Hacker News Reader

Comment by oinksoft | Hacker News Reader

The sad truth is that while bicycles should be respected as vehicles, they are given lip service at best in driver education and there is little attempt made at going after motorists who drive aggressively around them. As a result, you put yourself at great risk of life and limb when you ride on a road like this one: http://www.mapquest.com/?version=1.0&hk=6-LvU0mhA3 (Hillandale Rd, Durham, NC)

I accomplish all of my short-range transport by bicycle or foot, and I only very rarely will even ride on the main thoroughfare through downtown Alexandria, Washington St., because its practical speed limit is 40mph although the posted one is 25mph. Too many times drivers cut it close, honk at me to point out the audacity of crowding the auto-space, or slam their brakes without noticing my bike behind them.

Riding a bicycle on any street that has a speed limit greater than 25mph, lacks frequent stops (lights or signs), or has more than one lane is simply treacherous even for the skilled cyclist because you never know when a self-important jerk like the mystery murderer here will feel the need to shave twenty seconds off of their commute.

View on HN

> The sad truth is that while bicycles should be respected as vehicles,

I tend to agree, but I can see both sides. There is also very little (and, as far as I know, zero required) bicyclist education, and many bicyclists make little attempt to drive predictably and safely either out of boldness or ignorance.

Similarly, while stricter rules and enforcement for automobile drivers is warranted, I think the same goes for bicyclists. I don't think it's appropriate to consider bicycles as "first-class vehicles" in all situations, namely in the dangerous situations you list (speed limits >~25mph, multiple automobile lanes, etc.). In those situations, I think it's reasonable to ban bicyclists outright, for the safety of the bicyclists and automobile drivers. Of course, along with that is the need for dedicated bicycle lanes, or better yet, completely separate thoroughfares for bicycles.

I don't think it's appropriate to consider bicycles as "first-class vehicles" in all situations, namely in the dangerous situations you list (speed limits >~25mph, multiple automobile lanes, etc.).

Driving a motor vehicle on a road is a privilege. This privilege is represented by a motor vehicle operator's license, which may be revoked by the state for a variety of reasons.

Riding a bicycle on a non-Interstate public road is a right. If this clashes with driving habits, driving habits need to yield.

> Riding a bicycle on a non-Interstate public road is a right.

That's a bold claim. Citation?

Not an explicitly enumerated right in the USA, but a "right" in the same way freedom to walk down the sidewalk is a "right": you're not endangering peoples' lives & it's not explicitly prohibited so you "have a right" to do it. If someone attempted to prevent you from walking down the sidewalk they would be denying you that "right."

Driving a motor vehicle does endanger peoples' lives, so we (society) decided you don't have the "right" to do it, but you can be granted the privilege to do so pretty easily provided you have the $$ for administrative fees & can pass a test demonstrating basic competency.

Your question is totally reasonable, but I think it's fair to say one has a "right" to bike on public roads (barring interstates) but not a "right" to drive on public roads as this requires a license & is subject to many strict regulations.

What exception makes "barring interstates" okay but not "barring roads with a speed limit >X"? Not saying I necessarily disagree, just trying to understand your reasoning.

One possibility: Interstates are big roads that make it faster to get somewhere you could get on another road if you didn't mind going slower. Some (esp. rural) roads with 45+mph speed limits are the only way to get somewhere, therefor bikes need access. Anyway I'm also just waxing; I don't know the exact laws and surely there are exceptions- generally speaking "all but Interstate" seems like a reasonable thumbrule.

There are places not accessible by roads with bike-accessible speed limits. Those are much more common than places not accessible except by interstate. (Incidentally, biking on the shoulder of the interstate is permissible in my state, with the occasional exception of some cities and bridges without shoulders.)

I'm not sure I follow the thrust of your comment.

I am interested in why sequoia asserts that it's correct (or at least permissible) to prohibit bicycles from interstates but a violation of rights to prohibit them from other roads. The fact that bicycles are not prohibited from all interstates seems somewhat orthogonal...

I think it's reasonable to designate certain very-high-speed roads as "car only" when there are reasonable alternative routes for bikes. If there's a destination you can only get to by interstate I'd say "allow bikes." I'm a biker and strongly pro bike-rights but I recognize that certain exceptions are reasonable for safety & expediency. :)

So hypothetically, you wouldn't object (on "rights" grounds) if there were a non-interstate that was labeled no-bikes when there were plenty of alternate routes to everywhere serviced by that thoroughfare. Sounds reasonable to me.

Minor nitpick: bicycling also endangers lives. And even though it doesn't happen often, reckless cycling habits may endanger motorists' lives too (by e.g. causing swerving through unpredictable behaviour). I say that as someone who commutes to work by bike.

you're not endangering peoples' lives

This is regrettably untrue. There are far fewer deaths from bicyclists, of course, but if you google you'll see that there's about one a year. Although I'm pro-cycling I have to say I particularly dislike that segment of cycling community which seems to have the attitude that they not only have right of way at all times against cars, but also against pedestrians; I have had far more near-misses from careless or rule-breaking cyclists than with cars.

One per year? Compared to cars, food poisoning, bathtubs, ladders, and almost anything else you can think of, that's close enough to zero to be a non-issue.

The actual language differs from state to state, but in general there is no attempt by the states to revoke certain individuals' right of riding a bicycle. (For example, being pulled over for drunk bicycling can get your driver's license suspended, but does not affect bicycling.)

Corollary: When states declare that bicycles on public roads are subject to the same rules and responsibilities as cars (and most/all states do), sanctions on bicycling are not available as penalties.

NC General Statute 20-4.01 (49) defines a bicycle as a vehicle with the same rights and responsibilities as other vehicles:

"bicycles shall be deemed vehicles and every rider of a bicycle upon a highway shall be subject to the provisions of this Chapter applicable to the driver of a vehicle"

source: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/PDF/...

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [1], to which your home country is likely a signatory.

[1] http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/043/88/I...

your link doesnt work for me, here's a different one:

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a13

I don't know anything definitively one way or another, but it might be related to this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unite...

And yet Seth Vidal is dead, and the driver remains alive.

In an ideal world bicycles are given equal respect and stature on the roads. In practice, however, riders have a lot more to lose in a collision with a car.

> In an ideal world bicycles are given equal respect and stature on the roads.

Since you mentioned "an ideal world," I'm going to completely disagree. I think that bicycles and automobiles sharing roads is, at best, a manageable but extremely dangerous situation. Like it or not, bicycles and automobiles behave very differently, and require their surrounding vehicles to behave very differently. In an ideal world, there would be separate thoroughfares for automobiles and bicycles, and neither would be allowed on the other (like we already mostly have for pedestrians)

Excepting of course, the millions of intersections and driveways. You know, besides those.

Well, pedestrians already have separate thoroughfares and are not allowed on roads, right? What's the difference?

(like we already mostly have for pedestrians)

If you're talking about sidewalks, it's barely separate, as in a city there are conflicting paths between the road and the sidewalk every dozen feet (every driveway or intersection).

Crossing a street is a lot different than traveling with the flow of traffic in a lane.

Well, in an ideal world it would be both perfectly manageable and not dangerous, but I think we're both saying the same thing. Cars and bicycles are very different and bad things tend to happen when they share the same roadway.

That is an interesting analysis, a right to do x trumps the privilege to do y. Is this the way the law treats circumstances like this?

I am not disagreeing, genuinely curious about the argument

ADDED: I did a little research and found other examples of privilege vs. right[1].

[1] http://constitution.org/cmt/right-privilege.htm

Do you think it's reasonable that bicyclists are free to travel on most roads without any education or licensing? Why is it that pedestrians are banned from traveling on roads, bicyclists are free to do so with no licensing whatsoever, and automobile drivers require a license?

Pedestrians are not banned from travelling on roads lacking sidewalks.

> This privilege is represented by a motor vehicle operator's license, which may be revoked by the state for a variety of reasons.

If that was a sound argument, then one could say that the right to own a firearm is really just a privilege because most states require a license to own a firearm which may be revoked by the state for a variety of reasons. Or similarly that the right to vote is just a privilege because you must register and there are a variety of reasons for the state to revoke it.

