Why Bikes Make Smart People Say Dumb Things | Hacker News Reader

Why Bikes Make Smart People Say Dumb Things

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Cyclists and motorists need to stop demonizing each other. The problem is not with either of those groups, the problem is with indecisive, inconsistent enforcement of the law.

A cyclist knows that there is most likely no consequence for running a stop sign, so even if it is technically illegal, there's no incentive for them to stop. If motorists could get away with running stop signs just as easily, they would do the same. It's unreasonable to expect people to act contrary to their incentives.

We need to agree on what the law is, and enforce it accordingly. Maybe it doesn't make sense for cyclists to obey the same set of traffic signals as motorists; if that is the case then we need to explicitly say so.

This business where some people obey traffic signals and other don't needs to stop. That is the responsibility of city government and law enforcement.

Obviously, we can't have perfect enforcement. So we need to focus on the next best: enforce the rules where it makes a difference.

As this article abundandtly points out, the greatest cause for injury and death (you know, what we created traffic laws for) are cars. Hence, this is where enforcement needs to happen.

According to the article, 80% of motorists and 95% of bicyclists do not come to a complete stop at stop signs.

In Idaho, bicyclists are not required to stop at stop signs.

The elephant in the room is speeding. Speeding is responsible for ~30% of all road fatalities, yet is universally condoned on American roads. Drivers do not understand how hypocritical they are when they complain about bicyclists disobeying road rules while they themselves are speeding.

>In Idaho, bicyclists are not required to stop at stop signs.

Which, personally, I think is completely reasonable. Constantly stopping and pushing off again adds a huge amount of effort to a ride, and a cyclist has plenty of incentive to look before rolling through an intersection.

That argument works even better for cars. Cars are much heavier. It's far more effort to stop a car and get it going again than for a bicycle. It would dramatically improve gas mileage if cars could ignore stop signs.

It only takes a little bit of pressure from your foot on the gas to make the car go. And the mental energy to lighten up on the pressure when the car gets to speed. Or are you referring to the energy that gets expended by long-dead dinosaurs? For that, the cost of my entire trip to work is paid for during my first 5-10 minutes of working -- during which time I'm getting my morning coffee, and flipping through email. So not much energy there either.

He's referring to the long-dead dinosaurs, clearly. You know, the ones we pay for by the gallon. Not everyone makes as much as you do either.

Actually, quite a few people on here make more than I do. If you take the median U.S. salary (50K), and median commute distance (10 miles), that is still paying for the trip to work within the first 10 - 15 minutes (depending on car gas mileage). So the effort of accelerating from a stop sign is still way less than a minutes worth of work. And that is the energy that the original (bicycle) post was referring to -- the effort that you feel, not the externalized cost.

Getting people out of cars and onto bikes would save even more oil.

We also have 30 years of data from Idaho which allows cyclists to treat stop signs as yields: "Idaho bicycle-collision statistics confirm that the Idaho law has resulted in no discernible increase in injuries or fatalities to bicyclists."

http://btaoregon.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/hb2690-idaho...

Do you think this would be the case if applied to cars?

I do. At most intersections, a driver of normal capability should be capable of determining whether there are any other cars at the intersection without completely stopping for multiple seconds. And in reality, most drivers in my area do roll stops and it does not cause an appreciable number of accidents.

I think you also need to account for stopping distances and acceleration.

A bike can stop in far shorter distances than a car can (and will be travelling at a lower speed in the first place).

Bikes are also slower to accelerate than a car. Allowing a bike to maintain more of its momentum gets it through the intersection quicker, especially on any kind of uphill grade.

Anecdotal, perhaps, but I know that my personal experience has been that the combination of those two things means that I'm evaluating whether it's safe for me to pass through an intersection and making the decision much sooner on a bike than I would in a car where the assumption is I need to mostly stop because I may not be able to otherwise.

Many intersections could be safely altered to use yield signs in one direction, or converted completely to roundabouts. For some reason (and this is purely anecdotal), it seems that a lot of Americans, particularly older ones, seem to be very confused when first encountering a roundabout. I'm not sure why this is, but it may be a contributing factor to the prevalence of four way stops in the U.S. as compared to many European countries.

Of course, in a world where everybody is free to do rolling stops at whatever speed they feel comfortable with, the real issue is that bicycles have a greater incentive to slow down at intersections compared to drivers since the costs of being wrong about one's ability to do a rolling stop are much greater for the cyclist. A cyclist should also be more aware of their surroundings since they are not sitting in a metal and glass box with the radio on.

I always found the number of stop signs in the US to be pretty crazy. Where visibility is good why not just have a "give way" instead?

Also the car needs to use even more energy to get moving again so this would have financial/environmental benefits too.

A lot of unnecessary stop signs are there because someone wanted them there.

Every subdivision thinks they need a 3 way stop at the entrance, so they start complaining and eventually the local government caves and installs one because it's relatively cheap to install a few signs (and it's easier to ignore the traffic engineer who says it's unnecessary than the dozens of people who live in the subdivision)

Speeding is a tricky issue because of the wide variety of types of roads. For instance: four lane, divided highways yield fewer fatalities without any speed limits. (This is known as the 'Montana Paradox'). http://www.hwysafety.com/hwy_montana.htm

But then, isn't having an appropriate speed limit for the type and layout of the road still the issue? What makes it tricky, if we consider the safe speed on straight open 4 lane roads to be 90 and an urban street with frequent crossings to be 30?

