I just met Seth in-person for the first time at ansiblefest a few weeks ago, after having crossed paths with him on irc for nearly a decade. Every time I renewed a RHEL subscription at work his was a specific name I had in mind that I wanted to fund the work of. I've built my entire career on the redhat/fedora/centos/yum/cobbler/func/ansible projects he's been a major part of.
He wasn't just a prolific contributor, he was a really good guy. He helped people out in irc channels near constantly. After my first ever conference presentation he came up to me and complimented and thanked me for it. He was both a code and cultural pillar of the greater redhat community, I will miss him.
What a huge loss for the RDU tech community. A very decent guy by all accounts and a huge legacy in the open source world. It's very difficult seeing his handle still logged into a number of freenode channels, where he was so active and helpful.
Deepest sympathies to his colleagues, friends, and family.
The sad truth is that while bicycles should be respected as vehicles, they are given lip service at best in driver education and there is little attempt made at going after motorists who drive aggressively around them. As a result, you put yourself at great risk of life and limb when you ride on a road like this one: http://www.mapquest.com/?version=1.0&hk=6-LvU0mhA3 (Hillandale Rd, Durham, NC)
I accomplish all of my short-range transport by bicycle or foot, and I only very rarely will even ride on the main thoroughfare through downtown Alexandria, Washington St., because its practical speed limit is 40mph although the posted one is 25mph. Too many times drivers cut it close, honk at me to point out the audacity of crowding the auto-space, or slam their brakes without noticing my bike behind them.
Riding a bicycle on any street that has a speed limit greater than 25mph, lacks frequent stops (lights or signs), or has more than one lane is simply treacherous even for the skilled cyclist because you never know when a self-important jerk like the mystery murderer here will feel the need to shave twenty seconds off of their commute.
> The sad truth is that while bicycles should be respected as vehicles,
I tend to agree, but I can see both sides. There is also very little (and, as far as I know, zero required) bicyclist education, and many bicyclists make little attempt to drive predictably and safely either out of boldness or ignorance.
Similarly, while stricter rules and enforcement for automobile drivers is warranted, I think the same goes for bicyclists. I don't think it's appropriate to consider bicycles as "first-class vehicles" in all situations, namely in the dangerous situations you list (speed limits >~25mph, multiple automobile lanes, etc.). In those situations, I think it's reasonable to ban bicyclists outright, for the safety of the bicyclists and automobile drivers. Of course, along with that is the need for dedicated bicycle lanes, or better yet, completely separate thoroughfares for bicycles.
I don't think it's appropriate to consider bicycles as "first-class vehicles" in all situations, namely in the dangerous situations you list (speed limits >~25mph, multiple automobile lanes, etc.).
Driving a motor vehicle on a road is a privilege. This privilege is represented by a motor vehicle operator's license, which may be revoked by the state for a variety of reasons.
Riding a bicycle on a non-Interstate public road is a right. If this clashes with driving habits, driving habits need to yield.
Not an explicitly enumerated right in the USA, but a "right" in the same way freedom to walk down the sidewalk is a "right": you're not endangering peoples' lives & it's not explicitly prohibited so you "have a right" to do it. If someone attempted to prevent you from walking down the sidewalk they would be denying you that "right."
Driving a motor vehicle does endanger peoples' lives, so we (society) decided you don't have the "right" to do it, but you can be granted the privilege to do so pretty easily provided you have the $$ for administrative fees & can pass a test demonstrating basic competency.
Your question is totally reasonable, but I think it's fair to say one has a "right" to bike on public roads (barring interstates) but not a "right" to drive on public roads as this requires a license & is subject to many strict regulations.
What exception makes "barring interstates" okay but not "barring roads with a speed limit >X"? Not saying I necessarily disagree, just trying to understand your reasoning.
One possibility: Interstates are big roads that make it faster to get somewhere you could get on another road if you didn't mind going slower. Some (esp. rural) roads with 45+mph speed limits are the only way to get somewhere, therefor bikes need access. Anyway I'm also just waxing; I don't know the exact laws and surely there are exceptions- generally speaking "all but Interstate" seems like a reasonable thumbrule.
There are places not accessible by roads with bike-accessible speed limits. Those are much more common than places not accessible except by interstate. (Incidentally, biking on the shoulder of the interstate is permissible in my state, with the occasional exception of some cities and bridges without shoulders.)
I am interested in why sequoia asserts that it's correct (or at least permissible) to prohibit bicycles from interstates but a violation of rights to prohibit them from other roads. The fact that bicycles are not prohibited from all interstates seems somewhat orthogonal...
I think it's reasonable to designate certain very-high-speed roads as "car only" when there are reasonable alternative routes for bikes. If there's a destination you can only get to by interstate I'd say "allow bikes." I'm a biker and strongly pro bike-rights but I recognize that certain exceptions are reasonable for safety & expediency. :)
So hypothetically, you wouldn't object (on "rights" grounds) if there were a non-interstate that was labeled no-bikes when there were plenty of alternate routes to everywhere serviced by that thoroughfare. Sounds reasonable to me.
Minor nitpick: bicycling also endangers lives. And even though it doesn't happen often, reckless cycling habits may endanger motorists' lives too (by e.g. causing swerving through unpredictable behaviour). I say that as someone who commutes to work by bike.
This is regrettably untrue. There are far fewer deaths from bicyclists, of course, but if you google you'll see that there's about one a year. Although I'm pro-cycling I have to say I particularly dislike that segment of cycling community which seems to have the attitude that they not only have right of way at all times against cars, but also against pedestrians; I have had far more near-misses from careless or rule-breaking cyclists than with cars.
One per year? Compared to cars, food poisoning, bathtubs, ladders, and almost anything else you can think of, that's close enough to zero to be a non-issue.
The actual language differs from state to state, but in general there is no attempt by the states to revoke certain individuals' right of riding a bicycle. (For example, being pulled over for drunk bicycling can get your driver's license suspended, but does not affect bicycling.)
Corollary: When states declare that bicycles on public roads are subject to the same rules and responsibilities as cars (and most/all states do), sanctions on bicycling are not available as penalties.
NC General Statute 20-4.01 (49) defines a bicycle as a vehicle with the same rights and responsibilities as other vehicles:
"bicycles shall be deemed vehicles and every rider of a bicycle upon a highway shall be subject to the provisions of this Chapter applicable to the driver of a vehicle"
And yet Seth Vidal is dead, and the driver remains alive.
In an ideal world bicycles are given equal respect and stature on the roads. In practice, however, riders have a lot more to lose in a collision with a car.
> In an ideal world bicycles are given equal respect and stature on the roads.
Since you mentioned "an ideal world," I'm going to completely disagree. I think that bicycles and automobiles sharing roads is, at best, a manageable but extremely dangerous situation. Like it or not, bicycles and automobiles behave very differently, and require their surrounding vehicles to behave very differently. In an ideal world, there would be separate thoroughfares for automobiles and bicycles, and neither would be allowed on the other (like we already mostly have for pedestrians)
If you're talking about sidewalks, it's barely separate, as in a city there are conflicting paths between the road and the sidewalk every dozen feet (every driveway or intersection).
