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The data doesn't match my personal experience. I've only come close to hitting a bicyclist once and that's because he suddenly decided to take a left turn from

The data doesn't match my personal experience. I've only come close to hitting a bicyclist once and that's because he suddenly decided to take a left turn from the right lane, at night, while it was raining, without looking. Anyway, it's no surprise that most accidents are caused by the drivers: 1. A bike can make small maneuvers and brake much more quickly than a car can. 2. Bikes usually aren't going as fast as cars. 3. Bicyclists are also more likely to get hurt in an auto vs. bike collision. 4. Bicyclists are a bunch of morons who almost never stop at stop signs or lights, which most likely bothers drivers so much that they vow to run over the next bicyclist they see.

cgs 17y ago
I used to tend to agree with 4) until I became a cyclist. You can follow the spirit of the law without following the letter of the law. If you're on a bike and you're trying to get somewhere in the city in a reasonable amount of time, it is highly impractical to come to a complete stop at every stop sign. Should you slow down and be ready to stop? Yes. Should you stop if there's traffic? Definitely yes. If the streets are deserted is it OK to coast through? With caution. Ride a couple miles in cyclists shoes and things look very different. Please don't assume all cyclists are assholes. Sure, some cyclists are complete douchebags. Idiocy abounds here in Chicago. I recently saw a guy on the Lake Shore trail in Chicago talking on his phone and smoking a cigarette. And don't get me started on the hipsters riding their fixies with their iPods cranked up. Trust me, I want to punch them myself - but not all cyclists are to blame.
- anamax 17y ago
  > If you're on a bike and you're trying to get somewhere in the city in a reasonable amount of time, it is highly impractical to come to a complete stop at every stop sign. By that standard, it's just as impractical in a car. > Should you stop if there's traffic? Definitely yes. The question is rarely what should one do, but what one does. > Trust me, I want to punch them myself - but not all cyclists are to blame. No one said that they were. However, the excuses for "bad behavior" by drivers and bicyclists are very different.
  - zargon 17y ago
    > By that standard, it's just as impractical in a car. Which is why we should get rid of the stop signs and traffic lights. In addition to slowing traffic, their presence is correlated with increased accidents vs. intersections without them.
    - cubedice 17y ago
      I've always been a fan of roundabouts, especially for smaller intersections.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    By that standard, it's just as impractical in a car. Last time I checked, you don't have to unclip to stop your car. And anyway, I live by a stop sign, and I have never seen a car come to a full stop either. Just out of curiosity, have you ever ridden a bike? You get a sense of what rules you can and can't ignore. A stop sign when you are on the non-conflicting side of a T intersection? Probably safe to slow for, rather than stop, unclip, wait, and clip back in. A red light at a major intersection? Might as well wait. Anyway, I am pretty conservative in breaking the rules, but I don't feel at all bad ignoring a stop sign when there is literally no traffic.
    - anamax 17y ago
      > Last time I checked, you don't have to unclip to stop your car. The last time I checked, clipping was a choice. We don't excuse drivers who make choices that make it inconvenient for them to obey traffic laws.... And no, "training" isn't an excuse either. > Just out of curiosity, have you ever ridden a bike? Yes, what of it? > You get a sense of what rules you can and can't ignore. Oh really? > I don't feel at all bad ignoring a stop sign when there is literally no traffic. That's nice, but observing bicyclists shows that "no traffic" often means "can I beat it if other folks give me a pass?". (My assumption that they're checking may be unfounded.)
- wallflower 17y ago
  I highly recommend "Effective Cycling" by John Forester as a reference on how to learn the rules of cycling with automobiles on the same roads. The basic rule of thumb is the same as motorcyclists - pretend you are invisible and car drivers cannot see you. Rolling through stop signs is a calculated risk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_Cycling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_Cycling
- jrockway 17y ago