> Speeding is responsible for ~30% of all road fatalities

That's not true. First, "speeding related" is not synonymous with "caused by speeding". Second, the data that relates to "speeding related" crashes has a significant overlap with "alcohol related crashes". If you exclude the "alcohol related" crashes from the total, you'll find that percentage drops quite a bit.

The author of the original article misquotes the 30% statistic. According to the PDF he linked to [1], 30% of American motorist fatalities are "speeding related." This is not the same thing as "caused by speeding." According to the NHTSA, speeding in this context is defined as

"Speeding is reported in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) as a driver-level attribute that combines 'driving too fast for conditions' or 'in excess of posted speed limit.'" [2]

Note that, in multi-vechicle accidents, only one party needs to have been speeding for the accident to be considered "speeding related". The 30% figure quoted also seems to vary quite a bit depending on the data you look at:

"The percentage of all crashes that were speeding-related (DTFFC or EPSL) varied considerably among the States, from about 6 percent to about 20 percent of all crashes" (ibid)

The NHTSA distinguishes between two types of speeding:

1) Exceeding Posted Speed Limit (EPSL)

2) Driving Too Fast For Conditions (DTFFC)

The former simply occurs whenever one's speed is greater than the posted maximum. The latter is a subjective call by the police officer, etc investigating the case and factors in road, traffic, and weather conditions.

The NHTSA has found (ibid) that about half of speeding-related fatal crashes occur for EPSL (55%) and the other half for DTFFC (45%). For speeding-related crashes that result in injuries, the respective ratios are 26% and 74% (ibid). The same source mentions that

"The relative proportion of crashes that occurred on the curved sections of the road was much higher in speeding-related (DTFFC or EPSL) crashes"

which suggests that many of these accidents were actually caused by either some form of driver inattention or adverse weather affecting road conditions, and that speeding was a contributing factor in the accident (i.e. less ability to correct for an unexpected event) but not the sole cause. Since driver inattention is almost impossible to prove absent records of an untimely text message or tweet, it's likely that the true causes of most of these accidents (most likely driver inattention or overly agressive driving) go unreported and are instead attributed to the only measurable data point that can be discerned: speeding.

[1] http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812006.pdf

[2] http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811090.PDF

A huge percentage of motorists flaunt the law every single day. They fail to signal, they fail to yield when they're supposed to, they blow through red lights, they exceed the speed limit, they drink and drive. Sometimes these behaviors are so common that they acquire nicknames, like the "boston left". But we accept all this lawlessness as normal, as the fuzziness around the edges of lawfulness. Even though this sort of behavior is so common and so dangerous that it is responsible for the death of tens of thousands of people every year in the US alone and countless billions in economic losses in damages and injuries.

In contrast to that, bicyclist lawlessness doesn't even rate. But bicycle lawlessness hasn't been folded into the accepted comfortable fuzzy border around lawfulness so every instance is a horrid and unique crime against the sanctity of the law and the foundations of civil society.

Edit: both bicyclist and motorist lawlessness is problematic. But the existence of either does not somehow damn the entire population of bicyclists or motorists. There are good motorists and bad motorists as there are good cyclists and bad cyclists. As mentioned above, folks who rail against the universal lawlessness of cyclists are focusing on one of the least serious dangers on the road.

> A huge percentage of motorists flaunt the law every single day. They fail to signal, they fail to yield when they're supposed to, they blow through red lights, they exceed the speed limit, they drink and drive

People complain about these infractions all the time. All the time. Just because something is "normal" doesn't mean people are happy with it.

People don't routinely use them as an excuse to vilify all drivers, but that pattern is quite common when it comes to cyclists.

Drivers are routinely vilified in bulk in mostly any major American city. For most residents of a large city, it has almost become a pastime to remark on how bad all the drivers are and how their city just must have the worst drivers out of all cities.

I see that sentiment expressed more often in the context of how some other bad driver inconvenienced them. I've never received an unsolicited "justify your existence" screed getting out of a car, though I have been harassed while locking my bike by people wanting me to answer for the sins of my people.

Did you read the article?

Pedestrians don't need to stop at Stop signs either. I think it's safest for all concerned if drivers treat cyclists as pedestrians. Give them right of way all the time, don't expect them to act exactly like cars at intersections. If I see a cyclist approaching a 4-way stop that I've stopped at in my car, I wait until their intentions are clear. (Equally importantly, I don't get angry if they blow through the Stop sign.) Counting on the rules being blindly followed is not a winning strategy, as anyone who's read about or experience mixed used roads will know.

EDIT: I wouldn't wait excessively long, of course, only if it were a close call, same as with a pedestrian. Common sense.

Wow, apparently exercising common sense, being appropriately cautious, and not being angry at cyclists is downvote-worthy. It's all about the rules here I guess, despite many studies pointing out otherwise.

> If I see a cyclist approaching a 4-way stop that I've stopped at in my car, I wait until their intentions are clear.

As a cyclist, this is one of the more annoying things I have to deal with. In the example you mention, I would expect you to proceed before I actually reach the intersection. Now, instead of slowing down and then proceeding through the intersection (after you've gone), I have to come to a stop and wait for you to proceed before I can go.

Signal.

