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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

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)

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> 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.

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