  Idiocy abounds here in Chicago. So true. I don't think I've ever ridden on the north side of the Lakefront Trail without experiencing at least one moment of sheer terror. A nice ride, but I had to give it up. People talking on their cell phones, riding on the wrong side of the road, little kids playing on the path, joggers that jump right in front of you (got a new wheelset out of that), sand all over the road surface around blind curves... (and yes, I went down hard because of this). When it's raining, though, it's a great ride. A drop of rain and the entire city goes inside, leaving the entire trail for me :) The south side is much better (but a very boring ride), and I have never really felt unsafe on the road. Anyway, I am just waiting for someone to get really hurt... it is bound to happen some day.
petewarden 17y ago
If there's nobody around, I'll often roll through a stop sign on my bike. Back in the UK, there's almost no stop signs, instead everything's yields or 'roundabouts', which seem more efficient and safer, since they require more situational awareness. There's definitely suicidal bikers around blowing through stop lights and weaving through traffic, but I don't think that if they were gone, car drivers would be perfectly happy sharing the road with bikes. We're slow and a pain to pass, plus there's the occasional aura of moral superiority. :)
- huhtenberg 17y ago
  > the occasional aura of moral superiority. :) The aura of entitlement rather, the one that typically takes up a lane and a half. All in all, the hatred towards cyclists will not go anywhere until there is a proper cycling accommodations on the roads. Separate lanes, separate licenses and separate fines. With rights there should come the responsibilities, with responsibilities - the penalties and enforcement. Neither of that exists at the moment (at least here in Canada). If one wants to cycle - at least pass the exam, show you know the rules. Perhaps you learn that one must walk your damn bicycle when using a pedestrian zebra crossing and such. Instead what I am seeing is a righteous middle finger waving and yelling, and that does indeed makes me want nothing else but to run over such lovely road companions.
  - antonovka 17y ago
    ... that does indeed makes me want nothing else but to run over such lovely road companions. Your automobile is not a toy, it is a multi-ton industrial machine. Killing people with it is not a joke. If you find that driving so aggravates you as to leave you feeling a desire to run bicyclists over, you need to reevaluate the amount of time you spend driving.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    So much bitterness. This is why I lobby to ban cars. With everyone wanting to "run over" cyclists and pedestrians, I feel that non-commercial motor vehicles should be made illegal; they are just too dangerous in the hands of self-identified murderers.
thismat 17y ago
>4. Bicyclists are a bunch of morons who almost never stop at stop signs or lights, which most likely bothers drivers so much that they vow to run over the next bicyclist they see. Funny you say this, I worked in San Antonio for a while and there is a pretty popular area for hardcore cyclists, due to the hill-country style roads. One of the guys I worked with constantly reminded us how much he couldn't stand cyclists because even if they had plenty of room to let someone pass, they would hold up traffic simply because it was their right. I honestly loved seeing the cyclists, it looked like fun and they seem to have quite a community. His reaction was still pretty funny and somewhat horrifying when he'd talk about his dislike of them though, got so worked up when I mentioned I was thinking of biking to and from work.
- natrius 17y ago
  "he couldn't stand cyclists because even if they had plenty of room to let someone pass, they would hold up traffic simply because it was their right." I think this is just a misconception. Anytime there's not enough room in a lane for a car to safely pass entirely within the lane, the safest thing to do is to take the entire lane so cars will pass you in the next lane. It's not about holding up traffic; it's about avoiding opportunities for drivers to maim by miscalculation.
  - huhtenberg 17y ago
    And if someone is doing exactly that in a rush hour clogging up the street and holding up a couple of blocks worth of traffic (including buses), how does it make this cyclist look ?
    - jrockway 17y ago
      It makes the road network look woefully inadequate. The solution is to add another lane, not to whine about the cyclist wanting to get home from work without dying.
    - natrius 17y ago
      If it's rush hour, traffic probably isn't moving that much faster than the cyclist. Regardless, cyclists are allowed on the road at any time of day, so I'm not sure what you're looking for. Should I be forced to drive so you can save a couple of seconds? You do realize that rush hour is caused by too many cars on the road, right? If cars were banned from the streets at rush hour, roads would probably have higher throughput. You can fit about four people on bikes in the space that (usually) one person is taking up with their car. Blaming people for traffic is ridiculous. Everyone causes traffic. If you want free-flowing roads, price congestion.
antonovka 17y ago