Which is not to say that I wholly endorse the comment you were responding to, just that there is a good way you can make your intentions clear.

Again, you're applying rules too strictly. If you (the cyclist) are far enough away that you can stop easily if I (the driver) were to proceed, then I'll proceed. Bottom line, use common sense. If it looks like a close call, I'll wait until it's not, just like I would with a pedestrian; I'm not going to wait from the pedestrian 10 seconds away to cross either. Surely you'd support that kind of common sense caution towards cyclists.

> It's unreasonable to expect people to act contrary to their incentives.

It's actually unreasonable to expect drivers or cyclists to obey traffic laws that have no sound basis. Many stop signs are in place because they're misused for speed control, or are installed in places where a yield sign would suffice, or they're in place at a T-intersection where it's plainly obvious that there's no traffic to yield to, and so on.

What we really need is remove a lot of stop signs and replace them with yield signs. The only intersections where they should stay in place is where visibility of oncoming or cross traffic is limited.

I agree, but there's this other thing:

I'm a pedestrian and in the crosswalk. A cyclist is speeding toward me and doesn't stop. They either swerve around me or make me jump out of their way. A woman was killed last year in SF when she was hit by a cyclist in the crosswalk (she had the right of way, not crossing against the light).

So, even when there are consequences, cyclists act horribly.

I think all this illustrates is selective memory. You remember some cyclists swerving because that frightened you. You don't remember all the times the interaction went smoothly.

The irresponsible cyclist who killed a woman is just that--irresponsible and reckless. This is orthogonal to the fact that he was on a bike at the time.

Are you referring to this man who was killed by a cyclist last year, at Market and Castro or was there another incident where a woman was killed by a different cyclist?

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Family-of-bicyclist-s-vi...

Definitely different. This was a 22ish yr old woman. I don't remember the street.

Let's not cite anecdotes to set public policy.

You give one example of a pedestrian killed by a cyclist in SF last year. Also last year, 21 pedestrians and 4 cyclists were killed by cars[0].

That's still not a fair statistic because there are far more cars than bikes. So in 2012, 1.14 people were killed by cars in the US per 100 million miles driven[1].

I can't find similar bike stats for the US, but in the UK there are about 3.7 cyclist deaths per 100 million miles. How many of those deaths were caused by cyclists, and how many were caused by cars?

[0] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Streets-of-S-F-a-road-...

[1] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit...

[2] http://www.ctc.org.uk/resources/ctc-cycling-statistics

First, I wasn't trying to set public policy. I was offering experience not anecdotes. I've walked 20+ miles a week for 15+ years. I've observed a lot of behavior.

Yes, on occasion cyclists stop for me when I'm in the crosswalk, but it's the exception.

I quoted information about cyclists, because you know, I was replying to a comment about cyclists.

I'd like to point out one other thing: my safety, as a pedestrian, is more often put at risk by cyclists than motorists. I'm talking number of incidents here. I'll agree that were I to be hit by a car I'd likely be more seriously injured than by a bike, but my point is about the numbers.

The route I walk is heavily trafficked by cars and bikes, so the comparison is a fair one.

You probably don't know how often your safety is put at risk by cars because you aren't aware of what is going on inside the cars. There are accidents every year in which distracted drivers, or those reacting to them, encroach upon pedestrian areas like sidewalks or crosswalks.

How many pedestrians were killed last year in SF when they were hit by cars? It's easy to remember the one or two people killed by bikes in a metropolis when there are only one or two of them. A bike still generally rides slower than a car and takes up 1/6th the room. There's a lot more room for survival with a bike -- even when they break the law.

This was a well written article.

I'm a commuter cyclist (in San Francisco) and I admit to taking actions that I'm sure piss off some pedestrians. I always feel bad about it and am working on it. The one thing is that 99% of my focus is on dealing with the 1-ton boxes of death metal traveling at 60KM/h and not on the 150lb squishy humans going 5KM/h.

The new bike lans going up in the city are awesome though. I'm sure if you looked at biker<->pedestrian conflicts on a street like Folsom before and after the huge bike lane they put up, you would (hopefully!) see a marked decrease.

The thing that really pisses off pedestrians is when bicycles don't stop when their supposed to and just go through intersections when they aren't supposed to.

That type of action doesn't help with your safety against motor vehicles, its purely bicyclists not wanting to stop. That seems selfish on the part of bicyclists who do this.

Just walk. The cyclist most likely sees you and is waiting for you to move past. The worst thing you can do is react to the cyclist, stopping and starting.

I agree, but peds who never ride bikes don't realize this and I don't think you can expect them to. They're used to interacting with cars, where there's not enough room for both (a car and a ped) in an intersection, so their reaction is to avoid sharing it.

I'm a pedestrian, cyclist, and driver (not necessarily in that order). I totally understand this, but I also think it's a general misunderstanding. Many (most?) pedestrians have extensive experience driving or at least riding in motor vehicles, but few have the same amount of experience cycling. Thus, pedestrians trust cars (even though statistics suggest they shouldn't) to stop or avoid them at crosswalks and driveways because they know they do it, too.

A cyclist may run a stop sign and ride through a crosswalk very close to a pedestrian. They do not consider this dangerous behavior, because they are in control and they know it. Pedestrians (even those with biking experience) may not have inherent trust the cyclist is in control or aware, and this instills fear. The cyclist rides away without even knowing they scared the pedestrian, while the pedestrian feels they were endangered. These interactions then reinforce stereotypes.

