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Having driven throughout Europe and as a non-Scandinavian I have to say that this impressive result has a lot to do with the ways scandinavians behave in traffi

Having driven throughout Europe and as a non-Scandinavian I have to say that this impressive result has a lot to do with the ways scandinavians behave in traffic. As car-drivers as well as cyclists. If urban politicians in cities "just short of the border" to Scandinavia like Berlin or Hamburg propose such measures, residents with traffic experience in both places will often chuckle, because car drivers but even more so cyclists are much more aggressive in Germany than in Scandinavia. It is not uncommon for urban pedestrians in Germany to be more concerned with danger posed to them by cyclists than by cars.

jordanbeiber 7y ago
> It is not uncommon for urban pedestrians in Germany to be more concerned with danger posed to them by cyclists than by cars. As they should! Cyclists are often closer by and silent. Add to the fact that many cyclists are using the bike for exercise and seem to want to keep pace at any cost. But mostly - a car is made for running in to humans at relatively low speed, causing as little damage as possible. Bikes not so much. I’d much rather be hit by a car at 30km/h than a bike. Come to think of it - drivers license for cars probably makes a difference as well. Edit - anecdote: A co-worker of mine got hit by a bike at a buss stop. Not really super fast, but oh my he got tangled. Punctured lung, ruptured spleen, broken ribs etc. He was off work for almost a year in total. A modern car would most likely not have caused him, or the rider the kind of damage they incurred.
- Joe-Z 7y ago
  >Punctured lung, ruptured spleen, broken ribs etc. What in the hell was going on there? I mean, I get GP's point about aggressive cyclists. I noticed them in Berlin especially (straight, wide roads on flat terrain), but even then people will usually try to brake before they run into you. This kind of damage sounds insane. Was the cyclist hitting him at full-speed? If so, how???
  - jordanbeiber 7y ago
    Yeah, so at places in Sweden we have the most stupid buss stops. You have main road, then a curb followed by a bicycle lane followed by a buss stop with a pedestrian sidewalk behind it. If you want to get to the buss you need to cross the cycle-lane. If the cyclist is careless and speeding, and you maybe are not paying enough attention, bad stuff can and do happen.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
      But this makes no sense. Whenever I see such bus stops I wonder who designed them in this way. It makes pedestrians and cyclist compete for the same area without any obvious sign. Pedestrians need to act quickly, otherwise they will miss the bus. Cyclists don't see any red light or other signal to stop from afar, and when they got closer and realize people start pouring from the bus stop to the road, they need to breake in the last moment. Sometimes you don't even realize what's going on as the bus is hidden from your view by trucks.
      - jordanbeiber 7y ago
        This is why a call them “stupid”. They are obviously dangerous, still I have one just like it around the corner from my home. Just the other week a guy got hit in the arm by a slow riding bike while waiting, which made him so pissed he grabbed the bike rider by the arm and kind of threw him to the ground. People had to separate them from fist fighting.
      - pastage 7y ago
        It's actually lots of regulation that states what is important in city planning, bicyclepaths are at the bottom of those list.
    - Joe-Z 7y ago
      I've seen these kind of stops in the Netherlands and can totally understand your point. I am all for separate bike lanes but why you would do it in a way to have this separate "bus island" I couldn't see.
- tda 7y ago
  No you wouldn't: a car-pedestrian accident at 30km/h gives you about a 5% chance to die. https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowledge/speed/speed_is_a_central_issue_in_road_safety/speed_and_the_injury_risk_for_different_speed_levels_en https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowle... With a bicycle I'm quite sure the odds of a fatality are <<1%
  - jordanbeiber 7y ago
    Ok, I’m prepared to stand corrected. 30km/h is probably a bit to high speed, although data vs bike is hard to find. Getting hit by a bike a 30km/h might well get you killed though, judging from the state of my friend mentioned above. A bike have no deformation zones and no slick surfaces to slide along. Thank you for enlightening me with some numbers though.
  - naniwaduni 7y ago
    While a bicycle probably isn't going to be going as fast as a car, at equal speeds bicycle collisions aren't going to be that much less dangerous than car impacts. 30 km/h is a quite attainable speed for a bicycle. I definitely wouldn't assume <<1%.
    - consp 7y ago
      You unfortunately miss the huge difference in mass and thus impact force. I guess it will make at least some difference. A 100kg cyclist + bicycle vs a 1500kg car (+ driver)
