if we can get there... but if we look at recently observed trends in the US, the increased barriers to driving a car in recent history has probably resulted in lower rates of legal compliance, rather than better driving behaviors.

The risk of hit-and-run accidents, uninsured drivers, and unlicensed drivers on the road are increasing.

While public transit could be a great solution, much of the poorest in the US cannot afford to live in places with good public transport because these areas have higher housing costs.

> We tolerate it, extraordinarily, because driving is almost a right in America.

Partially. But even the laws we do have are currently being ignored, because rates of compliance are so low that it isn't even practically feasible to enforce the law. In several US states, more than 20% of drivers are driving around without insurance. The underlying problem here is beyond what can be solved merely with enforcement.

I'm hopeful it eventually happens, but I think we're a very long way from a world where someone in small-town Mississippi can ride around in a robotic car on a McDonalds wage.

It’s hard to get your license suspended! You have to severely screw up, usually more than once. If you depend on a personal vehicle for your livelihood, you should avoid it!

Going out on a limb and guessing people for whom losing a vehicle is existential have the same executive-function issues as someone who will get their license suspended and then drive on it. (Also, poverty. Registration and renewal costs money.)

Depends a lot on jurisdiction. Was pretty easy for me to get my license suspended twice in Maryland some decades ago.

You can get your license suspended in many places from nonpayment of parking tickets or even something completely unrelated to operating a vehicle like child support. Its not just getting points on your license from a bunch of speeding tickets.

This is a problem you solve not by sacrificing the lives of others, but instead by designing built environments not dependent on driving cars.

Well, that's nice and all for the future, but it doesn't buy someone groceries today.

That problem isn't a hard concept. You have to work with the framework that currently exists.

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

I understand how bad the reality is in the US, but public transportation is a solved problem.

> As in you lose your license on your second DUI or third at-fault collision,

Sorry, but this is still too lenient.

People should immediately lose their driving licence with a substantial fine for being caught drink-driving—even if it's just the first time, and be permanently barred from ever getting one again. If their driving under influence causes the slightest injury to other people they should receive a substantial jail sentence, and should their driving cause death they ought to receive at least a first-degree manslaughter charge. I know this will sound appalling to Americans, but driving is a privilege, not a right.

If pilots have so much stricter rules about operating their machinery, so should road users.

While that makes sense and I think is 'fair' - car accidents are too dangerous to be something you overlook - it's also too devestating to some people:

They will lose their jobs, and then housing, etc. People need their cars to feed their kids, do all sorts of things. And of course, they will drive illegally if they have to - wouldn't you?

> I can see a future where humans are barred from driving. 40k deaths a year in the USA from humans driving and a fear of rightfully using the road for non driving activities due to poor human behaviour. I’m actually pretty hopeful we get there.

Yes, I believe that in the distant future humans will look back on the late 20th and early 21st centuries and be appalled that people were ever allowed to operate cars like this. It will be like how we think about ancient practices of human sacrifice or gladiatorial combat.

As seen on a sticker posted at a Topdog in Berkeley, "Do what you're told, it'd be chaos if we all thought for ourselves".

Why is it always about banning things? Just make the self-driving experience good and most people will choose it voluntarily. No need to ban things. Almost everyone would rather take a nap or read a book than sit in traffic or stare at the highway.

In this case, it's because being hit by an irresponsible driver is something you don't choose voluntarily.

There are many bad things that can happen to you that you don't choose voluntarily.

Sure, but look; if this were a discussion about people making irresponsible decisions that result in themselves getting killed, I can sympathize with the philosophy that we can simply encourage people to voluntarily avoid those things by making other choices preferable. But when people make irresponsible decisions that result in third parties being killed, this is when we make laws and ban things. This is why, for example, there is a ban on intoxicated driving. Not because of the risk of harm to the drunk driver, but because of the risk to everybody else, who want to stop volunteering to share roads with drunk drivers.

We could compromise by turning up the liability for hitting someone with a car to eleven, making it unfeasible for anyone to even consider driving in a manner which threatens the life of another.

Of course, we'd have to implement unlimited liability for the self-driving car companies as to make them not hide behind their limited liability scheme to not treat safety with the utmost priority.

