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Cyclists Are Faster Than Cars And Motorbikes in Cities and Towns, Study Says (forbes.com)
Smartphone data from riders and drivers schlepping meals for restaurant-to-home courier service Deliveroo shows that bicycles are faster than cars and motorized two-wheelers. From a news writeup, which sources its data from Deliveroo, a UK-headquartered food delivery company with more than 30,000 riders and drivers in 13 countries: That bicyclists are faster in cities will come as no surprise to bicycle advocates who have staged so-called "commuter races" for many years. However, these races -- organized to highlight the swiftness of urban cycling -- are usually staged in locations and at hours skewed towards bicycle riders. The Deliveroo stats are significant because they have been extracted from millions of actual journeys. And it's all thanks to Frank.
Frank is the name Deliveroo gives its routing algorithm (the name was chosen for the Danny DeVito character in the TV series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.") Delivering millions of simultaneous orders from thousands of restaurants to hungry consumers within 30 minutes using roving self-employed couriers equipped with smartphones is a complex vehicle routing problem: consumers want piping hot food; restaurants want meals picked up when cooked; riders -- paid per drop -- want multiple deliveries per hour, and Deliveroo needs to make money. The algorithm team employs data scientists with PhDs in computer vision, computer science, operations research, cognitive neuroscience, econometrics, machine learning, and physics.
Frank is the name Deliveroo gives its routing algorithm (the name was chosen for the Danny DeVito character in the TV series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.") Delivering millions of simultaneous orders from thousands of restaurants to hungry consumers within 30 minutes using roving self-employed couriers equipped with smartphones is a complex vehicle routing problem: consumers want piping hot food; restaurants want meals picked up when cooked; riders -- paid per drop -- want multiple deliveries per hour, and Deliveroo needs to make money. The algorithm team employs data scientists with PhDs in computer vision, computer science, operations research, cognitive neuroscience, econometrics, machine learning, and physics.
They don't respect traffick lights and stop signs.
Speaking as someone who has done it biking through NYC traffic is not for the faint of heart. Make sure your legs are in good shape as well because not all that city has been well and truly flattened the way the Dutch started doing when it was New Amsterdam.
Then there is the whole utility thing. You aren't going to carrying a weeks groceries for a family of 3 or 4 back on bicycle. Yeah it can be done but who the hell wants to. Finally there is that whole matter of inclement weather.
By car it takes me 15-20 if traffic is light and 30min to 1 hour and 15 minutes for the same commute depending on the number of retards that can't drive are on the road. This is in Tampa Florida so it is a highly season thing. It is opposite of what you think is true. The locals are by far the worse drivers I have ever come across in the US. Even worse than Los Angeles. They can flip a car in a single vehicle accident on a straight road on a dry sunny day. Don't ask me how but they do it all the freaking time. The snow birds and the tourists that flock down here for vacation just add to the stupid that is already inherent in the system, but are hardly the cause of it.
I've converted over to commuting by bicycle because of the outdated stand your ground laws don't consider a person with their head up their ass (phone) randomly changing lanes in a 3000lbs piece of mechanized steel at 60mph in a 35 to be a lethal threat and justification enough to be countered with the use of lethal force.
Even with the dodge-em I have to play with the cars, commuting by bike consistently takes less time, has a more predictable ETA and is by far more gentle on my sanity than commuting by car. Self driving cars can't get here quick enough in my opinion.
In a reasonable world, we would change the laws to allow people on bikes to yield at stop signs and go at red lights after a full stop, as they already do anyway, so as to not artificially slow them down while making their behavior more predictable for pedestrians and motorists. But instead we moralize and say that if I can't legally plow through four-way stops in my car, no one can! Even though four-way stops were engineered deliberately to slow down cars in residential neighborhoods for the benefit of other road users.
Signed, an enthusiastic driver who also enjoys riding a bike, who follows the road laws exactly when in a car and bends them while on a bike, because I'm concerned about actual safety and not just arbitrarily following rules.
Yep, this is the kindergarten system of rule-making. Wait your turn! Why, teacher? Because I SAID SO, KIDDO!
There's that, but not necessarily. Mostly, cyclists overtake long queues of stopped cars, may not even have to stop if the light gets green in the meanwhile and they're the first or among the couple first vehicles to get through the intersection. Then the cars complain it's "unfair".