My point is that _everyone_ is acting selfish at intersections [0], and nobody thinks they are a threat because they believe they're in control. I think things get most heated with (against) cyclists because while most cyclists are also pedestrians and drivers, the reverse is not true.

[0] http://vimeo.com/24572222

This was a poorly written article. He moved the goal posts. Do cyclists break the law? Yes, constantly. My neighborhood has a lot of bike lanes, but all that means is I know where to look for a cyclist that's about to run a red light or be moving opposite the flow of traffic. Scott Simon is not wrong. The author's point about the frequency of serious injuries is well-taken, but it doesn't prove Simon wrong. He's just using it as a segue to make a related argument.

The author also relied too heavily on 'fatalities' as a metric of safety. A pedestrian hit by a bike running a red like almost certainly won't be killed, and might not even end up in the hospital. That shouldn't grant bikers a license to run red lights with impunity.

To his credit, though, he goes very light on the typically insufferable cyclist tone of moral superiority one finds in articles of this ilk.

So we shouldn't consider risk of fatality as a safety metric?

Also, play "typically insufferable cyclist tone of moral superiority one finds in articles of this ilk" back in your head and think about how it sounds.

> The one thing is that 99% of my focus is on dealing with the 1-ton boxes of death metal traveling at 60KM/h and not on the 150lb squishy humans going 5KM/h.

That's not a good attitude. For those 150lb squishy humans, you are a 180lb of mostly the same, but moving 20km/h. Moreover, you are almost totally silent and much harder to see than a car. Add that to the fact that non-cyclists may not be able to instinctively predict what you are going to do next.

I'm also a commuter cyclist in SF, and find that it's not that hard to be considerate of pedestrians.

Yup, for sure. And I'm working on it and certainly hope other cyclists work to improve their behavior as well.

As a european biker my theory on the aggressiveness in the debate about bikers in the USA is simply that, due to how traffic laws over there are structured, bikers are much more endangered and have to respond with much more aggressiveness.

As an example: In Germany a biker legally has to keep a minimum distance from parked cars. This often means riding in the middle of the lane, something which german bikers are not only, as in this minimum distance case, forced to, but generally allowed to in every case.

From what friends in the USA tell me, trying to do that is a very quick trip to a hospital.

Doesn't explain London where I have regularly witnessed cyclists blasting through red lights at 30 mph at major junctions at the height of the rush hour.

I have also see them take short cuts through large groups of pedestrians at only slightly less speed.

I lived in London for 4 years and that is bullshit.

Sorry no I recently worked in proctor street next to Holborn tube you could see 2 or 3 idiot cyclists every day in 5 min just walking across the road to the local café.

Second person challenging your bullshit statement here...

I've lived in London for a total 10 years and I've seen non-boris bike cyclists in Central London regularly do this:

1. Go through red lights. 2. Go through pedestrian crossings at speed whilst pedestrians are actually crossing. 3. Cycle the wrong way on a road. 4. Cycle across crossings when the lights favour them. 5. Cycle on pavements (only young children should be allowed to do this). 6. Cycle in bus only lanes ignoring the bus behind them. 7. Weave in-between traffic. 8. Undertake.

I'm a pedestrian btw... not someone who drives in London, and without a doubt cyclists make more dangerous actions that a pedestrian has to be wary of than drivers.

Having to be aware of cars/trucks/buses doesn't excuse a cyclists responsibility to be aware of pedestrians first.

My understanding in the US is that riding on the sidewalks is illegal, and that cyclists must ride in the road to follow the law (I am not a cyclist).

I can only speak for my state (South Carolina) but that is absolutely true, but rarely enforced. I've had several accidents and near misses pulling out of my driveway and bumping into people biking down the sidewalk. They were always at fault, but at the same time the street they should have been riding on is a major thoroughfare downtown and has speeds of 25-35 MPH with no bike lane. You really cannot expect everyone to be able to bike anywhere near that fast, but then you wind up with folks going a few MPH on a bike and holding up traffic. It's just a terrible situation all around.

> They were always at fault, but at the same time the street they should have been riding on is a major thoroughfare downtown and has speeds of 25-35 MPH with no bike lane. You really cannot expect everyone to be able to bike anywhere near that fast, but then you wind up with folks going a few MPH on a bike and holding up traffic. It's just a terrible situation all around.

This is a major problem in Houston as well. I think cyclists are generally disliked here because the road system is just not at all designed to accommodate them. There are a lot of roads with 30-40 mph speeds, no bike lanes, and sidewalks that are very popular for walkers (plus it's illegal to ride a bike on them). A cyclist has the choice of either biking on the sidewalk, thereby endangering pedestrians, or biking on the road, thereby causing a small traffic jam and forcing all the cars to switch lanes.

Riding on sidewalks is legal in Seattle.

In my (smaller, 80k pop) city, we actually have paved bike paths separated from the road, however cyclists choose to ride in the street anyway.

this is highly variable. in philadelphia, it's illegal in center city where pedestrian density is highest, but legal elsehere in the city. this means cyclists starting their journey in a legal zone may tend to just continue what they're doing, especially as the zone change isn't marked.

> From what friends in the USA tell me, trying to do that is a very quick trip to a hospital.