      - jordanbeiber 7y ago
        I would take in to account the hard stop. A modern car have deformation zones and angles for you to basically slide along - you will never get the impact of that full mass. A bike, well, you will come to a hard stop and it’s got metal rods sticking out here and there. Getting hit by a bicycle at high speed is worse than what you’d expect, at least according to my personal experiences.
- rcxdude 7y ago
  Cyclist-pedestrian collision fatalities (or even serious injuries) are very rare. In the UK they make national news. This is far far less than motorist - anything else collisions.
  - jordanbeiber 7y ago
    As are pedestrian deaths at < 30km/h according to statistics though. At 30km/h you’ll have approx ~5 deaths of 100, by car. I don’t think you’ll have much less by bike at those speeds but injuries might well be worse - see stats of hospital times car vs bicycle.
praestigiare 7y ago
I think the cause and effect may be reversed from what you imply here. Having been a cyclist in both Berlin and in Oslo, I was much more aggressive in Berlin, out of necessity. When there is not appropriate infrastructure and traffic does not respect you, it creates a sort of Max Max mentality where you do what you have to do.
- lazyjones 7y ago
  There's plenty of infrastructure for cyclists in the Netherlands and they're still famously aggressive. So, no.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    I haven't heard of aggressive cyclists is the Netherlands. The image that comes to my mind is a slow bicycle with an upright position and a basket at the front. No helmet.
    - thawaway1837 7y ago
      The truth about cycling in Netherlands is that these complaints usually come from tourists (you won’t see them from the Dutch for the simple reason that most Dutch pedestrians are cyclists themselves). Tourists who are simply not used to a system where cyclists get equal importance as cars. Of course, since cyclists are humans, I’m sure there are some assholes, and there are probably cases where non assholes also make mistakes. The difference, as the numbers clearly show, is that in cities where the biggest fear is mad max cyclists, the number of deaths are hundreds fewer than where car driving is the norm.
    - lazyjones 7y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XypDTdd4qr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XypDTdd4qr0
      - adrianN 7y ago
        The video says less than 5% of cyclists actually impeded other road users: https://youtu.be/XypDTdd4qr0?t=129 https://youtu.be/XypDTdd4qr0?t=129 Doesn't sound so aggressive to me.
mattlondon 7y ago
Cyclists are certainly a menace (IMO) in London - example case from a couple of years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/18/cyclist-charlie-alliston-jailed-for-18-months-over-death-of-pedestrian https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/18/cyclist... There are a lot of well behaved cyclists, but there is also a hard-core of aggressive cyclists who seem to take it as their right to never have to slow down for anyone or anything, and woe betide you if you get in their way (e.g. the guy in that article above who was jailed after killing a pedestrian had the excuse that he shouted at her to get out of his way, so it was her fault for getting hit). They will go through red lights, turn the wrong way, go down the wrong way of one-way streets, barrel through pedestrian crossings while people are crossing, ride along pedestrian paths etc etc etc. They are much more dangerous than cars purely because of their unpredictability (compared to cars which 99.9999% of the time do what you expect - like follow the rules, don't drive along the pedestrian paths etc) and sense of being untouchable I guess. Not everything ends in a death like this poor lady, but there are countless near-misses and people having to jump out of the way from cyclists who refuse to slow down or go through red light etc etc every day - it is happening all the time in London and you see it multiple times each day. There was talk after the events in the linked article about forced registration plates for cyclist to try and bring some sort of accountability, but I think that was shelved "because environment" or something.
- jsinai 7y ago
  I’m a cyclist in London and I do agree this with this. A lot of cyclists forget that the rules of the road apply to them. However what I fear the most isn’t cars or other cyclists but mopeds and motorcycles, especially ones with high acceleration. I’ve seen mopeds sneak up on cycle lanes, block up the cycle bay at the front of intersections (which is scary when you are on a bicycle in those bays because the mopeds don’t necessarily accelerate in a straight line) and worst of all, accelerate fast when the light turns from red to orange. The last is an issue because unlike cars the acceleration is much quicker - I’ve witnessed last-minute pedestrians crossing an intersection get startled or almost hit by mopeds accelerating too early.

