A truck doesn't have "more power". It has less agility and the ability to control it precisely; that is why it is to be respected. The burden of accident avoidance is on the drivers of other vehicles much moreso than the trucker, as they have a higher degree of ability to do so. A trucker, on the other hand, has a much higher technical requirement to control his vehicle acceptably - and the licensure of said truckers reflects this. You've got it backwards.
As for your "self defense should result in a murder charge" argument, you're completely batty. It's no wonder the UK is crumbling faster than the US. (And I have no idea where you found your info for crime statistics, because they're similarly off the wall.)
The Scientific Method is the reason we have advanced technology now, and aren't just sitting around in grass huts or caves and suffering with a life expectancy of 30.
Actually, the scientific method has done no such thing for us. Western society - and the principles/behaviors responsible for further advances - were forged long before the scientific method, in name or practice, was around.
The "scientific method" is largely a bunch of hokum. In practice (for quite a long time) it's been "I have a hypothesis, and I'm going to try and provide a setting scenario where x, y and z fit my hypothesis" has been the way in which it has advanced. Sometimes, it works, but most of the time it's a bunch of trial and error bullshit.
The vast majority of our advances in Western society have been due to sheer intelligence - IE, observations, and the keen insight (from whichever source it comes, inborn or otherwise) derived from existing knowledge, understanding, and insight into the world around us. Newton, Einstein, Socrates, and the myriads of philosopher-scientists who formed our societal underpinnings used this approach.
Culturally, Europeans, Asians, Indians (and to some degree, Persians/Arabs) have provided humanity with many cultural advancements/improvements in art, philosophy, the 'humanities', and so on - arguably up to and largely inclusive of the earlier disciplines which led to current science and mathematic disciplines. Africa, on the other hand, has provided us with endemic disease, lecherous political problems, and pretty much nothing of positive consequence (other than solutions forged elsewhere for their problems).
"Guns, Germs, and Steel" is just one theory. It does not accurately (or even try to ) account for modern conditions, where the diseases are of domestic origin and non-trivial amounts of assistance have been given to make the endemic population successful.
IQ tests are designed to test reasoning and problem solving ability, first and foremost. Simple mathematical x + y = z type stuff, as well as other differentiation scenarios. It doesn't factor in "cultural values" or any such bullshit which has no sway on intelligence. They don't test "what does this person know?" they test "how well does this person figure?"
Asians have shown to have an intelligence as much over Europeans as Europeans have over Africans. I believe the "20 point" figure of the GP is mostly true. This does not, however, indicate a lack of humanity on the part of the Africans, though it might suggest a threshold for societal acceptance for more advanced social principles and behavior (as indicated by the historical record and status quo).
What makes this a problem? Is it a problem? Is the contention "what makes an expert" or that a supposed expert isn't able to recall the information from resident memory and experience?
This is problematic, however, when wp provides non-factual information. In my mind, it calls to credulity the "expert witness" concept in general. If we've got expert witnesses having to look things up to provide testimony on them, what is their value? Especially in light of the supposed factual question.
Saying "cars are the scourge of the roads" is like saying "packets are the scourge of the interwebs": ignorant and ill-informed.
Here's a hint: there's a reason why engineers design roadways (all of them) for motor vehicle traffic. Something to do with expected use and all that. IE, they're not going to spend 10%+ more on a roadway for 0.1% of the (ill-advised) traffic. This is the same reasoning why interstates tend to not have pedestrian paths.
Another hint: cyclists tend to get along fine in Asia, despite the significantly-crazier drivers. Maybe it's because cyclists there tend to have to be a) agile and b) defensive, instead of assuming they own the road? Common sense should prevail here, not some self-righteous idea about needing to be catered to as a cyclist?
Where in the world is it more 'tolerant' for these self-righteous cyclists? Pretty sure it's "nowhere", and you've just got something against those big, evil, metal gas-guzzlers.
I concur. The problem is many bikers also ride on high-speed roads with minimal lighting - probably what you're wearing. It's negligible and often difficult to notice with all the other road signage, side reflectors, and the like (and actual lights are usually pretty dim compared to a car - negligibly brighter than actual reflectors).
Night cyclists should make it a personal perogative to wear reflective clothing and/or something like this with bright clothing (image) but they don't, in any significant number. Maybe 6" square of aggregate light/reflector area isn't really enough to effectively denote the body of a person and their bike.
It's much easier to see a cyclist in an urban environment, where there is street lighting. That DOES make a whole lot of difference.
So in the UK, if someone were to throw a cinder block from an overpass in front of a moving vehicle, and you hit it (causing an accident) you're responsible? That's daft! I knew that a home owner over there could be held liable for making a dangerous work environment for burglars if there was stuff to trip on (or via other intentional means), but I thought that was just the governments prohibition against a free people defending themselves, not simple common sense.
You guys back there are getting some increasingly odious "protect the stupid and criminally minded" laws over there. It breaks my heart.:(
Let's walk through what you're saying for a second, OK? It's contrary to good sense.
truckers moral and legal(in DK) responsibility. He is the one driving with too little distance to allow a safe breaking. The problem in your scenario stems from having a truck behind you.
How in the world does that make any sense? How is the trucker responsible for your reckless driving (by pulling in front of him)?
If it was a pedestrian tailgating you would not have been afraid of braking. It is exactly therefore trucks should be held to a higher standard than other forms of transportation.