Just because a right is regulated does not make it a privilege.

I don't think it's accurate to say that most states require a license just to own a firearm. There are age, mental health, and criminal background restrictions, but that's not quite the same thing. Some states do have gun ownership licenses, but most only require licenses to carry a firearm, and in many of those states, that is technically only required for concealed carry.

Amend "most" with many. A quick scan of wikipedia suggests there are about 20 states that require a permit to purchase or registration of ownership. Federal law also restricts ownership by convicted felons in all 50 states which is essentially the same thing - regulation by any other name.

Driving is legally defined as a privilege, just check your state's MVC guide.

Well, talk about moving the goal-posts, but you aren't the original poster so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

The right to freedom of movement is not really a right if it does not include by all available means.

For example, to say you have the right to walk from the east coast to the west coast but not the right to drive a car (or ride a train/bus/plane - all arguments that have been made post 9/11) means that you de facto do not have the right to travel from the east coast to the west coast because it is impractical for the vast majority of the population to walk it.

I'm sure there are motor vehicle codes that have adopted the language of privilege rather than right if for no other reason than it makes it easier for them to claim that moral authority later on, but that doesn't make it true in the sense of natural law. Government does not grant people privileges because everything the government does comes from the people to begin with.

Driving depends on a huge amount of infrastructure which is provided or controlled by the government, everything from roads to refined fuel. As far as I know you actually can drive a car without a license, if you do that in your private property (e.g. suppose you own a farm or other big property with internal driveways), but not in any public roads. Yeah we pay for the roads, and oil infrastructure and other things with our taxes... it doesn't matter. Google [is driving a privilege], you'll find citations of court decisions, some people have tried to assert their "right to drive" without success.

Now your moving the goal posts back to the original poster's claim that licensing is the granting of a privilege rather than regulation of a right.

Owning a firearm is an individual privilege. A well armed militia is a community right.

There's a middle ground. In Boulder at least, a bicyclist can be ticketed for running a red light, going the wrong way on one-way etc.

There needs to be more of this. As a relatively new biker in NYC (since the bike sharing program launched) I've been amazed at the suicidal tendencies of my (non-bike share) brethren. At a red light? Just pedal out into the middle of the road to see if you can cross anyway. Going the wrong way? Sure!

You should see the nutters on fix wheeled bikes in London I have seen so many that blast through major junctions dodging between pedestrians.

Try watching the junctions around Holbourn tube station and you will see several in a few minuets.

This is definitely true. Bicyclists on public roads have (most of) the same responsibilities as drivers, which means penalties for breaking the rules.

Is that not common? In Denmark where we have a lot of bikes, we have rules specifically written for bicyclists.

> but I can see both sides.

This isn't a "on the one hand, on the other" issue. Even the most foolish and aggressive cyclist is almost never endangering the safety of drivers around him, even indirectly. Yet all it takes is a nudge, honk, door opening, unsignaled turn, etc. to kill a cyclist.

Bicycle etiquette is for all practical purposes not a public safety issue, and IMHO responses of the "but bicyclists can be rude" variety to incidents like these only help perpetuate a driving culture aggressive to cyclists.

> In those situations, I think it's reasonable to ban bicyclists outright

Why not lower the speed limit, or add a bike lane? Just because you perceive the public roads as "car roads" and driving as "normal" doesn't make it so, and I don't think your convenience should trump someone's basic ability to get around.

> Just because you perceive the public roads as "car roads" and driving as "normal" doesn't make it so

Why not? The roads were built for cars. Driving on them isn't just "convenient," it's exactly what was intended to happen. Don't get me wrong, there should absolutely be more bike lanes and other considerations so that cyclists can travel safely. But, the infrastructure in its current state is definitely built around automobiles, and mixing bikes in is dangerous.

I just spent 4 days commuting around Chicago on bike, so again, I'm all for it. But, as a cyclist, I think you have to approach it like you're in someone else's territory and subject to their whims. I don't believe an indignant "this is my road too" attitude is going to do you any favors.

> The roads were built for cars.

This is untrue.

"The coming of the railways in the 1830s killed off the stage-coach trade; almost all rural roads reverted to low-level local use. Cyclists were the first group in a generation to use roads and were the first to push for high-quality sealed surfaces and were the first to lobby for national funding and leadership for roads. Without cyclists, motorists wouldn't have hit the ground running when it came to places to drive this new form of transport."

http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/

I mean, that's nice and all, but it seems to be purposely obtuse. Again, just look at the current infrastructure. The width of the roads, traffic laws, signs and signals, intersections, highways, etc. I guess you "got me" in that, at some point, road construction was driven by cyclists, but that pretty clearly shifted some time ago. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

The prevailing notion that "roads are made for cars" is self-fulfilling, as people use it as justification for making roads further unsafe for bicycles (and other road users).

Seems like the other way around to me - if roads are made for bicycles then there is no reason to invest in infrastructure like dedicated bike-paths, bike-lanes or even wider shoulders.

Cute.

Because the majority of roads nowadays in use were built in 1830... /sarcasm

Here, even 70 years ago, several roads were just a dusty path through fields and many of them didn't exist yet. When they were actually built as a road, it was done for cars, buses, trucks and it was done from steep consumption taxes on gas and later from country-wide toll imposed on cars.

Of course, YMMV in your country. But I really think that you didn't have asphalt-paved 10 m wide roads 180 years ago.

Local roads, which bicyclists mostly use, are generally paid for by property taxes or other local taxes, at least in the US. Only highways are paid for by federal gas taxes, and since that tax has been declining in real terms since 1993, highway funding also comes from general tax revenue.

re: paying for building roads, http://www.frontiergroup.org/reports/fg/do-roads-pay-themsel...

> Why not? The roads were built for cars.

It is amazing how the marketing of car culture change people's perception of this. No, roads were not developed for cars. Roads and streets where predominantly pedestrian avenues prior to motorized vehicles. Pedestrians, cyclists (when the bike was invented), horses, and trollies (again, when invented) all occupied streets and the space was considered public.

Ok, I should have been more clear. I'm talking about the road system that we have in the US today. As I said in my other reply, this point is a historical gotcha that's completely irrelevant to the discussion of modern road use and biker safety.

> Even the most foolish and aggressive cyclist is almost never endangering the safety of drivers around him, even indirectly.

I highly doubt that. I have seen dozens of bicyclists cause absolute chaos in traffic. Granted, I've never seen any collisions, but I can't imagine that the chaos I've seen is "safe" compared to the normal flow of traffic.

> Yet all it takes is a nudge, honk, door opening, unsignaled turn, etc. to kill a cyclist.

True, but if your implication is that bicyclists should be able to freely use roads because of how vulnerable they are, then pedestrians should also be able to freely use roads.

Unpredictable cyclists endanger other cyclists and drivers - not because they are likely to hit them, but because they train drivers to react inappropriately. Drivers that don't respect cyclists (or pedestrians, or other drivers, of course) should be ticketed; so should cyclists that behave inappropriately - legally they can be, by the way.

Bike lanes apparently don't help as much as you'd think. There is a psychological aspect to providing a bike lane that makes car drivers think that bikers are already protected by the lane, meaning, in the end, that they don't actually give bikers as much room.

Edit: Bike lanes increase safety but I just added it to point out that it's a relatively complicated situation. I think lower speeds were the biggest factor towards increasing safety. I can't find the study either so the above really isn't worth all that much, my memory being what it is.

The worst is bike lanes painted such that you can only be in them by riding in the door-zone. Fortunately, those seem to be going away.

Bike lanes also don't help when bikers weave in and out of it.

Drivers opening their doors into the bike lane without looking doesn't help cyclists avoid weaving in and out of it. And before you say anything: In California (and I believe this is true in many other states), opening your door into traffic (and, yes, cyclists count as traffic) automatically puts you at fault in the even of an accident or incident.

resu_nimda: Many roads, especially in older cities like Chicago, were not in any way built as 'car roads,' as they were built before the widespread adoption of the car. Many were poorly retrofitted in an attempt to move automobiles in quantity, but this has generally been to the great detriment of the neighborhoods they pass through.