jordanbeiber 7y ago

> It is not uncommon for urban pedestrians in Germany to be more concerned with danger posed to them by cyclists than by cars. As they should! Cyclists are often closer by and silent. Add to the fact that many cyclists are using the bike for exercise and seem to want to keep pace at any cost. But mostly - a car is made for running in to humans at relatively low speed, causing as little damage as possible. Bikes not so much. I’d much rather be hit by a car at 30km/h than a bike. Come to think of it - drivers license for cars probably makes a difference as well. Edit - anecdote: A co-worker of mine got hit by a bike at a buss stop. Not really super fast, but oh my he got tangled. Punctured lung, ruptured spleen, broken ribs etc. He was off work for almost a year in total. A modern car would most likely not have caused him, or the rider the kind of damage they incurred.

Joe-Z 7y ago
>Punctured lung, ruptured spleen, broken ribs etc. What in the hell was going on there? I mean, I get GP's point about aggressive cyclists. I noticed them in Berlin especially (straight, wide roads on flat terrain), but even then people will usually try to brake before they run into you. This kind of damage sounds insane. Was the cyclist hitting him at full-speed? If so, how???
- jordanbeiber 7y ago
  Yeah, so at places in Sweden we have the most stupid buss stops. You have main road, then a curb followed by a bicycle lane followed by a buss stop with a pedestrian sidewalk behind it. If you want to get to the buss you need to cross the cycle-lane. If the cyclist is careless and speeding, and you maybe are not paying enough attention, bad stuff can and do happen.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
    But this makes no sense. Whenever I see such bus stops I wonder who designed them in this way. It makes pedestrians and cyclist compete for the same area without any obvious sign. Pedestrians need to act quickly, otherwise they will miss the bus. Cyclists don't see any red light or other signal to stop from afar, and when they got closer and realize people start pouring from the bus stop to the road, they need to breake in the last moment. Sometimes you don't even realize what's going on as the bus is hidden from your view by trucks.
    - jordanbeiber 7y ago
      This is why a call them “stupid”. They are obviously dangerous, still I have one just like it around the corner from my home. Just the other week a guy got hit in the arm by a slow riding bike while waiting, which made him so pissed he grabbed the bike rider by the arm and kind of threw him to the ground. People had to separate them from fist fighting.
    - pastage 7y ago
      It's actually lots of regulation that states what is important in city planning, bicyclepaths are at the bottom of those list.
  - Joe-Z 7y ago
    I've seen these kind of stops in the Netherlands and can totally understand your point. I am all for separate bike lanes but why you would do it in a way to have this separate "bus island" I couldn't see.
tda 7y ago
No you wouldn't: a car-pedestrian accident at 30km/h gives you about a 5% chance to die. https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowledge/speed/speed_is_a_central_issue_in_road_safety/speed_and_the_injury_risk_for_different_speed_levels_en https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowle... With a bicycle I'm quite sure the odds of a fatality are <<1%
- jordanbeiber 7y ago
  Ok, I’m prepared to stand corrected. 30km/h is probably a bit to high speed, although data vs bike is hard to find. Getting hit by a bike a 30km/h might well get you killed though, judging from the state of my friend mentioned above. A bike have no deformation zones and no slick surfaces to slide along. Thank you for enlightening me with some numbers though.
- naniwaduni 7y ago
  While a bicycle probably isn't going to be going as fast as a car, at equal speeds bicycle collisions aren't going to be that much less dangerous than car impacts. 30 km/h is a quite attainable speed for a bicycle. I definitely wouldn't assume <<1%.
  - consp 7y ago
    You unfortunately miss the huge difference in mass and thus impact force. I guess it will make at least some difference. A 100kg cyclist + bicycle vs a 1500kg car (+ driver)
    - jordanbeiber 7y ago
      I would take in to account the hard stop. A modern car have deformation zones and angles for you to basically slide along - you will never get the impact of that full mass. A bike, well, you will come to a hard stop and it’s got metal rods sticking out here and there. Getting hit by a bicycle at high speed is worse than what you’d expect, at least according to my personal experiences.
rcxdude 7y ago
Cyclist-pedestrian collision fatalities (or even serious injuries) are very rare. In the UK they make national news. This is far far less than motorist - anything else collisions.
- jordanbeiber 7y ago
  As are pedestrian deaths at < 30km/h according to statistics though. At 30km/h you’ll have approx ~5 deaths of 100, by car. I don’t think you’ll have much less by bike at those speeds but injuries might well be worse - see stats of hospital times car vs bicycle.