No. That's stupid. Why? Because if a pedestrian were tailgating me, my vehicle would be stopped. Additionally: * a person is agile enough to turn on a "dime" - ie, run around the angle in a narrow sidewalk at an intersection. * People have a full 360 degrees of motion from a standstill position. They can change directions quickly. * a person can stop and reverse directions (even at their fastest running speed) in around 3 seconds and maybe 10-15 feet. * a truck with trailer will take as much as an empty parking lot to "turn around". Most of the time they do not even attempt doing so, because it is technically impossible. * a truck can take as much as a quarter mile to stop from interstate speeds, depending on the weight of his load and the grade.
The only real similarity between a truck and a person is that they're both air powered. As a truck drives it accumulates air pressure in a tank, which is used to make the ride more comfortable for the trucker as well as provide pressure for the breaks. If that tank runs out of pressure (on a long downhill ride) then there is nothing they can do about it. This DOES happen, but by pacing themselves down long steep hills they are able to help mitigate its likelihood. By using more pressure to slow down significantly to avoid crushing someone now they are faced with the real likelihood of losing control down the hill due to diminished pressure. (If you ever hear a truck laying on a Honda Accord style "horn", get the hell out of their way: they're likely out of air pressure for their real horn.)
So no, it is not like driving with too little distance to allow for safe breaking. It's like getting in front of a speeding train and expecting it to adjust according to your proclivity and behaving like a passenger vehicle (which it isn't).
And yes, there's a higher standard for the drivers of trucks (as there is for motorcyclists, usually), because of the increased difficulty of managing their vehicle type in predominant driving conditions. Realistically, a cyclist license should be about as complicated/costly to acquire as a motorcycle license. Cyclists are the only ones who appear to, regularly, disregard not only their own responsibility to behaving in a reasonable manner (ie reasonable expectations on the abilities of other drivers and their vehicles) but to flaunt the law and the safety of others.
If you're paying attention, and have sufficiently good vision to be granted a driver's license, why do you need to swerve or brake suddenly? Unless you're in some very rough or curvy terrain, you should be able to see what's in front of you in far enough time to slow down without slamming on the brakes, or change lanes in plenty of time to get past safely.
That's an entirely reasonable assumption when we're dealing with other motor vehicles traveling at roughly the speed limit. When we're talking about a near-stationary cyclist, in the dark, it's another thing entirely. (This is probably part of the reason why vehicles are required to have tail lamps and not just really-really-strong headlamps.)
I take it you do not live in an area with many deer. Where I live, there are quite a few people who have hit and killed deer on the roadway. Most cyclists are not much more visible than a deer. Unless there is something uncommonly inadequate about my vehicle (there isn't), the safe breaking distance outpaces the headlamp distance once I get past about 40mph. That's probably a liberal estimation, given that you've got to factor in reflexes as well. We're supposed to travel 2s behind the vehicle in front of us, and more in inclement weather; there are many turns where, even at lower speeds, you do not have a 2s view of the road in front of you, resulting in this sort of thing.
And yes, we really are dealing with hilly/curvy roads. The commute I took to a job site recently had multiple 15 degree grades, and the area is known by locals to frequently have people break down due to break failure/overheating. You can not take these roads under 40mph in even a small car without riding the brakes. A cyclist taking this route, at dusk and/or with damp roads (it often rains in the mid-late afternoon during the warm season) is asking to be hit.
I should note that the roads around my parents' place, in NY, are similar - and suffer from a much bigger cyclist and deer problem. But the drivers there are also much more aggressive and reckless (so I can see the cyclists' point from a certain point of view). That doesn't make cyclists smart, it just makes the conditions more dangerous. Maybe they're legally justified, but being legally justified by some codec of law is likely to mean something to someone who was paralyzed when they were riding at dusk, 2 feet into the road, on a curvy/hilly stretch, wearing dark clothes.
If hunters are required to wear 'hunter orange' all cyclists should be required to wear 'cyclist orange' pants with reflective material. I dare say more lives are saved than are saved by orange vests. I suppose it might be a cultural thing: one culture appreciates safety/security, the other risk and thrill.
Basically the further to the left on this list the more responsibility: train>truck>car>bicycle>pedestrian.
What, are you kidding me? Sure, they might feel more responsible, and have a gradient level of training/awareness to perform the respective driving task effectively/safely, but they are by no means more responsible - morally or legally.
You think that someone's responsibility should increase with the amount of potential energy they have to control - ie, that their responsibility for others should increase as their ability (per Newton) to respond effectively is decreased? That's pretty asinine. This isn't some sort of social contract, where the weak protect the strong. We're talking about moving objects here with no moral coloring to the situation.
Some kid steps onto the tracks of a metro train, who is responsible? The kid was stupid and is dead, the engineer feels like shit and gets a week off to deal with the grief. Likewise for the Miata driver who gets crushed because he stayed in a trucker's blind spot too long, or the pedestrian who walked the crosswalk when he didn't have the light (without paying attention/heeding traffic).
So the next time you see a bike in front of you remember he is not putting you in any danger. It is your choice of maneuver that is putting you in danger. He might be annoying and slowing you down, but he has probably learned in the school of incredibly hard knocks, that that's the way to survive.
Right, I'll remember that the next time I'm on a 40mph hilly county road and come across a poorly flagged (few reflectors, no lamps, black clothes) cyclist on a 2-way, 1 lane road with a large truck behind me. When faced with: a) swerve erratically/off the road and endanger/harm myself b) brake suddenly and get run over c) hit the biker and stop 100 yards down the road
I know which option I'll pick. Because that's the kind of situation many cyclists put people in.
