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I would agree with all of those points, except for one. I do not think it is less dangerous to pedestrians. I remember when I used to live in the Netherlands, i

I would agree with all of those points, except for one. I do not think it is less dangerous to pedestrians. I remember when I used to live in the Netherlands, it was uncomfortable being a pedestrian because there were so many cyclists. They are still going fast enough that if they crash into you, you can expect a concussion or even worse. And they do not respect the traffic laws in the same way that cars do. And because of the numbers of them it is hard to keep track of them.

saiya-jin 4y ago
100% this. And Dutch cyclists are usually nicer ones. Where I live (Geneva, Switzerland), cyclists are very aggressive towards... well everybody. As a pedestrian, I had few super close calls (5cm max) where a crowd of us pedestrians were going through the road on green light and cyclist zoomed at 30-40kph through cars on red light and our crowd, not even attempting to break. At that speed, crash can be fatal/disabling for both. Its not just theoretical - when my wife worked as doctor on biggest urgence here, they had a case where 40 year old guy was hit in same way by cyclist on pedestrian crossing, green light. He went into coma and died in 2 days. Red light is just invisible to most, unlike rest of traffic. As pedestrian I consider cars and motorbikes/scooters OK, but cyclists I avoid / look out for very carefully, especially when with kids. They really act like everything belongs to them and they are above any constraints, be it red light, no-bike-parks for kids etc. You can't simply cross road because you as pedestrian have green light - you need to have green light and check that no cyclist is going through the town like its some post-apocalyptic wasteland with no humans around. They are aggressive to the car drivers too - I had cases where drink cyclists were trying to damage my car by kicking into it (I was stopped on red light so no threat to anybody, no idea why). Damage to well parked car, also by cyclists. No love there despite obvious ecological benefits.
- pastage 4y ago
  Well you obviously made someone unhappy so there is a chance you are not as perceptive as you think. Statistics says that cyclists are like most other road users. The chance that the cyclists around you are different is a lot less likely than you cherry picking situations. With that said, people do stupid things there are always outliers.
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    I don't think you actually read what I described since you are completely oblivious to all facts stated by me and not even reacting on any of them, just dismissing everything as my fault. Looks to me exactly as cyclist mindset I write about - its not about me, rules are not for me and so on. How did I make any cyclist unhappy by just standing still with my car on red light in a row of other cars? How did I insult cyclists by daring to cross on green light as pedestrian? I don't talk about outliers, I talk about daily experience for past 10 years I live here. Consistently the same. As with cars, you don't notice normal drivers/riders, but a-holes you notice well. And a-holes on bikes I do notice practically every single day, unlike any other traffic on the roads which respects basic traffic rules.
    - pastage 4y ago
      As I said you might just be extremely unlucky. If not maybe take a step back and analyze why your world view is different from research on how mode of transport is no indicator of behviour. Crazy stuff happens in traffic for sure, but when someone is angry with you it is mostly because you have done something. The cases of random deliberate violence are so rare that they should not happen to you. If you want to live a life were you assume the worst about a completly heterogeneous group of people consisting of people from all walks of life and state of mind, that represents "people", you are free to make that choice but do not blme cyclists for that. This is my point: you might feel innocent all the time, but what you do is also interpreted by others they might feel the same thing. Again I do not really talk about you or your specific experience but in general, and what should be true for longer period of times. What you feel and experience is up to you, can't change that.
rocgf 4y ago
That is only true in a small amount of areas, like the city center of Amsterdam. Bike lanes are separated from pedestrians, so the only issue would be crossing the street.
stinos 4y ago
I do not think it is less dangerous to pedestrians. I remember when I used to live in the Netherlands, it was uncomfortable being a pedestrian because there were so many cyclists. Actual statistics about encounters clearly do show it is less dangerous, and expecting a concussion to be a false interpretion of actual risks. I do get your problem though: you're not used to it. You need eyes everywhere which essentially takes training.
- LtWorf 4y ago
  Bah, in my experience bicycle users behave really badly on average. Certainly no better than car drivers. For example they will be ready to crash on a pedestrian who is walking on a bike lane for good reason (most common ones are: an excavator made a trench on the sidewalk, the snow clearing machine took all the snow from the road and made a mountain on the sidewalk). However when there is no bike lane available, they will have no problem in going on the sidewalk at 50km/h with their electric motor. Despite this being clearly forbidden. And getting hit by an electric bike going 50 is no joke. You don't just get a bruise and move on with your day.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    I wonder where they’d get an electric bicycle going 50, considering it’s impossible to buy or import ones going more than 20 km/h in most of the EU.
    - stinos 4y ago
      Electric cycles reaching 45km/h are regulated in most of EU, no? On the most powerful ones it takes not too much effort to push to 50 (from experience). That being said, where I commute I practically never encounter anyone doing that (they just do the maximum they can do with assistence, like 42-45 depending on brand and model, or less to save battery/effort) except downhill, where you can reach 50 with a normal cycle as well.
      - belorn 4y ago
chriswarbo 4y ago
> And they do not respect the traffic laws in the same way that cars do This seems to be a persistent myth. All the studies I've come across say the exact opposite; for example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists-break-far-fewer-road-rules-than-motorists-finds-new-video-study/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists...
- Tade0 4y ago
  > A Transport for London study investigated the “hypothesis that the majority of cyclists ride through red lights” and discovered that 84% of cyclists stopped on reds. Imagine 16% drivers not stopping on red.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    1 in 3 car drivers admit to running a red light in the past month (33.3%) in 2017 over 900 americans died in accidents involving running a red light https://newsroom.aaa.com/2019/08/red-light-running-deaths-hit-10-year-high/ https://newsroom.aaa.com/2019/08/red-light-running-deaths-hi...
    - philwelch 4y ago
      It’s surprising how low that is. As a point of comparison, in 2008, 809 Americans died tangled in their bedsheets (which correlates to total revenue generated by skiing facilities: https://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=1864 https://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=1864)
      - micromacrofoot 4y ago
        Right, more cyclists die in general every year (1,000+), but there doesn't seem to be any data on the percentage of those deaths that may be caused by cyclists running red lights. One safe assumption is that the number of drivers killed by bikers running red lights is near 0.
LtWorf 4y ago
I agree. In Copenhagen multiple bas stops just go onto bike traffic. And they DO NOT CARE that a bus just stopped and people are about to come out.
- Casperin 4y ago
  I live (and bike) here too. I think what you mean to say is that it can feel kind of hectic and dangerous to step out of a bus onto the bike lane. I can promise you that every biker care. If nothing else, then at least for their own safety. And in the 35 years I've been biking around here, I've never seen a collision between someone stepping out of a bus and a bike coming from behind.
  - LtWorf 4y ago
    I've also never seen a car going over a bycicle in my life… Doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
- tokai 4y ago
  You know that there is a difference between the stops right? If there is pavement on the side of the bikelane going out to the road, its on the bus passengers to stop and let the cyclist pass. So many pedestrians don't know this and think they can just throw themselves out on the bike lane.
  - LtWorf 4y ago
    Yeah, because there aren't other passengers behind pushing. The city is badly designed. Busses shouldn't stop on traffic.