That's ungrounded and fairly childish. You might as well complain than the pedestrians don't have to walk in strict lines and signal their turns, that rats are eating for free and pigeons are unfairly able to fly and so they get to peck anywhere knowing they always can get away by flapping.
Commuted one year with a bike in Dublin, and can confirm bike is much faster on peak hours even if you pedantically follow all traffic rules (unlike the cars which tend to speed through red lights). This is mostly because traffic crawls or stalls and you can drive past the cars up to next traffic light, whether there is dedicated bike lane or not, and can hop from the inside and walk as pedestrian on the sidewalk in the worst jams.
Even in cities that aren't particularly tall ... e.g. Montreal or DC, cycling is often faster. Not everyone wants to live in social isolation in a home where they can't walk anywhere interesting and HAVE to use their wheeled sensory deprivation bubble to do anything outside of their home.
Then again, car drivers whinge (or even chuck beer cans) when cyclists use the shoulder and ride past stopped traffic. They keep whinging when cyclists ride in the lane and they're forced to go around and pass. Drivers need to figure out what they want cyclists to do.
Bikes are faster than motorbikes that are faster than cars. In crowded situations.
This because they can (illegally) sneak through the car lines, jump on pedestrian lanes and the likes.
Cars cannot do that.
On city bypasses and fast lanes cars are way faster as usaully bikes are not allowed as well as light motorbikes (on my country).
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
In my UK city Deliveroo riders actively avoid using roads, even seem averse to cycle paths if the pedestrian path isn't full. One way signs are just a hint to get off the road onto the pavement, stop lights are just pretty red lights to ignore if possible.
They're a fucking menace to pedestrians. It's no surprise at all they beat drivers following the rules.
I did not have a car for 15 years living in Berlin, Germany. Took the bike and walked as student. Still mostly take the metro and walk today. Our company get's battery damages from parking, as we only take it every other week or two to further away customers and meetings. Pro tip: walking each day to the office I feel super health, have ideal weight and do not even have to visit a gym for that ;-)
Some jurisdictions allow something called the "Idaho stop", which allows cyclists to treat a red light as a stop sign and a stop sign as a yield sign.
Now personally, as a cyclist I'm dubious of this, but empirical studies of this rule show it actually reduces accidents. That actually mystifies me. On one hand I can believe the rule wouldn't increase accidents, because of cyclists' sense of self-preservation, but I can't quite see why it would actually reduce accidents. The one exception I can think of is the "right hook", where a motorist making a right turn hits a cyclist going straight or also making a right turn. This can happen even when the motorist sees the cyclist, because most drivers have a very poor idea of where their passenger-side rear corner is in a turn.
Advocates are divided on the Idaho stop. On one hand it's simpler and politically more palatable to simply say "bikes and cars are equivalent"; but I suppose there's no a priori reason why the rules ought to be exactly the same.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you want to live somewhere where you make the big bucks, traveling will always suck. This is just one more thing that goes with it. Do what I did and get your company to let you work remotely (and be good enough that they can't replace you with 'just anyone') and move to a place where humans are living like humans.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If I also completely ignored all traffic laws, stop signs, and red lights, I bet I could get around even quicker in my car.
Can you give an example of this "average city, with average traffic, population and all that"?
You are welcome on my lawn.
So enforce rules if cyclists actually create a dangerous situation, don't fuck things up for everyone on a bike.
Right now it is 3 miles the grocery store where I do most of my food shopping, another 2 to Wal-Mart and 1 more mile to Home Depot. Most other stores / shopping are within 8 miles. Double those distances for the return trip. Right now it is 25 degrees, snowing, most of the roads are covered with a light layer of snow or ice. If they don't have that, the salt applied is making the roads wet. And this type of weather is available from October until May.
Passionately Indifferent
Not stopping IN THE PRESENCE OF CROSS TRAFFIC is creating the situation. This should be enforced. Doing an Idaho stop, slowing down, checking for traffic, should be fine. Dumbass.
So enforce rules
But Idaho Stop laws codify this behavior in the rules. And since it's all a matter of 'proceed if you judge the intersection to be safe', enforcement becomes subjective. Cyclists who already blow through intersections without the Idaho Stop rules will just think that they have the blessing of the law to carry on.
Have gnu, will travel.