The cyclist is a parent walking with their child. To pass them, you need to pass to close to the child, as the father is walking on the inside.
And while we're at it, puppies are raining on the shoulder side of the road. You are apparently not aware of any parents, because no matter how stupid (and possibly even intoxicated) a parent is, they are not so foolish to walk with a child on a busy street - in a busy street! - with the child on the street side. Just, no.
Cars that expect bikes to ride on the beat up shoulder (which is illegal in my neck of the woods, on top of being uncomfortable)
It's uncomfortable so that you won't ride/drive on it. It's there for emergency stops resulting from vehicle mobility problems. We do, as rational people, expect cyclists (who are governed by the same vehicle laws we are) to abide by the same rules motored vehicles are governed by, and pull onto the shoulder when you are impeding traffic or otherwise causing a potential road danger. (Which, on a busy road, is "all the time".)
or that want to 'share' a lane built for one vehicle (by share I mean nearly clip you with their mirror)
I don't think anyone expects cyclists to do that. That sounds highly unreasonable and nothing that a motor vehicle owner would propose. Having a cyclist 6" from your side-view window is kinda terrifying, really. It'd be pretty trivial for them to lose their balance/get distracted by a close vehicle and fall (under the vehicle).
Maybe you should stick to bike paths, which are designed for cyclists, or roads which have posted speed limits under 30mph? I wouldn't expect a motorcycle or car to effectively travel on a bike path; I don't see why a cyclist would expect to be able to (safely/reasonably) travel on a motor vehicle road with a >30mph speed limit.
If I am walking or riding a bike, I always yield to a motor vehicle. I have completely pulled over a number of times while riding a bike due to road conditions not allowing for the vehicle to safely pass me. Why?
Because motor vehicle operation costs money by the mile and minute. They are paying for gas, and that gas is burned and turned into what we tend to consider pollutants. While they might not all be as anal-retentive about not wasting gas or polluting the environment, it seems like a pretty rational courtesy. If I'm walking or riding a bike, chances are I'm not valuing my time in that specific situation as I am exercising and/or recreating - or I'm doing those things while commuting, in which case I've factored in a marked additional amount of time to account for my lower speed and motor vehicle traffic. It seems to me to be the rational (and civil) thing to do.
I think a large part of cyclist elitism might stem from a mentality which is still in "treadmill" mode. They're doing it for exercise, and they've got to hit x miles in y minutes or they're out of shape (or whatever). Or maybe they're in the (flawed) mindset that stops/slowdowns = inefficiency, a holdover from driving in a car. Too many of these cyclists use the laws as an excuse for their immature behavior to boot.
I don't know what tractors do in your parts, but in these parts they pull over onto the median/curb to allow for traffic to pass (if indeed there's enough physical room). They'll also take back roads if at all possible so as to avoid impeding trafficked areas (which only makes sense, as that is what the roads were designed for - motor vehicles not over 8' in width).
Oh yeah, and an overwide truck (pulling, say, a house) a a tractor will be pulled over and ticketed if it has the pathetic amount of lighting/signaling/signage that these cycle trains tend to have. (I'm surprised more cops don't pull the cycle trains over, to be honest - 3+ moving/lighting/signaling violations is probably a full shift quota.)
No kidding! I'm so sick and tired of people giving me a hard time about trying to drive my car onto the subway tracks, it's not even funny. I paid my taxes, I know where those tracks got their funding!
You do the same thing with a bicycle as you would with any other vehicle, especially on a multilane road: You slow down until you can safely pass it by changing to a different lane, not by attempting to squeeze by in the same lane. And I don't know what difference it makes if your vehicle is heavier than another. When you are operating a vehicle, you are responsible to avoid collisions with other vehicles, be it a semi truck or a bicycle.
As someone who has traveled in a OTR truck, has friends who truck, rides bike occasionally, and lives in a heavy-motorcycle-ownership area (Sturgis), let me just say that truckers tend to view your average vehicle in much the same water that someone in a small car views a cyclist or a large SUV might consider a motorcyclist: a freaking liability.
When you're in a larger, less maneuverable vehicle, there's only so much you can do to avoid the more nimble, smaller vehicles that tend to disregard the precautions you need to make in order to drive safely. Truckers have to contend with idiots passing them on a down slope, then pulling in front of their truck (and then slowing down!). Motorcyclists have similar problems.
So that's what the difference is: the sheer physics of the situation makes it more reasonable for the cyclist, traveling at 10-25mph, to pull off the road (even if it means injury) than it does for the car/truck/van/biker to swerve or brake suddenly to avoid the biker.
Why should I, or anyone else in a motor vehicle, endanger my physical well-being because some idiot decided to not ride his bike in a safe fashion (ie, off roads he or she could not properly pace)?
This is particularly true given that most cyclists don't understand the concept of "driving to conditions". IE, if the traffic is going a steady 50mph in a 35mph zone, you do not go 35 miles an hour. It is stupid and dangerous to everyone involved.
Usually - and this is just my experience speaking here - speed bumps are clearly denoted about 30 feet before said bump and have a wide swath of yellow paint across their length, and stop signs are clearly visible, with a rough 1.5' diameter, highly reflective, and typically only found at intersections (and not in the middle of the road).
Contrast that to your average cyclist who wears black and/or non-reflective materials, travels at random (but slow) speeds all across the girth of the road, and is always at a different location. And then he or she has the indignity - unlike a humble stop sign - to give you the finger when you come around a 40mph blind turn to find him in the middle of the lane and lay on the horn for their own safety because you are unsure whether the vehicle will stop before hitting them.
