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Comment by bane | Hacker News Reader

>despite being required to obey all traffic laws however ill-suited they are for pedal powered vehicles.

I absolutely agree with this general sentiment. Bikes aren't vehicles and can't perform like a motorized vehicle along virtually any parameter. They shouldn't be regulated like a vehicle and they shouldn't be sharing space with vehicles.

They also clearly aren't pedestrians since sharing space between bikes and pedestrians is usually a bad experience for everybody (I've been hit by numerous bike riders while out jogging or walking on local trails. They usually yell at me for blocking their path if the collision causes them to have to stop or fall). However, because they move at much higher speeds than pedestrians, they're dangerous in mixed spaces.

But they're a valid form of transport. But clearly distinct from both other modes. So I fully support bikes having distinct travelways. I'm even delighted that my tax dollars might help pay for it.

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I don't understand this perspective that much. Have you seen how road traffic works internationally, specifically Europe? There are many examples where significant bike traffic can safely share the road with cars. The Netherlands is one of the best examples here.

The issue is that: 1) Road design - many/most cities do not have adequate road engineering to deal with bikes 2) Driver training - Road drivers in the US aren't trained to deal with non-car traffic 3) Weak Bike traffic law enforcement - I don't think that bike negligence is a key cause of accidents but I do agree that police enforcement of traffic laws on cyclists is lax.

So I disagree with the notion that bike traffic needs to have a separate roadway from urban traffic. I think there are plenty of good examples where a sharing system works.

Well, up top, I specifically endorsed the protected bike lanes as a good idea. I'm not sure if that counts as "separate" or not, but I'm on board with the idea.

I've spent months all over Europe, and in general, in cities cars are a liability, bikes work much better. In the countryside, the motorways I've been on are basically deathtraps for bikes and I've never seen one on them (likely due to it being illegal or some such but I wouldn't know).

You've been hit by numerous bike riders while out jogging or walking on local trails?

This is mind-blowing. As a former distance runner, I've put in 10,000+ miles of running on trails, on sidewalks and on small roads and done so in several countries. In over a decade of that, I was never hit by any cyclist. Even in terms of close calls I can only remember a couple. What kind of trails do you frequent and what the heck are you doing to get hit not once but numerous times? Are you using some kind of headphone that blocks out surrounding sounds?

I had a full on collision last year that sprained my elbow so bad I may have to get surgery. I'm waiting to see if it heals up. The bicyclist gave me an earful about blocking the shared-use trail with my walking until I called pulled out my phone to call the cops and then he high tailed it out there. It was literally a vehicular hit and run. And if I need surgery will cost me thousands of dollars and months of physical therapy on top of the medical and physical therapy bills I've already paid.

About a month ago I was clipped by a guy in full kit who then kept on pedaling without checking on me (another hit and run).

My wife was pushed off a trail by another guy in full tour de France kit while out for a walk earlier this summer.

I've probably been hit or clipped or pushed a half dozen times since I moved into my neighborhood. I could go on.

Bike riders around here are really serious about their hobby and are generally assholes to anybody who gets in their way.

That's pretty awful and I can see how it might affect your views on cyclists. I would want to punch those guys myself.

I had the good fortune to start cycling seriously with a university club where the coach was really strict about safe riding being a pre-requisite to participation and as such I don't do the kinds of things you're talking about. In fact most of the cyclists I know don't do that stuff either.

But just because I'm not exposed to a bunch of jackasses doesn't mean they don't exist.

I think your support of separate spaces for separate uses is admirable given the bad experiences you've had.

Thanks. I support cycling, I think it's great. I wish it was easier and more practical to do in the U.S.

What I don't support is this weird viewpoint that lots of American cyclists seem to have that the world revolves around their hobby and/or transportation choice. America was built around the car, it sucks, but that's the way it is. I don't like it, I wish it wasn't that way and I'm absolutely in love with the current trend in urban planning to de-emphasize the car and reemphasize more efficient transport modes: bikes, trams, subways, etc.

As somebody who doesn't live in a city, this trend is not good for me because it makes it hard to get in and out of the city. But I recognize it as a better way for more people than just me and my car and I can get myself over my minor inconvenience and just drive to the local mass transit link and walk a bit instead of fighting for parking downtown.

There's a balance somewhere, but cyclists don't seem to want to recognize it. They want to feign anger and offense when motorists complain when they take their bikes onto roadways that were not intended or engineered for them and they block traffic and cause safety issues.

I recognize that not all cyclists are like this, but damn if the ones around my area aren't some kind of special crop of bastards (and there's enough of a population that bikes to support a very nice local bike shop I can walk to). I'm actually hoping that with better bike infrastructure more people get on bikes and drown these kinds of assholes out. The more people biking, the greater the political lobby to continue building out good balanced infrastructure for everybody and the more unacceptable it will be for bad cyclists to get onto automobile roads.

If you want an idea of the kind of nonsense I deal with almost weekly, here's a picture I found (not my area but looks close enough) https://imgur.com/q1xM217

To be clear, I don't really have a problem with this https://imgur.com/E8CGnmt other than I hope the guy on the left doesn't fall over or veer into highway traffic. But they're both off the road, not bothering anybody and doing their thing.