Well, in an ideal world it would be both perfectly manageable and not dangerous, but I think we're both saying the same thing. Cars and bicycles are very different and bad things tend to happen when they share the same roadway.
Do you think it's reasonable that bicyclists are free to travel on most roads without any education or licensing? Why is it that pedestrians are banned from traveling on roads, bicyclists are free to do so with no licensing whatsoever, and automobile drivers require a license?
> This privilege is represented by a motor vehicle operator's license, which may be revoked by the state for a variety of reasons.
If that was a sound argument, then one could say that the right to own a firearm is really just a privilege because most states require a license to own a firearm which may be revoked by the state for a variety of reasons. Or similarly that the right to vote is just a privilege because you must register and there are a variety of reasons for the state to revoke it.
Just because a right is regulated does not make it a privilege.
I don't think it's accurate to say that most states require a license just to own a firearm. There are age, mental health, and criminal background restrictions, but that's not quite the same thing. Some states do have gun ownership licenses, but most only require licenses to carry a firearm, and in many of those states, that is technically only required for concealed carry.
Amend "most" with many. A quick scan of wikipedia suggests there are about 20 states that require a permit to purchase or registration of ownership. Federal law also restricts ownership by convicted felons in all 50 states which is essentially the same thing - regulation by any other name.
Well, talk about moving the goal-posts, but you aren't the original poster so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
The right to freedom of movement is not really a right if it does not include by all available means.
For example, to say you have the right to walk from the east coast to the west coast but not the right to drive a car (or ride a train/bus/plane - all arguments that have been made post 9/11) means that you de facto do not have the right to travel from the east coast to the west coast because it is impractical for the vast majority of the population to walk it.
I'm sure there are motor vehicle codes that have adopted the language of privilege rather than right if for no other reason than it makes it easier for them to claim that moral authority later on, but that doesn't make it true in the sense of natural law. Government does not grant people privileges because everything the government does comes from the people to begin with.
Driving depends on a huge amount of infrastructure which is provided or controlled by the government, everything from roads to refined fuel. As far as I know you actually can drive a car without a license, if you do that in your private property (e.g. suppose you own a farm or other big property with internal driveways), but not in any public roads. Yeah we pay for the roads, and oil infrastructure and other things with our taxes... it doesn't matter. Google [is driving a privilege], you'll find citations of court decisions, some people have tried to assert their "right to drive" without success.
There needs to be more of this. As a relatively new biker in NYC (since the bike sharing program launched) I've been amazed at the suicidal tendencies of my (non-bike share) brethren. At a red light? Just pedal out into the middle of the road to see if you can cross anyway. Going the wrong way? Sure!
This isn't a "on the one hand, on the other" issue. Even the most foolish and aggressive cyclist is almost never endangering the safety of drivers around him, even indirectly. Yet all it takes is a nudge, honk, door opening, unsignaled turn, etc. to kill a cyclist.
Bicycle etiquette is for all practical purposes not a public safety issue, and IMHO responses of the "but bicyclists can be rude" variety to incidents like these only help perpetuate a driving culture aggressive to cyclists.
> In those situations, I think it's reasonable to ban bicyclists outright
Why not lower the speed limit, or add a bike lane? Just because you perceive the public roads as "car roads" and driving as "normal" doesn't make it so, and I don't think your convenience should trump someone's basic ability to get around.
> Just because you perceive the public roads as "car roads" and driving as "normal" doesn't make it so
Why not? The roads were built for cars. Driving on them isn't just "convenient," it's exactly what was intended to happen. Don't get me wrong, there should absolutely be more bike lanes and other considerations so that cyclists can travel safely. But, the infrastructure in its current state is definitely built around automobiles, and mixing bikes in is dangerous.
I just spent 4 days commuting around Chicago on bike, so again, I'm all for it. But, as a cyclist, I think you have to approach it like you're in someone else's territory and subject to their whims. I don't believe an indignant "this is my road too" attitude is going to do you any favors.
"The coming of the railways in the 1830s killed off the stage-coach trade; almost all rural roads reverted to low-level local use. Cyclists were the first group in a generation to use roads and were the first to push for high-quality sealed surfaces and were the first to lobby for national funding and leadership for roads. Without cyclists, motorists wouldn't have hit the ground running when it came to places to drive this new form of transport."
I mean, that's nice and all, but it seems to be purposely obtuse. Again, just look at the current infrastructure. The width of the roads, traffic laws, signs and signals, intersections, highways, etc. I guess you "got me" in that, at some point, road construction was driven by cyclists, but that pretty clearly shifted some time ago. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
The prevailing notion that "roads are made for cars" is self-fulfilling, as people use it as justification for making roads further unsafe for bicycles (and other road users).
Seems like the other way around to me - if roads are made for bicycles then there is no reason to invest in infrastructure like dedicated bike-paths, bike-lanes or even wider shoulders.
Because the majority of roads nowadays in use were built in 1830... /sarcasm
Here, even 70 years ago, several roads were just a dusty path through fields and many of them didn't exist yet. When they were actually built as a road, it was done for cars, buses, trucks and it was done from steep consumption taxes on gas and later from country-wide toll imposed on cars.
Of course, YMMV in your country. But I really think that you didn't have asphalt-paved 10 m wide roads 180 years ago.
Local roads, which bicyclists mostly use, are generally paid for by property taxes or other local taxes, at least in the US. Only highways are paid for by federal gas taxes, and since that tax has been declining in real terms since 1993, highway funding also comes from general tax revenue.
It is amazing how the marketing of car culture change people's perception of this. No, roads were not developed for cars. Roads and streets where predominantly pedestrian avenues prior to motorized vehicles. Pedestrians, cyclists (when the bike was invented), horses, and trollies (again, when invented) all occupied streets and the space was considered public.
Ok, I should have been more clear. I'm talking about the road system that we have in the US today. As I said in my other reply, this point is a historical gotcha that's completely irrelevant to the discussion of modern road use and biker safety.
> Even the most foolish and aggressive cyclist is almost never endangering the safety of drivers around him, even indirectly.
I highly doubt that. I have seen dozens of bicyclists cause absolute chaos in traffic. Granted, I've never seen any collisions, but I can't imagine that the chaos I've seen is "safe" compared to the normal flow of traffic.
> Yet all it takes is a nudge, honk, door opening, unsignaled turn, etc. to kill a cyclist.
True, but if your implication is that bicyclists should be able to freely use roads because of how vulnerable they are, then pedestrians should also be able to freely use roads.
Unpredictable cyclists endanger other cyclists and drivers - not because they are likely to hit them, but because they train drivers to react inappropriately. Drivers that don't respect cyclists (or pedestrians, or other drivers, of course) should be ticketed; so should cyclists that behave inappropriately - legally they can be, by the way.
Bike lanes apparently don't help as much as you'd think. There is a psychological aspect to providing a bike lane that makes car drivers think that bikers are already protected by the lane, meaning, in the end, that they don't actually give bikers as much room.