*takes a breath*
As for "total energy"... a clog in a pipe requires no energy of its own to move, it merely saps the energy of what is behind it to push it through. That's what a cyclist is to a public motor vehicle road system: a large constipated stool that gets stuck in a pipe, slowing the flow of everything else that comes after.
Which war was that, again? Oh, right, the one fought about 70 years ago called World War II! Cars back then were not made for higher speeds (due to insufficient road infrastructure and engineering that allowed for the vehicles to handle such speeds at turns, etc.).
In contrast, my first car (a '78 Delta 88 Olds 4-door) got optimal fuel efficiency in the 60-85mph range. my 2000 Ford Focus (otherwise a total POS) can turn a tighter radius at a higher speed than both the olds and, in all likelihood, anything made before 1950 for consumer purchase.
I'm pretty sure most speed limits are determined by the min/max safe speeds under normal conditions for the average road-worthy vehicle - as driven by an average middle-aged person. At least, that would be my impression for the roads in my state. Sometimes they're a little low if you're familiar with the road, but that's rarely the case.
If you fucking see them in time. It's a real joy to come up on a lone cyclist at dusk who's traveling with just the 'default' factory reflectors, on the outside of a tightish curve, sitting in the middle of the outside of the lane, with oncoming traffic and vehicles behind him - on a 45mph posted road. This cyclists are seemingly the norm, and like that idiot with the vespa at the beginning of one of the Police Academy movies.
The law compels YOU, as a driver of a faster and heavier vehicle, to be aware of slower traffic and conduct yourself accordingly. YOU are the jackass, not the cyclists.
Do you honk and swear at tractors, funerals, and Amish buggies too?
Gosh, no. Why would I do that? I wonder if it has something to do with the large hazard signs, police escorts, and blinkers/hazard signs that they are required to have (by law)?
There's a reason it's often a similar offense to speeding when a person is traveling under a specific posted speed. It's fucking dangerous - not just for the idiots traveling under that posted speed range, but also for those who are unfortunate enough to come up behind them. If I am traveling on a curvy road with a 40-50mph posted speed (say, right before a hill), I should, under no uncertain circumstances, expect to find a cyclist at the base of that hill, right after a curve, doing 25mph. Likewise on going down a hill, where "40mph minimum" will occasionally be posted on a steep grade. No, I am not going to pull into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting your stupid 30mph ass.
Bicyclists should consider themselves fortunate, when considering the scope of vehicle law as a whole, that they are so lightly regulated compared to all other vehicles. Small motor vehicles (many of which can travel as fast as cars) have many more requirements than a bike. They are also not allowed to pull off much of the asinine things the average bicyclist performs (weaving in/out of intersection crosswalks, going on sidewalks, properly signaling, and so on). I'm not saying that regulation, or the predominance of disregard for bikers, is correct; but it's the way things are - and in this case, there are a slew of legitimate safety reasons why people get pissed at cyclists.
Motorcyclists are well aware of these rules and "problem items", because they (to a large degree) deal with them too. Most aren't stupid enough to travel in heavy traffic, weave in and out of traffic, signal improperly, go too slow for the posted/road conditions, and so on.
If you think you should get a full lane, then you should be subject to "driving under safe speeds" tickets like everyone else is who does such stupid things. The roads were built for motor vehicles. If you can't motor, then find a bike trail.
"Not terribly eye-burney"? You mean something which is night-visible without ruining night vision, like pretty much anything in the "red" color spectrum?
No doubt. This tag is a bit of a game changer. Not only is the performance in (say) Firefox miles above what is even possible in Flash (allowing even a low-end system to play video), but it allows for a lot new, neat things to occur within/around/on the video. The "web designers" would undoubtedly latch onto its coolness pretty quickly.
Major sites that the young/hip demographic visits frequently (eg. collegehumor.com) start using it instead of flash (along with "please upgrade your browser to one that is HTML5 compliant, such as Firefox" message, or such) and suddenly compliant browsers have the browser majority. End result, uncompetitive, closed browsers have to start trying to compete on merit and implementation, not lock-in.
The biggest problem with the current specification is that it does not allow/provide a mechanism for DRM of any sort. This is likely problematic for sites such as Hulu, which would undoubtedly prefer to ditch Flash on technical merits but can not due to DRM/licensing/legal considerations.
Of course, the whole issue would be moot if Adobe decided to (drastically) improve the performance of flash video, I think. No matter how much geek/trendy appeal HTML5 had, if Flash (the status quo) wasn't sucking, people would have no reason to switch.
You're making the dangerous assumption that all of Kenya has a shared culture. They do not. There are dozens (hundreds) of people groups there (albeit, many are fairly small).
That's like saying "I hear that in America they parade around a burning cross and hang black people from oak trees", I suspect.
So what's a conservative Christian, exactly? You realize that you're insulting both conservatives and Christians, right? By considering the "bad", "zealot" Christian (or whatever your qualifications for the amorphous label "conservative Christian") as "conservative", and the Christians by lumping them in with the far-gone "conservatives", you're doing nothing but feeding a stupid stereotype.
What's an "enlightened Christian" for that matter? How about a "reasonable democrat" - is that insulting to those which do not fit in your categorization of "reasonable"?
Same goes for the other side of the fence. It does no service to anyone by calling an avowed Marxist a "socialist"; a mild social democrat a Marxist, or anything like that. All very stupid.