praestigiare 7y ago

I think the cause and effect may be reversed from what you imply here. Having been a cyclist in both Berlin and in Oslo, I was much more aggressive in Berlin, out of necessity. When there is not appropriate infrastructure and traffic does not respect you, it creates a sort of Max Max mentality where you do what you have to do.

lazyjones 7y ago
There's plenty of infrastructure for cyclists in the Netherlands and they're still famously aggressive. So, no.
- adrianN 7y ago
  I haven't heard of aggressive cyclists is the Netherlands. The image that comes to my mind is a slow bicycle with an upright position and a basket at the front. No helmet.
  - thawaway1837 7y ago
    The truth about cycling in Netherlands is that these complaints usually come from tourists (you won’t see them from the Dutch for the simple reason that most Dutch pedestrians are cyclists themselves). Tourists who are simply not used to a system where cyclists get equal importance as cars. Of course, since cyclists are humans, I’m sure there are some assholes, and there are probably cases where non assholes also make mistakes. The difference, as the numbers clearly show, is that in cities where the biggest fear is mad max cyclists, the number of deaths are hundreds fewer than where car driving is the norm.
  - lazyjones 7y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XypDTdd4qr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XypDTdd4qr0
    - adrianN 7y ago
      The video says less than 5% of cyclists actually impeded other road users: https://youtu.be/XypDTdd4qr0?t=129 https://youtu.be/XypDTdd4qr0?t=129 Doesn't sound so aggressive to me.

mattlondon 7y ago

Cyclists are certainly a menace (IMO) in London - example case from a couple of years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/18/cyclist-charlie-alliston-jailed-for-18-months-over-death-of-pedestrian https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/18/cyclist... There are a lot of well behaved cyclists, but there is also a hard-core of aggressive cyclists who seem to take it as their right to never have to slow down for anyone or anything, and woe betide you if you get in their way (e.g. the guy in that article above who was jailed after killing a pedestrian had the excuse that he shouted at her to get out of his way, so it was her fault for getting hit). They will go through red lights, turn the wrong way, go down the wrong way of one-way streets, barrel through pedestrian crossings while people are crossing, ride along pedestrian paths etc etc etc. They are much more dangerous than cars purely because of their unpredictability (compared to cars which 99.9999% of the time do what you expect - like follow the rules, don't drive along the pedestrian paths etc) and sense of being untouchable I guess. Not everything ends in a death like this poor lady, but there are countless near-misses and people having to jump out of the way from cyclists who refuse to slow down or go through red light etc etc every day - it is happening all the time in London and you see it multiple times each day. There was talk after the events in the linked article about forced registration plates for cyclist to try and bring some sort of accountability, but I think that was shelved "because environment" or something.

jsinai 7y ago
I’m a cyclist in London and I do agree this with this. A lot of cyclists forget that the rules of the road apply to them. However what I fear the most isn’t cars or other cyclists but mopeds and motorcycles, especially ones with high acceleration. I’ve seen mopeds sneak up on cycle lanes, block up the cycle bay at the front of intersections (which is scary when you are on a bicycle in those bays because the mopeds don’t necessarily accelerate in a straight line) and worst of all, accelerate fast when the light turns from red to orange. The last is an issue because unlike cars the acceleration is much quicker - I’ve witnessed last-minute pedestrians crossing an intersection get startled or almost hit by mopeds accelerating too early.