It's still safer, but you might get someone who is less-informed yelling/honking at you. Then again, I don't bike in the 'burbs either.

Those in cars getting angry at cyclists are most often doing it because they believe the cyclist to be slowing them down. There are plenty of valid reasons as well, but by and large, this is the reason when you boil it down. We have an unrealistic expectation of speed on city streets because our highway speed limits are so disproportionately high compared to urban ones, that travelling at the true speed limit is frustrating if one doesn't constantly do it.

Yield to those at greater risk than you, and never assume your travel time is more important than anothers safety, and all other laws/rules enforcement arguments go out the window, in my book.

If there was one thing that would greatly improve cyclist-pedestrian incidents, in my mind, it would be heavily enforcing the stop sign parking distance laws. Too often I see cars (especially delivery vehicles) parked in such a way that a cyclist doesn't even see a pedestrian about to cross or vice versa until the last minute, because the pedestrian side of the crosswalk is obstructed from view by an illegally parked vehicle upon approach. This stops the "Idaho Stop" philosophy from working well here in Chicago.

"parked in such a way that a cyclist doesn't even see a pedestrian about to cross or vice versa until the last minute"

As an (old?) driver Ive had some pretty terrifying moments with school kids in the same situation. Bikers and drivers should be working together to fix that not turn it into a biker only or driver only (or pedestrian only?) issue.

I agree - cars (and running children) are just as much affected by it. Thing is, most cities have laws on the books about it (many of chicago's list it as tow zone with an arrow pointing towards the stop sign). It's just rarely if ever enforced, especially in daylight hours when it's the biggest problem. Overnight though I've seen them towed.

I think it depends heavily on the city and the way the roads have been planned. There are places where cyclists most definitely do slow down traffic, and that can be pretty unsafe for the cars.

Houston, where I live, is an example. I don't dislike cyclists at all, but when a long string of cars encounters a single cyclist going at half the speed, at most, it really does cause problems. There are no bike lanes here and it's illegal to bike on sidewalks, so cyclists have no choice but to ride in the middle of the lane.

What happens is, if there's enough traffic, a single cyclist can cause a mini traffic jam, because every car will try to switch lanes so they can pass, but there are too many cars for everybody to safely switch lanes. So one lane basically comes to a stop behind the cyclist and the other doesn't go much faster because of people trying to merge into it (which isn't safe due to the volume of cars).

This is far from the worst situation that can happen on the road, but this is what happens with probably 90% of the cyclists I encounter in Houston while driving. In a city like Houston where everything is spread out, it is truly not practical to reduce all car speeds down to bike speeds.

Ah Houston. I spent a month there for work a few years ago, and brought my bike only to find the stretch I was staying at it was incredibly difficult to find a good road to ride on. Of course, in 105 degrees and 90% humidity I rarely felt like riding my bike :)

That's a real tough place to find a happy medium. Many of the places people go to are long fast stretches with few alternate routes. As much as I love riding, my bike barely saw any use other than driving it in my rental car miles north on the weekends to find somewhere to go.

Say what you will about the relative dangers of autos vs. cyclists, but my closest call to death in SF traffic (as a pedestrian) was due to a cyclist, not a car: I was about to cross an otherwise-empty intersection legally, when a bicyclist shot through against the light at high speed, missing me by centimeters. Had I been hit by the guy I'd have been severely injured, if not killed.

Moreover, riders around here don't seem to pay much attention to pedestrians -- they're so focused on cars that they routinely do things to endanger the rest of us (I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I've had to dodge bikes on crowded sidewalks, even though it's illegal to ride on sidewalks here.)

There's a certain type of "activist" rider here who has made flaunting the law a badge of honor. I don't own a car and I do ride a bike, but at this point, I have a lot of sympathy for the people who criticize cyclists -- the entitlement is a little out of control.

(edit: thanks for the downvotes, folks. you're definitely changing my mind on this issue.)

> (edit: thanks for the downvotes, folks. you're definitely changing my mind on this issue.)

You're getting downvotes because you managed to completely miss the point the article is trying to make:

Anecdotes are not generalized evidence.

But personal experience affects decisions people make. Sharing it is useful.

This is from the guy whose other comment on this thread is a personal opinion/theory? [1]

Let's be honest: you don't have a problem with opinions, you just don't happen to like mine.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7999941

The difference is that i noted from the get-go that my post is a theory, which, as theories go, is implicitly understood to maybe be right or maybe be wrong. Take care to note for example how i marked which statements i made were either fact or hear-say.

Now the article, which freely admitted that there are black sheep on both sides and that there are certainly situations where bikers are MORE likely to break the law than others, merely tried to make the point that the, often unreflected, demonization (not all criticism, the demonization) is undeserved and that the situation would be better for everyone if people simply thought a bit more.

Your comment on that? "I had some trouble with bikers who broke the laws, so some criticism is deserved." The latter part of that was already a sentiment in the article, and the entirety of that is what the article tried to point out as thoughtlessness.

You are getting downvotes because people presume you've read the article, yet you end up with "the entitlement is a little out of control". If we apply the same logic to car drivers, we would have marines deployed in the city by now to fight these menaces.

It's not a relative statement. Bicyclists can be entitled even if drivers are worse. Both groups can be obnoxious...and in my opinion, frequently are.