You've only ever come close to hitting a bicyclist once -- perhaps that's due to your attention to driving? I both drive and bicycle, and as a careful driver, I've never had a risky incident with a bicycle. However, I have been hit by a cars twice while riding my bicycle, both in cases where the inattentive driver engaged in illegal behavior. One of the incidents sent me to the emergency room. Observing automobile drivers over the years, I wouldn't hesitate to say that most people are barely qualified to operate a Segway, much less pilot a 4+ thousand pound automobile at 30+ miles per hour on a mixed-used road. Lastly, your invective is misplaced. After writing three sentences on how bicycles are nothing like cars, you call them morons for not rigidly following the exact same rules as automobiles.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  So, mostly I've done all right as a driver, because I have a simple rule: if I come to an intersection with a stop sign or a light, and there's a bicycle coming up which will cross the intersection perpendicular to me, I throw away everything I know about right of way and stop until the bike crosses. Doesn't matter if the light's red to the bike. Doesn't matter if it's a stop sign and I got there first. I stop and wait, because the cyclist is an unpredictable factor and the only thing to do is wait until the bike is gone. That said, I've had two incidents. One involved an actual collision; I was coming out of a parking lot, and stopped waiting for a break in traffic to pull out into the street, and suddenly heard a strange noise. A cyclist coming through the lot had simply ridden straight into the side of my (motionless) car. He brushed himself off, got back on his bike, waved at me and went on. The second miraculously did not involve a collision. One morning I was heading home from running some errands, and was driving along a road that serves as a partial bypass for a highway that goes through town. There's one lane of traffic in each direction and the speed limit is 65 miles per hour. I came up over the crest of a small hill, and suddenly saw a cyclist, pedaling along in the lane in front of me, and slammed the brakes to slow down and keep from running him over. He took no notice of me, and kept on pedaling with me behind him (speedometer said he was doing about 15mph). To this day I believe that he and I were both incredibly lucky: he was lucky in that I was able to see him and react in time. I was lucky in that I didn't hit him, and that nobody else coming up behind slammed into me. Doing 45 under the limit on a road with blind spots is not a safe practice. The massive irony of that one, by the way, is that a paved bike lane runs parallel to that bypass, and I live in a town which takes pride in maintaining a healthy network of quality bike paths. On the occasions when I've talked to cyclists about why they still use the roads, they've been unanimous in their opinion that they don't like the paths because they have to be shared with foot traffic which just gets in their way and slows them down.
anthonyb 17y ago
Bikes brake more slowly than a car. I've been hit by a car while riding in the past, where they've pulled in front, overtaken and slammed on the brakes. See this, too: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=459119 http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=459119 and then the driver turns out to be a crackpot: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pack-pileup-driver-accuses-cyclists/2009/01/28/1232818495327.html http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pack-pileup-driver-accus... but still got off pretty much scot free: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cycle-pack-crash-driver-guilty/2009/01/28/1232818519549.html http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cycle-pack-crash-driver-...
- jrockway 17y ago
  Bikes brake more slowly than a car. I've been hit by a car while riding in the past, where they've pulled in front, overtaken and slammed on the brakes. Sounds like a reaction time or misuse of your brakes, rather than a general rule about the amount of time required to slow the bike. Go somewhere where there's no traffic (or obstacles), get your bike up to speed, and slowly engage the front brake. Now do it again, but more quickly. Eventually you will learn how much force you can apply without flipping the bike; this is a skill you need to ride your bike safely. Just pulling the rear brake is not going to stop the bicycle quickly; the wheel skids and you develop no more braking force.
  - anthonyb 17y ago
    This reply is probably a bit late, but I've been riding bikes for more than 10 years. I know how to stop my bike and how fast it can stop. The issue (just from what I've been told) is a question of contact area - bikes don't have much, cars have a lot more.
jrockway 17y ago
Incidentally, I've almost been hit by a car who suddenly decided to take a left turn from the right lane. Bad drivers are dangerous regardless of which vehicle they happen to be piloting.

