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Comment by savszymura | Hacker News Reader

>Riding a bike is dangerous

Not true. However I agree with all the other safety tips.

Cycling is as dangerous as walking (as a pedestrian). Source - http://www.ctc.org.uk/sites/default/files/file_public/cycle-...

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Not in the US: I have not seen a single US city yet with proper bike lanes. At best (and this is rare) you're separated by a solid line which is not enough. But most of the time you're basically on your own.

I just looked up the scene of the accident at 1700 Hillandale Road, Durham on Google Street View. If you're on a bike there's nothing for you - you're like a slow engineless motorcycle. This is _very_ dangerous.

Come to Redmond, WA sometime. http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/log/68cddaf2-3fd8-4a67... (Of course I drive everywhere, and two of my housemates have been winged. At least it's more likely to be by a Prius than a pickup.)

I'm a Durham resident. The city as a whole does not have great accomodations for bikers on the roads. It has some great bike paths, but in places where that isn't an option you generally are on the road with cars and very little leeway to get out of the way.

It's difficult to look at the Google Street View and get an accurate feel for what's really happening here on Hillandale. If you put 1700 Hillandale in, you're greeted with a massive multilane freeway interchange. However, this accident appears to have taken place further down the block when it narrows to two lanes. (See the photo in the linked story.)

In the US, we've got groups like the Tea Party, who think bike lanes are part of a UN conspiracy to take our guns. This can make it controversial for a city to consider bike lanes.

Google "agenda 21 bike lanes" for the sad details. There was a good New York Times story on this, too. [1]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/activists-fight-green-p...

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