> I tend to agree, but I can see both sides.

Like I said in the other comment: a bike is never a threat to a car. A car is always a threat to a bike. While your points are valid, saying that that is looking at "both sides" is an inappropriate way of describing the situation.

If you're driving a long and a bike pulls out suddenly in front of you, unless you have the attitude of "fuck it, just run them over" then yes, a bike can still be a massive threat to a car.

No, it can't. Not in any physical sense. If a car swerves and hits a cyclist at 30kph, the cyclist is almost certain to be injured, if not dead. If a bike swerves and hits a car, they might scratch the paint. When will the false equivalences end?

Actually, it absolutely can, in the same way that striking a deer in a car can kill the motorists. Horrifying, but true and dangerous.

Not to mention the fact that a cyclist at full speed can absolutely kill a person, especially a small person.

Any motorist driving irresponsibly should be ticketed and any cyclists doing the same should also be ticketed.

Similarly, a deer (which weighs less than a human on a bike and probably has a lower center of gravity) could never be a threat to a car. Running into a deer couldn't do more than scratch the paint on a car. I've never heard of a single person ever getting killed when they drove into a deer. /sarcasm

Bikes can certainly damage cars. I had a friend who went through a passenger window (breaking through the glass) of a car that pulled out in front of him. If that was the driver's side window, there is a nonzero chance that the driver might have been knocked out or somehow wrecked his car.

Also, cars (and their drivers) can definitely get hurt trying to avoid collisions with bikers by swerving out of the way and colliding with other vehicles/buildings/going off the road into a ditch.

The several grandfather post to this would have said essentially the same thing and would be much less controversial if it just read "a bike is less of a threat to a car than a car is to a bike", rather than using the absolutes of "always" and "never" (which rarely can be used to describe real life situations).

Also, despite historical claims, I'm fairly confident that most roads (by any reasonable definition of most) in the US today were built with the majority of design thought about drivers.

If a car swerves to avoid a cyclist and hits another car...

Then the car serves as the immediately threat to the other car, no the cyclist. This why you are supposed to drive defensively when operating a motor vehicle, so sudden changes in a situation doesn't cause you to crash into someone or something.

When you're behind the wheel of a car, yes. When you're around a car, no.

Even if someone's driving defensively, sudden changes in the environment lead to a more dangerous situation. If they're driving defensively, hopefully they can deal with it, but that is no reason to create dangerous situations in the first place.

...both car's passengers are surrounded by a metal cage that is trying to protect lives.

Are you being deliberately daft? Yes, the people in the cars are safer than a reckless person on a bicycle, but that doesn't mean the bicyclist isn't still putting them in some danger - those metal cages don't always succeed - as well as putting pedestrians and other bicyclists in more significant danger.

Okay, a reckless cyclist can put a driver in some danger, if the driver is going fast enough that the car can't be stopped quickly enough to avoid either hitting the cyclist or swerving into an oncoming lane.

However, in this constructed situation, it seems to me that the driver is being more unsafe by driving that fast.

So, you're in favor of lowering the speed limit to like 15 mph?

Yes: http://www.20splentyforus.org.uk/

If that's the parent's position, then I'm not sure I agree but I can't fault them for inconsistency. In an environment where many cars are traveling faster, though, it is nonetheless irresponsible and dangerous to others to ride a bike recklessly (or otherwise be unpredictable near fast-moving traffic).

I will agree that a relatively slow-moving bicycle on a road with fast-moving cars is indeed a dangerous situation for everyone. And I would agree that having similar speed vehicles together seems safer.

However, in places with vehicles going differing speeds, I would put the onus of safety on the faster vehicles.

What was being discussed was cyclists behaving recklessly. Imagine a cyclist blowing through a red light at the bottom of a hill, where they're going ~20ish. Cross traffic with a green light isn't necessarily going to see them until the last minute even if the cross traffic is moving at an otherwise safe speed. Pay attention in a city for a while, and you'll see things like this, and it rightly pisses off both drivers and us other cyclists.

I thought we were talking about whether or not bikes can be a massive threat to cars.

I have been paying attention in a city for a while. I have seen the situation you describe, but it's rare in my experience, even with SF supposedly full of reckless fixie-riders. Dangerous driving is far more common in my experience.

Hmm, yeah, scrolling up, there was more than a little hyperbole on both sides at the root of this thread. I agree a bike is not a "a massive threat to a car"; this doesn't mean it's okay for people to ride recklessly, or that they're not endangering others when they do.

And dangerous driving is probably more common (certainly by number of instances), and it should be condemned as well.

I certainly agree with all of that.

Stop being obtuse.

I wonder if someone could find stats on how many car-on-car collisions are caused by avoiding a bicycle, and compare that to how many car-on-bicycle collisions are caused by a swerving bicyclist (or any cause, really).

And then look at the resulting injuries.

No one is disputing that a reckless bicyclist is a danger to themselves. The question is how much of a danger they are to others, because more people feel more okay intervening when someone is presenting a danger to others.

Also a pedestrian, or a jogger, might pull out suddenly in front of you. But this is no ground to make transport by foot a privilege.

I'm a cyclist who has never sat behind the wheel of a car (well I'm lazy now so more of a taxi-ist, but a cyclist at heart) and completely agree with you. But that doesn't change the fact that yes, while cars may be far more dangerous to bikes than the other way around, a bike still can be very dangerous to a car.

By that logic, pedestrians should be able to walk in the middle of roads, since they're not a threat to a car.

They can, at least in California: as a pedestrian, you're entitled to cross the road at any intersection (crosswalk lights must be followed, but in their absence you're free to cross at any time). By law, all drivers must come to a complete stop until you have reached the curb.

I don't mean crossing the road. I mean traveling with traffic in a lane.

You will need to explain how the fact that pedestrians are even less threatening and more vulnerable is the same as implying this gives them the right to walk on the middle of the road.

I suspect that pedestrians are less threatening because they rarely walk in traffic (both because it's illegal, and because it's obviously dangerous). But for bicyclists, it's legal, and apparently the danger isn't enough to stop a lot of people.

The way you describe it, my impression is that the real problem is that you are not considering bikes as participants of traffic, but obstacles in the way of your car.

I'm not considering automobiles as inherently more "valid" participants of traffic than bicycles. I just consider any road where two types of vehicles of very different sizes which behave very differently to be an inherently unsafe and inefficient road for all participants. Obviously, the occupants of the larger vehicles are much safer in collisions with the smaller vehicles, but that's not my primary consideration. I just think the roads, or at the very least the lanes, should be dedicated to only bikes or only automobiles. Since there are far more automobiles than bicycles on most roads, if building new infrastructure is out of the question, I think it makes sense to not allow bikes to share the lanes. This isn't a condemnation of bicycle commuting, but rather a basic appeal to safety and organization, just like pedestrians are not allowed to share lanes with automobiles. The current situation on most roads, where a small number of small slow-moving bikes occupy lanes in the middle of a sea of automobiles, is just a disaster waiting to happen (and in big cities, it happens all the time).

I'm not considering big rig trucks as inherently more "valid" participants of traffic than passenger cars. I just consider any road where two types of vehicles of very different sizes which behave very differently to be an inherently unsafe and inefficient road for all participants. Obviously, the occupants of the larger vehicles are much safer in collisions with the smaller vehicles, but that's not my primary consideration...

Tractor trailers do not behave very differently than normal automobiles on freeways, and they're generally not allowed on smaller roads.

Ok, since I can't edit the comment any more: my whole point was that the threats are not equivalent, and describing the situation as "car vs bike" as if they are on equal terms is wrong.

Instead people are getting all anal about the use of "never" and "always", and use far-fetched examples where a car can be threatened by a bike when atttempting to avoid running over it and crashing into something else.