cgs 17y ago

I used to tend to agree with 4) until I became a cyclist. You can follow the spirit of the law without following the letter of the law. If you're on a bike and you're trying to get somewhere in the city in a reasonable amount of time, it is highly impractical to come to a complete stop at every stop sign. Should you slow down and be ready to stop? Yes. Should you stop if there's traffic? Definitely yes. If the streets are deserted is it OK to coast through? With caution. Ride a couple miles in cyclists shoes and things look very different. Please don't assume all cyclists are assholes. Sure, some cyclists are complete douchebags. Idiocy abounds here in Chicago. I recently saw a guy on the Lake Shore trail in Chicago talking on his phone and smoking a cigarette. And don't get me started on the hipsters riding their fixies with their iPods cranked up. Trust me, I want to punch them myself - but not all cyclists are to blame.

anamax 17y ago
> If you're on a bike and you're trying to get somewhere in the city in a reasonable amount of time, it is highly impractical to come to a complete stop at every stop sign. By that standard, it's just as impractical in a car. > Should you stop if there's traffic? Definitely yes. The question is rarely what should one do, but what one does. > Trust me, I want to punch them myself - but not all cyclists are to blame. No one said that they were. However, the excuses for "bad behavior" by drivers and bicyclists are very different.
- zargon 17y ago
  > By that standard, it's just as impractical in a car. Which is why we should get rid of the stop signs and traffic lights. In addition to slowing traffic, their presence is correlated with increased accidents vs. intersections without them.
  - cubedice 17y ago
    I've always been a fan of roundabouts, especially for smaller intersections.
- jrockway 17y ago
  By that standard, it's just as impractical in a car. Last time I checked, you don't have to unclip to stop your car. And anyway, I live by a stop sign, and I have never seen a car come to a full stop either. Just out of curiosity, have you ever ridden a bike? You get a sense of what rules you can and can't ignore. A stop sign when you are on the non-conflicting side of a T intersection? Probably safe to slow for, rather than stop, unclip, wait, and clip back in. A red light at a major intersection? Might as well wait. Anyway, I am pretty conservative in breaking the rules, but I don't feel at all bad ignoring a stop sign when there is literally no traffic.
  - anamax 17y ago
    > Last time I checked, you don't have to unclip to stop your car. The last time I checked, clipping was a choice. We don't excuse drivers who make choices that make it inconvenient for them to obey traffic laws.... And no, "training" isn't an excuse either. > Just out of curiosity, have you ever ridden a bike? Yes, what of it? > You get a sense of what rules you can and can't ignore. Oh really? > I don't feel at all bad ignoring a stop sign when there is literally no traffic. That's nice, but observing bicyclists shows that "no traffic" often means "can I beat it if other folks give me a pass?". (My assumption that they're checking may be unfounded.)
wallflower 17y ago
I highly recommend "Effective Cycling" by John Forester as a reference on how to learn the rules of cycling with automobiles on the same roads. The basic rule of thumb is the same as motorcyclists - pretend you are invisible and car drivers cannot see you. Rolling through stop signs is a calculated risk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_Cycling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_Cycling
jrockway 17y ago
Idiocy abounds here in Chicago. So true. I don't think I've ever ridden on the north side of the Lakefront Trail without experiencing at least one moment of sheer terror. A nice ride, but I had to give it up. People talking on their cell phones, riding on the wrong side of the road, little kids playing on the path, joggers that jump right in front of you (got a new wheelset out of that), sand all over the road surface around blind curves... (and yes, I went down hard because of this). When it's raining, though, it's a great ride. A drop of rain and the entire city goes inside, leaving the entire trail for me :) The south side is much better (but a very boring ride), and I have never really felt unsafe on the road. Anyway, I am just waiting for someone to get really hurt... it is bound to happen some day.