Edit: Bike lanes increase safety but I just added it to point out that it's a relatively complicated situation. I think lower speeds were the biggest factor towards increasing safety. I can't find the study either so the above really isn't worth all that much, my memory being what it is.
Drivers opening their doors into the bike lane without looking doesn't help cyclists avoid weaving in and out of it. And before you say anything: In California (and I believe this is true in many other states), opening your door into traffic (and, yes, cyclists count as traffic) automatically puts you at fault in the even of an accident or incident.
resu_nimda:
Many roads, especially in older cities like Chicago, were not in any way built as 'car roads,' as they were built before the widespread adoption of the car. Many were poorly retrofitted in an attempt to move automobiles in quantity, but this has generally been to the great detriment of the neighborhoods they pass through.
Like I said in the other comment: a bike is never a threat to a car. A car is always a threat to a bike. While your points are valid, saying that that is looking at "both sides" is an inappropriate way of describing the situation.
If you're driving a long and a bike pulls out suddenly in front of you, unless you have the attitude of "fuck it, just run them over" then yes, a bike can still be a massive threat to a car.
No, it can't. Not in any physical sense. If a car swerves and hits a cyclist at 30kph, the cyclist is almost certain to be injured, if not dead. If a bike swerves and hits a car, they might scratch the paint. When will the false equivalences end?
Similarly, a deer (which weighs less than a human on a bike and probably has a lower center of gravity) could never be a threat to a car. Running into a deer couldn't do more than scratch the paint on a car. I've never heard of a single person ever getting killed when they drove into a deer. /sarcasm
Bikes can certainly damage cars. I had a friend who went through a passenger window (breaking through the glass) of a car that pulled out in front of him. If that was the driver's side window, there is a nonzero chance that the driver might have been knocked out or somehow wrecked his car.
Also, cars (and their drivers) can definitely get hurt trying to avoid collisions with bikers by swerving out of the way and colliding with other vehicles/buildings/going off the road into a ditch.
The several grandfather post to this would have said essentially the same thing and would be much less controversial if it just read "a bike is less of a threat to a car than a car is to a bike", rather than using the absolutes of "always" and "never" (which rarely can be used to describe real life situations).
Also, despite historical claims, I'm fairly confident that most roads (by any reasonable definition of most) in the US today were built with the majority of design thought about drivers.
Then the car serves as the immediately threat to the other car, no the cyclist. This why you are supposed to drive defensively when operating a motor vehicle, so sudden changes in a situation doesn't cause you to crash into someone or something.
When you're behind the wheel of a car, yes. When you're around a car, no.
Even if someone's driving defensively, sudden changes in the environment lead to a more dangerous situation. If they're driving defensively, hopefully they can deal with it, but that is no reason to create dangerous situations in the first place.
Are you being deliberately daft? Yes, the people in the cars are safer than a reckless person on a bicycle, but that doesn't mean the bicyclist isn't still putting them in some danger - those metal cages don't always succeed - as well as putting pedestrians and other bicyclists in more significant danger.
Okay, a reckless cyclist can put a driver in some danger, if the driver is going fast enough that the car can't be stopped quickly enough to avoid either hitting the cyclist or swerving into an oncoming lane.
However, in this constructed situation, it seems to me that the driver is being more unsafe by driving that fast.
If that's the parent's position, then I'm not sure I agree but I can't fault them for inconsistency. In an environment where many cars are traveling faster, though, it is nonetheless irresponsible and dangerous to others to ride a bike recklessly (or otherwise be unpredictable near fast-moving traffic).
I will agree that a relatively slow-moving bicycle on a road with fast-moving cars is indeed a dangerous situation for everyone. And I would agree that having similar speed vehicles together seems safer.
However, in places with vehicles going differing speeds, I would put the onus of safety on the faster vehicles.
What was being discussed was cyclists behaving recklessly. Imagine a cyclist blowing through a red light at the bottom of a hill, where they're going ~20ish. Cross traffic with a green light isn't necessarily going to see them until the last minute even if the cross traffic is moving at an otherwise safe speed. Pay attention in a city for a while, and you'll see things like this, and it rightly pisses off both drivers and us other cyclists.
I thought we were talking about whether or not bikes can be a massive threat to cars.
I have been paying attention in a city for a while. I have seen the situation you describe, but it's rare in my experience, even with SF supposedly full of reckless fixie-riders. Dangerous driving is far more common in my experience.
Hmm, yeah, scrolling up, there was more than a little hyperbole on both sides at the root of this thread. I agree a bike is not a "a massive threat to a car"; this doesn't mean it's okay for people to ride recklessly, or that they're not endangering others when they do.
And dangerous driving is probably more common (certainly by number of instances), and it should be condemned as well.
I wonder if someone could find stats on how many car-on-car collisions are caused by avoiding a bicycle, and compare that to how many car-on-bicycle collisions are caused by a swerving bicyclist (or any cause, really).
No one is disputing that a reckless bicyclist is a danger to themselves. The question is how much of a danger they are to others, because more people feel more okay intervening when someone is presenting a danger to others.
I'm a cyclist who has never sat behind the wheel of a car (well I'm lazy now so more of a taxi-ist, but a cyclist at heart) and completely agree with you. But that doesn't change the fact that yes, while cars may be far more dangerous to bikes than the other way around, a bike still can be very dangerous to a car.
They can, at least in California: as a pedestrian, you're entitled to cross the road at any intersection (crosswalk lights must be followed, but in their absence you're free to cross at any time). By law, all drivers must come to a complete stop until you have reached the curb.
You will need to explain how the fact that pedestrians are even less threatening and more vulnerable is the same as implying this gives them the right to walk on the middle of the road.
I suspect that pedestrians are less threatening because they rarely walk in traffic (both because it's illegal, and because it's obviously dangerous). But for bicyclists, it's legal, and apparently the danger isn't enough to stop a lot of people.
The way you describe it, my impression is that the real problem is that you are not considering bikes as participants of traffic, but obstacles in the way of your car.
I'm not considering automobiles as inherently more "valid" participants of traffic than bicycles. I just consider any road where two types of vehicles of very different sizes which behave very differently to be an inherently unsafe and inefficient road for all participants. Obviously, the occupants of the larger vehicles are much safer in collisions with the smaller vehicles, but that's not my primary consideration. I just think the roads, or at the very least the lanes, should be dedicated to only bikes or only automobiles. Since there are far more automobiles than bicycles on most roads, if building new infrastructure is out of the question, I think it makes sense to not allow bikes to share the lanes. This isn't a condemnation of bicycle commuting, but rather a basic appeal to safety and organization, just like pedestrians are not allowed to share lanes with automobiles. The current situation on most roads, where a small number of small slow-moving bikes occupy lanes in the middle of a sea of automobiles, is just a disaster waiting to happen (and in big cities, it happens all the time).
