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We have stats on this, I’m sure you know how to use Google. But TL;DR drivers break the rules more often than cyclists. Almost every driver breaks the speed li

We have stats on this, I’m sure you know how to use Google. But TL;DR drivers break the rules more often than cyclists. Almost every driver breaks the speed limit on a regular basis. It happens so often that it’s completely normalised and ignored, despite the fact it significantly increases the risk of serious injury and death to vulnerable road users. Fatality rate of pedestrians in car related collisions rises from something like 10% to 100% between the speeds of 30mph and 40mph. Yet many drivers see no issue with ignoring a 20mph or 30mph speed limit in a residential area.

giantg2 4y ago
Ok. None of this disagrees with what I've said. And thank you for not being an asshole like the previous commenter. Just curious... Do you have asource for your data though? Google seems to indicate that cyclists and drivers are similar in their law breaking. https://whyy.org/articles/cyclists-violate-traffic-law-no-more-than-drivers-new-data-shows/ https://whyy.org/articles/cyclists-violate-traffic-law-no-mo... I'd love to find data like this for the US. If your Google-Fu is better, can you source me some? https://fullfact.org/news/are-cyclists-blame-road-accidents/ https://fullfact.org/news/are-cyclists-blame-road-accidents/
- avianlyric 4y ago
  You said: > How about the percentage of bad drivers vs bad cyclists? I see a lot of bad drivers because they're more drivers. I'd guess about 1 in 40 cars I see are doing something illegal and unsafe. I'd say I see 1 in 10 bicyclists doing something illegal and unsafe. Collected data disagrees with you. Strongly suggesting you’re falling prey to confirmation bias, or you’ve become highly desensitised to driver misbehaviour. Neither of which would be surprising if you live and drive in the US (my experience of driving in the US, is that it’s almost designed to make it hard to do the right thing as a driver, little to know affordances in the infrastructure to allow for normal human error). > Just curious... Do you have asource for your data though? Google seems to indicate that cyclists and drivers are similar in their law breaking. I assume these conclusions change by locality, and collections method. However I’ve never seen a study demonstrate that cyclists break the law substantially more than drivers. Certainly nothing close to the 4:1 ratio you suggest. > I'd love to find data like this for the US. If your Google-Fu is better, can you source me some? I don’t have any US data unfortunately, I’m mostly interested in the UK where I live. Ultimately the TL;DR is that cyclists are no worse at rule breaking than drivers. They just tend to break different rules, and driver rule breaking is almost entirely normalised. Big difference of course is severity of outcome, which pedestrian fatality rates suggest is about 400x to 1000x greater when a car is involved. If drivers really cared about the safety of road users, they be up in arms about poor driving standards, and the lack of consequences for drivers that kill people. They wouldn’t be shouting about cyclists.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "Collected data disagrees with you." Source? Also note the phrasing "illegal and unsafe". Strictly illegal behavior seems to be about equal based on the link I provided. "If drivers really cared about the safety of road users, they be up in arms about poor driving standards," Which my comments advocate for. Most people aren't advocating for tougher standards because they're afraid their privileges will be taken away. This appears true for both driver testing and calls for cyclist licensing. Just how the comments on this post are mostly about each side pointing the finger at the other. Also, it's possible the drivers like to yell about cyclists doing illegal and unsafe things because they perceive more risk and want to avoid a negative result. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23021420/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23021420/
    - avianlyric 4y ago
      > Source? Also note the phrasing "illegal and unsafe". Strictly illegal behavior seems to be about equal based on the link I provided. Are you saying that when driver breaks the law, it not unsafe, or more frequently not unsafe than when a cyclist does it? How do you square that with this statement? > Yes, the severity is likely higher with a car. With regards to licensing, there are real logistical issues and macro scale affect associated with that approach. Licensing would be expensive and very difficult to enforce, not that governments haven’t investigated the possibility before. It would presumably require even children to be licensed before going near a bike, which in turn would basically eliminate cycling as form of transport. Who can be bother with all that hassle? It also feels entirely disproportionate to risk. The stats show the bikes don’t kill or injure people very often, hardly greater than injuries and fatalities caused by pedestrian-pedestrian collisions. Compared to cars that kill dozens every day. If there was data, rather than hysteria, demonstrating a high risk caused by cyclists then I would agree. But there isn’t, and I doubt you’re going to advocate for licensing for pedestrians as well?
      - giantg2 4y ago
        "Are you saying that when driver breaks the law, it not unsafe," When a driver or cyclists breaks the law, it is not necessarily unsafe. "Who can be bother with all that hassle?" What hassle? You're implying details that aren't there. It wouldn't be difficult at all to require online training/testing for a low fee. This is already done commonly with boating licenses and us low cost and easy. And yes, kids get boater certificates too. Based on the data, they are the cycling age group that would most benefit from the knowledge in the training/test. "It also feels entirely disproportionate to risk." How so? The data I posted about UK cycling accidents shows about 52% involve a factor on cyclists end. If these people are at risk, then we should attempt to get this number down to zero. It seems the data suggests that even if we eliminate driver errors, we would still be left with just under 40% caused solely by cyclist error. "If there was data, rather than hysteria," No hysteria here, just data.