Way to direct the discussion away from the point I'm trying to make. Look at this Dutch national report on bike safety:

http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Ss_RA/RA47.pdf

The Netherlands has one of the highest percentage of people riding bikes with an estimated 14 million bicycles for 16.5 million inhabitants. It has one of the most developed infrastructures in favour of bike safety, about the safest traffic in Europe in general, and as a culture it is about as bike-oriented as it gets. Despite all of this, travelling with your bike is still 4.7 times more dangerous than travelling with a car.

I am in no way trying to absolve cyclists or pedestrians of their responsibility in traffic safety, but denying that they aren't inherently more vulnerable and that infrastructure design should emphasize their safety is absurd.

That 4.7x can probably be completely attributed to all the safety equipment that protects the person in a car. A more valid metric would be accidents (not injuries) per vehicle mile traveled.

No, it wouldn't, because that's not what we're discussing. The discussion was danger one vehicle poses to the other, and the only significant cause for bike fatalities is car accidents - there are no chasms to fall in in the flattest country in the world, and the speed at which one travels on a bike is much slower so much less likely to be fatal in case of a crash with a stationary object. So this is a very real metric of how dangerous bikes are to cars and vice versa.

EDIT: And even then it's skewed in favour of the car, because for cars the fatality rate is more likely due to crashes with other cars.

Bikes are threats to pedestrians. I've never hit a pedestrian on a bike but I've come close. I've also been hit by a car while on a bike (at a low speed, enough to trash the bike but I was able to hop off in time) so I have sympathy here.

Bikes injure pedestrians fairly often. My understanding is they rarely kill (though I'm happy to defer on either to someone bringing actual statistics to the table).

They don't, you need higher speeds for that (freak accidents don't count). Source: the lack of bicycle-caused deaths in the Netherlands.

Well, apparently they do occasionally (though you'd probably be correct in labeling it a "freak accident"):

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/no-jail-for-cyclist-c...

I think that a cyclist flaunting traffic laws should always be liable for accidents, but the last thing we need if we want to encourage bicycling is nanny-state policing of proper signaling and such. Any city that has resources for this ought to take a hard look at the size of their police force.

Your idea of banning cycle traffic on >25mph roads is misguided. Most cyclists have no trouble traveling at a speed greater than 25mph, even uphill.

>Most cyclists have no trouble traveling at a speed greater than 25mph, even uphill

I doubt that, maybe in burst/sprint but not sustained...Hell, the average top speeds in the Tour de France during the sprints is barely 25mph and those are top athletes.

>but the last thing we need if we want to encourage bicycling is nanny-state policing of proper signaling and such.

So we should enforce traffic laws on cars but not on bicycles? That's fairly myopic...

Be negligent on a bicycle and a vast majority of the life and limb you are risking is your own. Be negligent in a car and you're putting in mortal danger every other driver and cyclist on the road as well as every pedestrian in the vicinity. The difference between 25lb of metal powered by glutes and quads and 1.5 tons of metal with a tank of flammable liquid and a 200 hp engine is important.

Your point being? Driving or biking on the road makes you a vehicle, all vehicles follow the same set of laws. I don't care if your "I'm a bicyclist" superiority complex makes you think you're above the law; you're not.

According to the laws of California, driving or biking makes you a "driver", but does not make the bike a "vehicle", it's a "device". You are still subject to the laws of the road, though.

> Be negligent on a bicycle and a vast majority of the life and limb you are risking is your own.

I don't think that's true. I haven't personally witnessed any accidents, and I admittedly don't have any data to cite, but I have witnessed many bicyclists cause complete chaos in busy traffic.

I think it's true, depending just how vast "vast" is interpreted. But "I'm taking a bigger risk myself" doesn't excuse putting others at risk.

You're right, there are lots of slow cyclists who seldom top 15mph. Nevertheless, the speed limit is a speed limit, and if I can manage 25mph on a 35mph road, I don't see the issue. Mixed-use roads that see cyclists clogging traffic should provide simple painted bike lanes if nothing else.

  So we should enforce traffic laws on cars but not on
  bicycles? That's fairly myopic...

Fewer than 1000 people die in bicycle accidents a year. It is just not comparable to the danger of auto transport.

Most non-freeway roads don't have minimum speed limits, but I think they should. Based on my own experience, one of the most important factors for road safety is the homogeneity of speed. Having cars (or bikes) going faster or slower than the average flow of traffic have caused the vast majority of congestion and safety problems I have witnessed.

considering the amount of people biking vs the amount of people in cars, I'd guess that biking is the far more dangerous mode of transport.

According to this site [1], biking accounts for 1% of trips, but 2% of traffic fatalities.

[1] - http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/facts/crash-facts.cfm

You might find this interesting:

  UK figures show that it takes at least 8000 years of
  average cycling to produce one clinically severe head
  injury and 22,000 years for one death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#Health_benefits...

So? From the cited article giving that stat - "a mile of driving is ten times safer than a mile of cycling".

You might argue that cycling is safe. You can't argue that it is safer. It simply isn't.

Cycling on its own is very safe, it's the cars that are dangerous.

True, but that's a silly assertion. Cars by themselves are pretty safe. It's the other cars that cause problems. Since the cars are there, biking is more dangerous than being in another car.

> Cars by themselves are pretty safe. It's the other cars that cause problems.

Tell that to Michael Hastings, I'm sure he'll be thrilled to hear the news.

If it's not comparable, why are you complaining? Why should I have to respect you more than a car if you're not at any real risk of death? Seems like more effort than its worth, after all I don't really value your life at anything over 0.

Fewer than 2000 people die in plane crashes every year, despite the millions who fly. So I suppose we shouldn't make them follow any rules or safety procedures either, I mean it isn't as if those rules have prevented any deaths. Right?

   Why should I have to respect you more than a car

This is a disgusting perspective, and you clearly have never ridden a bicycle significantly for practical transportation or else you might be able to relate to some of the comments from myself and other cyclists in this thread.

You should respect me because I am exposed, riding a machine with few to no safety devices. It's the same reason I drive particularly carefully around motorcyclists. I do respect them more, so to speak, because they are at far greater risk on the road than car drivers. I want to see that they reach their destination safely, and I know the odds are stacked against them by distracted or arrogant drivers.

These numbers are a little off. Most commuters are going to scoot along in the 8-12 mph range. People riding for exercise or training for a sport are going to get up near 20 mph. Amateur bike races will hold sustained speeds of 24-30 mph for a few hours (depending on the terrain). In the TdF this year the fastest team in the time trial averaged 35 mph for 25 min. TdF sprinters can hit 50 mph and 70 mph on mountain descents.

No, laws that are appropriate for cars may not be appropriate for bicycles. Stop signs, for example. There is no justification for requiring bicyclists to come to a complete stop to safely cross an intersection. (There isn't for cars, either, but that's a separate issue.)

No, you don't get to have it both ways. I have routinely seen bikes dash through stop signs and lights when they don't have right of way. On more than one occasion of seen said cyclist get injured; the person driving the car gets blamed despite the bicyclist breaking the law. This is entirely unacceptable and dangerous, I don't care if you don't think the laws make sense every vehicle has to follow them.

It's myopic not to see the differences between the two vehicles, not to insist that they be taken into consideration if relevant.

Average speed for the front runners in the Tour de France on an average stage is usually around 25mph, and that's with some gruesome hill climbs. On the faster stages, average speeds can reach 35mph. Sprints often hit 40mph, and on downhill stretches are known to exceed 60mph. I commute 7.5 miles into central London daily where the roads really were originally built around the horse and cart and usually manage ~22mph average if the traffic isn't so bad and I catch the lights right.

In todays (stage 10) the ITV4 coverage (Chris Bordman ) said they where hitting 65-70kph at today's finish which is over 40Mph

Most cyclists have no trouble traveling at a speed greater than 25mph, even uphill.

Most cyclists in the TdF, maybe. 25 mph is quite fast on a bicycle.

Perhaps you are correct, and average bicyclists have no trouble traveling at speeds greater than 25 mph, but for some reason they rarely choose to exercise that ability. 10-15 mph seems to be more usual, and 5 mph is not uncommon here in hilly Seattle. Maybe they get going out on the Burke-Gilman bike trail, but they certainly aren't going anything like 25 mph on the streets I share with them.