So then choosing to drive near a bunch of cars is a dangerous decision

Many cyclists bike like raving a*holes, and it is dangerous, both for them and for cars which cannot predict how they will behave. I could imagine cases where the the car might swerve and hit something else besides the cyclist. So yes, bicycles can be dangerous to cars in a roundabout way.

Feel free to operate your car at a non-lethal speed if your driving skills do not permit you to damage other road users. In the neighborhood of 20 km/h should probably allow you to never commit fatal mistakes.

I find drivers are often utterly shocked by the presence of a pedestrian at a pedestrian crossing as well as a cyclist at a cyclist crossing. Unpredictable!

Bicyclists are more unsafe than my hand rolled memory allocator.

According to the NTSB, cyclists have 79 deaths per billion miles traveled. For comparison, cars were 11 per billion miles. Around 2/3rds of bicycle fatalities involved a motor vehicle. So even if we solved car-bicycle collisions, the fatality rate per mile would still be much higher than driving.

Bicycles are great, but compared to cars they are dangerous.

1. See page 39 of https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SS1901....

I don't think you can 1:1 compare those stats.

Most people just wouldn't have the time to travel as far by bike as they do by car, even if they wanted to. They'd take some other form of transit for long drives.

Car drivers do 13500 miles/year on average, even at a very sporty 20mi/h per (average!) a cyclist would have to ride full 29 days/year non-stop to match that.

Thus, a better measure would be accidents/hour of operation. I bet most avid cyclists do < 1000 miles/year and few do more than 3000 and that would mostly close the gap in death/hour of use.

That logic also applies to flying versus driving, but few make the same objection when someone points out that flying is safer than driving.

And at the margins, cycling does substitute for driving, just as driving sometimes substitutes for flying. The different modes of transportation do have various advantages and disadvantages, but the fact remains that cycling is significantly more dangerous.

Yes, on the margins cycling is more dangerous in the USA. OTOH, I wouldn't be surprised if the physical exercise would reduce mortality enough to still be a net positive on the margins - biking to the bakery vs driving - but haven't verified that.

Interesting tidbit from the report is that almost 50% of fatalities are in towns <100k population, 16% outside towns and 34% in pop centers > 100k. I would have guessed metro areas are more dangerous.

There is no country in which cycling is safer than driving. Even in the Netherlands, the fatality rate is 13 deaths per billion miles. For comparison, the Netherlands has 3 deaths per billion miles by car.

I still think it's not useful to compare fatalities per billion miles, especially cycling and driving (and especially if that includes highway driving, which is clearly not something you could use a bike for instead).

Iceland had several years with zero or one reported cycling fatalities, I can't find road fatalities quickly but I assume driving is less safe there, especially if I'm allowed to cherry-pick a zero-fatality year (where you'd have 0 fatalities per billion miles cycled).

It's the other way around, overwhelmingly so:

"With 290 cyclist fatalities in 2022, cyclists were the largest group of road casualties." [1]

"Cycling prevents about 6500 deaths each year, and Dutch people have half-a-year-longer life expectancy because of cycling. These health benefits correspond to more than 3% of the Dutch gross domestic product. Our study confirmed that investments in bicycle-promoting policies (e.g., improved bicycle infrastructure and facilities) will likely yield a high cost–benefit ratio in the long term." [2]

---

That's just the big picture though, I suspect your statistics are wrong directly as well. Cycling deaths are very skewed towards the elderly [3], so it appears that if you're under 50, cycling is statistically safer than driving, no matter how you look at it.

---

[1]: https://english.kimnet.nl/publications/publications/2023/11/...

[2]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4504332/

[3]: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/0... (https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2024/03/06/cycling-safety...)

For a more fair comparison you should discount highway miles from the car stats. That's the safest form of driving there is, and accounts for a very large fraction of miles, but doesn't represent the kind of journey you would be cycling, anyway. Comparing just car journeys you could make with a bike would be a better comparison.

We can do a 1:1 comparison of the lifespans of regular cyclists vs. the lifespans of non-cyclists. In these studies the average cyclist lives longer.

https://www.menshealth.com/uk/health/a39726399/cyclists-live...

The only 2 bicyclists I know that were injured both (effectively) said they expected the car to yield or see them. One of them was in 2 accidents 5 years apart.