Criminally dangerous motorist behavior is never brought up as a reason not to spend money on facilities for cars. It is for bicyclists.

The problem has already been solved a long time ago, but Americans just don't like the answer.

Driving a car means driving a vehicle that can easily murder an entire family in a split second. Drivers should have a greater amount of responsibility for traffic safety and that responsibility should be enshrined in the laws.

It's so hypocritical that Americans do apply that logic to guns and use it to justify responsible gun ownership, but any 16 year old can wield a car like it's toy and get away with it.

Amsterdam cyclist all act like anti-social a-holes, but over here that is not considered an excuse to just fucking run them over with your car. Period.

It's a pointless argument. Unprotected cyclists and pedestrians should not be held to the same standards as drivers because the consequences are wildly different.

It's like saying because people are hitting me with fluffy cotton balls it's okay for me to fire live rounds at them if nobody stops them. Insane.

"Amsterdam cyclist all act like anti-social a-holes, but over here that is not considered an excuse to just fucking run them over with your car."

Why? Anything other than "just because"?

I'll give you a personal example where I was not directly involved but I was sort of present. So I'm at my place of employment, there's streetlights with a dangerous blind corner less than a block away from the front door, trucks parked on the street and stuff. Teen on his bike tries to run a red light at this blind corner, ends up dead underneath a bus in an instant. I ran the math based on some trig and the speeds involved and at this blind corner both the biker and bus driver thought the intersection was clear until, at most, the last 1/20th of a second of the kids life. The passenger side wheels went right over the kids head, likely he never knew what hit him. Wasn't much left of that kid.

Most drivers I work with were infuriated because everyone's got experience with bikers not following the law and its bound to happen sooner or later. And frankly its going to happen again, and maybe I'll be the one hitting a red-light-running biker. And I don't really feel bad about it and I refuse to accept responsibility for the kids actions. There's nothing the bus driver could have done about it and nothing I can do about it in the inevitable situation I hit a biker. So there seems little point in not allowing it as an excuse.

Note that I've got nothing against suicide prevention, I'd be the first guy to suggest maybe education, or rebuild that intersection, or ... something? But the kid willfully and intentionally played russian roulette and lost. I don't wanna have to wash his innards off my car, but I'm probably going to have to do something like this, sooner or later. Who pays for the damage to my car, thats whats important to me. The bikers might not care about their own lives so I feel no obligation to do the caring for them, but I do care about my car.

> I don't wanna have to wash his innards off my car, but I'm probably going to have to do something like this, sooner or later

Sounds like selection bias. The amount of bike fatalities is nowhere near large enough that you should be expecting to run someone over.

Then they should keep running red lights. What could possibly go wrong?

Its also a strongly social discussion, not private. Someone I know or care about will run a red-light running biker over, although ahead of time there's no way to tell who.

> Someone I know or care about will run a red-light running biker over

Also very doubtful. It's much more likely that your or someone you care about will run over a law-abiding cyclist.

Running a stop on a bicycle is perfectly safe when there is nobody around. You can be sure that nobody is around because, first of all you're not in a cabin, and nothing blocks your vision: you have a 360 view of the situation, and you can hear well also. A driver's vision is blocked by window posts, the rear-view mirror, and additional things like object hanging from the mirror and passenger's heads. These objects can occlude an entire pedestrian or three. Secondly, on a bicycle, you will rarely go faster than 30 km/h. If you sustain 30 km/h on flat pavement in the absence of wind, you're pretty fit and going at it quite hard. The higher speeds are achieved when going down hill or in a tailwind. 30 km/h is in the ballpark of what cars slow down to when running stops. Drivers don't even consider that running because they believe they really slowed down and looked very well; it's called "rolling" through a stop, or making a "taxi stop".

If you still runs stops at full speed on your bicycle when going downhill at 50-60 or more, or barging into intersections where visibility is poor, then you're crazy.

Obeying traffic rules to the letter is not a substitute for knowing the limitations of the machine, accounting for weather conditions, being "radar aware" of everything that is going on as far as your eye can see, and predicting the possible thing that drivers are going to do several moves into the future. Oh, and being properly clothed and lit for visibility at night! If you're doing all that, then reward yourself by rolling through a few stop signs.

Being vigilant for drivers swinging their doors open into traffic will pay off a lot more than coming to a full stop at stop signs. Cyclists are often killed in "dooring" accidents.

I have no idea why this is on HN. In any case, he's absolutely right. It's not overgeneralization when everyone sees it day-in and day-out in every major American city. This article simply seems to be shocked that anyone would criticize bicyclists for doing what they do every single day. Source: I cycle myself.

"I have no idea why this is on HN."

I believe its a really good example of how to manipulate statistics to meet a predetermined conclusion. I'm not sure if there was one number in the entire article that wasn't manipulated into propaganda. The text prose was OK but the manipulation of statistics was masterful.

Here's one example. If a skinny biker, hit pedestrian me, at a "normal" speed maybe 10 MPH, the kinetic impact would be similar (for me, anyway) to a normal size person hitting me in the hallway. Oh we'd both get knocked down, and if I was 80 like my grandma, or 8 like my kid, it might kill, and maybe 1 in 100 odds someone would break a bone, but the fatality rate per accident would hover near enough zero. In comparison, hit a pedestrian on a 45 (really more like 60) MPH country road and the only question is if they'll be enough left to fill a coffin or not, so we'll call that near 100% fatality rate per accident. So the fixation on comparing fatality rates is meaningless. There's more to a good day than merely not dying in a bike-ped accident and I have no great desire to be hit over and over and "its OK because I wasn't killed and my desire to wear spandex is more important than your desire to live". "Well sorry I killed your kid or grandma but statistically they don't count." That's not really a culture to aspire to.