saiya-jin 4y ago

100% this. And Dutch cyclists are usually nicer ones. Where I live (Geneva, Switzerland), cyclists are very aggressive towards... well everybody. As a pedestrian, I had few super close calls (5cm max) where a crowd of us pedestrians were going through the road on green light and cyclist zoomed at 30-40kph through cars on red light and our crowd, not even attempting to break. At that speed, crash can be fatal/disabling for both. Its not just theoretical - when my wife worked as doctor on biggest urgence here, they had a case where 40 year old guy was hit in same way by cyclist on pedestrian crossing, green light. He went into coma and died in 2 days. Red light is just invisible to most, unlike rest of traffic. As pedestrian I consider cars and motorbikes/scooters OK, but cyclists I avoid / look out for very carefully, especially when with kids. They really act like everything belongs to them and they are above any constraints, be it red light, no-bike-parks for kids etc. You can't simply cross road because you as pedestrian have green light - you need to have green light and check that no cyclist is going through the town like its some post-apocalyptic wasteland with no humans around. They are aggressive to the car drivers too - I had cases where drink cyclists were trying to damage my car by kicking into it (I was stopped on red light so no threat to anybody, no idea why). Damage to well parked car, also by cyclists. No love there despite obvious ecological benefits.

pastage 4y ago
Well you obviously made someone unhappy so there is a chance you are not as perceptive as you think. Statistics says that cyclists are like most other road users. The chance that the cyclists around you are different is a lot less likely than you cherry picking situations. With that said, people do stupid things there are always outliers.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  I don't think you actually read what I described since you are completely oblivious to all facts stated by me and not even reacting on any of them, just dismissing everything as my fault. Looks to me exactly as cyclist mindset I write about - its not about me, rules are not for me and so on. How did I make any cyclist unhappy by just standing still with my car on red light in a row of other cars? How did I insult cyclists by daring to cross on green light as pedestrian? I don't talk about outliers, I talk about daily experience for past 10 years I live here. Consistently the same. As with cars, you don't notice normal drivers/riders, but a-holes you notice well. And a-holes on bikes I do notice practically every single day, unlike any other traffic on the roads which respects basic traffic rules.
  - pastage 4y ago
    As I said you might just be extremely unlucky. If not maybe take a step back and analyze why your world view is different from research on how mode of transport is no indicator of behviour. Crazy stuff happens in traffic for sure, but when someone is angry with you it is mostly because you have done something. The cases of random deliberate violence are so rare that they should not happen to you. If you want to live a life were you assume the worst about a completly heterogeneous group of people consisting of people from all walks of life and state of mind, that represents "people", you are free to make that choice but do not blme cyclists for that. This is my point: you might feel innocent all the time, but what you do is also interpreted by others they might feel the same thing. Again I do not really talk about you or your specific experience but in general, and what should be true for longer period of times. What you feel and experience is up to you, can't change that.