Certainly, legally, the cars were in the wrong every time... But the cyclists' mentality shocked me... They _expected_ the cars to respect they were there (and in one case they had their head down in a bike lane and didn't see the car pull out in the intersection to make a right turn) and were completely shocked when they get into an (avoidable) accident.

I certainly have nearly been in LOTS of accidents on my motorcycle around the DC beltway and interstates, but I dodged every one by understanding that other drivers are selfish and inattentive, keeping my bike in a lower gear & revved in heavy traffic, and watching out for myself. In my chats with the 2 bicyclists, their mentality seemed entirely different. I really don't get it, and I hope that's not common.

I mean, think of the damage you and your bicycle could do to an ambulance. Absolute menace. /s

Our downtown is renovating the roads and replacing car lanes with physically separated bicycle lanes (from four lanes to two). Smart move with reduced traffic Due to recent wfh culture.

Even as a driver, I appreciate this. I don’t wanna hit anyone any more than they wanna be hit. Unless I can make about $2000 in the process, that is…

You are riding on roads made for cars - you are an afterthought. Whether it’s the cars fault or not - cycling on the road is dangerous.

We probably should fix the roads. Blame the engineers who made it this way.

A good first step would be to impose liability for engineers designing roads which predictably leads to the deaths of its users.

I imagine a road-building engineer would think twice before approving a road with an unsafe design speed if it could lead to them being stripped of their license, fined or even jailed.

Why blame anyone? A general rule: If you want someone to blame, look in the mirror.

Because if you want to solve a problem you first have to identify it. That's step 1, before anything else. There's no virtue in being ignorant, especially not purposefully so.

Identifying a problem and blame are different things. The first facilitates problem solving, the second interferes with it. Look up blame-free post-mortems of problems in the IT world, for example.

Blaming is similar to a victim perspective, IMHO: 'I'm innocent (most important) and injured; the other person is guilty; therefore I can take out my frustration, etc. on them - I can do to them whatever I want.' It often is more about satisfying anger, protection from shame and other consequences, and is a distraction from problem solving. And those blamed, as here on HN, are often the people who are most socially acceptable to blame - whoever is unpopular and vulnerable in the current crowd.

In this case, people driving cars and riding bicycles are in a system that yields problematic results. How can we improve that system? Talking about blame

The roads are working as intended. If you want to change them you need political control. Will be tough seeing as most people do not want them changed.

The entire discussion about cycling can be avoided by simply taking a look at the Netherlands and designing infrastructure and laws like this. It's literally that simple.

Americans dont want to live in the Netherlands or like people in the Netherlands, It's really that simple.

"An Oregon cyclist who was struck by an ambulance that made a right turn into him — fracturing his nose and leaving him with scrapes and other injuries across his body — has filed a $997,000 lawsuit against the ambulance provider after it scooped him up, drove him to the hospital and then billed him for the service, according to the suit."

$47K for current medical costs, $50K for expected future medical costs, and $900K for pain and suffering (long-term). So the provider may not be getting away with this.

Article does not say if cyclist has paid/will pay the ambulance bill.

Don't forget the cost of repairing or replacing the bicycle. He should have added an additional $3k to make it an even million.

It is likely below $1M because that is a common insurance cut-off, which is believed to increase the chance of a settlement.

Typically judge rejects the huge sums, and he gets more reasonable amount, if even fair. E.g. judge might award him only proven costs with receipts, and reject all the pain-and-suffering.

I’d say large sums are warranted here to avoid a perverse incentive where ambulances hit people and then take them to the hospital for profit.

I’m only half serious.

If an ambulance hits someone it's likely that the ambulance's insurance will have to pay their ER bill which will be higher than the ambulance bill. It's a net loss.

They should pay both the ER bill and the ambulance bill, as well as additional damage (which yes should include a reasonable amount for the suffering incurred). If it was a private driver I'd be more lenient but companies can damn well make sure their drivers only work when they can do so safely so should take on the FULL costs they incurred.

> Typically judge rejects the huge sums, and he gets more reasonable amount

Could almost get yourself a cozy little apartment and all it would take is being run over by an ambulance

It was probably a $1,000,000 insurance policy that the ambulance/provider had

You just start there no matter what

It sounds like what's actually happening here is that the cyclist's auto insurance is picking up the tab, and in turn suing the ambulance company to get their money back.