Another example is the fixation on counts without discussing percentages. Lets see, on my commute home about 60000 of my closest friends and I will drive on that major interstate over the course of the entire commute, while what, maybe a handful of bikers will spend hours taking the surface streets? So if bikes were rabid death machines I'd still expect the death counts to be spectacularly higher for cars than bikers because practically no one bikes. The death count from a rounding error will in fact approach zero. That doesn't mean Russian Roulette is a great game to recommend and the authors observation is meaningless.

I have mixed feelings in that my opinions and biases generally match the authors, because I like to ride my bike (although I ride safely, which even I admit is unusual for bikers), but I can't decide if I should complain about the evils of propaganda or compliment the guy on doing a near legendarily good job at generating propaganda. You have to respect competence, even if its doing something evil. You can always learn something from competence. Just don't confuse successful competence with good ethics. Life isn't as simple as merely success = goodness.

A few thoughts...

1) Current US roads infrastructure is not designed for bicycles. If we are serious about getting people to use bikes, then we have to re-think how we design roads and re-build the ones we currently have. Same goes to the traffic laws.

2) Personally I feel that not stopping on a red light or a stop sign is far more dangerous than going over speed limit in the flow of traffic on 280. I do understand why bicyclists don't want to stop. We should re-think the roads and traffic laws to fix this instead of accepting the fact.

3) While this is true that the number of deaths from bike is not even close to the number of deaths from cars, this comparison is not fare. We should look at the total number of accidents with death or a hospital stay and factor in the number of bikes/cars on the road. Not sure if this kind of research exists.

4) Lastly, the bikers on public roads need to be regulated. Right now there is an implicit assumption that all bikers are also car drivers and they know the rules. However, it is not really the case anymore. Moreover, bike rules ARE different.

I've done both biking in the city and driving. City governments need to push both parties to be better on the road.

In Toronto, bikes are considered slow motor vehicles. We have these kinds of problems. I think from a biker's perspective, it's dangerous because their life is on the line. But from a car's perspective, bikers are a danger to them finacially.

The problems IMO is asymetrical. Bikers put themselves on the line, but it's low cost (realatively) and no pre-requesite knowlege on how to behave on roads (no bike exam vs driver exam). A Car has low risk to themselves on the road, but it's costly (car cost + insurance + maintenance), and they have to past an exam on how to behave on the road.

To a driver: Bikers pretty much break the rules of the road and there isn't much consequence execpt an accident. I've never seen a cop pull over a bike for behaving badly. Bikes also have this thing where they can behave like cars sometimes, then behave like pedestrians when convienient. To me this needs to stop. Cities need to police bad bikers, and maybe have some training course/licensing for cyclists. There is a right way to behave on the road and I've seen alot of good cyclists, they just have to be more of them.

To a cyclist: Drivers need to be punished for dangerous actions against cyclists. Like not checking your mirrors before opening doors, or changing lanes. There needs to be civic campagins from the government urging drivers in the cities to be aware of cyclists and to remind drivers how to co-exists with cyclists.

I've thought of both sides of the arguement, I've changed the way I drive and cycle. Driving rules are pretty clear, but when I cycle, I just pretty much act likes a car with my hazzard lights on and hand signal like my blinkers are broken. I take up a lane and people can pass me when they can do so safely. Does it imped traffic? Yes, but I don't see anyone complaining about heavy trucks on the road.

> .... where they can behave like cars sometimes, then behave like pedestrians when convienient. To me this needs to stop. Cities need to police bad bikers, and maybe have some training course/licensing for cyclists. There is a right way to behave on the road and I've seen alot of good cyclists, they just have to be more of them.

Biked in Europe for 20+ years, and now live in North America. The problem is exactly your attitude: that there is only one "road", that there is one right way to behave on it, and both drivers and cyclists should follow it. It's like North Americans can't wrap their head around the fact that driving is just one mode, cycling is another, walking is yet another, trains are yet another, etc. and what you call "the road" is the disproportionate part of the pavement that you dedicate uniquely to drivers.

eumenides1, since you're clearly trying to drive and cycle well: on your last point, the Ontario Highway Traffic Act explicitly requires a cyclist to move to the right to allow a faster vehicle (or horse!) to pass (with the passer likewise required to move left to pass safely). Yes, certain cities imply otherwise, but cities don't make traffic law. Of course, as you also note, there is absolutely no chance you will ever be ticketed for it.

The core problem is nobody gives a shit. The traffic designers, the urban planners, the cyclists, the drivers, the pedestrians, the cops, the government. Everyone cheats, everyone makes excuses, it's someone else's fault, yadda yadda.

It makes perfect sense for cyclists to obey the effing law but they don't. They'll rattle off an infinite number of excuses, ranging from it doesn't make sense, to everybody does it why should I be the good rider, to laws of physics: it is hard to stop a bike and then restart at an intersection so I will just race right through, yadda yadda yadda. It's lazy, cheater thinking.