I'm not considering big rig trucks as inherently more "valid" participants of traffic than passenger cars. I just consider any road where two types of vehicles of very different sizes which behave very differently to be an inherently unsafe and inefficient road for all participants. Obviously, the occupants of the larger vehicles are much safer in collisions with the smaller vehicles, but that's not my primary consideration...
Ok, since I can't edit the comment any more: my whole point was that the threats are not equivalent, and describing the situation as "car vs bike" as if they are on equal terms is wrong.
Instead people are getting all anal about the use of "never" and "always", and use far-fetched examples where a car can be threatened by a bike when atttempting to avoid running over it and crashing into something else.
Way to direct the discussion away from the point I'm trying to make. Look at this Dutch national report on bike safety:
The Netherlands has one of the highest percentage of people riding bikes with an estimated 14 million bicycles for 16.5 million inhabitants. It has one of the most developed infrastructures in favour of bike safety, about the safest traffic in Europe in general, and as a culture it is about as bike-oriented as it gets. Despite all of this, travelling with your bike is still 4.7 times more dangerous than travelling with a car.
I am in no way trying to absolve cyclists or pedestrians of their responsibility in traffic safety, but denying that they aren't inherently more vulnerable and that infrastructure design should emphasize their safety is absurd.
That 4.7x can probably be completely attributed to all the safety equipment that protects the person in a car. A more valid metric would be accidents (not injuries) per vehicle mile traveled.
No, it wouldn't, because that's not what we're discussing. The discussion was danger one vehicle poses to the other, and the only significant cause for bike fatalities is car accidents - there are no chasms to fall in in the flattest country in the world, and the speed at which one travels on a bike is much slower so much less likely to be fatal in case of a crash with a stationary object. So this is a very real metric of how dangerous bikes are to cars and vice versa.
EDIT: And even then it's skewed in favour of the car, because for cars the fatality rate is more likely due to crashes with other cars.
Bikes are threats to pedestrians. I've never hit a pedestrian on a bike but I've come close. I've also been hit by a car while on a bike (at a low speed, enough to trash the bike but I was able to hop off in time) so I have sympathy here.
Bikes injure pedestrians fairly often. My understanding is they rarely kill (though I'm happy to defer on either to someone bringing actual statistics to the table).
I think that a cyclist flaunting traffic laws should always be liable for accidents, but the last thing we need if we want to encourage bicycling is nanny-state policing of proper signaling and such. Any city that has resources for this ought to take a hard look at the size of their police force.
Your idea of banning cycle traffic on >25mph roads is misguided. Most cyclists have no trouble traveling at a speed greater than 25mph, even uphill.
>Most cyclists have no trouble traveling at a speed greater than 25mph, even uphill
I doubt that, maybe in burst/sprint but not sustained...Hell, the average top speeds in the Tour de France during the sprints is barely 25mph and those are top athletes.
>but the last thing we need if we want to encourage bicycling is nanny-state policing of proper signaling and such.
So we should enforce traffic laws on cars but not on bicycles? That's fairly myopic...
Be negligent on a bicycle and a vast majority of the life and limb you are risking is your own. Be negligent in a car and you're putting in mortal danger every other driver and cyclist on the road as well as every pedestrian in the vicinity. The difference between 25lb of metal powered by glutes and quads and 1.5 tons of metal with a tank of flammable liquid and a 200 hp engine is important.
Your point being? Driving or biking on the road makes you a vehicle, all vehicles follow the same set of laws. I don't care if your "I'm a bicyclist" superiority complex makes you think you're above the law; you're not.
According to the laws of California, driving or biking makes you a "driver", but does not make the bike a "vehicle", it's a "device". You are still subject to the laws of the road, though.
> Be negligent on a bicycle and a vast majority of the life and limb you are risking is your own.
I don't think that's true. I haven't personally witnessed any accidents, and I admittedly don't have any data to cite, but I have witnessed many bicyclists cause complete chaos in busy traffic.
You're right, there are lots of slow cyclists who seldom top 15mph. Nevertheless, the speed limit is a speed limit, and if I can manage 25mph on a 35mph road, I don't see the issue. Mixed-use roads that see cyclists clogging traffic should provide simple painted bike lanes if nothing else.
So we should enforce traffic laws on cars but not on
bicycles? That's fairly myopic...
Fewer than 1000 people die in bicycle accidents a year. It is just not comparable to the danger of auto transport.
Most non-freeway roads don't have minimum speed limits, but I think they should. Based on my own experience, one of the most important factors for road safety is the homogeneity of speed. Having cars (or bikes) going faster or slower than the average flow of traffic have caused the vast majority of congestion and safety problems I have witnessed.
True, but that's a silly assertion. Cars by themselves are pretty safe. It's the other cars that cause problems. Since the cars are there, biking is more dangerous than being in another car.
If it's not comparable, why are you complaining? Why should I have to respect you more than a car if you're not at any real risk of death? Seems like more effort than its worth, after all I don't really value your life at anything over 0.
Fewer than 2000 people die in plane crashes every year, despite the millions who fly. So I suppose we shouldn't make them follow any rules or safety procedures either, I mean it isn't as if those rules have prevented any deaths. Right?
This is a disgusting perspective, and you clearly have never ridden a bicycle significantly for practical transportation or else you might be able to relate to some of the comments from myself and other cyclists in this thread.
You should respect me because I am exposed, riding a machine with few to no safety devices. It's the same reason I drive particularly carefully around motorcyclists. I do respect them more, so to speak, because they are at far greater risk on the road than car drivers. I want to see that they reach their destination safely, and I know the odds are stacked against them by distracted or arrogant drivers.
These numbers are a little off. Most commuters are going to scoot along in the 8-12 mph range. People riding for exercise or training for a sport are going to get up near 20 mph. Amateur bike races will hold sustained speeds of 24-30 mph for a few hours (depending on the terrain). In the TdF this year the fastest team in the time trial averaged 35 mph for 25 min. TdF sprinters can hit 50 mph and 70 mph on mountain descents.
No, laws that are appropriate for cars may not be appropriate for bicycles. Stop signs, for example. There is no justification for requiring bicyclists to come to a complete stop to safely cross an intersection. (There isn't for cars, either, but that's a separate issue.)
No, you don't get to have it both ways. I have routinely seen bikes dash through stop signs and lights when they don't have right of way. On more than one occasion of seen said cyclist get injured; the person driving the car gets blamed despite the bicyclist breaking the law. This is entirely unacceptable and dangerous, I don't care if you don't think the laws make sense every vehicle has to follow them.
Average speed for the front runners in the Tour de France on an average stage is usually around 25mph, and that's with some gruesome hill climbs. On the faster stages, average speeds can reach 35mph.
Sprints often hit 40mph, and on downhill stretches are known to exceed 60mph.
I commute 7.5 miles into central London daily where the roads really were originally built around the horse and cart and usually manage ~22mph average if the traffic isn't so bad and I catch the lights right.
Perhaps you are correct, and average bicyclists have no trouble traveling at speeds greater than 25 mph, but for some reason they rarely choose to exercise that ability. 10-15 mph seems to be more usual, and 5 mph is not uncommon here in hilly Seattle. Maybe they get going out on the Burke-Gilman bike trail, but they certainly aren't going anything like 25 mph on the streets I share with them.
