Hacker News Reader

Comment by Yver | Hacker News Reader

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?

View on HN

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com