I always find this intersection of the auto and cycling worlds so strange. If he didn't have a car, he wouldn't have auto insurance, so I guess his health insurance would be covering the initial tab, and then suing the ambulance company to get their money back?

If you get a moving violation on your bicycle and show a driver's license to the police, it seems you get points in your license, but if you don't have a driver's license, you don't?

> If you get a moving violation on your bicycle and show a driver's license to the police, it seems you get points in your license ...

Can confirm. A friend got a DUI while riding his bicycle. He was guilty as hell, just didn't realize it would affect his driving record.

And the penalties are the same as if he's driving a motor vehicle?

Here in NY, a DUI can really mess with your life for a while. While drunk cycling is probably penalty-worthy, I'm conflicted about it being a proper DUI

BUI is a different infraction in many states than DUI, and in some states (WA) it's not even illegal, just like riding a horse while drunk isn't illegal.

Searching the record https://www.bicycleaccidentsnyc.com/new-york-law-on-biking-w... NY (sibling was asking about NY) does not give DUIs for bikes either. The key is Motorized. So you would get on on an e-bike or e-scooter but not a manual scooter, manual bike.

WA you can't even get a public intoxication ticket, you only get tickets if you're disorderly or causing a threat. In WA they CAN take you off the street and impound your bike at no cost to you (you can pick it up free the next day). They're actually supposed to offer you a lift as well.

I live in SF. I haven't owned a car in many years. I bicycle or take public transit when my destination is too far to walk. I still purchase auto insurance that costs me something like $15/month. It has been years since I've driven, but I do this because I might rent a car on holiday or might drive a friend's car on a roadtrip someday. If I ever needed to get a car again, a period without auto-insurance makes insurance VERY expensive. I did that when living abroad before. I never thought about it covering me as a cyclist or pedestrian. God willing, I'll never need it.

Mind saying which insurance?

I can see exactly how this happened: the ambulance drivers picked up the cyclist and drove to the hospital, which requires them to do a whole bunch of paperwork to ensure correct hospital billing, correct accounting for drugs etc.

I would assume at that point computers took over and led to the billing. In an ideal world you’d say “well obviously the target shouldn’t have been billed by the ambulance”, but I’m guessing their infrastructure does not have a built in mechanism for “we are the cause of this trip being needed”.

After that the rest of the lawsuit is likely just the only mechanism to get correctly compensated (the insurance company pays the hospital - if the victim had insurance - then goes to the ambulance co to get them to pay, which is via a “lawsuit”, probably with no intent to go to court, just that’s the mechanism of action. The ambulance company also probably has insurance, but often such insurance is contingent on being sued, because of course).

The large amount is not actually very large: ignoring all the immediate bills I’m sure lawsuit payouts have tax obligations, depending on severity of injuries recovery can be a very long time if ever, with increased costs through out life, and then you are always starting high with the expectation of a counter offer for settlement.

IANAL but as long as the payment is covering the personal injury then it's not considered income and isn't taxable.

https://www.irs.gov/government-entities/tax-implications-of-...

As a European, the fact that you have to pay for emergency transport in an ambulance is enough internet for today.

Because you think you don’t pay for your healthcare?

As an European, I have probably paid upwards of 150k for healthcare and probably got about 10k worth of it (at what might consider unreasonable prices, mind you). Even in countries with universal healthcare, it’s not free. There is always someone footing the bill.

EDIT: a word

The point is, in most of Europe it’s the richer folks that foot the bill for the poorer ones. That’s a system based on solidarity - you contribute to our collective ability to treat our sick and injured, according to your financial means.

EDIT: at least that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory. Of course the richest people don’t foot the bill for anyone but themselves.

In Germany we have a two-prong system of public and private health insurance, so the richer folks actually remove themselves from the solidarity system, leaving the middle class with good jobs to pay for most of the expenses.

Is it similar in other european countries?

The German system is interestingly (but not surprisingly fucked up). In Switzerland there is a mandatory health insurance (which provides for most healthcare needs), but insurances are private companies which charge different prices for the same service (because of course they would), which vary greatly according to which village you live in (because our “states” negotiate the prices with the health providers and then insurances, through a very transparent and understandable system; I am kidding of course, probably the people designing it don’t even understand it fully, citizens and politicians damn sure don’t). Prices have been steadily rising for my whole adult life with no end in sight. There have been some tries to get rid of that in favor of universal healthcare managed by the state, but the people said “no” because they fully understood and weighed the issue (I am kidding, the people defending the current system just bought more ads than the people pushing for change).