Everyone out for themselves. No empathy anywhere in sight.

Before I moved to the DC-area, I was quite familiar with automobile assholes. They're everywhere. But, before I moved here, I had a pretty good impression of bikers - I always thought that they were a mellow bunch. But, DC introduced me to the biker asshole, a species that seems to flourish here, like mosquitoes.

While it's bad to generalize, like the journalist in the article did, I can see how he could become irritated after a while.

What about DC pedestrians? Are there assholes among them, too? Is everyone in DC an asshole?

The pedestrians aren't bad, except maybe the ones near the Mall and the other tourist attractions.

DC has some nice bike/hike trails that extend way out (50-100 miles or more). I happened to have lived on one of these trails, called the 'W&OD', at three different locations.

These trails are somewhat overcrowded, especially during commuting hours. But, it's not unusual for a biker, traveling at high speed, to swerve extremely close to a walker. A lot of times it's out of spite. I've gotten physically hit several times - and, I try to do a good job at staying on the margin.

One (slightly off-topic comment):

I live in Santa Barbara, and the bikes going 30+MPH down Alameda Padre Serra at night with no lights on is a significant source of injury. That is a stretch where bicyclists are regularly hit by cars backing out of driveways.

Even a bike with the average headlamp is far less visible than a car with its lights on to a car backing up, and this is a very windy road. It is just not true that cars going 30 on this road at night are more dangerous (to the operator of the vehicle) than bicycles, as serious bicycle accidents are more regular there than serious car accidents. Of course, a car doing something unsafe is far more of a danger to others, but that's a universal truth.

I can't speak for the author's mother, but nearly everyone I know would agree that 40mph is far too fast for cars on that stretch of road (30mph speed limit, and most cars tend to go 25-35mph on it). I've even seen a resident there standing next to the road raising up rude signs to cars they feel are going too fast.

On another note, bicycling here is very frustrating as the roads are not safe for cycling (even where there are bike lanes, cars are often parked overlapping them), there are few dedicated bike paths, and bicycling on sidewalks has its own issue. It's particularly frustrating since the weather is amenable to year-round cycling.

For those interested, here's a streetview of the downhill stretch likely talked about:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/181+Alameda+Padre+Serra/@3...

Zero fatalities per 15 million miles is not a great metric. For one thing, cars boast less than 0.3 fatalities per 15 million miles, so if anybody dies between now and 45 million bike miles that will not be a great statistic.

I'd wager that 1 million bike miles represent far more trips than 1 million car miles, though, since obviously bikes are (usually) used for shorter trips than cars.

Though most pedestrian fatalities would be on relatively short car trips or relatively short stretches of long car trips (before/after the highway).

I have to contribute to this because I have this deep pent up rage against most bicyclists in Sacramento...

>The few studies that look at specific violations have found that people on bikes do roll through stop signs about 15% more than drivers do (at least in Oregon), but also that drivers roll through them almost 80% of the time

This is the source of all my aggression. First off, this is an incredibly high percentage, basically confirming almost all bicyclists don't stop at stop signs. Looks like I have reason to generalize. This statistic is deceptive in that it doesn't compare speed through a stop sign. Most drivers roll through stop signs (no source but based on personal experience), they don't blow through them at full speed. Downtown/midtown Sacramento has hundreds of stop signs and I almost hit bicyclists on a weekly basis.

There were lots of statistical goofs in this article but this one made my eyes turn red.

rant over

I think zaccus and OmarIsmail are on the right track.

Re: zaccus - Google the "Idaho stop." The folks in Idaho got it right: cyclists should slow down at stop sign intersections and come to a full stop (with foot on ground) if a car got there first; otherwise proceed through with caution. As far as red lights in a crowded city like SF -- sorry you gotta stop like everyone else.

Re: OmarIsmail - We cyclists can do a better job. It's all about showing respect to everyone, ESPECIALLY pedestrians. Get off your bike and walk if necessary to not spook them.

Overall I would say that Scott Simon got a raw deal. There ARE a lot of jerks on bicycles and it is just plain honesty to say so.

The smiling man on the bike in the last photo on the page was my high school psychology teacher. Can confirm: not a hipster.

I bought a cool rear-view mirror today: it clips onto the temple of your glasses rather than your helmet.

Off the bike, it doubles as a cubicle rear-view mirror.

If I turn my head about 45 degrees to the left, I see the "third quadrant" behind me, and if I turn a little bit more, I see directly backwards, all with a decently wide angle.

Bikes can go 20-30MPH = 10X what pedestrians can do. In comparison cards go 35-45 in city traffic - may 2X what cycles can do.

Bicycles and pedestrians do not belong on the same path. I know we WISH they could, or that they could just get along somehow, but the math says it isn't going to happen.

I'm not sure what you're responding to, but I agree that bikes do not generally belong on sidewalks.

...Or in crosswalks when pedestrians are there. So bikes must respect stop signs and signals, period.

I don't think the author of this piece disagrees with you, there. In fact:

"I tense up when I see a cyclist approaching a stop sign without slowing all the way down, but I tense up a lot more when a car does the same. And I fantasize about a cop showing up and ticketing them both, so I can make it safely to work today."

I mostly agree, although if there is sufficient visibility and no one around I might relax "period" slightly.

Another perspective, of course not statistical, but interesting: https://vimeo.com/77084110

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