It's pretty obvious when a bicyclist is at fault and they are often held responsible when they cause an accident. In the case of most city accidents, police routinely pull video from nearby buildings to establish fault.
In fact, just this morning a lady got hit and put in the ICU at the corner of King St and 3rd in San Francisco, right near the ballpark. Yolanda, the lady who manages the front desk, was reviewing the tapes with the police after the accident. That's the second serious accident involving a pedestrian or bicyclist at that intersection since the beginning of the year. TBH, the speed limit in SoMa needs to be dropped to 25 mph. People drive far too fast in this neighborhood for it to be safe for either bicyclists or pedestrians.
> It's pretty obvious when a bicyclist is at fault and they are often held responsible when they cause an accident. In the case of most city accidents, police routinely pull video from nearby buildings to establish fault.
This is completely untrue, at least in NYC.
"Historically, nearly half of motorists who kill a New York City pedestrian or cyclist do not receive so much as a citation for careless driving."
I was responding to the idea that it is obvious who is at fault, when in fact the bicyclist is usually blamed. (Yes, my insinuation is that the bicyclist is not usually at fault.)
As for "police routinely pull video ... to establish fault" -- this is just one example, but recently in DC there was a bike-and-car crash in which a surveillance video proved the cyclist was not at fault, but the police refused to even look at it: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19284/it-must-have-...
25 mph up a hill is fast, but the tour de France is a silly comparison, they sustain those speeds for 4 hours at a time, commuters aren't going to do that. Commuters also rarely face anything resembling the climbs in the tour.
True but on the other side most commuters aren't going for speed, or using great bikes, or proper shoes so I think the expectation would be that the tour de france winner would still average a much faster time than a commuter.
Where do you live? There aren't even any roads with speed limits < 30mph here in Rochester, New York, and it's the same in Buffalo. What you're proposing up here would mean banning bicycles on all but specially marked bicycle paths.
Especially in the city, it's prohibited to ride on the sidewalk; you must use the street even where there are no specially marked bike lanes. So, what you propose seems particularly outrageous to me; the only remaining options to get around the city would be having a car or using public transportation (or going on foot.)
> What you're proposing up here would mean banning bicycles on all but specially marked bicycle paths.
Well, think about it this way. Why are pedestrians banned from walking on roads, even when there are no nearby sidewalks? The answer, I believe, is that it's extremely dangerous, both to the pedestrian and to automobile drivers, and that it would cause massive inefficiency in the flow of traffic. The reality is that bicycles, like pedestrians, necessarily behave very different than automobiles, and most of our roads and traffic laws are designed around automobiles. Similarly, bicycles are not allowed on certain types of roads (many bridges, freeways, etc.) Obviously, its a continuum, and bicycles can fit in with automobiles better than pedestrians. The question is simply where to draw the line.
Can you cite this? Because it's certainly legal for pedestrians to use the roads in my state, sidewalk or no.
There's no massive inefficiency, the cars pass the pedestrians, the cyclists, the skateboarders and all the other road users, when safe to do so, just like the law says they should.
I think most non-freeway roads technically allow pedestrians (with local exceptions), but under strict rules that place them well outside the flow of traffic. I'm not aware of any areas where pedestrians can walk with the direction of traffic while occupying a lane.
anecdotally, i can't even remember the last time i saw a bicyclist stop at a stop sign.
even the guys in their $10k road bikes and full outfits, who ostensibly take bicyclig VERY seriously, just blow through stop signs like they weren't even there. sometimes even stop LIGHTS if it's a t-stop.
especially when they're riding in their large groups. and sometimes they even ride on the wrong side of the road (LOL)
i live in santa monica, maybe it's especially bad here.
i understand you're being snarky, or perhaps willfully defiant/facetiously ignorant despite your common-sense understanding of the difference, and you probably are a bicyclist, but a car that slows to an almost-stop is much different than a bicycle that just completely blows through it at full-speed without even slowing down, which is pretty much what all bikes do here in southern california.
where I live, anyone who pays attention realizes that most bicyclists are either casual, ignorant weekend riders or very serious road bikers who just simply don't give two shits about the law. commuters who follow the law are VERY rare.
I'm not trying to be snarky -- I rarely see cars stop for stop signs; I normally see cyclists slow down at stop signs, and I rarely see any cyclists completely blow through them. (I also rarely see cars completely blow through stop signs.)
My common-sense understanding of the difference is that a cyclist can more readily hear what is happening near an intersection, has fewer visual obstacles to see what is near an intersection, and is often already moving slower than a car. That makes me feel that a cyclist rolling through a stop sign is far less dangerous than a car doing the same.
My experience has been in SF/Oakland/Berkeley.
Anyway, the reason I added that link in the earlier comment was to illustrate my frustration with the "all cyclists break laws all the time, they need to be safer like cars" fable -- the article links to a study that found that by 1996, only 1% of cars stopped at the stop sign being observed. Of course there are cyclists who break laws, but there are far more drivers who break laws, and they are the more dangerous offenders.
Interesting... I've noticed your username above several rather anti-social comments in several different threads over the last day or so. I wonder why.
/Meta
To be honest, I don't think alxndr was being snarky. I see plenty of drivers plow through stop signs at 5-10 mph. I also see plenty of people on bikes plow through stop signs at 5-10 mph. Both are in the wrong, but the fact that the person on the bike was going the same speed before the stop-sign doesn't seem hugely relevant to me. What does seem relevant is that plowing through at 5-10 mph in a car is far more likely to injure or kill a pedestrian or cyclists than doing so in a car, for simple reasons of mass and vehicle width.
Frankly, your little rant sounds like the self-serving justification I usually hear from several of my friends and relatives for raging at cyclists. Those friends and relatives are among the least courteous and defensive (that is to say, the most dangerous towards other drivers and cyclists around them) drivers I've ridden with. I hope for your sake and mine that you are not like that.
In San Francisco, according to CSC 21202, the bicyclist is allowed full use of lanes. The important clause to pay attention to is clause (c). The most important part of that clause is the use of the term "substandard width lane", which although not defined in the statute, has been established via jurisprudence to be approximately 14-15 ft. Many many rightmost lanes in SF are not 14+ ft wide, meaning that on most roads in SF you can legally ride right in the middle of the rightmost lane. This is much safer than putting yourself in the doorzone and swerving to avoid a door and getting hit by a driver on your left or leaving too little room on your lefthand side that some driver will try to squeeze through.
Every cyclist should go out and measure a lane or two here and there to get a feeling for approximately how wide a 14 ft lane is, so you know when you can legally take up the whole lane.
The only other thing to keep in mind with this, is that if you do take up the whole lane, it is your responsibility to pull over to the right periodically if the number of cars backed up behind you exceeds 5 (IIRC)
Santa Monica has the same rules. I biked to worked for two months straight, my car never left the garage until one day someone didn't like the fact i was in the middle of the lane. Accelerated at me, and then tried to run me off the road at 35+ mph on a small street. Tired of people honking at me or cutting me off so i quit riding my bike. Not worth my life. City really needs to take every 4th or 5th street and make them bike streets where cars are allowed but required to yield to bikes at all times. No passing, no overtaking etc. Gladly ride an extra 4th blocks if means i'm not going to get run down.