It's pretty obvious when a bicyclist is at fault and they are often held responsible when they cause an accident. In the case of most city accidents, police routinely pull video from nearby buildings to establish fault.

In fact, just this morning a lady got hit and put in the ICU at the corner of King St and 3rd in San Francisco, right near the ballpark. Yolanda, the lady who manages the front desk, was reviewing the tapes with the police after the accident. That's the second serious accident involving a pedestrian or bicyclist at that intersection since the beginning of the year. TBH, the speed limit in SoMa needs to be dropped to 25 mph. People drive far too fast in this neighborhood for it to be safe for either bicyclists or pedestrians.

> It's pretty obvious when a bicyclist is at fault and they are often held responsible when they cause an accident. In the case of most city accidents, police routinely pull video from nearby buildings to establish fault.

This is completely untrue, at least in NYC.

"Historically, nearly half of motorists who kill a New York City pedestrian or cyclist do not receive so much as a citation for careless driving."

http://www.streetsblog.org/2012/08/03/nypd-7371-pedestrians-...

I thought we were talking about bicyclists being held accountable, not motorists?

I was responding to the idea that it is obvious who is at fault, when in fact the bicyclist is usually blamed. (Yes, my insinuation is that the bicyclist is not usually at fault.)

As for "police routinely pull video ... to establish fault" -- this is just one example, but recently in DC there was a bike-and-car crash in which a surveillance video proved the cyclist was not at fault, but the police refused to even look at it: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19284/it-must-have-...

I'm not sure if your joking but I'll bite:)

> Most cyclists have no trouble traveling at a speed greater than 25mph, even uphill.

The average speed of the tour de france winners now is only about 25mph and that is very heavily drug assisted;)

http://bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html

Given this I can't really take your statement as a serious one:)

25 mph up a hill is fast, but the tour de France is a silly comparison, they sustain those speeds for 4 hours at a time, commuters aren't going to do that. Commuters also rarely face anything resembling the climbs in the tour.

True but on the other side most commuters aren't going for speed, or using great bikes, or proper shoes so I think the expectation would be that the tour de france winner would still average a much faster time than a commuter.

I agree that 25mph is unreasonable for the average cyclist, but to be fair, aren't the Tour de France speeds averaged over a much greater distance?

"Any city that has resources for this ought to take a hard look at the size of their police force."

Aren't tickets usually a source of revenue?

OT: you mean flouting traffic laws. "Flaunting" means to show off.

Where do you live? There aren't even any roads with speed limits < 30mph here in Rochester, New York, and it's the same in Buffalo. What you're proposing up here would mean banning bicycles on all but specially marked bicycle paths.

Especially in the city, it's prohibited to ride on the sidewalk; you must use the street even where there are no specially marked bike lanes. So, what you propose seems particularly outrageous to me; the only remaining options to get around the city would be having a car or using public transportation (or going on foot.)

> What you're proposing up here would mean banning bicycles on all but specially marked bicycle paths.

Well, think about it this way. Why are pedestrians banned from walking on roads, even when there are no nearby sidewalks? The answer, I believe, is that it's extremely dangerous, both to the pedestrian and to automobile drivers, and that it would cause massive inefficiency in the flow of traffic. The reality is that bicycles, like pedestrians, necessarily behave very different than automobiles, and most of our roads and traffic laws are designed around automobiles. Similarly, bicycles are not allowed on certain types of roads (many bridges, freeways, etc.) Obviously, its a continuum, and bicycles can fit in with automobiles better than pedestrians. The question is simply where to draw the line.

Can you cite this? Because it's certainly legal for pedestrians to use the roads in my state, sidewalk or no.

There's no massive inefficiency, the cars pass the pedestrians, the cyclists, the skateboarders and all the other road users, when safe to do so, just like the law says they should.

I think most non-freeway roads technically allow pedestrians (with local exceptions), but under strict rules that place them well outside the flow of traffic. I'm not aware of any areas where pedestrians can walk with the direction of traffic while occupying a lane.

anecdotally, i can't even remember the last time i saw a bicyclist stop at a stop sign.

even the guys in their $10k road bikes and full outfits, who ostensibly take bicyclig VERY seriously, just blow through stop signs like they weren't even there. sometimes even stop LIGHTS if it's a t-stop.

especially when they're riding in their large groups. and sometimes they even ride on the wrong side of the road (LOL)

i live in santa monica, maybe it's especially bad here.

If we're going anecdotes, I can't remember the last time I saw a car stop at a stop sign either.

http://www.cyclelicio.us/2013/stop-sign-compliance-temecula-...

i understand you're being snarky, or perhaps willfully defiant/facetiously ignorant despite your common-sense understanding of the difference, and you probably are a bicyclist, but a car that slows to an almost-stop is much different than a bicycle that just completely blows through it at full-speed without even slowing down, which is pretty much what all bikes do here in southern california.

where I live, anyone who pays attention realizes that most bicyclists are either casual, ignorant weekend riders or very serious road bikers who just simply don't give two shits about the law. commuters who follow the law are VERY rare.

I'm not trying to be snarky -- I rarely see cars stop for stop signs; I normally see cyclists slow down at stop signs, and I rarely see any cyclists completely blow through them. (I also rarely see cars completely blow through stop signs.)

My common-sense understanding of the difference is that a cyclist can more readily hear what is happening near an intersection, has fewer visual obstacles to see what is near an intersection, and is often already moving slower than a car. That makes me feel that a cyclist rolling through a stop sign is far less dangerous than a car doing the same.

My experience has been in SF/Oakland/Berkeley.

Anyway, the reason I added that link in the earlier comment was to illustrate my frustration with the "all cyclists break laws all the time, they need to be safer like cars" fable -- the article links to a study that found that by 1996, only 1% of cars stopped at the stop sign being observed. Of course there are cyclists who break laws, but there are far more drivers who break laws, and they are the more dangerous offenders.

Meta: go!

Interesting... I've noticed your username above several rather anti-social comments in several different threads over the last day or so. I wonder why.

/Meta

To be honest, I don't think alxndr was being snarky. I see plenty of drivers plow through stop signs at 5-10 mph. I also see plenty of people on bikes plow through stop signs at 5-10 mph. Both are in the wrong, but the fact that the person on the bike was going the same speed before the stop-sign doesn't seem hugely relevant to me. What does seem relevant is that plowing through at 5-10 mph in a car is far more likely to injure or kill a pedestrian or cyclists than doing so in a car, for simple reasons of mass and vehicle width.

Frankly, your little rant sounds like the self-serving justification I usually hear from several of my friends and relatives for raging at cyclists. Those friends and relatives are among the least courteous and defensive (that is to say, the most dangerous towards other drivers and cyclists around them) drivers I've ridden with. I hope for your sake and mine that you are not like that.

In San Francisco, according to CSC 21202, the bicyclist is allowed full use of lanes. The important clause to pay attention to is clause (c). The most important part of that clause is the use of the term "substandard width lane", which although not defined in the statute, has been established via jurisprudence to be approximately 14-15 ft. Many many rightmost lanes in SF are not 14+ ft wide, meaning that on most roads in SF you can legally ride right in the middle of the rightmost lane. This is much safer than putting yourself in the doorzone and swerving to avoid a door and getting hit by a driver on your left or leaving too little room on your lefthand side that some driver will try to squeeze through.

Every cyclist should go out and measure a lane or two here and there to get a feeling for approximately how wide a 14 ft lane is, so you know when you can legally take up the whole lane.

The only other thing to keep in mind with this, is that if you do take up the whole lane, it is your responsibility to pull over to the right periodically if the number of cars backed up behind you exceeds 5 (IIRC)

Santa Monica has the same rules. I biked to worked for two months straight, my car never left the garage until one day someone didn't like the fact i was in the middle of the lane. Accelerated at me, and then tried to run me off the road at 35+ mph on a small street. Tired of people honking at me or cutting me off so i quit riding my bike. Not worth my life. City really needs to take every 4th or 5th street and make them bike streets where cars are allowed but required to yield to bikes at all times. No passing, no overtaking etc. Gladly ride an extra 4th blocks if means i'm not going to get run down.

that sounds illegal - could you have reported his license? Something under assault using a vehicle or attempted manslaughter?