Then they go to various legislatures and city councils to get even more idiotic laws passed allowing them to obstruct traffic
These aren't cyclists. Not everyone who attends city council meeting wearing Lycra, helmets and funny shoes has cycling's best interests at heart. The militant 'cyclists' in Seattle are just using actual cyclists as speed bumps to slow down car traffic. Or screw with commercial/industrial districts.
Assume you are a cyclist and you are given a few options for a route from point A to B and one of them involves cutting through a light industrial district with trucks, forklifts and train cars crossing the proposed bike route. Would you chose that route over a bike path along a side street with general auto traffic? Yes? Welcome to Seattle. But once the developers use a few dead cyclists as an excuse to shut down local industrial businesses and turn the property over to them, rest assured that they will have the bicycle trail shut down. Because you can't sell high end properties when there are a bunch of cycle bums zipping back and forth in front of your driveways.
Have gnu, will travel.
I know the plural of anecdote is not data but yes, it happened to me. Vastly more pedestrian vs. car and bicycle vs car than pedestrian vs bicycle but it happens.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
They are called manners. Learn some. It might be kindergarten to say "Because I said so." But if you haven't figured out how society functions on your own, then you don't get your diploma yet.
Have gnu, will travel.
That's the same problem with any law. There are drivers that don't stop at the stop line; that doesn't make stop lines a bad idea.
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That's a self-limiting behavior.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And it's OK when cyclists take their own chances. But how many little kids see adults doing this and figure that it's OK. With no concept of how cars can and cannot maneuver.
Have gnu, will travel.
To hell with my karma.
Yep, cyclists frequently break traffic laws, which helps them go faster through congested traffic. But, after having bicycle commuted for several years, rude cycling is not the major factor in reduced commute times. Taking up less space and moving continuously while cars idle is what saves the time. I've crossed intersections, waiting for green lights, with scores of pedestrians and other cyclists, all crossing at the same time. Parallel asynchronous flows work with pedestrians and cyclists, not so much with cars, especially in dense cities. And car drivers typically break just as many traffic laws as cyclists, just different laws: speeding, changing lanes in an intersection, driving distracted/talking on cell phones, using bike lanes as turn lanes, etc. Pot, meet kettle.
Every election cycle healthcare becomes an issue, and increasingly CO2 & global warming, energy independence, and global conflicts over energy. Here's an idea: Chip humans and log their blood pressure and heart rate. In order to get any health insurance, your log must show some reasonable level of aerobic exercise - 4 to 6 hours per week, for starters. You are too busy, too important, and don't have the time for this? Fine, pay for your own healthcare. All of it, including vision and dental. No exercise for 1 week - probation. No exercise for 1 month, no coverage, for anything. Probationary coverage resumes the first day you can show a week's worth of exercise, which can be done in half a day. Full coverage after a consistent month of reasonable exercise. A brisk walk per day is plenty good enough. For many, using stairs instead of the elevator would do it. If you exercise, healthcare should be very prompt and comprehensive. The real goal is to get fat, lazy people off their ass and moving around in something other than an SUV.
Is this socialist, bordering on fascist? Yep. But trying to get universal healthcare for a population that doesn't care about their own health is pulling money out of my pocket to keep some twinkie eating lard-ass alive for a few extra years, and that's just as wrong. Forcing society to pay for the elderly and handicapped is great, but if your choices make you handicapped, then that's on you, not me.
I'll take the rude cyclists anywhere, any day, over the lazy, whiny, entitled little bitches. You know who you are.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
This is precisely what the empirical data appears to disprove. Now having worked all my life with data, I am skeptical of it; a little data can be misleading because you never know whether you inadvertently are sampling some special case. However more jurisdictions that report positive results from the Idaho stop rule, the less likely it is to be a fluke.
I think it is at least plausible that the accident rate isn't significantly higher, because cyclists have a stronger incentive than cars to avoid risks. A cyclist is a lot more vulnerable than a driver, even in a pedestrian-vehicle accident. Cyclists also have much better situational awareness than drivers.
However there are sure to be some cyclists who will do risky things. The question is whether making those things illegal have any effect on them.
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That's one of the important arguments against the Idaho stop.
It seems to me that you could argue a priori either way. Maybe some kids will see adults going past a stop sign and think it's perfectly safe to do that any time. Or you could argue that many kids are prone to ignore signs anyway, and that since drivers are expecting this in Idaho stop jurisdictions, children doing that will be safer.