I have had somebody follow me aggressively (in a car) with seeming intent to main before and it is a terrifying experience. They pursued me at 70mph in a 30mph zone. It was my second day driving a manual transmission and I accidentally tapped my horn with an old Ford Explorer behind me (no cars in front) as I was trying to shift into first gear to turn left out of a lot. A man exited the SUV at a red light and I ran it, hauled my ass home. And that's the story of how I learned to throw it into first gear quickly.
When it's just you and the other car on the road, there's no way of proving what happened, you just have to hope there were witnesses, or god forbid you do get run off the road, that the accident scene has enough evidence to show criminal intent.
Honestly, those examples are great reasons why I would support some kind of form of publicly shaming those drivers (via some kind of www.thisiswhycyclistsdie.net blog): Get cyclists to be diligent and record their rides and post the obvious asshole drivers and their plates.
Yes, there's probably giant privacy implications there, but fuck it. They're trying to kill people out there.
What if you have video to prove it? I wish it were possible to send such videos to the insurer of any vehicle. I know that with taxis, you can call up the dispatch company to get the insurance company of a vehicle, but I don't know if there is a way to find the insurance company of a private vehicle.
Showing this kind of behavior could prompt their insurance to drop them or possibly increase their premium.
If you wait until 5 cars are backed up behind you, you could be incredibly rude to 4 vehicles of people. You should be considerate and allow vehicles to pass after a reasonable amount of time (i.e. as dictated by courtesy and not the law) and when it's safe to do so.
You don't seem to understand. Cars can not legally pass bicycles and stay in a single lane. The math does not work out when you take into consideration that bicycles need to keep a greater distance to the right to avoid morons who open doors into traffic and that, having only two wheels, they will naturally swerve left and right, and often do so on purpose to avoid the various pitfalls that are not maintained roads, where a light hit to the suspension on a normal car can dead stop your wheel and send you flying.
This is part of what I mean by "I can see both sides." I don't approve of an automobile drivers acting aggressively and dangerously toward a bicyclist, but I also don't think it's reasonable for bicyclists to significantly impact the flow of traffic (and even just letting 5 cars pile up before moving over is a major impediment to traffic). In short, I really don't think that roads with significant automobile traffic should be shared with bicyclists (well-designed bicycle-only lanes are fine).
Letting 5 cars pile up behind you can happen in the course of a few seconds to several minutes. Those are two totally different circumstances. The former is unlikely to be a major impediment, while the latter probably is. On some roads, if you try to pull over to the side every time more than 1-2 cars are behind you, you'd never get to your destination. I'd say it's reasonable enough to move over to the side ever 2-3 blocks.
Most cars are blocked by other cars on the road and you don't see cars honking at other cars nearly as often as it happens to bicyclists (except maybe in NYC... hehe)
Also, most of the time the substandard width lane issue is only a factor within cities. Cars shouldn't really be traveling that quickly within a city, except maybe on elevated highways.
How many times have you been impeded by people driving cars when driving? I'd wager nearly every time you drive if you live in a city. How many times have you been impeded by people on bicycles?
Texas has the same laws. In Austin the police released PR with a video telling cars about it. They also said they will not cite drivers for safely passing a bicycle over a double yellow.
By the same token, many bicyclists freely ignore traffic laws too. They don't properly stop at stop signs or intersections (on red or yellow) and they act like pedestrians when it suits them.
>[Slam] their brakes without noticing my bike behind them
You're a vehicle when you ride on the streets, it's your responsibility to maintain a safe distance from the person in front of you and to react to their brake lights. The person in front of you is well within their rights to slam on their brakes if and when they need/want
I'm a cyclist, and it irks me a little bit every time I see cyclists act as if the rules don't apply to them. In San Francisco, this happens almost every day.
As a pedestrian, I've almost been struck a few times by cyclists running red lights while crossing Market Street. Most of those cyclists yell at me for having the audacity to be in their way. In San Francisco, it seems that I'm the exception for actually stopping at red lights on a bicycle.
Incorrect. You are not allowed to slam on your brakes for no good reason. It's of course very hard to prove that you did. (This does not relieve the follower from maintaining a safe distance, but you could be held partially at fault.)
Also, what about if you merge into my lane right in front of me and then slam on your brakes? In that case, you made it impossible for me to maintain a safe distance.
> You are not allowed to slam on your brakes for no good reason
I never said no good reason...
>hat about if you merge into my lane right in front of me and then slam on your brakes? In that case, you made it impossible for me to maintain a safe distance.
This has been arbitrated in court (at least in my neck of the woods), if you merge and in doing so cause an accident you're a fault. The entire law system is setup to relate to the actions that a "reasonable" person would do. It isn't reasonable to expect the person who you've just merged in front of to immediately be at a safe distance (in fact you, the merger, are responsible for merging in a way that's safe.)
Car drivers routinely ignore certain rules too: speed limits, full stops at stop signs, etc. They do this because doing so is mostly safe. It's the same with bicyclists: the rules they ignore are mostly safe too. The confusion is that, because cars and bikes are different, the rules that are safe to bend are different in each case.
That's all well and good, but when was the last time you saw a cyclist getting pulled over for running a stop sign? Or speeding (Which they tend to do down the large hills we have, and then continue on to blast through intersections at 40+)? I can tell you the last time I saw a car getting pulled over, just a few hours ago. Just because you think it's 'safe' to bend the rules, doesn't make it safe or legal. It's highly hypocritical of cyclists to complain that there aren't enough legal safe guards for them when they ignore the already established ones that are designed to keep all vehicles on the road safe.
A buddy of mine biked to work from Somerville to Boston and he got a ticket from an officer in Cambridge. He had stopped at a red light, but his tire was over the stop line.
Just because you don't see it happen, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
Same guy was almost destroyed by a truck as we were riding through an intersection with the green light because the truck decided to speed up for the yellow light and run the red light.
That's not true. If I'm a motorist, moving at speed, and I slam my brakes to grab that nifty parking spot, I am liable. Not the person who rear-ends me.
In every U.S. jurisdiction I'm familiar with, the person doing the rear-ending is liable, not the person who brakes unexpectedly. The idea is that everyone should leave stopping distance. In heavy traffic, people generally don't leave this distance, but it's still the law.
I was wrong about liability (the rear-ender is liable, unless you can prove negligence or recklessness on the part of the driver ahead), but I run a serious hazard of stopping short myself as a cyclist that the motorist does not (except for motorcyclists). There is a good chance I will be killed by the car or truck behind me. This is why, while I have always been able to stop my bicycle in time, it is a frightening experience in traffic.
Not in every jurisdiction. PA for example is no-fault. The idea is that while you shouldn't be driving so close behind, you also should slam on the breaks. Both are equally reckless.