rocgf 4y ago

That is only true in a small amount of areas, like the city center of Amsterdam. Bike lanes are separated from pedestrians, so the only issue would be crossing the street.

stinos 4y ago

I do not think it is less dangerous to pedestrians. I remember when I used to live in the Netherlands, it was uncomfortable being a pedestrian because there were so many cyclists. Actual statistics about encounters clearly do show it is less dangerous, and expecting a concussion to be a false interpretion of actual risks. I do get your problem though: you're not used to it. You need eyes everywhere which essentially takes training.

LtWorf 4y ago
Bah, in my experience bicycle users behave really badly on average. Certainly no better than car drivers. For example they will be ready to crash on a pedestrian who is walking on a bike lane for good reason (most common ones are: an excavator made a trench on the sidewalk, the snow clearing machine took all the snow from the road and made a mountain on the sidewalk). However when there is no bike lane available, they will have no problem in going on the sidewalk at 50km/h with their electric motor. Despite this being clearly forbidden. And getting hit by an electric bike going 50 is no joke. You don't just get a bruise and move on with your day.
- kuschku 4y ago
  I wonder where they’d get an electric bicycle going 50, considering it’s impossible to buy or import ones going more than 20 km/h in most of the EU.
  - stinos 4y ago
    Electric cycles reaching 45km/h are regulated in most of EU, no? On the most powerful ones it takes not too much effort to push to 50 (from experience). That being said, where I commute I practically never encounter anyone doing that (they just do the maximum they can do with assistence, like 42-45 depending on brand and model, or less to save battery/effort) except downhill, where you can reach 50 with a normal cycle as well.
    - belorn 4y ago

chriswarbo 4y ago

> And they do not respect the traffic laws in the same way that cars do This seems to be a persistent myth. All the studies I've come across say the exact opposite; for example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists-break-far-fewer-road-rules-than-motorists-finds-new-video-study/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists...

Tade0 4y ago
> A Transport for London study investigated the “hypothesis that the majority of cyclists ride through red lights” and discovered that 84% of cyclists stopped on reds. Imagine 16% drivers not stopping on red.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  1 in 3 car drivers admit to running a red light in the past month (33.3%) in 2017 over 900 americans died in accidents involving running a red light https://newsroom.aaa.com/2019/08/red-light-running-deaths-hit-10-year-high/ https://newsroom.aaa.com/2019/08/red-light-running-deaths-hi...
  - philwelch 4y ago
    It’s surprising how low that is. As a point of comparison, in 2008, 809 Americans died tangled in their bedsheets (which correlates to total revenue generated by skiing facilities: https://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=1864 https://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=1864)
    - micromacrofoot 4y ago
      Right, more cyclists die in general every year (1,000+), but there doesn't seem to be any data on the percentage of those deaths that may be caused by cyclists running red lights. One safe assumption is that the number of drivers killed by bikers running red lights is near 0.

LtWorf 4y ago

I agree. In Copenhagen multiple bas stops just go onto bike traffic. And they DO NOT CARE that a bus just stopped and people are about to come out.

Casperin 4y ago
I live (and bike) here too. I think what you mean to say is that it can feel kind of hectic and dangerous to step out of a bus onto the bike lane. I can promise you that every biker care. If nothing else, then at least for their own safety. And in the 35 years I've been biking around here, I've never seen a collision between someone stepping out of a bus and a bike coming from behind.
- LtWorf 4y ago
  I've also never seen a car going over a bycicle in my life… Doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
tokai 4y ago
You know that there is a difference between the stops right? If there is pavement on the side of the bikelane going out to the road, its on the bus passengers to stop and let the cyclist pass. So many pedestrians don't know this and think they can just throw themselves out on the bike lane.
- LtWorf 4y ago
  Yeah, because there aren't other passengers behind pushing. The city is badly designed. Busses shouldn't stop on traffic.