But hey, at least getting run over by an ambulance won’t bankrupt you! Silver linings, eh?

In neighboring Nederland, all healthcare is privately insured and administered but the costs are capped by the government with small increases for inflation every year. Having insurance is also mandatory so nobody is left out. If you can’t afford it, the welfare system also picks up your monthly premium.

For people who use more resources, there is an annual deductible of around €500 per person that resets with the new year. After you pay the deductible, the rest of your care and medication is free.

Personally, now living here 2 years, I think it’s a good system that compromises in many of the right areas. My biggest complaint is that your GP is the gatekeeper to all other care, so if you are certain you need to see a specialist, you’ll need to convince your GP first. That all fine and dandy when we’re talking about an ENT doctor for example, but hella annoying when you need to get a referral for a therapist that is covered by insurance. The Dutch drug prices are also ridiculous (allergy meds and other specialized OTC drugs are insanely expensive) but luckily I can order them online from Germany for much more reasonable tariffs! ;)

In practice, it is healthy people making "sacrifices" to not eat shit and do exercise are footing biils for couch potatoes who eat shit all day.

Ah, so exactly like health insurance?

yep

Right, what these people don't understand is the US already has a socialized medical care system, it's just shit. Insurance also turns a profit, and they also have the highest incentive to not pay for care AND make healthcare provider's jobs as difficult as possible.

It's a socialized system but with inefficiency baked in and guaranteed. That's why the US pays significantly more for healthcare while also having worse quality care.

Absolutely, but OP made it sound that he was baffled that people had to pay for an ambulance. But then again maybe there is an European country I don’t know of where ambulances are provided for free by some car company, fueled through the generous donation of an energy company, supplied by a good-hearted medical supplies company and manned and driven by unpaid interns and/or students?

The solidarity system most European countries have is without a doubt superior than the mess that is the US healthcare system, but it sure as fuck isn’t free.

Medical bills cause a steady stream of bankruptcies in the US. It's much less common in many other countries.

Those people often do have insurance. They were paying. They are often shocked to find their insurance rejected their claim.

What other countries pay for healthcare, the US taxpayer pays for their military (much more actually) so for the end user, free healthcare is much better.

This is such a tired, pedantic retort. Nobody believes that taxpayer-funded services are "not paid for". OP obviously meant "pay for fully by the individual at the point of sale."

And yes, as an American, it also boggles my mind that we have to pay for emergency health services including ambulances[1]. My wife, who is not from a stone-age civilization like ours, didn't realize it either the first time we needed to hit up the emergency room. Thankfully I was able to convince her to not call for an ambulance, and I drove myself to the hospital.

1: individually, just so I'm clear

I am sorry you feel it was a tired and pedantic retort, I might just have misunderstood what OP was trying to say. I was not trying to be pedantic, just to point out that some people (in this case, also OP) think we somehow get healthcare thrown at us for free when this is far from being the case.

In the case of Switzerland (which is in Europe, at least geographically) we do not have a “taxpayer-funded system” (see my other comment in the thread) and that ambulance ride would have to have been (depending on your insurance providers which go with a “you pay now, we reimburse later”, literally) paid fully at the individual at the point of sale (in the most logical model for someone in good health, the first 2’500 CHF + 10% up to 700 CHF a year are “self pay”).

Moreover, ambulance rides are not covered by the health care insurance in case of “accidents”. Which in this case (being run over by an ambulance) it very clearly is. It might be covered by the accident insurance, if you have one (which to be fair is the case if you work more than 20%). In case of “sickness”, some complementary insurances might reimburse for part of these costs.

You would probably find that this is actually the case in many European countries. The American healthcare system might be broken, but please don’t pretend that the ones in Europe aren’t and that we all live in some kind of healthcare utopia (see someone else’s post about the two-speed German system in the thread).

Healthcare is very lucrative, and greed does not know any borders.

And they are proud of their low tax system, because high taxes kill businesses.

Better people than businesses, right?! : /

(Trump will bring the paradise with even lower corporate taxes for the common people voted for him)

You're absolutely right but this is HN so any criticisms of the great us of a will earn you a storm of down votes.

