Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

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Riding a bike is dangerous.

This really makes me feel sorry for people who live in countries that do not encourage cycling.

I was born and raised in The Netherlands. Every Dutch friend and family member of mine learnt cycling as a small child. Many of them still cycle daily without a helmet, special clothing, or whatever. I cannot remember anyone having a serious accident. Two persons I know broke their arms, but in both cases there was no car involved (icy roads).

The difference? We have bicycle lanes. Many of them. They are often separated from the main roads. When there are lights, there are often separate bicycle lights. Besides that, laws are highly in favor of pedestrians and cyclers. For instance, a car driver is always responsible for paying 100% of damages of children under 14 and 50% of damages of those over 14. So, if a 40 year old cyclist is hit by a car, and 75% responsible for the accident and the car driver 25% responsible, the car driver still pays 50% of the damages of the cyclist. One of the results is that drivers of motorized vehicles tend to be more careful.

tl;dr: ask your government to make more cycling lanes and pass laws that favor pedestrians and cyclists.

What are the traffic rules like in the Netherlands?

Every time there's a bike story on HN, there's always a long side thread about bicycles not stopping at lights, going the wrong way down one way streets, etc etc, so I'm curious what happens in a place with mature infrastructure.

Every time there's a bike story on HN, there's always a long side thread about bicycles not stopping at lights, going the wrong way down one way streets, etc etc, so I'm curious what happens in a place with mature infrastructure.

Pretty much the same things. Even as a cyclist I am amazed what other cyclists pull off wrt. to violating traffic rules.

But I think the difference is that most car drivers are or were also cyclists and the law favors cyclists, so car drivers tend to pay attention at intersections.

on a bike I feel much safer if I can see the traffic coming towards me... as opposed to riding on the right side of the street... might be a little more dangerous at busy intersections though..

2011 bicycling deaths in the Netherlands: 200 [1] [2]

2011: bicycling deaths in the US: 677 [3]

The deaths in the Netherlands have an interesting distribution. Nearly 2/3 of them are people over 60.

[1] http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/themas/gezondheid-welzijn/publi...

[2] (English) http://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/road-deaths-...

[3] http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811743.pdf

According to this: http://top10hell.com/top-10-countries-with-most-bicycles-per... (no idea about veracity of that data), Netherlands claimed 16.5 million cyclists cycling 2.5 km/day on average; compared to US with 100 million bicyclists cycling an average of 0.1 km/day.

So if we assume those numbers are right that gives 200 deaths in Netherlands for 15,000 million km cycled per year (16.5 * 2.5 * 365) ; versus US where there were 677 deaths for 3,650 million km (100 * 0.1 * 365).

This makes cycling in US 25 times a dangerous as Netherlands: Netherlands has 1 death per 75 million km cycled while US has a fatality every 5.3 km.

In comparison, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in... says 1.16 fatalities for cars per 100 million vehicle miles travelled, so one death every 86 million kilometers -- safer than cycling in Netherlands by distance, much safer than cycling.

Another page with similar calculations: http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/734/cycling/cycling-rates-by-c...

shows 5.8 cyclists killed per 100 million km cycled in US, versus 1.1 in Netherlands.

>US has a fatality every 5.3 km.

did you mean every 5.3 million km?

Do people ride their bicycles on a sidewalk in the Netherlands when a bicycle lane is not available?

No, when there are no bike lanes the instruction is to ride on the car lane, on the right.

But there are enough bikes around that the drivers are always aware of them. And usually the drivers themselves are bike riders, or at least mostly everyone in their families is.

This probably helps cyclists get support from the people there. I guess it is a chicken and egg problem. I have been almost hit many a times by cyclists who think they are supposed to ride on the sidewalk. I suppose they don't know any better.

I am stealing this soapbox to remind everyone (I assume some are cyclists):

* Never ride on the sidewalk, ever.

* Never ride against traffic.

and finally, I don't know how to enforce this without a flamethrower/rocket launcher:

* Do not let cars force you off the road. You have the right to a full lane. A car may not ride beside you in the same lane.

We read about cyclists following the rules getting hit by idiot drivers and think it might be safer to ride on the sidewalk. Maybe statistics shows more cyclists get injured on the road than on the sidewalk.

However, this anecodote is apt. More pedestrians get hit by cars on sidewalk than in the middle of the road. This does not mean pedestrians should walk in the middle of the road. Similarly, more cyclists get injured while riding on the road. That does not mean you should ride on the sidewalk.

The Netherlands doesn't have a sizeable auto industry with politically powerful unions in key political states. Unfortunately, the American auto industry bends government at all levels to its will...cars own the road and everything is designed around the auto here.

As you pointed, people broke their arms while riding a bike

I had an uncle suffer a fracture as well while riding (or better falling from) a bike. No cars were involved

So I'd say it is dangerous depending on the speed and terrain.

Sure it is, so what? But there is a HUGE difference between

    Riding a bike with speed and on terrain that outrun your riding skills

and

    Being hit by a car driven by someone not paying enough attention

Period.

Of course ;) I'd take number 1 any time

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