You know what I'd love to see in that second picture? A barrier between me and them and that shoulder turned into a dedicated, clearly marked bike trail. At intersections, I'd love to see tunnels and overpasses purpose built for them. I'd love love love that.

> They want to feign anger and offense when motorists complain when they take their bikes onto roadways that were not intended or engineered for them and they block traffic and cause safety issues.

The part I take issue with is "were not intended" because the laws are very clear on what rights and responsibilities cyclists have when using the roads. The law gives them a right to be there.

The majority of states laws on the matter say that you have to ride as close as is practicable to the edge of the road and that cars are required to give you a three foot space when passing or overtaking or whatever you'd like to call it. And then many go on to state that when the lane is narrow enough that cars can't give you the three feet and still pass safely, you get the whole lane. In Texas and Florida if the lane is less than 14 feet wide there is no adjacent, designated bicycle lane (not the shoulder, but a designated lane) then the cyclist has the right to the whole lane.

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

In many states you're legally allowed to ride two abreast provided that it doesn't impede traffic so in cases with wide enough bike lanes this is OK and it's also allowed on roads where the lane is less than 14 feet wide and there is no bike lane.

http://www.biketexas.org/en/infrastructure/texas-bicycle-law...

A lot of states also have laws that specify that cyclists must pull over and let cars pass if more than say 5 of them are piled up behind a cyclist, unable to pass. That's definitely a legitimate grievance for cars as they have the right to demand the cyclist let them pass but few know about the law much less follow it.

In the first picture you linked the lane looks to be of questionable width (probably less than 14 feet) in which case what the riders are doing is not only legal but also for their own safety. Once more than 5 cars are behind them though, they all need to pull off and let everyone pass. I suspect that most of the cyclists you encounter conveniently "forget" about that part of the law, aggravating drivers.

The "take the lane" laws are on the books so that cyclists can prevent cars from passing on roads that aren't wide enough to safely permit passing. It's infuriating at times when it's a single lane road and cyclists are poking along at 20mph instead of 50mph but the law enshrines this right.

I can understand the frustration you feel when cyclists follow the law and take up a whole lane, and further when they break the law and don't allow passing. But that's what the law says so I have to respectfully disagree about the use of the word "intended"

So two things. By "intended" I specifically mean the semantics of the travelway. Roads are specifically engineered for cars, full stop. Everything from angle to speed surveys are done specifically for the automobile. Is that a great injustice to other forms of transportation? Perhaps, but that's the way it is. It's changing, and roads are more commonly being designed and engineered to support other transport options, but there's still a long way to go with that.

Second, there's a very big difference between things being legally allowed and them being wise to do. It is perfectly legal for me to walk in the road along a road with no available sidewalk. Is it wise? Probably not.

So the problem I have is that bikes are allowed on roads, but I don't think they should be. The cry then is "well where will they go?" and I strongly propose that purpose built bike lines be built to accommodate cyclists. I recognize that it won't happen overnight, but it is happening.

> It's infuriating at times when it's a single lane road and cyclists are poking along at 20mph instead of 50mph but the law enshrines this right.

The law in most states also specifically forbids impeding traffic (hence the 5 car law you pointed out in some jurisdictions). In others "impeding" is left open to interpretation by an officer of the law. But 20 in a 50 is impeding and I'd argue that it's not only not safe for everybody on the road, but faster vehicles (mopeds and scooters) are not even allowed on such roads (at least in my jurisdiction), which I think it a clear oversight in the law.

But bikes get an unbelievable amount of leeway. In situations where other vehicles are prohibited, or pedestrians aren't allowed, bikes get a free pass. I've never even heard of a cyclist in my area getting a ticket for anything. But I can sit out on my front porch and watch cyclists run the stop sign in front of my house all day.

I think that's wrong and I think the right way to deal with it is not to ban bikes, but to give them a better place to go and start enforcing cyclist's responsibilities.

> Roads are specifically engineered for cars, full stop.

I understand where you're coming from, but I respectfully disagree. Perhaps where you live they are, but there are many places where they are not.

I agree that getting cyclists off the car traffic lanes and into designated cycling lanes is the best solution to these issues.

Does the fact that some cyclists get away with running stop signs (which many cars also run, or merely slow down rather than "full and complete stop" at) somehow offset the fact that when cyclists die at the hands of a driver little to nothing happens to said driver?

Personally I think that cyclist deaths and the lack of consequence for drivers is a problem. And I'm all for ticketing cyclists who blatantly run stop signs; less so of ticketing cyclists who slowly roll through stop signs the same way many drivers do.

What's fair is fair and if cars can get away with it then cyclists should too. If cars can't, cyclists shouldn't either.

There's a little over 4 million roads in the U.S. (streets to highways) about 3 million of those are non-urban paved. So even if the remaining million miles of road are all designed specifically for bikes, I can guarantee the other 3 million were not.

> What's fair is fair and if cars can get away with it then cyclists should too. If cars can't, cyclists shouldn't either.

I absolutely agree.

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