I have had somebody follow me aggressively (in a car) with seeming intent to main before and it is a terrifying experience. They pursued me at 70mph in a 30mph zone. It was my second day driving a manual transmission and I accidentally tapped my horn with an old Ford Explorer behind me (no cars in front) as I was trying to shift into first gear to turn left out of a lot. A man exited the SUV at a red light and I ran it, hauled my ass home. And that's the story of how I learned to throw it into first gear quickly.

When it's just you and the other car on the road, there's no way of proving what happened, you just have to hope there were witnesses, or god forbid you do get run off the road, that the accident scene has enough evidence to show criminal intent.

Honestly, those examples are great reasons why I would support some kind of form of publicly shaming those drivers (via some kind of www.thisiswhycyclistsdie.net blog): Get cyclists to be diligent and record their rides and post the obvious asshole drivers and their plates.

Yes, there's probably giant privacy implications there, but fuck it. They're trying to kill people out there.

They are being recorded in a public space. AFAIK there are no privacy violations involved in recording them on public roads.

If I ever get back into biking to work I'm gonna get a bike-cam.

It is illegal. Cops, in almost all cases, don't care.

What if you have video to prove it? I wish it were possible to send such videos to the insurer of any vehicle. I know that with taxis, you can call up the dispatch company to get the insurance company of a vehicle, but I don't know if there is a way to find the insurance company of a private vehicle.

Showing this kind of behavior could prompt their insurance to drop them or possibly increase their premium.

This happened to me there too. Biking down Wilshire, where there's two lanes, no other traffic, person flew by me, honking and freaking out.

If you wait until 5 cars are backed up behind you, you could be incredibly rude to 4 vehicles of people. You should be considerate and allow vehicles to pass after a reasonable amount of time (i.e. as dictated by courtesy and not the law) and when it's safe to do so.

You don't seem to understand. Cars can not legally pass bicycles and stay in a single lane. The math does not work out when you take into consideration that bicycles need to keep a greater distance to the right to avoid morons who open doors into traffic and that, having only two wheels, they will naturally swerve left and right, and often do so on purpose to avoid the various pitfalls that are not maintained roads, where a light hit to the suspension on a normal car can dead stop your wheel and send you flying.

This is part of what I mean by "I can see both sides." I don't approve of an automobile drivers acting aggressively and dangerously toward a bicyclist, but I also don't think it's reasonable for bicyclists to significantly impact the flow of traffic (and even just letting 5 cars pile up before moving over is a major impediment to traffic). In short, I really don't think that roads with significant automobile traffic should be shared with bicyclists (well-designed bicycle-only lanes are fine).

Letting 5 cars pile up behind you can happen in the course of a few seconds to several minutes. Those are two totally different circumstances. The former is unlikely to be a major impediment, while the latter probably is. On some roads, if you try to pull over to the side every time more than 1-2 cars are behind you, you'd never get to your destination. I'd say it's reasonable enough to move over to the side ever 2-3 blocks.

Most cars are blocked by other cars on the road and you don't see cars honking at other cars nearly as often as it happens to bicyclists (except maybe in NYC... hehe)

Also, most of the time the substandard width lane issue is only a factor within cities. Cars shouldn't really be traveling that quickly within a city, except maybe on elevated highways.

How many times have you been impeded by people driving cars when driving? I'd wager nearly every time you drive if you live in a city. How many times have you been impeded by people on bicycles?

What's your point? I very rarely drive, even more rarely in a city, and I almost never even encounter bicyclists while I'm driving.

Texas has the same laws. In Austin the police released PR with a video telling cars about it. They also said they will not cite drivers for safely passing a bicycle over a double yellow.

By the same token, many bicyclists freely ignore traffic laws too. They don't properly stop at stop signs or intersections (on red or yellow) and they act like pedestrians when it suits them.

>[Slam] their brakes without noticing my bike behind them

You're a vehicle when you ride on the streets, it's your responsibility to maintain a safe distance from the person in front of you and to react to their brake lights. The person in front of you is well within their rights to slam on their brakes if and when they need/want

I'm a cyclist, and it irks me a little bit every time I see cyclists act as if the rules don't apply to them. In San Francisco, this happens almost every day.

As a pedestrian, I've almost been struck a few times by cyclists running red lights while crossing Market Street. Most of those cyclists yell at me for having the audacity to be in their way. In San Francisco, it seems that I'm the exception for actually stopping at red lights on a bicycle.

Incorrect. You are not allowed to slam on your brakes for no good reason. It's of course very hard to prove that you did. (This does not relieve the follower from maintaining a safe distance, but you could be held partially at fault.)

Also, what about if you merge into my lane right in front of me and then slam on your brakes? In that case, you made it impossible for me to maintain a safe distance.

> You are not allowed to slam on your brakes for no good reason

I never said no good reason...

>hat about if you merge into my lane right in front of me and then slam on your brakes? In that case, you made it impossible for me to maintain a safe distance.

This has been arbitrated in court (at least in my neck of the woods), if you merge and in doing so cause an accident you're a fault. The entire law system is setup to relate to the actions that a "reasonable" person would do. It isn't reasonable to expect the person who you've just merged in front of to immediately be at a safe distance (in fact you, the merger, are responsible for merging in a way that's safe.)

Car drivers routinely ignore certain rules too: speed limits, full stops at stop signs, etc. They do this because doing so is mostly safe. It's the same with bicyclists: the rules they ignore are mostly safe too. The confusion is that, because cars and bikes are different, the rules that are safe to bend are different in each case.

That's all well and good, but when was the last time you saw a cyclist getting pulled over for running a stop sign? Or speeding (Which they tend to do down the large hills we have, and then continue on to blast through intersections at 40+)? I can tell you the last time I saw a car getting pulled over, just a few hours ago. Just because you think it's 'safe' to bend the rules, doesn't make it safe or legal. It's highly hypocritical of cyclists to complain that there aren't enough legal safe guards for them when they ignore the already established ones that are designed to keep all vehicles on the road safe.

A buddy of mine biked to work from Somerville to Boston and he got a ticket from an officer in Cambridge. He had stopped at a red light, but his tire was over the stop line.

Just because you don't see it happen, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Same guy was almost destroyed by a truck as we were riding through an intersection with the green light because the truck decided to speed up for the yellow light and run the red light.

That's not true. If I'm a motorist, moving at speed, and I slam my brakes to grab that nifty parking spot, I am liable. Not the person who rear-ends me.

In every U.S. jurisdiction I'm familiar with, the person doing the rear-ending is liable, not the person who brakes unexpectedly. The idea is that everyone should leave stopping distance. In heavy traffic, people generally don't leave this distance, but it's still the law.

I was wrong about liability (the rear-ender is liable, unless you can prove negligence or recklessness on the part of the driver ahead), but I run a serious hazard of stopping short myself as a cyclist that the motorist does not (except for motorcyclists). There is a good chance I will be killed by the car or truck behind me. This is why, while I have always been able to stop my bicycle in time, it is a frightening experience in traffic.

Not in every jurisdiction. PA for example is no-fault. The idea is that while you shouldn't be driving so close behind, you also should slam on the breaks. Both are equally reckless.

Not in my jurisdiction. You're responsible for maintaining a safe distance to the vehicle in front of you, to allow for unexpected stops. It doesn't matter if they stop for a cat, a toddler, or hallucinated giant killer marmosets from outer space.

As far as I know, this is standard in driving laws across the U.S. Is there somewhere this doesn't apply?

If you're a motorist at speed (and I'll take "at speed" to mean normal street speed); you're almost probably not looking for a parking spot. Further, if you're going "at speed" --25-35mph -- the person behind you should be, at minimum, 2-3 car lengths behind you. If they aren't, they're failing to maintain a safe distance. You're not liable if the person behind you, driving unsafely, rear-ends you.

Clearly you've never driven in the DC area. Seeing cars slam their brakes at 25-30mph to grab a spot on a busy street is laughably commonplace.