petewarden 17y ago

If there's nobody around, I'll often roll through a stop sign on my bike. Back in the UK, there's almost no stop signs, instead everything's yields or 'roundabouts', which seem more efficient and safer, since they require more situational awareness. There's definitely suicidal bikers around blowing through stop lights and weaving through traffic, but I don't think that if they were gone, car drivers would be perfectly happy sharing the road with bikes. We're slow and a pain to pass, plus there's the occasional aura of moral superiority. :)

huhtenberg 17y ago
> the occasional aura of moral superiority. :) The aura of entitlement rather, the one that typically takes up a lane and a half. All in all, the hatred towards cyclists will not go anywhere until there is a proper cycling accommodations on the roads. Separate lanes, separate licenses and separate fines. With rights there should come the responsibilities, with responsibilities - the penalties and enforcement. Neither of that exists at the moment (at least here in Canada). If one wants to cycle - at least pass the exam, show you know the rules. Perhaps you learn that one must walk your damn bicycle when using a pedestrian zebra crossing and such. Instead what I am seeing is a righteous middle finger waving and yelling, and that does indeed makes me want nothing else but to run over such lovely road companions.
- antonovka 17y ago
  ... that does indeed makes me want nothing else but to run over such lovely road companions. Your automobile is not a toy, it is a multi-ton industrial machine. Killing people with it is not a joke. If you find that driving so aggravates you as to leave you feeling a desire to run bicyclists over, you need to reevaluate the amount of time you spend driving.
- jrockway 17y ago
  So much bitterness. This is why I lobby to ban cars. With everyone wanting to "run over" cyclists and pedestrians, I feel that non-commercial motor vehicles should be made illegal; they are just too dangerous in the hands of self-identified murderers.

thismat 17y ago

>4. Bicyclists are a bunch of morons who almost never stop at stop signs or lights, which most likely bothers drivers so much that they vow to run over the next bicyclist they see. Funny you say this, I worked in San Antonio for a while and there is a pretty popular area for hardcore cyclists, due to the hill-country style roads. One of the guys I worked with constantly reminded us how much he couldn't stand cyclists because even if they had plenty of room to let someone pass, they would hold up traffic simply because it was their right. I honestly loved seeing the cyclists, it looked like fun and they seem to have quite a community. His reaction was still pretty funny and somewhat horrifying when he'd talk about his dislike of them though, got so worked up when I mentioned I was thinking of biking to and from work.

natrius 17y ago
"he couldn't stand cyclists because even if they had plenty of room to let someone pass, they would hold up traffic simply because it was their right." I think this is just a misconception. Anytime there's not enough room in a lane for a car to safely pass entirely within the lane, the safest thing to do is to take the entire lane so cars will pass you in the next lane. It's not about holding up traffic; it's about avoiding opportunities for drivers to maim by miscalculation.
- huhtenberg 17y ago
  And if someone is doing exactly that in a rush hour clogging up the street and holding up a couple of blocks worth of traffic (including buses), how does it make this cyclist look ?
  - jrockway 17y ago
    It makes the road network look woefully inadequate. The solution is to add another lane, not to whine about the cyclist wanting to get home from work without dying.
  - natrius 17y ago
    If it's rush hour, traffic probably isn't moving that much faster than the cyclist. Regardless, cyclists are allowed on the road at any time of day, so I'm not sure what you're looking for. Should I be forced to drive so you can save a couple of seconds? You do realize that rush hour is caused by too many cars on the road, right? If cars were banned from the streets at rush hour, roads would probably have higher throughput. You can fit about four people on bikes in the space that (usually) one person is taking up with their car. Blaming people for traffic is ridiculous. Everyone causes traffic. If you want free-flowing roads, price congestion.

