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Your reductionist view gives no room for safe cycling in most cities. It requires nothing of the drivers and accomodations from everyone else. Why is that? Cars

by enneff 4y ago

Your reductionist view gives no room for safe cycling in most cities. It requires nothing of the drivers and accomodations from everyone else. Why is that? Cars haven’t even been common for 100 years. Before they came along, we didn’t even need speed limits, and vehicles of different kinds could occupy the streets together. Now it’s all just cars. It doesn’t have to be that way, and in some parts of the world it isn’t. You say I’m a lunatic, but my experience and the scientific community research shows that drivers often don’t view cyclists as humans, nor do they accurately assess the risk of driving too close to (or even ramming or side swiping) cyclists. (You can find several papers on this, or just ask any cyclist.) By the way, even if it’s only 1 in 100 drivers who hold this attitude, a cyclist encounters hundreds of drivers during a typical trip. Those are not good odds.

kazinator 4y ago
The reductionist view comes from any traffic code in the developed world. The traffic codes defines various entites like "highway", "vehicle" and so forth, which are the names of the parts (the whole having been reduced to those parts). It lays out numerous rules, and the good functioning behavior of the system is supposed to arise from those parts behaving according to the rules. Cycling simply is not safe without investment in safe cycling infrastructure. It's a risk-taking activity like mountain climbing and skydiving. The cyclist do a degree (perhaps an excessive one) relies on trust in the behavior of motor vehicles. The rest of it is up to the cyclist and their choices: which way to go, at what times, in what manner, helmet or not, mirrors or not, condition of bike, crappy rim brakes in wet weather or discs, etc. Few of us here remember a world without cars; it's just a dream of the past. It's not realistic to return large urban areas to car-free status. At least not instantly. Cars are becoming electric, free of exhaust gases and engine noise. Thus certain arguments against keeping them out of cities are weakening. It's also not realistic to just slow down traffic to match the slowest pedaler on every route; that is simply not a viable cycling safety plan. People have places to go. For most people, communting is pure overhead. They would rather be at their destination already doing something else. More and more electrified bicycles are appearing. These can easily keep up with city traffic. They are changing/confusing driver perceptions of what a bicycle can do. Drivers are going to be less patient with motorless cyclists due to being accustomed to motorized cyclists. They will also make poor time/distance judgments due to the variation in capability. A driver who thinks he can pass a cyclist like the cyclist is standing still will miscalculate if that cyclist has a motor and is rapidly accelerating. Electric bicycles are a threat to cyclists, and a threat which follows them right into safe cycling infrastructure. Just when you have escaped the cars and are pedaling away in a dedicated bicycle path, you're faced with marauding yahoos on what are de facto motorcycles, easily capable of going 50 km/h or more. Cycling infrastructure is still being planned for pedal bicycles, in terms of the dimensions of the lanes and whatnot. You need full roads, if the bicycles are motorized.

by enneff 4y ago

kazinator 4y ago

The reductionist view comes from any traffic code in the developed world. The traffic codes defines various entites like "highway", "vehicle" and so forth, which are the names of the parts (the whole having been reduced to those parts). It lays out numerous rules, and the good functioning behavior of the system is supposed to arise from those parts behaving according to the rules. Cycling simply is not safe without investment in safe cycling infrastructure. It's a risk-taking activity like mountain climbing and skydiving. The cyclist do a degree (perhaps an excessive one) relies on trust in the behavior of motor vehicles. The rest of it is up to the cyclist and their choices: which way to go, at what times, in what manner, helmet or not, mirrors or not, condition of bike, crappy rim brakes in wet weather or discs, etc. Few of us here remember a world without cars; it's just a dream of the past. It's not realistic to return large urban areas to car-free status. At least not instantly. Cars are becoming electric, free of exhaust gases and engine noise. Thus certain arguments against keeping them out of cities are weakening. It's also not realistic to just slow down traffic to match the slowest pedaler on every route; that is simply not a viable cycling safety plan. People have places to go. For most people, communting is pure overhead. They would rather be at their destination already doing something else. More and more electrified bicycles are appearing. These can easily keep up with city traffic. They are changing/confusing driver perceptions of what a bicycle can do. Drivers are going to be less patient with motorless cyclists due to being accustomed to motorized cyclists. They will also make poor time/distance judgments due to the variation in capability. A driver who thinks he can pass a cyclist like the cyclist is standing still will miscalculate if that cyclist has a motor and is rapidly accelerating. Electric bicycles are a threat to cyclists, and a threat which follows them right into safe cycling infrastructure. Just when you have escaped the cars and are pedaling away in a dedicated bicycle path, you're faced with marauding yahoos on what are de facto motorcycles, easily capable of going 50 km/h or more. Cycling infrastructure is still being planned for pedal bicycles, in terms of the dimensions of the lanes and whatnot. You need full roads, if the bicycles are motorized.