What jurisdiction do you live? Everywhere I have ever lived if a vehicle hits you from behind, it's their fault, period.

Yeah, it's extremely hard to set up a circumstance where the person in behind is not at fault.

If you get hit and get propelled into the car in front of you, it's your fault you hit the car in front of you (although this may vary by state).

If the manual transmission car in front of you shifts into neutral on a hill and slides back into you, it's your fault.

The person behind is usually in control of the space between cars and they are held to be responsible for it. You can possibly make it not their fault if you shift directly into someone's lane at speed right in front of them and then hit the brakes.

I'm from the Netherlands, where separate bike lanes are the norm. The thought of having to share the road with cars, especially in a place where people aren't used to bike traffic, terrifies me.

Also, IIRC when a car hits pedestrian or bike, the car is always the "guilty" party because pedestrians or bikes are never a safety threat to cars (you can still be acquitted if it is clear that there's no way you could have prevented the crash). Does the US have something like that to promote cautious driving habits?

The thought of having to share the road with cars, especially in a place where people aren't used to bike traffic, terrifies me

It should terrify you. It's terrifying. I know dozens of people who regularly commute by bike in the ostensibly bike-friendly city of Seattle. Nearly all of them have been hit by a car at some point.

I'm in SF and I've been hit twice. Once in Berkeley and once in SF. The thing that bothers me the most is that the police are very non-chalant about the whole affair. They refused to fill out a police report unless someone was hurt. This means that both of my accidents didn't show up on the official statistics for number of bike accidents in the city.

Hmm, is Seattle an "ostensibly bike-friendly" city?

Granted it's probably not as bad as many other American cities, but for all Seattle's often rather liberal laid-back nature, Seattleites also seem to lovvvve their cars, and the state of public infrastructure to reflect that.

I used to bike a lot in Seattle about 25 years ago, and well ... I always felt very alone, and often very nervous. I felt part of a fringe. My impression was that although there generally wasn't the sort of overt "kill bicyclists!" aggression you might find elsewhere, Seattle was still very much a car-focused city, and that few concessions were made to bicyclists, other than the random token gesture (bike racks on buses, etc). There seemed to be essentially zero real bike infrastructure.

Maybe things have changed in the last few decades, I dunno. I haven't noticed much obvious change when I've visited since, although the bike cops are great (they're the friendliest police I've ever encountered!).

> ... when a car hits pedestrian or bike, the car is always the "guilty" party.... Does the US have something like that to promote cautious driving habits?

Quite the opposite, in fact. In NYC, drivers are seldom cited at all even when a cyclist or pedestrian has been killed. Here's the link I have on hand, but there are more http://www.streetsblog.org/2012/08/03/nypd-7371-pedestrians-...

> In NYC, drivers are seldom cited at all even when a cyclist or pedestrian has been killed.

Your link does not say that drivers are ‘seldom cited’; it says that drivers are cited slightly over half the time. A priori, an even split in responsibility across all cases seems perfectly reasonable.

"The NYC group Right of Way says: 'After NYC cycling fatalities increased twofold in 1999, police rushed to cover their, er, reputation by claiming (without analysis or supporting data) that cyclists are to blame in 75% of cycling deaths. ... The truth is just the reverse, as listed in our report, The Only Good Cyclist (PDF).' According to Right of Way, over 90% of pedestrian deaths in NYC are the fault of drivers. And research from Toronto shows the same thing for car-bike crashes. Most at-fault motorists who kill cyclists and pedestrians get off the hook. A study by the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition shows that three out of four at fault drivers were never even cited for hitting and killing pedestrians. 22% of fatal pedestrian crashes involved hit and run drivers, yet, none of the runaway motorists were found or charged. In New York, 70-92% of drivers were at-fault in killing pedestrians and cyclists, but 74% didn't even get a ticket. (RightOfWay.org, 1999) The story in Austin is similar."

http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html

Some recent headlines about how NYPD handles car-and-bike collisions:

"Another Cyclist Killed at East Harlem Intersection, NYPD Again Blames Victim"

"Motorist Havoc: Two Dead, Five Hurt, Kids in Critical Condition, No Charges"

"Cleared in Traffic Court, Hit-and-Run Killer Still Employed at NYC DOT"

"Leroy Comrie Bill Would Force NYPD to Report to Council on Hit-and-Runs"

"Hynes: No Charges for Curb-Jumper Who Blew Red and Killed Pedestrian"

"NYPD: Pedestrian Killed Himself by Running Into Stopped Police Cruiser"

"Cyclist’s Brother Says NYPD Closed Investigation Into Unsolved Death"

"Immune From Prosecution, Curb-Jumping NYC Motorists Claim More Victims"

"Irvin Gitlitz, 83, Was First of Two Pedestrian Fatalities Wednesday" (which notes, "The truck involved in the crash that killed Irvin Gitlitz did not have required crossover mirrors. The driver was not summonsed," and for the second fatality, "No summonses were issued")

...and those headlines are just going back to April of this year. http://www.streetsblog.org/category/issues-campaigns/nypd-cr...

No, you're very lucky to live in the Netherlands.

It doesn't look like this tragedy had anything to do with respect for bicyclists; the driver, who could likely at minimum be charged with manslaughter, drove off the road to avoid traffic and fled the scene of the accident.

I don't disagree with what I think is the spirit of your comment, which is that there's probably a policy response to this tragedy. To me, it highlights the all-to-lax nature of our moving violation enforcement laws; every American who gets behind the wheel (myself very much included) subjects their neighbors to tremendous risks, and the penalties and risk of detection don't create meaningful incentives.

I didn't intend to highlight lack of respect so much as lack of general awareness amongst motorists of the rights of bicyclists as road vehicles. In the worst cases, this manifests itself in more aggressive responses. This here was a case of negligence, not malice.

Neither source linked from the article says that the driver went off-road, both say that Seth Vidal was traveling "on Hillandale Road," that he was "a bicyclist traveling north on Hillandale Road." It makes no sense for a bicycle advocate and experienced rider to be riding off-road, so I will have to see a source to believe that.

"The accident apparently occurred after dark, when a driver swerved off the road to avoid traffic and ran into Seth’s bike from behind".

Neither source says that the car went off-road though. They just say that the driver braked suddenly and then swerved.

Since we're not actually litigating this issue I'm content to take the announcement at its word.

I only ride my bike on dedicated bike lanes (by "dedicated" I mean those blocked from the main road) and bike paths. Everywhere else, I ride on the sidewalk. Fortunately, most sidewalks where I live are sparsely populated, and I make sure to slow down to walking speed or dismount completely when going through areas with lots of pedestrians.

Someone told me I could get cited for riding my bike on a sidewalk. Fuck that shit. I'd rather pay $50 than get hit by a car.

As a pedestrian, you terrify and bully me.

As a driver managing turns, you're traveling at a very different speed than the people I'm expecting on the sidewalk which makes turning safely much more difficult.

>>As a pedestrian, you terrify and bully me.

I clearly said I slow down or dismount when I'm near pedestrians. If you still feel terrified or bullied, I think that's a personal problem.

>>As a driver managing turns, you're traveling at a very different speed than the people I'm expecting on the sidewalk which makes turning safely much more difficult.

Bikers who do this deserve absolutely no sympathy. The safe thing to do when biking on sidewalks is to dismount as you arrive at an intersection, even if the pedestrian light is green. Then you cross the intersection as a pedestrian, i.e. by walking.

>> The safe thing to do when biking on sidewalks is to dismount as you arrive at an intersection

I think this is also the legally required thing to do in most jurisdictions.

How does the speed of someone on the sidewalk affect a driver?

A driver turning off the street onto a side street or down a driveway needs to ensure that there will be no one in his driving path before starting the turn. If people are walking on the sidewalk, he needs to look 10 feet or so to either side. If they're riding bikes or skateboards or something that travels much faster than a walking person, he needs to look much further to either side.

Crosswalks

You could also injure a pedestrian. Do you realize that you can hurt an elderly person on the sidewalk with a bike as much as a car can hurt you on the road?