In Lithuania, a mandatory health insurance tax of 6.98% is deducted from your monthly salary. For example, if you earn €5,000 per month (chosen as it is close to the average salary in the United States), this amounts to €349 per month or €4,188 per year. Despite this tax, you often have to pay for many services unless you can afford to wait months in line. Consequently, many companies provide their employees with additional health insurance, typically costing between €100 and €300 extra per month, allowing people to access private clinics for treatment without the long waiting times.

Therefore, the total cost of insurance ranges from €449 to €649 per month. In comparison, the average cost of health insurance in the United States is $447 to $703 per month. Although the sums are quite similar, the standard of care in the United States is often considered higher, with significant payouts if doctors make a mistake, which contributes to the increased costs, unlike in Lithuania where you'll get a pittance.

Just because these fees are not immediately visible doesn't mean they don't exist. Get off your high horse. There are very few countries in the European Union where healthcare is any good and the core reason behind it is that they're filthy rich (at least for now).

Furthermore, unlike in the United States, we pay a significant amount of taxes. Let's say you earn €5000 per month. From your monthly salary, you'll have deductions of 20% for income tax, 6.98% for mandatory health insurance, and 12.52% for government social insurance, totaling 39.5% in deductions, which leaves you with €3025. Additionally, for almost everything you buy, you'll pay a 21% VAT (Value Added Tax), reducing your effective spending power to €2390 (48% of what you earn!). There are also property taxes, but at the moment, they are relatively small, though there are plans to increase them significantly. Despite the average Lithuanian earning much less than the average American, we also pay more for energy. For example, petrol costs $5.83 per gallon and electricity is $0.30 per kWh, which is almost double!

> Just because these fees are not immediately visible doesn't mean they don't exist. Get off your high horse.

You're the one pretending to be above the poster you are responding to while arguing a strawman. No one is claiming that healthcare costs are not being paid for.

There are three major factors you conveniently ignore:

- You only look at average earners. It's not surprising that the average earner ends up paying about the same. What socialized healthcare is to make staying alive affordable for those less well off. Averages across the population don't tell you the whole story.

- Insurance that covers all associated costs like ambulances minimizes the unexpected costs that can very well trhow people's lives into shambles. Yes you still end up paying for those on average but average lifetime healthcare contributions don't tell you the whole story.

- Being charged for ambulance trips forces people to decide between an unexpected cost and a potentially required life saving service. At first this may sound like a good way to reduce unneccessary ambulance use but most people are horrible at triaging the severity of their own health issues.

So please, get off your high earner horse.

A kid I knew in high school was knocked off his bike by an ambulance. He'd have come out of the incident better if the ambulance hadn't backed up to see what happened, for it backed over his legs. The city settled with him for what sounded like a lot of money in 1971, but not so much ten years later.

> if the ambulance hadn't backed up to see what happened, for it backed over his legs

Was the driver drunk? Whose first instinct after possibly running over something is to back up?

> Whose first instinct after possibly running over something is to back up?

It's pretty common. You're manoeuvring your vehicle, you hear a noise, you think you bumped a post or something and instinctively try to "undo" what you just did.

How horrible!

It must have been pretty bad. I should say that when I knew him, he walked with no obvious limp.

This is one of the common accidents, the "right hook". https://velosurance.com/blog/how-to-avoid-most-common-riding... https://www.fcgov.com/traffic/pdf/bicycle-crashes.pdf

I mostly walk these days but when I did bike I had these crash patterns memorized so I could avoid them.

I got hit by a car last weekend. It was the "left cross". Fortunately I wasn't seriously injured -- just a minor concussion -- and my bike wasn't badly damaged.

It's a weird situation. The guy who hit me stopped but seemed like a crackhead. There wasn't enough damage to require a police report or involve insurance. But maybe I should have just to create a record of this idiot causing accidents.

> But maybe I should have

Yes, definitely!

For the reason you suggest, but also -- complications from injury sometimes are not evident immediately.

The American healthcare system scares the living daylights out of me.

Daylights scared out of you? Try our new pill, Daylights Restoration OTC! Guaranteed to work or no money back.

Offer void in areas with active consumer fraud laws.

The TV adverts really caught me off guard during my first trip to the US as an adult. The disclaimers right at the end make you wonder how the ad could ever be effective - I mean, how could anyone respond positively to an ED ad that ends with "may cause death"!?