Chances are every scenario you can imagine will occur at some time and place. What we need to determine is whether Idaho stop jurisdictions are more dangerous for children. And if so (or not), are there conflating factors? Maybe Boise is just a safer place to operate a vehicle than, say, Boston.
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The problem with cyclists is they never obey any rules--then they expect cars to do so and drive at 10mph as they ride down the middle of a lane because 'I'm a vehicle!'
I cycle and this is utter bollocks. I obey the rules, as do many of the people I know that cycle. I do not expect cars to drive at 10mph, but I do expect them to not knock me off. It grinds my gears (ahem) when cyclists don't obey the rules. I would certainly never run a red light except once about twenty years ago when I turned left as I realised I had my toe clips on too tight for a different pair of shoes and couldn't get my feet out the clips, when I turned left and onto the pavement. In the end I had to just stop and fall over then finally get my toes out of the clips at the end of my trip. If I know it's going to be a long light and wish to proceed I dismount, move my bicycle over the pavement to the other part of the junction a reasonable distance from the junction, remount, and move off when it is safe to do so.
Manners only matter when someone else is being harmed by lack of manners. The bikes splitting lanes are using space that wouldn't otherwise by used by cars -- they're not slowing cars down, just forming a second line for their own use.
Then again, car drivers whinge (or even chuck beer cans) when cyclists use the shoulder and ride past stopped traffic.
In every State in the US, bicycles on the road must obey the rules of the road. And in every State in the US, riding on the shoulder is illegal. Lane sharing is legal only in California - so if you're riding past stopped traffic in their lane anywhere other than CA - you're also breaking the law.
Statistical evicende: Accident statistics show that in 70% of all car-cyclist accidents, the car driver was causing the collision.
I'm not talking about the law here, I'm talking about reality. Whatever cyclists do, they still get shat upon by drivers.
And that in turn is a problem in civic planning. People are WAY WAY more likely to stop at the line when visibility of intersecting traffic isn't obscured by trees, parked cars, protesters carrying signs (I've seen this; it fucked up an intersection for two weeks straight), etc.
Sprawl is an ecological disaster. No environmentally conscious person should live anywhere but densely populated cities or on organic farmland.
The fastest Tour de France riders, going downhill in the Alps will hit maybe 65mph, so you probably should have challenged the cop's radar gun, because I doubt you were going 60.
You are welcome on my lawn.
My experience as both a cyclist and driver is that a well maintained bike certainly makes a difference to your speed. With a poorly maintained car you just need to put your for down a little further to increase your speed. That's it, no effort required (apart from the extra cost).
...why do they get run over by cars ?
Asks someone with the name LordHighExecutioner. Oh, the irony :-p
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
I've had bikes squeeze by at a stop light, then having gotten ahead, proceeded to block my lane by riding in the middle of it.
In a reasonable world, we would change the laws to allow people on bikes to yield at stop signs and go at red lights after a full stop [...]
Idaho has something like this--basically, they can treat a stop a sign as a yield sign.
What I like is that Idaho also has an interesting attachment to their Yield law:
[...] if a driver is involved in a collision with a vehicle in the intersection or junction of highways, after driving past a yield sign without stopping, the collision shall be deemed prima facie evidence of his failure to yield right-of-way.
In short, if you want to run a stop sign, fine. If something bad happens, it's your fault.
Frankly, this is where I get annoyed with cyclists. "It's all about my safety, unless my safety inconveniences me. Then it's someone else's fault."
Start with an obvious one: It is safer to stop at the stop sign and wait until traffic is clear before proceeding through the intersection. Period. So if you're saying that you're concerned about "actual safety", you would do that. So you're not interested in "actual safety." You're looking at the trade-off between safety and convenience. "I don't have to stop--I can see that there's nothing coming." Trust me, this is the same attitude a lot of motorists have when it comes to stop signs, too.
And it's fine until something bad happens. Then, suddenly, it becomes, "Oh My God! Everybody needs to watch out for me because I'm so vulnerable!" Or, you could stop and wait for traffic to clear. But that's inconvenient--you gotta get to work, get home, or break bikeybear's Strava score.
Speaking of Kindergarten...
If I were to say, "Cyclists run stop signs!" what's the first thing that cyclists will reply?
"Well, cars do it, too!"
Yes, cars do it, too. And, if they're caught by the police, they get punished. But if you do that to a cyclist? "They're picking on me!"