You can surely hurt a pedestrian while riding on the sidewalk (or through a crosswalk, for that matter). You surely can not hurt them "as much as" a car in the traffic lanes will hurt a cyclist in a much faster collision with a much heavier object. That assertion is just silly.

As a father of toddlers, (3 and 5), I despise the attitude of many bicyclists on sidewalks and public paths.

You think you can't seriously hurt somebody on a bike? It depends on the someone you hit. Slow down when you see a pedestrian, as there might be others that you don't see. Don't ring your little bell at them as you whip past at 20mph, just slow down and show some common courtesy like a real human person.

This doesn't seem to be responsive. Your kids (or mine), no matter how heart-tugging a debate example they may be, will still be hurt less from a collision with a bicycle than the cyclist will be from a collision with my car. To argue otherwise, as Yver did above, is silly and counterproductive.

Thanks for the dismissal. "Heart tugging", isn't what I was going for, sport.

Your lack of desire to take seriously your responsibilities to those you share the sidewalk with is a problem for me. You want to be on the sidewalk so you'll be safe, while at the same time, refusing to acknowledge any risk you're imposing on others. That doesn't fly with me. Slow it down, sporty.

Arguing the degree of hurt is pointless - you can kill pedestrians if you hit them with your bike.

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/03/07/san-francisco-bicyc...

http://dcist.com/2012/06/woman_dies_after_being_hit_by_cycli...

How, in an argument arguing for (or against) something based on the harm it can cause, is the "degree of hurt" "pointless". That makes even less sense than the original point I was responding to.

Clearly this is an issue of religion. If so, then just declare your side, sharpen your pitchfork and be done with it. But arguing as this thread does, that riding on the sidewalk for safety is "equally unsafe" needs to be done with evidence. It's certainly not true that the collisions are independently more dangerous. Maybe you could argue that there would be more of them or something.

A bicycle can and occasionally does kill people. An old woman was struck and killed just a couple of blocks from my house. Children would be even more likely to die in a collision I would think.

Yver did say "elderly person". It seems pretty likely that you could kill a sufficiently elderly person by hitting them with a bicycle, which seems "as much as" you can hurt someone with a car.

You should try practicing your reading comprehension skills. I said:

>>Fortunately, most sidewalks where I live are sparsely populated, and I make sure to slow down to walking speed or dismount completely when going through areas with lots of pedestrians.

I see your point. If the speed limits are not too high though, you might want to try riding on the roads and using some tactics that help me (at least):

* If you hear a car coming up on you, always turn your head and look back at the car so that they know you see them and because faces command attention. This quick look also gives you an idea of how much the driver notices you, that is, if you have to bail in a hurry.

* If there are cars around in general, ride with a rigid posture that makes you appear a more formidable object.

* Keep close enough to the center of the road that motorists think twice before passing you, move over briefly if you want them to be able to pass (they'll appreciate it).

* Always signal your intentions if there is any traffic, bicycle or otherwise.

Critical mass has to start somewhere! :^)

Upvote for staying near the center of the road, but remember that that is only permitted on 14-15+ ft wide lanes (don't worry, the overwhelming majority of city lanes are not this wide). If the lane is wider than that, you should stay to the right (but you are within your right to stay outside the door zone)

IIRC, CA law says bicyclists should ride as far to the right as practicable. I think it even says bicyclists may be justified in taking the entire lane if conditions so require.

Also, it's prudent to consider one of those conditions to be aggressive behavior from a car behind you (horn, etc). They're proudly boasting of their non-understanding of how to fluidly pass non-lane-width traffic, so it's just safer to take the full lane and ensure they'll either change lanes or wait for a lull in oncoming traffic instead of half-passing then cutting into you.

Exactly. One of my accidents was when a taxi driver honked at me, tried to overtake and hit the front of my bike and pulled in my front tire when trying to aggressively merge back into the lane I was in. Completely destroyed the front end of my bike. I was able to jump off the bike away from the vehicle to avoid getting hurt.

There are several conditions that allow the bicyclists to ride in the middle of the lane and ignore the "stay as far to the right as practicle" rule. The most common of them is the "substandard width lane", which has been established to be any lane narrower than about 14-15 ft

People are often killed riding on sidewalks, I avoid riding on them because they are very dangerous wherever there is a driveway - cars move to the edge of the street without expecting a vehicle moving at 15mph+ on the sidewalk.

Trust me, I know. I always slow down to walking speed when I'm approaching a drive-way or a parking lot exit.

The thing about riding your bike on the sidewalk is that you, as the cyclist, can avoid virtually all danger by being cautious. Whereas on the road, you're pretty much at the mercy of car drivers and are at great risk regardless of how careful you are.

Citation. I mean I know it does happen, but I'm extremely skeptical of the use of the word "often" here.

http://www.enhancements.org/download/trb/1636-011.PDF

"The most interesting result of the analysis was the ﬁnding that sidewalk cyclists have higher event rates on roads than nonsidewalk cyclists."

Nothing in that paper talks about people being killed as far as I could see. Higher event rates != higher deaths. Running into another bike was considered an event, but that's not generally deadly.

Nothing in that paper supports this statement: "People are often killed riding on sidewalks..."

Someone told me I could get cited for riding my bike on a sidewalk

Depending on where you ride, that may or may not actually be the case. In my city, it's absolutely legal to ride on the sidewalk as long as you yield to pedestrians.

* I only ride my bike on dedicated bike lanes (by "dedicated" I mean those blocked from the main road) and bike paths.*

Where I live, Mexico City, there are lots of idiots who ride in the wrong direction in those lanes. I confront some of them and am told that I am crazy, because, you know, no pasa nada.

Be happy that you have bike lanes at all; for all intents and purposes there aren't any where I live.

Everywhere else, I ride on the sidewalk.

Stop doing that. [DELETED EPITHET].

That's not where Seth was hit. From the reports I've heard so far (I'm a Durhamite and knew Seth socially), he was hit on the south end of the block, where it's a totally different road: http://goo.gl/maps/DQxO6 .

That block of Hillandale Road changes so radically in one block for historical reasons: the narrow section you see above is just as it emerges from a golf course, and the city has been unable to expand that section of road, so I've been told, because the golf course owns the shoulders and has resisted efforts.

All the cyclists in town know it as a dangerous section, but are forced to use it as it's one of few routes over I85, the freeway visible in your mapquest link.

Thanks so much for clarifying this, I just chose the point where the road crossed I-85 because the reports said it happened near that interchange. Truth be told, that stretch you show is even more frightening to me for the reasons you describe -- it's exactly the sort of road where drivers who just got off the highway would feel "stuck" behind a cyclist, and it's so narrow.

When I've been in Munich, I've seen they have there dedicated lanes for bike traffic, which are not a part of general street and designed so that cars never go there - they are part of the same space as pedestrian walks but pedestrians are not supposed to walk there either - it is an exclusive bike space, with higher barriers for bigger danger (cars) and separation from lower danger (pedestrians). I think it works much better than what is here in California, where bicyclists share space on the road with cars. Each time I drive by a cyclist on the road, I can't help thinking how small mistake it would take - either from his/her side or from driver's side - for a tragedy to happen. That's why I am very reluctant to go on such shared spaces when I'm biking - I'd much prefer to have a space of a sidewalk than on a road.

However, this isn't a bicycle problem: it's an urban planning problem. If you design for cars (multi-lane high-speed roads), this is what you get. Unfortunately, riders and pedestrians will suffer for now.

Hint: Mount a retractable side flag to your bicycle and hang a sharp, metal object at the end where the reflector is. Leave it hanging on a long enough string (10-15cm) so as to allow it to move around easily. That should keep car drivers away, at least those who appreciate the paintwork on their cars.

Which is why more people should ride. The more cyclists there are on the road the safer we all are.

I'm not sure if your logic holds up to critical scrutiny. To me, more bikes would simply mean a greater potential for accidents.

What needs to be fixed is driver education, especially the driver tests.

Driver awareness is huge: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2007/11/more-bikes-means-less-a...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com