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A truck doesn't have "more power". It has less agility and the ability to control it precisely; that is why it is to be respected. The burden of accident avoidance is on the drivers of other vehicles much moreso than the trucker, as they have a higher degree of ability to do so. A trucker, on the other hand, has a much higher technical requirement to control his vehicle acceptably - and the licensure of said truckers reflects this. You've got it backwards.
As for your "self defense should result in a murder charge" argument, you're completely batty. It's no wonder the UK is crumbling faster than the US. (And I have no idea where you found your info for crime statistics, because they're similarly off the wall.)
The Scientific Method is the reason we have advanced technology now, and aren't just sitting around in grass huts or caves and suffering with a life expectancy of 30.
Actually, the scientific method has done no such thing for us. Western society - and the principles/behaviors responsible for further advances - were forged long before the scientific method, in name or practice, was around.
The "scientific method" is largely a bunch of hokum. In practice (for quite a long time) it's been "I have a hypothesis, and I'm going to try and provide a setting scenario where x, y and z fit my hypothesis" has been the way in which it has advanced. Sometimes, it works, but most of the time it's a bunch of trial and error bullshit.
The vast majority of our advances in Western society have been due to sheer intelligence - IE, observations, and the keen insight (from whichever source it comes, inborn or otherwise) derived from existing knowledge, understanding, and insight into the world around us. Newton, Einstein, Socrates, and the myriads of philosopher-scientists who formed our societal underpinnings used this approach.
Culturally, Europeans, Asians, Indians (and to some degree, Persians/Arabs) have provided humanity with many cultural advancements/improvements in art, philosophy, the 'humanities', and so on - arguably up to and largely inclusive of the earlier disciplines which led to current science and mathematic disciplines. Africa, on the other hand, has provided us with endemic disease, lecherous political problems, and pretty much nothing of positive consequence (other than solutions forged elsewhere for their problems).
"Guns, Germs, and Steel" is just one theory. It does not accurately (or even try to ) account for modern conditions, where the diseases are of domestic origin and non-trivial amounts of assistance have been given to make the endemic population successful.
IQ tests are designed to test reasoning and problem solving ability, first and foremost. Simple mathematical x + y = z type stuff, as well as other differentiation scenarios. It doesn't factor in "cultural values" or any such bullshit which has no sway on intelligence. They don't test "what does this person know?" they test "how well does this person figure?"
Asians have shown to have an intelligence as much over Europeans as Europeans have over Africans. I believe the "20 point" figure of the GP is mostly true. This does not, however, indicate a lack of humanity on the part of the Africans, though it might suggest a threshold for societal acceptance for more advanced social principles and behavior (as indicated by the historical record and status quo).
Do you have any evidence of snopes.com being incorrect? I've never heard of anyone challenging their credulity.
What makes this a problem? Is it a problem? Is the contention "what makes an expert" or that a supposed expert isn't able to recall the information from resident memory and experience?
This is problematic, however, when wp provides non-factual information. In my mind, it calls to credulity the "expert witness" concept in general. If we've got expert witnesses having to look things up to provide testimony on them, what is their value? Especially in light of the supposed factual question.
Saying "cars are the scourge of the roads" is like saying "packets are the scourge of the interwebs": ignorant and ill-informed.
Here's a hint: there's a reason why engineers design roadways (all of them) for motor vehicle traffic. Something to do with expected use and all that. IE, they're not going to spend 10%+ more on a roadway for 0.1% of the (ill-advised) traffic. This is the same reasoning why interstates tend to not have pedestrian paths.
Another hint: cyclists tend to get along fine in Asia, despite the significantly-crazier drivers. Maybe it's because cyclists there tend to have to be a) agile and b) defensive, instead of assuming they own the road? Common sense should prevail here, not some self-righteous idea about needing to be catered to as a cyclist?
Where in the world is it more 'tolerant' for these self-righteous cyclists? Pretty sure it's "nowhere", and you've just got something against those big, evil, metal gas-guzzlers.
I concur. The problem is many bikers also ride on high-speed roads with minimal lighting - probably what you're wearing. It's negligible and often difficult to notice with all the other road signage, side reflectors, and the like (and actual lights are usually pretty dim compared to a car - negligibly brighter than actual reflectors).
Night cyclists should make it a personal perogative to wear reflective clothing and/or something like this with bright clothing (image) but they don't, in any significant number. Maybe 6" square of aggregate light/reflector area isn't really enough to effectively denote the body of a person and their bike.
It's much easier to see a cyclist in an urban environment, where there is street lighting. That DOES make a whole lot of difference.
So in the UK, if someone were to throw a cinder block from an overpass in front of a moving vehicle, and you hit it (causing an accident) you're responsible? That's daft! I knew that a home owner over there could be held liable for making a dangerous work environment for burglars if there was stuff to trip on (or via other intentional means), but I thought that was just the governments prohibition against a free people defending themselves, not simple common sense.
You guys back there are getting some increasingly odious "protect the stupid and criminally minded" laws over there. It breaks my heart. :(
Let's walk through what you're saying for a second, OK? It's contrary to good sense.
truckers moral and legal(in DK) responsibility. He is the one driving with too little distance to allow a safe breaking. The problem in your scenario stems from having a truck behind you.
How in the world does that make any sense? How is the trucker responsible for your reckless driving (by pulling in front of him)?
If it was a pedestrian tailgating you would not have been afraid of braking. It is exactly therefore trucks should be held to a higher standard than other forms of transportation.
No. That's stupid. Why? Because if a pedestrian were tailgating me, my vehicle would be stopped. Additionally:
* a person is agile enough to turn on a "dime" - ie, run around the angle in a narrow sidewalk at an intersection.