Not in my jurisdiction. You're responsible for maintaining a safe distance to the vehicle in front of you, to allow for unexpected stops. It doesn't matter if they stop for a cat, a toddler, or hallucinated giant killer marmosets from outer space.
As far as I know, this is standard in driving laws across the U.S. Is there somewhere this doesn't apply?
If you're a motorist at speed (and I'll take "at speed" to mean normal street speed); you're almost probably not looking for a parking spot. Further, if you're going "at speed" --25-35mph -- the person behind you should be, at minimum, 2-3 car lengths behind you. If they aren't, they're failing to maintain a safe distance. You're not liable if the person behind you, driving unsafely, rear-ends you.
Yeah, it's extremely hard to set up a circumstance where the person in behind is not at fault.
If you get hit and get propelled into the car in front of you, it's your fault you hit the car in front of you (although this may vary by state).
If the manual transmission car in front of you shifts into neutral on a hill and slides back into you, it's your fault.
The person behind is usually in control of the space between cars and they are held to be responsible for it. You can possibly make it not their fault if you shift directly into someone's lane at speed right in front of them and then hit the brakes.
I'm from the Netherlands, where separate bike lanes are the norm. The thought of having to share the road with cars, especially in a place where people aren't used to bike traffic, terrifies me.
Also, IIRC when a car hits pedestrian or bike, the car is always the "guilty" party because pedestrians or bikes are never a safety threat to cars (you can still be acquitted if it is clear that there's no way you could have prevented the crash). Does the US have something like that to promote cautious driving habits?
The thought of having to share the road with cars, especially in a place where people aren't used to bike traffic, terrifies me
It should terrify you. It's terrifying. I know dozens of people who regularly commute by bike in the ostensibly bike-friendly city of Seattle. Nearly all of them have been hit by a car at some point.
I'm in SF and I've been hit twice. Once in Berkeley and once in SF. The thing that bothers me the most is that the police are very non-chalant about the whole affair. They refused to fill out a police report unless someone was hurt. This means that both of my accidents didn't show up on the official statistics for number of bike accidents in the city.
Hmm, is Seattle an "ostensibly bike-friendly" city?
Granted it's probably not as bad as many other American cities, but for all Seattle's often rather liberal laid-back nature, Seattleites also seem to lovvvve their cars, and the state of public infrastructure to reflect that.
I used to bike a lot in Seattle about 25 years ago, and well ... I always felt very alone, and often very nervous. I felt part of a fringe. My impression was that although there generally wasn't the sort of overt "kill bicyclists!" aggression you might find elsewhere, Seattle was still very much a car-focused city, and that few concessions were made to bicyclists, other than the random token gesture (bike racks on buses, etc). There seemed to be essentially zero real bike infrastructure.
Maybe things have changed in the last few decades, I dunno. I haven't noticed much obvious change when I've visited since, although the bike cops are great (they're the friendliest police I've ever encountered!).
> ... when a car hits pedestrian or bike, the car is always the "guilty" party.... Does the US have something like that to promote cautious driving habits?
> In NYC, drivers are seldom cited at all even when a cyclist or pedestrian has been killed.
Your link does not say that drivers are ‘seldom cited’; it says that drivers are cited slightly over half the time. A priori, an even split in responsibility across all cases seems perfectly reasonable.
"The NYC group Right of Way says: 'After NYC cycling fatalities increased twofold in 1999, police rushed to cover their, er, reputation by claiming (without analysis or supporting data) that cyclists are to blame in 75% of cycling deaths. ... The truth is just the reverse, as listed in our report, The Only Good Cyclist (PDF).' According to Right of Way, over 90% of pedestrian deaths in NYC are the fault of drivers. And research from Toronto shows the same thing for car-bike crashes. Most at-fault motorists who kill cyclists and pedestrians get off the hook. A study by the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition shows that three out of four at fault drivers were never even cited for hitting and killing pedestrians. 22% of fatal pedestrian crashes involved hit and run drivers, yet, none of the runaway motorists were found or charged. In New York, 70-92% of drivers were at-fault in killing pedestrians and cyclists, but 74% didn't even get a ticket. (RightOfWay.org, 1999) The story in Austin is similar."
Some recent headlines about how NYPD handles car-and-bike collisions:
"Another Cyclist Killed at East Harlem Intersection, NYPD Again Blames Victim"
"Motorist Havoc: Two Dead, Five Hurt, Kids in Critical Condition, No Charges"
"Cleared in Traffic Court, Hit-and-Run Killer Still Employed at NYC DOT"
"Leroy Comrie Bill Would Force NYPD to Report to Council on Hit-and-Runs"
"Hynes: No Charges for Curb-Jumper Who Blew Red and Killed Pedestrian"
"NYPD: Pedestrian Killed Himself by Running Into Stopped Police Cruiser"
"Cyclist’s Brother Says NYPD Closed Investigation Into Unsolved Death"
"Immune From Prosecution, Curb-Jumping NYC Motorists Claim More Victims"
"Irvin Gitlitz, 83, Was First of Two Pedestrian Fatalities Wednesday" (which notes, "The truck involved in the crash that killed Irvin Gitlitz did not have required crossover mirrors. The driver was not summonsed," and for the second fatality, "No summonses were issued")
It doesn't look like this tragedy had anything to do with respect for bicyclists; the driver, who could likely at minimum be charged with manslaughter, drove off the road to avoid traffic and fled the scene of the accident.
I don't disagree with what I think is the spirit of your comment, which is that there's probably a policy response to this tragedy. To me, it highlights the all-to-lax nature of our moving violation enforcement laws; every American who gets behind the wheel (myself very much included) subjects their neighbors to tremendous risks, and the penalties and risk of detection don't create meaningful incentives.
I didn't intend to highlight lack of respect so much as lack of general awareness amongst motorists of the rights of bicyclists as road vehicles. In the worst cases, this manifests itself in more aggressive responses. This here was a case of negligence, not malice.
Neither source linked from the article says that the driver went off-road, both say that Seth Vidal was traveling "on Hillandale Road," that he was "a bicyclist traveling north on Hillandale Road." It makes no sense for a bicycle advocate and experienced rider to be riding off-road, so I will have to see a source to believe that.
I only ride my bike on dedicated bike lanes (by "dedicated" I mean those blocked from the main road) and bike paths. Everywhere else, I ride on the sidewalk. Fortunately, most sidewalks where I live are sparsely populated, and I make sure to slow down to walking speed or dismount completely when going through areas with lots of pedestrians.
Someone told me I could get cited for riding my bike on a sidewalk. Fuck that shit. I'd rather pay $50 than get hit by a car.
As a driver managing turns, you're traveling at a very different speed than the people I'm expecting on the sidewalk which makes turning safely much more difficult.
I clearly said I slow down or dismount when I'm near pedestrians. If you still feel terrified or bullied, I think that's a personal problem.
>>As a driver managing turns, you're traveling at a very different speed than the people I'm expecting on the sidewalk which makes turning safely much more difficult.