Nah, I'd say that cops in the US generally pick on people. The job attracts a certain kind of sociopathic personality.
"...most drivers willingly speed whenever they can..."
This is completely untrue. Most drivers ignore speed limits when they are unreasonable and most drivers have a very good sense for what reasonable speeds are. It has been well known for decades that speeding is the result of too low posted speed limits and that those limits are set for that very reason, at least in the US. Most drivers obey speed limits when they are reasonable.
"...they willingly break the law whenever they can get away with it."
This sounds more like a statement about you, not about the behavior of most drivers. I break traffic laws when they are unreasonable or produce a bad result but observe them otherwise even when no one is around. It has nothing to do with whether I can "get away with it", it has to do with always doing the right thing so I get it right when it matters.
Many cyclists show utter disregard for traffic laws. It is common within the cycling community to explicitly claim that traffic laws cannot be enforced on cyclists because they have an inherent "right to the road" that somehow doesn't apply to everyone else. Bicycles are unlicensed and cyclists think that means traffic laws don't apply.
As an e-bike commuter, I witness deliberate bad behavior among other cyclists most every day. With drivers it's always laziness and inattention, not contempt for the law.
First off, I see this frequently. Second, cyclists should not be "changing lanes" since they are required to not ride in a lane except when necessary. Third, hand signals are unsafe as they require taking a hand off the bar, typically the left one which controls the most important brake. Hand signals for cyclists are antiquated, unsafe and stupid aside from the fact that they are rarely of any value.
tip: cars don't stop at stop signs either.
"Rolling stop" you say?
You never slowed down more than a bicycle anyway.
Let me get this straight. You say that it is untrue that drivers don't willingly speed and don't break the law, and contend that drivers don't have contempt for the law. Yet your reasoning for this is that they break the law and ignore speed limits when they think they know better (thus have contempt for the law).
Your reasons merely show that the grandparent was completely correct. So cyclists do deliberate bad behavior while drivers virtuously correct bad traffic laws.
It's also not just the relative unlikeliness of collision with a bicycle, which may be "miles traveled" related, but is also the simple fact that the combination of a cyclist's weight and speed means that collisions are far less likely to be lethal. That's why bicycles are generally unlicensed in the first place. Bicycles don't kill pedestrians due to cyclist negligence.
"And in every State in the US, riding on the shoulder is illegal."
What a moron. In my state, riding on the shoulder is not only legal, it is required. That is almost certainly true in every state. Obeying the "rules of the road" doesn't mean that cyclists obey rules for cars, it means they obey rules for bicycles. Those are different rules.
By "lane sharing" you mean "lane splitting", only legal in California. Should not apply to bicycles since they shouldn't generally be in the lane at all. Bicycles passing cars on the shoulder is just fine everywhere.
The research is fundamentally flawed. Come back at me with a methodology that makes sense (e.g. doesn't rely on police reports).
In all my years driving, I have never once seen a car just out-and-out blow through a stop sign. I see it at least twice a month with cyclists.
If the research tells you something that is so obviously false, you should take the time to verify the research.
This.
Cyclists can't speed, but speeding is not dangerous in most situations, while blowing through a stop sign is something no sane competent driver does, but cyclists do with regularity.
When those cyclists get smeared, the roads have become a safer place for everyone else.
Chip humans and log their blood pressure and heart rate.
I can think of 666 reasons why likely voters in this country would reject large-scale chipping of humans. "It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name."--Revelation 13:16-17 (NIV).
Besides, wouldn't the majority end up losing health insurance during winter in northern latitudes? There, daily high temperatures are often below the freezing point of water, causing roads to be dangerous for cyclists.
When a red traffic signal refuses to turn green after a bicycle has been stopped on the induction loop for several minutes, and this particular intersection lacks a pedestrian call button, what do you recommend that a cyclist do?
They found that a cyclist is faster than a motorbike.
A motorbike can do all the same 'squeeze through spaces' things a bike can (at least within 90%).
It is also significantly faster (in the situations where that would count).
So no, the difference is not the ability to split lanes.
That pretty much leaves breaking the law.. Which motorcyclists get pinged for, and bicyclists generally dont..
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
If I, a driver, hit the door when another driver opens the door of his parked car, I was driving too close. If a cyclist hits a car door, the car driver was responsible for not looking (despite the fact that the cyclist may have come at him via a route that was illegal, and the driver had no reason to expect the bike-from-hell to hit him).