* People have a full 360 degrees of motion from a standstill position. They can change directions quickly.
* a person can stop and reverse directions (even at their fastest running speed) in around 3 seconds and maybe 10-15 feet.
* a truck with trailer will take as much as an empty parking lot to "turn around". Most of the time they do not even attempt doing so, because it is technically impossible.
* a truck can take as much as a quarter mile to stop from interstate speeds, depending on the weight of his load and the grade.
The only real similarity between a truck and a person is that they're both air powered. As a truck drives it accumulates air pressure in a tank, which is used to make the ride more comfortable for the trucker as well as provide pressure for the breaks. If that tank runs out of pressure (on a long downhill ride) then there is nothing they can do about it. This DOES happen, but by pacing themselves down long steep hills they are able to help mitigate its likelihood. By using more pressure to slow down significantly to avoid crushing someone now they are faced with the real likelihood of losing control down the hill due to diminished pressure. (If you ever hear a truck laying on a Honda Accord style "horn", get the hell out of their way: they're likely out of air pressure for their real horn.)
So no, it is not like driving with too little distance to allow for safe breaking. It's like getting in front of a speeding train and expecting it to adjust according to your proclivity and behaving like a passenger vehicle (which it isn't).
And yes, there's a higher standard for the drivers of trucks (as there is for motorcyclists, usually), because of the increased difficulty of managing their vehicle type in predominant driving conditions. Realistically, a cyclist license should be about as complicated/costly to acquire as a motorcycle license. Cyclists are the only ones who appear to, regularly, disregard not only their own responsibility to behaving in a reasonable manner (ie reasonable expectations on the abilities of other drivers and their vehicles) but to flaunt the law and the safety of others.
If you're paying attention, and have sufficiently good vision to be granted a driver's license, why do you need to swerve or brake suddenly? Unless you're in some very rough or curvy terrain, you should be able to see what's in front of you in far enough time to slow down without slamming on the brakes, or change lanes in plenty of time to get past safely.
That's an entirely reasonable assumption when we're dealing with other motor vehicles traveling at roughly the speed limit. When we're talking about a near-stationary cyclist, in the dark, it's another thing entirely. (This is probably part of the reason why vehicles are required to have tail lamps and not just really-really-strong headlamps.)
I take it you do not live in an area with many deer. Where I live, there are quite a few people who have hit and killed deer on the roadway. Most cyclists are not much more visible than a deer. Unless there is something uncommonly inadequate about my vehicle (there isn't), the safe breaking distance outpaces the headlamp distance once I get past about 40mph. That's probably a liberal estimation, given that you've got to factor in reflexes as well. We're supposed to travel 2s behind the vehicle in front of us, and more in inclement weather; there are many turns where, even at lower speeds, you do not have a 2s view of the road in front of you, resulting in this sort of thing.
And yes, we really are dealing with hilly/curvy roads. The commute I took to a job site recently had multiple 15 degree grades, and the area is known by locals to frequently have people break down due to break failure/overheating. You can not take these roads under 40mph in even a small car without riding the brakes. A cyclist taking this route, at dusk and/or with damp roads (it often rains in the mid-late afternoon during the warm season) is asking to be hit.
I should note that the roads around my parents' place, in NY, are similar - and suffer from a much bigger cyclist and deer problem. But the drivers there are also much more aggressive and reckless (so I can see the cyclists' point from a certain point of view). That doesn't make cyclists smart, it just makes the conditions more dangerous. Maybe they're legally justified, but being legally justified by some codec of law is likely to mean something to someone who was paralyzed when they were riding at dusk, 2 feet into the road, on a curvy/hilly stretch, wearing dark clothes.
If hunters are required to wear 'hunter orange' all cyclists should be required to wear 'cyclist orange' pants with reflective material. I dare say more lives are saved than are saved by orange vests. I suppose it might be a cultural thing: one culture appreciates safety/security, the other risk and thrill.
Basically the further to the left on this list the more responsibility: train>truck>car>bicycle>pedestrian.
What, are you kidding me? Sure, they might feel more responsible, and have a gradient level of training/awareness to perform the respective driving task effectively/safely, but they are by no means more responsible - morally or legally.
You think that someone's responsibility should increase with the amount of potential energy they have to control - ie, that their responsibility for others should increase as their ability (per Newton) to respond effectively is decreased? That's pretty asinine. This isn't some sort of social contract, where the weak protect the strong. We're talking about moving objects here with no moral coloring to the situation.
Some kid steps onto the tracks of a metro train, who is responsible? The kid was stupid and is dead, the engineer feels like shit and gets a week off to deal with the grief. Likewise for the Miata driver who gets crushed because he stayed in a trucker's blind spot too long, or the pedestrian who walked the crosswalk when he didn't have the light (without paying attention/heeding traffic).
So the next time you see a bike in front of you remember he is not putting you in any danger. It is your choice of maneuver that is putting you in danger. He might be annoying and slowing you down, but he has probably learned in the school of incredibly hard knocks, that that's the way to survive.
Right, I'll remember that the next time I'm on a 40mph hilly county road and come across a poorly flagged (few reflectors, no lamps, black clothes) cyclist on a 2-way, 1 lane road with a large truck behind me. When faced with:
a) swerve erratically/off the road and endanger/harm myself
b) brake suddenly and get run over
c) hit the biker and stop 100 yards down the road
I know which option I'll pick. Because that's the kind of situation many cyclists put people in.