antonovka 17y ago

You've only ever come close to hitting a bicyclist once -- perhaps that's due to your attention to driving? I both drive and bicycle, and as a careful driver, I've never had a risky incident with a bicycle. However, I have been hit by a cars twice while riding my bicycle, both in cases where the inattentive driver engaged in illegal behavior. One of the incidents sent me to the emergency room. Observing automobile drivers over the years, I wouldn't hesitate to say that most people are barely qualified to operate a Segway, much less pilot a 4+ thousand pound automobile at 30+ miles per hour on a mixed-used road. Lastly, your invective is misplaced. After writing three sentences on how bicycles are nothing like cars, you call them morons for not rigidly following the exact same rules as automobiles.

ubernostrum 17y ago
So, mostly I've done all right as a driver, because I have a simple rule: if I come to an intersection with a stop sign or a light, and there's a bicycle coming up which will cross the intersection perpendicular to me, I throw away everything I know about right of way and stop until the bike crosses. Doesn't matter if the light's red to the bike. Doesn't matter if it's a stop sign and I got there first. I stop and wait, because the cyclist is an unpredictable factor and the only thing to do is wait until the bike is gone. That said, I've had two incidents. One involved an actual collision; I was coming out of a parking lot, and stopped waiting for a break in traffic to pull out into the street, and suddenly heard a strange noise. A cyclist coming through the lot had simply ridden straight into the side of my (motionless) car. He brushed himself off, got back on his bike, waved at me and went on. The second miraculously did not involve a collision. One morning I was heading home from running some errands, and was driving along a road that serves as a partial bypass for a highway that goes through town. There's one lane of traffic in each direction and the speed limit is 65 miles per hour. I came up over the crest of a small hill, and suddenly saw a cyclist, pedaling along in the lane in front of me, and slammed the brakes to slow down and keep from running him over. He took no notice of me, and kept on pedaling with me behind him (speedometer said he was doing about 15mph). To this day I believe that he and I were both incredibly lucky: he was lucky in that I was able to see him and react in time. I was lucky in that I didn't hit him, and that nobody else coming up behind slammed into me. Doing 45 under the limit on a road with blind spots is not a safe practice. The massive irony of that one, by the way, is that a paved bike lane runs parallel to that bypass, and I live in a town which takes pride in maintaining a healthy network of quality bike paths. On the occasions when I've talked to cyclists about why they still use the roads, they've been unanimous in their opinion that they don't like the paths because they have to be shared with foot traffic which just gets in their way and slows them down.

anthonyb 17y ago

Bikes brake more slowly than a car. I've been hit by a car while riding in the past, where they've pulled in front, overtaken and slammed on the brakes. See this, too: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=459119 http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=459119 and then the driver turns out to be a crackpot: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pack-pileup-driver-accuses-cyclists/2009/01/28/1232818495327.html http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pack-pileup-driver-accus... but still got off pretty much scot free: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cycle-pack-crash-driver-guilty/2009/01/28/1232818519549.html http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cycle-pack-crash-driver-...

jrockway 17y ago
Bikes brake more slowly than a car. I've been hit by a car while riding in the past, where they've pulled in front, overtaken and slammed on the brakes. Sounds like a reaction time or misuse of your brakes, rather than a general rule about the amount of time required to slow the bike. Go somewhere where there's no traffic (or obstacles), get your bike up to speed, and slowly engage the front brake. Now do it again, but more quickly. Eventually you will learn how much force you can apply without flipping the bike; this is a skill you need to ride your bike safely. Just pulling the rear brake is not going to stop the bicycle quickly; the wheel skids and you develop no more braking force.
- anthonyb 17y ago
  This reply is probably a bit late, but I've been riding bikes for more than 10 years. I know how to stop my bike and how fast it can stop. The issue (just from what I've been told) is a question of contact area - bikes don't have much, cars have a lot more.

jrockway 17y ago

Incidentally, I've almost been hit by a car who suddenly decided to take a left turn from the right lane. Bad drivers are dangerous regardless of which vehicle they happen to be piloting.