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> With such height I would expect it to be almost invidible to cars That's the first thing that comes up every time VMs are mentioned. It's definitely not fals
by fho 3y ago
> With such height I would expect it to be almost invidible to cars
That's the first thing that comes up every time VMs are mentioned. It's definitely not false, but I feelel that some points should be mentioned:
1. Over all VMs are a lot safer than bicycles:
1.1. If a car touches your bicycles handbar you've lost. In a VM the handlebar is inside.
1.2. You ride feet first which increases the length of your "crumble zone" significantly. Watch this and tell me you would have survived in a normal bicycle: https://youtu.be/5aujzL__SZE https://youtu.be/5aujzL__SZE
2. Huge trucks are not as common in Europe. Everybody here is worried about SUVs getting too big here, but our SUVs are tiny compared to (some) American trucks.
3. Due to the E-Bike boom, cycling infrastructure is becoming a lot better with huge stretches of smooth, paved bicycle lanes along major roads. We are getting there.
4. Some sports cars are only slightly heigher compared to Velomobiles (e.g. Mango: 0.9m vs. Porsche 911 1.2m) and are often painted super bright colors. If a driver overlooks a VM he will probably also overlook a sports car.
(To be fair, I think that there is some "this object does not participate in traffic" recognition happening in the brain that just marks VMs as unimportant. I did a test drive some time ago were we were shouted at because we "drove towards [the other guy] at high velocity" ... while we were literally waiting to pass a parked car. I assume that we just "appeared" for him and his brain decided that therefore we must have been moving at high velocity.)
- Timshel 3y ago1. In city I believe that bicycle might be safer mainly due to agility at lower speed (might be wrong here never used a VM) and the ability to just leave the bike; but I expect this disappear quickly as the speed increase. 2. I know but still too big ^^ 4. I think width play an important part too, on motorcycle I had cars merge on me as if I was not there multiple times :(; easier to disappear in the blindspot. (Funny anecdote, I would have expected the reverse with people ignoring VM because they underestimate the speed :).
- fho 3y agoI frequent a (German) VM forum ... there definitely are accidents. The only fatal one was on a crossing on fields were the high crop covered the VM ... not sure how high the crop was and if e.g. a child on a bike would have been visible. Other accidents like the one in the video above are surprisingly non-fatal ... iirc the guy in the video was doing ~60km/h when he collided feet-first with the tree ... got up and recorded a youtube video about his accident :-)