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Major problem with people on bikes in the cities is not safety caused by cars (its issue, but not major for regular biker that drives from a to b at regular spe

by funkyy 12y ago

Major problem with people on bikes in the cities is not safety caused by cars (its issue, but not major for regular biker that drives from a to b at regular speed). Its the fact that most bikers ignore laws. They drive through red lights, use side walks as their own, change lines like crazy... I am a biker myself and I see first hand all this people getting themselves in dangerous situations by ignoring road rules and then complaining how bad and ignorant car drivers are. Bicycle bays wont help much here...

andrewliebchen 12y ago
Nobody ever makes this same argument about cars that disobey the laws. "Changing the speed limit in this neighborhood will not stop car drivers who disobey the laws from hitting our children!" I think you could imagine that when cyclists are in protected lanes (and thus are first-class citizens on the road), they won't NEED to break laws that shoe-horn them in with 2-ton automobiles.
MisterBastahrd 12y ago
I agree to an extent. People on bikes tend to believe that normal traffic laws don't apply to them, and I think it's largely due to ignorance of said laws. There have been many times that I've cringed while driving through New Orleans because someone on a bike decided to enter an intersection during a red light. Making it worse is that the city is old by American standards, and the streets weren't designed for multiple cars driving down the road at the same time, much less the addition of streetside parking because virtually everyone here owns a car and many homes don't have driveways.
mikeash 12y ago
That is a major problem, but far from the only major problem, and since this plan attempts to address a different problem, this would seem to be completely off topic. I don't understand why any discussion of bicycles must have a comment about law-breaking cyclists. It doesn't happen with other topics even though there are plenty of other topics where lots of people involved don't follow the relevant laws.
jrock08 12y ago
I used to blame other cyclists for this, but at some level I understand. After getting buzzed by yet another car while going downhill at 30 mph on a 25 mph road, and then getting pulled out in front of by a car off a side street, who assumed that I was moving slowly. I then got to a stop light that didn't change in my favor due to the sensors not being quite sensitive enough to pick up a bike which forced me to make a decision between running the (traffic-less) red light or fully unclipping, and shuffling my way 20 feet and up a 6 inch curb to the pedestrian button. While technically I may be a "vehicle" in the eyes of the law, in reality, I'm between a pedestrian and a "real vehicle" without the benefits of either. Add to this strange intersections with traffic, where the cars have a stop sign (side road) and the bike path traffic have the right of way (in theory). Or worse, places where bike paths strangely end leaving a biker unfamiliar with the area unsure as to how to proceed. Adopting seemingly inconsistent and strange behavior is the only way to make cycling feasible in many places. The adoption of standard ways for interaction with traffic and better signage would decrease the cognitive load required to cycle and produce more consistent cyclist/vehicle interactions. Regardless of my dislike of certain car behavior, such as overtaking without giving space, and misjudging speed, I much prefer riding on speed limited (25mph-35mph) streets to bike paths simply because I know how to act like a car, and people generally expect me to act like a car.
- alphapapa 12y ago
  I try to sympathize with reasonable cyclists like you, but I can't help but think of it as swimming with sharks and complaining about it being dangerous. Humans aren't designed to live in the ocean. Roads (the ocean) are filled with cars (sharks). People who swim with sharks do so in cages (cars). Forego the cage at your own risk. A more reasonable solution, as strange as it might seem, would be to have elevated or underground bike tunnels. Cars and bikes SHOULD be completely separated. Trying to cram them into the same space is asking for trouble.
  - jrock08 12y ago
    But you're assuming a car first approach. And on a high-way, I agree with you. It's a car's world, but in a city, or town on a non-major thoroughfare, cars and bikes should be able to co-exist peacefully. To stretch your analogy a bit, low speed roadways would be like swimming in non-shark infested waters. Sure, you are liable to see car but you shouldn't feel like you are in danger when your are passed by the car, and on the other side, drivers shouldn't feel like they are within inches of killing a cyclist when they use a road legally and responsibly. (I add responsibly there because many drivers will complain that they feel they have to pay more attention when the drive near cyclists. I find this a wholly unconvincing argument, if you aren't paying attention while driving you aren't driving responsibly) I also don't have any desire to use a car frequently. I shouldn't be forced to resort to a car to travel anything less than 15 miles due to fear or lack of infrastructure. And we face a chicken and egg problem. It would be great if we could have elevated bikeways tomorrow, but the truth of the matter is we should be encouraging bike use now not hypothetically in a utopian future. Because without proven use, there's no way major bike infrastructure projects will happen.
megablast 12y ago
As a biker, are you saying you have seen more bikes break the law than car drivers? Not where I live in Australia.
tanvach 12y ago
I agree with you, again for me this comes from personal cycling experience and seeing a lot of bikers ride dangerously. My take is that the traffic fails to accommodate cyclists sufficiently, which creates a kind of 'impedance mismatch' so to speak. For example, say a bus overtakes a cyclist and stops 40m in front. A car would signal, wait for a space, turn, then catch up to the traffic. For a bike, it needs to signal, wait for a space, then start peddling, which is very much slower than a car. A car following the bike needs to slow down creating a hazard. I experience this many times in the past few months, especially where one has to peddle up hill. The reason I noticed this is because recently I tried electric bikes, they greatly help with the initial peddling which I feel make me less of a target for cars. An easier route for a normal bike is to take the side walk and avoid that hazard all together. Another is when waiting for green light, bikers tend to peddle before the traffic light turns green because they can get a head start peddling. Personally I feel pressured to do so to avoid the cars behind me overtaking dangerously.
kalleboo 12y ago
Isn't the solution the same though? Dedicated bike lanes and dedicated traffic signals for bikes (as we have here in Sweden)

by funkyy 12y ago

andrewliebchen 12y ago

Nobody ever makes this same argument about cars that disobey the laws. "Changing the speed limit in this neighborhood will not stop car drivers who disobey the laws from hitting our children!" I think you could imagine that when cyclists are in protected lanes (and thus are first-class citizens on the road), they won't NEED to break laws that shoe-horn them in with 2-ton automobiles.