giantg2 4y ago

Ok. None of this disagrees with what I've said. And thank you for not being an asshole like the previous commenter. Just curious... Do you have asource for your data though? Google seems to indicate that cyclists and drivers are similar in their law breaking. https://whyy.org/articles/cyclists-violate-traffic-law-no-more-than-drivers-new-data-shows/ https://whyy.org/articles/cyclists-violate-traffic-law-no-mo... I'd love to find data like this for the US. If your Google-Fu is better, can you source me some? https://fullfact.org/news/are-cyclists-blame-road-accidents/ https://fullfact.org/news/are-cyclists-blame-road-accidents/

avianlyric 4y ago
You said: > How about the percentage of bad drivers vs bad cyclists? I see a lot of bad drivers because they're more drivers. I'd guess about 1 in 40 cars I see are doing something illegal and unsafe. I'd say I see 1 in 10 bicyclists doing something illegal and unsafe. Collected data disagrees with you. Strongly suggesting you’re falling prey to confirmation bias, or you’ve become highly desensitised to driver misbehaviour. Neither of which would be surprising if you live and drive in the US (my experience of driving in the US, is that it’s almost designed to make it hard to do the right thing as a driver, little to know affordances in the infrastructure to allow for normal human error). > Just curious... Do you have asource for your data though? Google seems to indicate that cyclists and drivers are similar in their law breaking. I assume these conclusions change by locality, and collections method. However I’ve never seen a study demonstrate that cyclists break the law substantially more than drivers. Certainly nothing close to the 4:1 ratio you suggest. > I'd love to find data like this for the US. If your Google-Fu is better, can you source me some? I don’t have any US data unfortunately, I’m mostly interested in the UK where I live. Ultimately the TL;DR is that cyclists are no worse at rule breaking than drivers. They just tend to break different rules, and driver rule breaking is almost entirely normalised. Big difference of course is severity of outcome, which pedestrian fatality rates suggest is about 400x to 1000x greater when a car is involved. If drivers really cared about the safety of road users, they be up in arms about poor driving standards, and the lack of consequences for drivers that kill people. They wouldn’t be shouting about cyclists.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "Collected data disagrees with you." Source? Also note the phrasing "illegal and unsafe". Strictly illegal behavior seems to be about equal based on the link I provided. "If drivers really cared about the safety of road users, they be up in arms about poor driving standards," Which my comments advocate for. Most people aren't advocating for tougher standards because they're afraid their privileges will be taken away. This appears true for both driver testing and calls for cyclist licensing. Just how the comments on this post are mostly about each side pointing the finger at the other. Also, it's possible the drivers like to yell about cyclists doing illegal and unsafe things because they perceive more risk and want to avoid a negative result. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23021420/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23021420/
  - avianlyric 4y ago
    > Source? Also note the phrasing "illegal and unsafe". Strictly illegal behavior seems to be about equal based on the link I provided. Are you saying that when driver breaks the law, it not unsafe, or more frequently not unsafe than when a cyclist does it? How do you square that with this statement? > Yes, the severity is likely higher with a car. With regards to licensing, there are real logistical issues and macro scale affect associated with that approach. Licensing would be expensive and very difficult to enforce, not that governments haven’t investigated the possibility before. It would presumably require even children to be licensed before going near a bike, which in turn would basically eliminate cycling as form of transport. Who can be bother with all that hassle? It also feels entirely disproportionate to risk. The stats show the bikes don’t kill or injure people very often, hardly greater than injuries and fatalities caused by pedestrian-pedestrian collisions. Compared to cars that kill dozens every day. If there was data, rather than hysteria, demonstrating a high risk caused by cyclists then I would agree. But there isn’t, and I doubt you’re going to advocate for licensing for pedestrians as well?
    - giantg2 4y ago
      "Are you saying that when driver breaks the law, it not unsafe," When a driver or cyclists breaks the law, it is not necessarily unsafe. "Who can be bother with all that hassle?" What hassle? You're implying details that aren't there. It wouldn't be difficult at all to require online training/testing for a low fee. This is already done commonly with boating licenses and us low cost and easy. And yes, kids get boater certificates too. Based on the data, they are the cycling age group that would most benefit from the knowledge in the training/test. "It also feels entirely disproportionate to risk." How so? The data I posted about UK cycling accidents shows about 52% involve a factor on cyclists end. If these people are at risk, then we should attempt to get this number down to zero. It seems the data suggests that even if we eliminate driver errors, we would still be left with just under 40% caused solely by cyclist error. "If there was data, rather than hysteria," No hysteria here, just data.