People buy cigarettes with pictures of what they do to you on the packaging in the EU as well.

I expect it's a combination of gambling (surely I won't be the one affected by these possible outcomes) combined with an instant gratification mindset (feeling good now trumps possible long term consequences).

This is what they just voted to renew

"Improve" you mean.

$1800 to drive him to the hospital?! They didn't even had to drive to pick him up!

I mean what’s an IV cost, $1250?

Kudos for the innovative approach to streamlining the customer acquisition funnel!

Now if we could only make this work using gig app contractors, maybe explore a collab with Uber… this is so fire!

I think I figured out a way to make this scale and put a moat around it. See y’all at my series A!

Knee jerk reaction about the ambulance service behaviour and general cyclist safety aside, 100k in medical expenses and a 1m lawsuit for a broken nose and other “unspecified” injuries is just mental.

The medical expense amount and every other direct cost is wild, but I guess I wonder how much would someone justifiably invoice to be hit by an ambulance. If it was a celebrity or ceo they'd probably bill quite a lot, but just a random guy?

Bakfiet time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQhzEnWCgHA

guys new startup idea

I'd invest

UberHits?

With all the shady practices Uber engages in, I'm surprised they haven't already thought to do this themselves.

They already killed Elaine Herzberg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg

A Free Ambulance service? Limited international growth prospects given the number of established players.

It could be a success in the US if you let people pay to not get hit ;) (people buy a tracker). Maybe this is the way to finally introduce universal health care.

The mafia would like to invest

Uberlance. Just Uber with some band-aids in the backseat and they clean up blood stains for you.

Sadly, only half-joking.

The Sand Hill Road folks will only invest if you can also switch all ambulance drivers over to non-employee commission only contractors.

This headline tells you which country this happened in without telling you which country this happened in.

The funniest thing is Americans really believe what they have is the best in the world. USA is third world country with a Gucci belt

Reminds me of what happened to a friend of mine in Switzerland. He was walking (perhaps staggering) home drunk one night, and a police car drove by to ask if he was alright and perhaps he wanted a lift home? The guy said alright and they drove him perhaps 500m.

Couple of days later he got a bill for the ride.

Did he get a discount because the ambulance was already there?

Here is a video[0] with links to the paper from UC Denver about how protected bike lanes make it safer for everyone. Maybe this might help the cause

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YwYeNz1jCkM

In stories like this... I assume the patient was billed due to some automatic bureaucracy?

In this question, how does "some automatic bureaucracy" differ from simple normal functioning of businesses?

In no way.

What I'm trying to understand is if the bill was written, 'knowing' that the same ambulance hit the patient.

I mean, it would be so absurd. Some sort of fraud.

I imagine the ambulance trip is registred at the hospital at arrival in some procedure and then billed the patient in some automatic manor.

> In this question, how does "some automatic bureaucracy" differ from simple normal functioning of businesses?

If you mean what you wrote, "normal", then I'd say yes -- it does matter a lot, but if you'd mean "healthy", then I'd say that it shouldn't matter at all.

Their lawyer probably would have insisted they bill it like any other run. Not doing so could be construed as admitting fault.

Isn't there a risk for other charges though doing that? Like hitting him on purpose to earn money? I wouldn't want to explain this for a jury as a lawyer.

> construed as admitting fault

They gonna argue he wasn't hit. Come on

Which is why we need to have laws that you pay double or more damages if you try such tricks.

Memories of one specific 6 year old a long time ago that was hit by an ambulance and had a long-ish life in a wheelchair with severely reduce brain functions. Also memory of the last game of chess I had played with this friend. He's dead now, of covid in his forties, his mum having pretty much dedicated her life to taking care of the forever-kid.

Please think to drive carefully, and after that then please think to drive with enough care that you won't create such pain.

I know I'm a bit spoiled health-services wise by being a resident of Germany. But this story is just incredible, yet completely unsurprising.

I hope the US will have mandatory health insurance some day.

Only in America.

I've yet to see a more American article title.

Rocky mountain west American here. Our local (non-air) ambulance company went out of business. The local city and county government were forced create a government ran service and everyone was upset they were doing it (people literally argued we should just have nothing at city/county meetings). Our new government system works so much better, is cheaper, and is actually thriving with us even getting new stations for quicker response. Everyone in town still hates evil socialized medicine and says it can't work, in fact they just voted for the Presidential candidate that promised we can't have it. I love it here and love the people, but WTF?