Large numbers of cyclists are killed in London because they try to pass trucks which are turning left. WTF are they on the inside of a truck for? The driver almost certainly can't see them, and would generally have his trafficators on for a good while, but a cyclist on the inside can't see them!.
We, (drivers) are told to leave 2 metres between us and a cyclist, while the cyclists calmly push along the side of the car, touching for the entire length, even when the car is moving.
Deliveroo cyclists are famously the worst of the lot when it comes to riding out of side-streets without looking, using pedestrian only routes, riding on the pavements, and scaring the hell out of mothers with young babies - and many other crimes against humanity too numerous to mention.
Commercial cyclists should be required to have a black box on their bike, and insurance. And taxed out of existence.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Maybe not where you live, but this is about London, where the speed limit has recently been reduced to 20MPH almost everywhere, which reduces road capacity to the extent that traffic barely moves. However, most of London is pretty flat, and cyclists can easily exceed 20MPH - and having no regard for the concept of road markings - they come at you silently from arbitrary directions, and no more predictable than moths.
Cyclists need to know that unless other road users can predict what they are going to do, they will die. However, they seem to believe that they can out-manoeuvre other vehicles, so they do not need to plan what they are going to do next, let alone use their body language to show what they are going to do. They have no concept of what a large truck can or can't do, though they willingly go inches away from them at speeds which show they are not planning to live long. As a truck driver once told me: anyone who goes out on the roads of London without a metal box round him, is obviously a loonie, and should be locked up! The evidence appears to support this view.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
I was driving in a 40 area last night at exactly 40mph and a bunch of cars passed me. One idiot decided to do so near a bend and ended up in oncoming traffic with very little time to get back into the lane, putting at least three cars at risk. Sadly a lot of people would rather be one minute earlier for strictly come dancing than actually drive safely. Cyclists are bad too. So many skip red lights or hold up traffic. The problem isn't cyclists vs drivers, there are good and bad on both modes of transport, the problem is human stupidity.
I wasn't expecting that.
In Amsterdam cyclists have their own roads and are kept separate from cars and trucks. This is the best solution. However London, being such an old city doesn't have the room to do this.
Obligatory road safety video https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
No because you should be using your mirrors *and* checking your blind spot. In the UK filtering is totally legal.
They are not the ones getting cold, rained-on and run over by drivers. They are the ones sitting in their warm coccoons with their entertainment systems.
From the 500 meters I walk from my home to the train station, I never have seen a car doing anything wrong, besides not paying a parking ticket. I see 2 to 5 cyclists doing something illegal each day, including:
Driving on the pedestrian path.
Driving in a one-way street, where it is clearly forbidden for cyclists.
Not stopping at a crossing.
Not only do they do that, if I not go out of their way, they get angry. Yes, I have had them hit me. The trick I learned is that if they hit you with the steering bar, you feel relative little, while they say hello to the ground.
So if you ONLY see two per month, they behave well.
From the cyclists I see, around 50% is doing something wrong or at least unsafe.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I have been hit by a car once and several times by a cyclist. I was a pedestrian each time and I was in my right.
The thing is that the one with the cyclists isn't a data entry in any database.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I agree that cyclists seem to run stop signs more frequently. But, just to be fair, there's a big difference in blowing through a stop sign at 35 MPH in your 5,000 pound Tahoe, and blowing through a stop sign at 15 MPH with 150 pound human on a 30 pound bicycle.
The cyclist is risking his / her life and limb, but the Tahoe driver is everyone else's life and limb (pedestrians, cyclists, other drivers).
People do not bike usually when they can get their faster than car because majority of cyclists are by choice: they can afford the car.
Ergo, all the data comes from the cyclists in the area where by definition the traffic is very bad.
Another note: every cyclist can physicall drive, not every drive can cycle.
People do not get that by promoting and defending cyclists they are taking an elitist approach, not the opposite.
Cyclists are yuppies. Period.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
New York City just recently downgraded their city-wide speed limit from 30 MPH to 25 MPH to decrease pedestrian fatalities and accidents. This is enforced on various major roads where drivers could easily go faster than 25 MPH by newly installed speed cameras.
Hey now, I'm not saying I'm one of those idiots who blows through stop signs. I'm just saying that in most cars, your field of vision is blocked in a number of places and you need to take a moment at a full stop to look around you before proceeding. If you do that while moving, it screws with your perception. The difference between 2 and 5 and 10 mph is a lot more subtle in a car than on a bike.