MisterBastahrd 12y ago

I agree to an extent. People on bikes tend to believe that normal traffic laws don't apply to them, and I think it's largely due to ignorance of said laws. There have been many times that I've cringed while driving through New Orleans because someone on a bike decided to enter an intersection during a red light. Making it worse is that the city is old by American standards, and the streets weren't designed for multiple cars driving down the road at the same time, much less the addition of streetside parking because virtually everyone here owns a car and many homes don't have driveways.

mikeash 12y ago

That is a major problem, but far from the only major problem, and since this plan attempts to address a different problem, this would seem to be completely off topic. I don't understand why any discussion of bicycles must have a comment about law-breaking cyclists. It doesn't happen with other topics even though there are plenty of other topics where lots of people involved don't follow the relevant laws.

jrock08 12y ago

I used to blame other cyclists for this, but at some level I understand. After getting buzzed by yet another car while going downhill at 30 mph on a 25 mph road, and then getting pulled out in front of by a car off a side street, who assumed that I was moving slowly. I then got to a stop light that didn't change in my favor due to the sensors not being quite sensitive enough to pick up a bike which forced me to make a decision between running the (traffic-less) red light or fully unclipping, and shuffling my way 20 feet and up a 6 inch curb to the pedestrian button. While technically I may be a "vehicle" in the eyes of the law, in reality, I'm between a pedestrian and a "real vehicle" without the benefits of either. Add to this strange intersections with traffic, where the cars have a stop sign (side road) and the bike path traffic have the right of way (in theory). Or worse, places where bike paths strangely end leaving a biker unfamiliar with the area unsure as to how to proceed. Adopting seemingly inconsistent and strange behavior is the only way to make cycling feasible in many places. The adoption of standard ways for interaction with traffic and better signage would decrease the cognitive load required to cycle and produce more consistent cyclist/vehicle interactions. Regardless of my dislike of certain car behavior, such as overtaking without giving space, and misjudging speed, I much prefer riding on speed limited (25mph-35mph) streets to bike paths simply because I know how to act like a car, and people generally expect me to act like a car.

alphapapa 12y ago
I try to sympathize with reasonable cyclists like you, but I can't help but think of it as swimming with sharks and complaining about it being dangerous. Humans aren't designed to live in the ocean. Roads (the ocean) are filled with cars (sharks). People who swim with sharks do so in cages (cars). Forego the cage at your own risk. A more reasonable solution, as strange as it might seem, would be to have elevated or underground bike tunnels. Cars and bikes SHOULD be completely separated. Trying to cram them into the same space is asking for trouble.
- jrock08 12y ago
  But you're assuming a car first approach. And on a high-way, I agree with you. It's a car's world, but in a city, or town on a non-major thoroughfare, cars and bikes should be able to co-exist peacefully. To stretch your analogy a bit, low speed roadways would be like swimming in non-shark infested waters. Sure, you are liable to see car but you shouldn't feel like you are in danger when your are passed by the car, and on the other side, drivers shouldn't feel like they are within inches of killing a cyclist when they use a road legally and responsibly. (I add responsibly there because many drivers will complain that they feel they have to pay more attention when the drive near cyclists. I find this a wholly unconvincing argument, if you aren't paying attention while driving you aren't driving responsibly) I also don't have any desire to use a car frequently. I shouldn't be forced to resort to a car to travel anything less than 15 miles due to fear or lack of infrastructure. And we face a chicken and egg problem. It would be great if we could have elevated bikeways tomorrow, but the truth of the matter is we should be encouraging bike use now not hypothetically in a utopian future. Because without proven use, there's no way major bike infrastructure projects will happen.

megablast 12y ago

As a biker, are you saying you have seen more bikes break the law than car drivers? Not where I live in Australia.

tanvach 12y ago

I agree with you, again for me this comes from personal cycling experience and seeing a lot of bikers ride dangerously. My take is that the traffic fails to accommodate cyclists sufficiently, which creates a kind of 'impedance mismatch' so to speak. For example, say a bus overtakes a cyclist and stops 40m in front. A car would signal, wait for a space, turn, then catch up to the traffic. For a bike, it needs to signal, wait for a space, then start peddling, which is very much slower than a car. A car following the bike needs to slow down creating a hazard. I experience this many times in the past few months, especially where one has to peddle up hill. The reason I noticed this is because recently I tried electric bikes, they greatly help with the initial peddling which I feel make me less of a target for cars. An easier route for a normal bike is to take the side walk and avoid that hazard all together. Another is when waiting for green light, bikers tend to peddle before the traffic light turns green because they can get a head start peddling. Personally I feel pressured to do so to avoid the cars behind me overtaking dangerously.

kalleboo 12y ago

Isn't the solution the same though? Dedicated bike lanes and dedicated traffic signals for bikes (as we have here in Sweden)