Talk about an “infinite free money hack”

Greedy medical industry executives stick him with the bill* suit and tie parasites

Well. The ambulance just unlocked infinite money glitch.

Somebody make this video game.

Something like Crazy Taxi, but you need to optimize your hits and routing to the nearest hospitals.

Sounds like a fun, if not depressing, concept.

GTA San Andreas had great ambulance mini missions. God I loved that game.

Why does this reminds me of the "Why would they do this" meme? Such things happen only in USA LOL!

The people in the USA are more open about sharing embarrassing situations. I think idiocy is a trait that appears worldwide.

The US seem to document it better. Googling for news on "florida man" is almost always impressive. Just now we have "Florida man has been arrested after allegedly hiding two radio-controlled explosive devices in the toilets of a casino", "Florida Man Accused of Hacking Disney World Menus, Changing Font to Wingdings", "Florida man bitten twice by shark at same beach over a decade apart" and others.

The entire “Florida man” phenomenon comes down to particularly strong public records in Florida.

But also, lol.

The news does seem more entertaining from there. Here in London it's all delayed transport, stabbings and phone snatching.

I was referring at the charging part while this person got HIT by an ambulance.

Aside from the crazy high bill, wouldn't a person whom this happened to get charged for medical coverage regardless of how it happened in every country without free healthcare?

Yup.

I think it’s more easy to consider when you think about what is in the bill. Like do you really want them invoicing the company that hit you with “reconstructing their wiener”, etc information.

This is baffling to the point where it almost feels like satire.

What are you going to tell me next, that the bicyclist committed a faux pas by not tipping the ambulance driver?

In Capitalist America, ambulance chases YOU.

Chaser Ambulance?

[deleted]

No, the at fault driver and/or their insurance would be responsible for paying their medical costs. The person who was hit doesn't pay their medical bills and then ask the insurance company for reimbursement. They file a claim with the insurance company to pay their medical bills directly. AFAIK all US states require bodily injury coverage to work that way.

Yeah, you're right. Brain fart on my end.

This is not quite true - if your insurance policy does not cover the full amount you can be on the hook.

Of course if you don’t have insurance you’re kind of screwed, or your insurance doesn’t cover the full recovery costs you have to pay the medical bills and get stuck with them if the responsible party is under insured and lacks assets.

Accident created expenses seem like one of those things where if someone else is responsible for the costs you should be able to simply transfer all subsequent costs to them, rather than being stuck with bankruptcy or life long debt if they can’t afford to repay you.

Honestly there should be a transitive debt mechanism - but companies won’t like that because currently they can just force people to settle for some minimal payout knowing that they aren’t on the hook for anything that comes up down the road.

As a non-American, accident created expenses seem like one of those things where the state should cover the personal injury costs which helps to make healthcare cost at least half the price, leads to better outcomes, and avoids people being bankrupted simply because of their health.

> accident created expenses seem like one of those things where the state should cover the personal injury costs

As far as an individual who gets injured by someone else is concerned, "the state" is just another form of insurance. I'm not sure the state is any more reliable as an insurance provider than private companies; indeed, it might often be less so since it is subject to political pressures that private insurance providers are not.

> if your insurance policy does not cover the full amount you can be on the hook.

If "your" means the person who got hit, it's not their insurance that's on the hook, it's the insurance of the person who hit them.

Yes, that person's insurance will have a limit, after which your own insurance coverage for uninsured or under-insured drivers would kick in. And if that also hits a limit, then you would have to sue the party that hit you for damages to get back anything you had to pay over the limit.

> you have to pay the medical bills and get stuck with them if the responsible party is under insured and lacks assets.

In this situation also, yes, once you were over the limit of your own uninsured or under-insured driver coverage, you would have to go to court to get the burden put on the responsible party, so that if that party were judgment proof, it would be the medical provider's problem, not yours.

> if someone else is responsible for the costs you should be able to simply transfer all subsequent costs to them

You can do this, but yes, it does take a lawsuit once you're over whatever limits insurance will cover, as above.

This has nothing to do with tech. It's for Twitter, not HackerNews.

Maybe the bicyclist is a programmer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com