On a bike there are no support columns in your way, no blind spots, and absolutely no difference between craning your neck around while very slowly drifting forward versus doing so with your feet on the ground. You can tell if traffic is clear or not just as well either way. (I'm talking about quiet residential streets here, not places where there's usually cross traffic!) If it were equally convenient to stop completely, maybe no one would care, but since it is a lot easier to accelerate from even a very low speed than from a full stop, it becomes really obvious that the latter doesn't do a damn thing for safety once you force yourself to do it a few dozen times, in spite of the inconvenience, and make the comparison.
After 20+ years of biking on roads, and 15 years of driving, the only accident of any sort I've been involved in was when I was young and stupid, biked on the sidewalk where there wasn't room to bike in the road, and T-boned another cyclist at low speed when he came out of an alley. No near misses, either, though I've had to shout "Watch out!" to zombie drivers who don't check their mirrors more times than I can count. So anecdotally, at least, I can say this approach works!
I would be happy to enforce the reasonable laws against the asshole cyclists who make things difficult for everyone, including other people on bike. But first we have to agree upon which laws make sense to require cyclists to follow.
Personally, I would be fine with the only changes being to legalize the Idaho stop (treat stop signs like yield signs and red lights like four-way stops), change how fault is assigned in cyclist-motorist collisions to default to the motorist, mandate 3 feet of passing space, and do something to penalize motorists who try to interfere with cyclists' attempts to take the lane. Then I think it would be totally fair to crack down on all the other violations, put points on their drivers' licenses for biking infractions, impound bikes of repeat offenders, etc.
Keep in mind that those things you call "obstructions" not only make it easier for law-abiding folks to ride bikes safely, they also make it easier to tell who's trying to follow the law and who deserves to be penalized. More often than not, they make things safer for drivers at the same time.
I suspect that this is not uniform across locations. For instance, in Holland, I greatly suspect that respect for the law is much higher.
But cyclists are doing exactly what you're saying drivers do. The Idaho Stop (treating stop signs as yield signs, and red lights as stop signs) is demonstrably safer and better for traffic than adhering to the law the same way cars do, but most jurisdictions don't allow it.
I've honestly never heard the argument that being unlicensed makes us immune to the law--pedestrians aren't licensed either, and obviously they're expected to adhere to certain rules; why would it be different for cyclists? The only cyclists that I know of that regularly and as a group bend or break the law are couriers.
So yeah, most (North American) cyclists bend the rules when they are unreasonable or produce a bad result, just like you in your car.
Cyclists don't drive on paths. They cycle. And that is legal.
Not where I live. They are not allowed on the footpath. (unless specified that they can)
So your claim that I am lying is revoked.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
> Cars do it all the time.
Your country needs to be messier than mine if cars can sneak through car lines, jump on pedestrian lanes and the likes...
I am not American, but here bikes and motor bikes need to comply to the very same rules as cars.
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Speed does not effect road capacity. No matter what the speed, you have to keep a 2 second distance ("the 2 second rule") from the previous vehicle. This limits a road lane's capacity to 1800 vehicles per hour, at any speed.
(If traffic is stopped half the time due to a traffic light, then this number goes down to 900 vehicles per lane per hour. And in fact the value that traffic engineers typically use is 1000 vehicles per lane per hour, since not everyone keeps the whole 2 second distance.)
Every day or so I sit sipping coffee where I can see cars moving through an intersection in the middle of my town. At least once a week I see a car blow through the stop sign just outside going what looks like 30 miles per hour. No radar gun or nothin' but that's how it looks to me. I'm not talking about the many who slow down to only 5 or 10 MPH but the ones who don't appear to slow down at all.
So the problem with Idaho stops is things that aren't actually Idaho stops?
Let's encourage/enforce actual Idaho stops. Sort of like if the problem with speed limits is the people who don't obey them, the fix is to enforce speed limits, not to get rid of them.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Then again, car drivers whinge ... when cyclists use the shoulder and ride past stopped traffic. They keep whinging when cyclists ride in the lane and they're forced to go around and pass. Drivers need to figure out what they want cyclists to do.
Someone finally says what I've been waiting to hear. And yet, I find no consensus from drivers or police constables on what behaviour they actually prefer.
In CA, most people go by the 200 millisecond rule.