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Comment by patates | Hacker News Reader

Draw a line, say this is for bicycles, pedestrians and cars have no business here, and bikes have no business being on any other lane as long as these exist.

When bikes have to go through areas where people walk freely, they need to limit their speed to a walking pace.

People should not wear headphones (noise-cancelling or not) when going through traffic as pedestrians. Take them off when crossing!

People should not hear loud music when driving - max is normal speaking voice level. Bike drivers should never hear any music, let alone wearing headphones. Behind-ear speakers on low could be a compromise.

Hey, we just solved 90% of the accidents.

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> Draw a line, say this is for bicycles, pedestrians and cars have no business here, and bikes have no business being on any other lane as long as these exist.

This is the reality in many cities, if it weren't for the hopefully not surprising fact that people don't always obey traffic laws perfectly.

Unfortunately, the UK seems almost incapable of building usable cycle infrastructure (possibly excepting London). Your idea is just a recipe for magic protective paint and even more abuse of cyclists who don't want to be forced to use ridiculously badly designed infrastructure. e.g. Here in Bristol, we have an infamous shared cycle/pedestrian pavement along Coronation Rd that has a few trees completely blocking the cycle side which just means conflict between pedestrians and cyclists who have to fight over the scraps left over from motorists taking most of the space (https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4462522,-2.6064792,3a,75y,80...).

Sorry I didn't write "don't have trees in the middle of the cycling lanes", I should have been more clear.

Also "don't let the restaurants cover the pavement with tables" follows the same logic.

Perhaps, planners should travel the route three times for every permitted mode of transportation, including walking, biking, and driving.

> Hey, we just solved 90% of the accidents.

No, you didn't. And restricting cyclists and pedestrians will not result in even small dent in the numbers of maimed or killed people in traffic. It's one mode of transport that's responsible for the vast amount of it, and that's the motorized one propelling several tonnes.

> and bikes have no business being on any other lane as long as these exist

And cars have no business being on other roads as long as highways exist ;)

I meant biking accidents this product is obviously trying to solve.

> And cars have no business being on other roads as long as highways exist ;)

Biking lanes are not comparable to highways. Where I'm living, if you bike on car lanes when biking lanes exist, or if you bike on sidewalks at all, you get a hefty fine depending on the situation and if you possess one, you get points on your driving license.

Exceptions are turning, leaving the road, the lane being blocked by a clueless driver etc. obviously.

Cars are also not allowed on biking lanes, neither are pedestrians. Same exceptions apply.

Highways are more comparable to railroads, maybe.

This only leaves open how to enforce all of it without everybody shouting domestic terror.

How do we enforce seatbelts? (1) Assume the public aren't stupid. (2) Assume the public aren't murderers. (3) Explain the risk-benefit analysis through informative videos like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_(1998_film).

People can shout "domestic terror" all they like, but if it's not true, it's not true.

You are answering different question. What you are saying is called awareness campaign or something. Enforcement of seatbelts is done by police with fines/tickets and is possible cause it's visible from outside.

Other things like loudness levels inside cars cannot be monitored without going in full totalitarian mode.

Why would enforcement be necessary, given assumptions 1 and 2 (not stupid, not murderers), and awareness? Around these parts, seatbelt enforcement isn't necessary because everyone voluntarily wears their seatbelt – except for children, occasionally, but the adults are generally capable of enforcing that. (Even teenagers / young adults being irresponsible in cars generally wear seatbelts while doing so.)

Cause humans works that way. We don't calculate risks based on statistics in everyday life. That means you can't just make people aware, you need to build cultural norm around that. But cultural norms without enforcement are easy to erode. When norm is systematically broken it ceases to be norm.

>seatbelt enforcement isn't necessary because everyone voluntarily wears their seatbelt

You obviously don't travel much. There are whole countries where seatbelts are rarely used, and drivers buy special plugs for belt receptacles to silence beeping.

Wearing a seatbelt cost next to nothing in inconvenience. Not being able to listen to music or have phone calls with noise cancellation while walking does not really compare.

Of course this requires compensating for the loss in awareness through hearing by looking more diligently before crossing a bike lane, but unfortunately, some people never learn this, or only through a few close calls.

"Annoyingly" ringing a bell and converting a potential accident into a close call seems pretty close to optimal to me.

"Next to nothing in inconvenience" is the perception now. It certainly wasn't the perception when seatbelts were introduced. The ability to listen to personal music while walking is less than 50 years old: before that, you had the radio or nothing. Even that would not be an intolerable inconvenience for most. But I was more thinking:

> People should not hear loud music when driving - max is normal speaking voice level.

which feels like a more than acceptable constraint to me.

> People should not hear loud music when driving - max is normal speaking voice level.

Oh, completely agreed on that one. In a car, you are also by far better protected than any cyclists you might encounter, so you shouldn't make it harder to hear their signaling. (I still wouldn't rely on any car having heard my bell if I don't get any other confirmation that the driver has noticed me, e.g. sufficiently slowing down as they are approaching the intersection where I have right of way.)

But GGP also said

> People should not wear headphones (noise-cancelling or not) when going through traffic as pedestrians. Take them off when crossing!

and that's what I think goes too far. Why should I remove my headphones if I look both ways before crossing a bike lane or road?

The ideal rule would of course be that only those pedestrians remove their headphones that are otherwise inattentive... Although I have my doubts that they'd remember.

If "shouldn't" worked we'd have no industrial accidents without any safety measures, no unwanted pregnancies and in general would more or less achieve heaven on Earth.

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