The cyclist is a parent walking with their child. To pass them, you need to pass to close to the child, as the father is walking on the inside.
And while we're at it, puppies are raining on the shoulder side of the road. You are apparently not aware of any parents, because no matter how stupid (and possibly even intoxicated) a parent is, they are not so foolish to walk with a child on a busy street - in a busy street! - with the child on the street side. Just, no.
Cars that expect bikes to ride on the beat up shoulder (which is illegal in my neck of the woods, on top of being uncomfortable)
It's uncomfortable so that you won't ride/drive on it. It's there for emergency stops resulting from vehicle mobility problems. We do, as rational people, expect cyclists (who are governed by the same vehicle laws we are) to abide by the same rules motored vehicles are governed by, and pull onto the shoulder when you are impeding traffic or otherwise causing a potential road danger. (Which, on a busy road, is "all the time".)
or that want to 'share' a lane built for one vehicle (by share I mean nearly clip you with their mirror)
I don't think anyone expects cyclists to do that. That sounds highly unreasonable and nothing that a motor vehicle owner would propose. Having a cyclist 6" from your side-view window is kinda terrifying, really. It'd be pretty trivial for them to lose their balance/get distracted by a close vehicle and fall (under the vehicle).
Maybe you should stick to bike paths, which are designed for cyclists, or roads which have posted speed limits under 30mph? I wouldn't expect a motorcycle or car to effectively travel on a bike path; I don't see why a cyclist would expect to be able to (safely/reasonably) travel on a motor vehicle road with a >30mph speed limit.
If I am walking or riding a bike, I always yield to a motor vehicle. I have completely pulled over a number of times while riding a bike due to road conditions not allowing for the vehicle to safely pass me. Why?
Because motor vehicle operation costs money by the mile and minute. They are paying for gas, and that gas is burned and turned into what we tend to consider pollutants. While they might not all be as anal-retentive about not wasting gas or polluting the environment, it seems like a pretty rational courtesy. If I'm walking or riding a bike, chances are I'm not valuing my time in that specific situation as I am exercising and/or recreating - or I'm doing those things while commuting, in which case I've factored in a marked additional amount of time to account for my lower speed and motor vehicle traffic. It seems to me to be the rational (and civil) thing to do.
I think a large part of cyclist elitism might stem from a mentality which is still in "treadmill" mode. They're doing it for exercise, and they've got to hit x miles in y minutes or they're out of shape (or whatever). Or maybe they're in the (flawed) mindset that stops/slowdowns = inefficiency, a holdover from driving in a car. Too many of these cyclists use the laws as an excuse for their immature behavior to boot.
I don't know what tractors do in your parts, but in these parts they pull over onto the median/curb to allow for traffic to pass (if indeed there's enough physical room). They'll also take back roads if at all possible so as to avoid impeding trafficked areas (which only makes sense, as that is what the roads were designed for - motor vehicles not over 8' in width).
Oh yeah, and an overwide truck (pulling, say, a house) a a tractor will be pulled over and ticketed if it has the pathetic amount of lighting/signaling/signage that these cycle trains tend to have. (I'm surprised more cops don't pull the cycle trains over, to be honest - 3+ moving/lighting/signaling violations is probably a full shift quota.)
It's a small price to pay for some peace of mind.
No kidding! I'm so sick and tired of people giving me a hard time about trying to drive my car onto the subway tracks, it's not even funny. I paid my taxes, I know where those tracks got their funding!
You do the same thing with a bicycle as you would with any other vehicle, especially on a multilane road: You slow down until you can safely pass it by changing to a different lane, not by attempting to squeeze by in the same lane. And I don't know what difference it makes if your vehicle is heavier than another. When you are operating a vehicle, you are responsible to avoid collisions with other vehicles, be it a semi truck or a bicycle.
As someone who has traveled in a OTR truck, has friends who truck, rides bike occasionally, and lives in a heavy-motorcycle-ownership area (Sturgis), let me just say that truckers tend to view your average vehicle in much the same water that someone in a small car views a cyclist or a large SUV might consider a motorcyclist: a freaking liability.
When you're in a larger, less maneuverable vehicle, there's only so much you can do to avoid the more nimble, smaller vehicles that tend to disregard the precautions you need to make in order to drive safely. Truckers have to contend with idiots passing them on a down slope, then pulling in front of their truck (and then slowing down!). Motorcyclists have similar problems.
So that's what the difference is: the sheer physics of the situation makes it more reasonable for the cyclist, traveling at 10-25mph, to pull off the road (even if it means injury) than it does for the car/truck/van/biker to swerve or brake suddenly to avoid the biker.
Why should I, or anyone else in a motor vehicle, endanger my physical well-being because some idiot decided to not ride his bike in a safe fashion (ie, off roads he or she could not properly pace)?
This is particularly true given that most cyclists don't understand the concept of "driving to conditions". IE, if the traffic is going a steady 50mph in a 35mph zone, you do not go 35 miles an hour. It is stupid and dangerous to everyone involved.
Usually - and this is just my experience speaking here - speed bumps are clearly denoted about 30 feet before said bump and have a wide swath of yellow paint across their length, and stop signs are clearly visible, with a rough 1.5' diameter, highly reflective, and typically only found at intersections (and not in the middle of the road).
Contrast that to your average cyclist who wears black and/or non-reflective materials, travels at random (but slow) speeds all across the girth of the road, and is always at a different location. And then he or she has the indignity - unlike a humble stop sign - to give you the finger when you come around a 40mph blind turn to find him in the middle of the lane and lay on the horn for their own safety because you are unsure whether the vehicle will stop before hitting them.
*takes a breath*
As for "total energy"... a clog in a pipe requires no energy of its own to move, it merely saps the energy of what is behind it to push it through. That's what a cyclist is to a public motor vehicle road system: a large constipated stool that gets stuck in a pipe, slowing the flow of everything else that comes after.
Which war was that, again? Oh, right, the one fought about 70 years ago called World War II! Cars back then were not made for higher speeds (due to insufficient road infrastructure and engineering that allowed for the vehicles to handle such speeds at turns, etc.).
In contrast, my first car (a '78 Delta 88 Olds 4-door) got optimal fuel efficiency in the 60-85mph range. my 2000 Ford Focus (otherwise a total POS) can turn a tighter radius at a higher speed than both the olds and, in all likelihood, anything made before 1950 for consumer purchase.
I'm pretty sure most speed limits are determined by the min/max safe speeds under normal conditions for the average road-worthy vehicle - as driven by an average middle-aged person. At least, that would be my impression for the roads in my state. Sometimes they're a little low if you're familiar with the road, but that's rarely the case.
If you fucking see them in time. It's a real joy to come up on a lone cyclist at dusk who's traveling with just the 'default' factory reflectors, on the outside of a tightish curve, sitting in the middle of the outside of the lane, with oncoming traffic and vehicles behind him - on a 45mph posted road. This cyclists are seemingly the norm, and like that idiot with the vespa at the beginning of one of the Police Academy movies.
The law compels YOU, as a driver of a faster and heavier vehicle, to be aware of slower traffic and conduct yourself accordingly. YOU are the jackass, not the cyclists.
Do you honk and swear at tractors, funerals, and Amish buggies too?
Gosh, no. Why would I do that? I wonder if it has something to do with the large hazard signs, police escorts, and blinkers/hazard signs that they are required to have (by law)?
There's a reason it's often a similar offense to speeding when a person is traveling under a specific posted speed. It's fucking dangerous - not just for the idiots traveling under that posted speed range, but also for those who are unfortunate enough to come up behind them. If I am traveling on a curvy road with a 40-50mph posted speed (say, right before a hill), I should, under no uncertain circumstances, expect to find a cyclist at the base of that hill, right after a curve, doing 25mph. Likewise on going down a hill, where "40mph minimum" will occasionally be posted on a steep grade. No, I am not going to pull into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting your stupid 30mph ass.
Bicyclists should consider themselves fortunate, when considering the scope of vehicle law as a whole, that they are so lightly regulated compared to all other vehicles. Small motor vehicles (many of which can travel as fast as cars) have many more requirements than a bike. They are also not allowed to pull off much of the asinine things the average bicyclist performs (weaving in/out of intersection crosswalks, going on sidewalks, properly signaling, and so on). I'm not saying that regulation, or the predominance of disregard for bikers, is correct; but it's the way things are - and in this case, there are a slew of legitimate safety reasons why people get pissed at cyclists.
Motorcyclists are well aware of these rules and "problem items", because they (to a large degree) deal with them too. Most aren't stupid enough to travel in heavy traffic, weave in and out of traffic, signal improperly, go too slow for the posted/road conditions, and so on.
If you think you should get a full lane, then you should be subject to "driving under safe speeds" tickets like everyone else is who does such stupid things. The roads were built for motor vehicles. If you can't motor, then find a bike trail.
"Not terribly eye-burney"? You mean something which is night-visible without ruining night vision, like pretty much anything in the "red" color spectrum?
No doubt. This tag is a bit of a game changer. Not only is the performance in (say) Firefox miles above what is even possible in Flash (allowing even a low-end system to play video), but it allows for a lot new, neat things to occur within/around/on the video. The "web designers" would undoubtedly latch onto its coolness pretty quickly.
Major sites that the young/hip demographic visits frequently (eg. collegehumor.com) start using it instead of flash (along with "please upgrade your browser to one that is HTML5 compliant, such as Firefox" message, or such) and suddenly compliant browsers have the browser majority. End result, uncompetitive, closed browsers have to start trying to compete on merit and implementation, not lock-in.
The biggest problem with the current specification is that it does not allow/provide a mechanism for DRM of any sort. This is likely problematic for sites such as Hulu, which would undoubtedly prefer to ditch Flash on technical merits but can not due to DRM/licensing/legal considerations.
Of course, the whole issue would be moot if Adobe decided to (drastically) improve the performance of flash video, I think. No matter how much geek/trendy appeal HTML5 had, if Flash (the status quo) wasn't sucking, people would have no reason to switch.
You're making the dangerous assumption that all of Kenya has a shared culture. They do not. There are dozens (hundreds) of people groups there (albeit, many are fairly small).
That's like saying "I hear that in America they parade around a burning cross and hang black people from oak trees", I suspect.
Granted, this is Africa we're talking about.
So what's a conservative Christian, exactly? You realize that you're insulting both conservatives and Christians, right? By considering the "bad", "zealot" Christian (or whatever your qualifications for the amorphous label "conservative Christian") as "conservative", and the Christians by lumping them in with the far-gone "conservatives", you're doing nothing but feeding a stupid stereotype.
What's an "enlightened Christian" for that matter? How about a "reasonable democrat" - is that insulting to those which do not fit in your categorization of "reasonable"?
Same goes for the other side of the fence. It does no service to anyone by calling an avowed Marxist a "socialist"; a mild social democrat a Marxist, or anything like that. All very stupid.