Bikers who do this deserve absolutely no sympathy. The safe thing to do when biking on sidewalks is to dismount as you arrive at an intersection, even if the pedestrian light is green. Then you cross the intersection as a pedestrian, i.e. by walking.
A driver turning off the street onto a side street or down a driveway needs to ensure that there will be no one in his driving path before starting the turn. If people are walking on the sidewalk, he needs to look 10 feet or so to either side. If they're riding bikes or skateboards or something that travels much faster than a walking person, he needs to look much further to either side.
You could also injure a pedestrian. Do you realize that you can hurt an elderly person on the sidewalk with a bike as much as a car can hurt you on the road?
You can surely hurt a pedestrian while riding on the sidewalk (or through a crosswalk, for that matter). You surely can not hurt them "as much as" a car in the traffic lanes will hurt a cyclist in a much faster collision with a much heavier object. That assertion is just silly.
As a father of toddlers, (3 and 5), I despise the attitude of many bicyclists on sidewalks and public paths.
You think you can't seriously hurt somebody on a bike? It depends on the someone you hit. Slow down when you see a pedestrian, as there might be others that you don't see. Don't ring your little bell at them as you whip past at 20mph, just slow down and show some common courtesy like a real human person.
This doesn't seem to be responsive. Your kids (or mine), no matter how heart-tugging a debate example they may be, will still be hurt less from a collision with a bicycle than the cyclist will be from a collision with my car. To argue otherwise, as Yver did above, is silly and counterproductive.
Thanks for the dismissal. "Heart tugging", isn't what I was going for, sport.
Your lack of desire to take seriously your responsibilities to those you share the sidewalk with is a problem for me. You want to be on the sidewalk so you'll be safe, while at the same time, refusing to acknowledge any risk you're imposing on others. That doesn't fly with me. Slow it down, sporty.
How, in an argument arguing for (or against) something based on the harm it can cause, is the "degree of hurt" "pointless". That makes even less sense than the original point I was responding to.
Clearly this is an issue of religion. If so, then just declare your side, sharpen your pitchfork and be done with it. But arguing as this thread does, that riding on the sidewalk for safety is "equally unsafe" needs to be done with evidence. It's certainly not true that the collisions are independently more dangerous. Maybe you could argue that there would be more of them or something.
A bicycle can and occasionally does kill people. An old woman was struck and killed just a couple of blocks from my house. Children would be even more likely to die in a collision I would think.
Yver did say "elderly person". It seems pretty likely that you could kill a sufficiently elderly person by hitting them with a bicycle, which seems "as much as" you can hurt someone with a car.
You should try practicing your reading comprehension skills. I said:
>>Fortunately, most sidewalks where I live are sparsely populated, and I make sure to slow down to walking speed or dismount completely when going through areas with lots of pedestrians.
I see your point. If the speed limits are not too high though, you might want to try riding on the roads and using some tactics that help me (at least):
* If you hear a car coming up on you, always turn your head and look back at the car so that they know you see them and because faces command attention. This quick look also gives you an idea of how much the driver notices you, that is, if you have to bail in a hurry.
* If there are cars around in general, ride with a rigid posture that makes you appear a more formidable object.
* Keep close enough to the center of the road that motorists think twice before passing you, move over briefly if you want them to be able to pass (they'll appreciate it).
* Always signal your intentions if there is any traffic, bicycle or otherwise.
Upvote for staying near the center of the road, but remember that that is only permitted on 14-15+ ft wide lanes (don't worry, the overwhelming majority of city lanes are not this wide). If the lane is wider than that, you should stay to the right (but you are within your right to stay outside the door zone)
IIRC, CA law says bicyclists should ride as far to the right as practicable. I think it even says bicyclists may be justified in taking the entire lane if conditions so require.
Also, it's prudent to consider one of those conditions to be aggressive behavior from a car behind you (horn, etc). They're proudly boasting of their non-understanding of how to fluidly pass non-lane-width traffic, so it's just safer to take the full lane and ensure they'll either change lanes or wait for a lull in oncoming traffic instead of half-passing then cutting into you.
Exactly. One of my accidents was when a taxi driver honked at me, tried to overtake and hit the front of my bike and pulled in my front tire when trying to aggressively merge back into the lane I was in. Completely destroyed the front end of my bike. I was able to jump off the bike away from the vehicle to avoid getting hurt.
There are several conditions that allow the bicyclists to ride in the middle of the lane and ignore the "stay as far to the right as practicle" rule. The most common of them is the "substandard width lane", which has been established to be any lane narrower than about 14-15 ft
People are often killed riding on sidewalks, I avoid riding on them because they are very dangerous wherever there is a driveway - cars move to the edge of the street without expecting a vehicle moving at 15mph+ on the sidewalk.
Trust me, I know. I always slow down to walking speed when I'm approaching a drive-way or a parking lot exit.
The thing about riding your bike on the sidewalk is that you, as the cyclist, can avoid virtually all danger by being cautious. Whereas on the road, you're pretty much at the mercy of car drivers and are at great risk regardless of how careful you are.
Nothing in that paper talks about people being killed as far as I could see. Higher event rates != higher deaths. Running into another bike was considered an event, but that's not generally deadly.
Someone told me I could get cited for riding my bike on a sidewalk
Depending on where you ride, that may or may not actually be the case. In my city, it's absolutely legal to ride on the sidewalk as long as you yield to pedestrians.
* I only ride my bike on dedicated bike lanes (by "dedicated" I mean those blocked from the main road) and bike paths.*
Where I live, Mexico City, there are lots of idiots who ride in the wrong direction in those lanes. I confront some of them and am told that I am crazy, because, you know, no pasa nada.
Be happy that you have bike lanes at all; for all intents and purposes there aren't any where I live.
That's not where Seth was hit. From the reports I've heard so far (I'm a Durhamite and knew Seth socially), he was hit on the south end of the block, where it's a totally different road: http://goo.gl/maps/DQxO6 .
That block of Hillandale Road changes so radically in one block for historical reasons: the narrow section you see above is just as it emerges from a golf course, and the city has been unable to expand that section of road, so I've been told, because the golf course owns the shoulders and has resisted efforts.
All the cyclists in town know it as a dangerous section, but are forced to use it as it's one of few routes over I85, the freeway visible in your mapquest link.
Thanks so much for clarifying this, I just chose the point where the road crossed I-85 because the reports said it happened near that interchange. Truth be told, that stretch you show is even more frightening to me for the reasons you describe -- it's exactly the sort of road where drivers who just got off the highway would feel "stuck" behind a cyclist, and it's so narrow.
When I've been in Munich, I've seen they have there dedicated lanes for bike traffic, which are not a part of general street and designed so that cars never go there - they are part of the same space as pedestrian walks but pedestrians are not supposed to walk there either - it is an exclusive bike space, with higher barriers for bigger danger (cars) and separation from lower danger (pedestrians). I think it works much better than what is here in California, where bicyclists share space on the road with cars. Each time I drive by a cyclist on the road, I can't help thinking how small mistake it would take - either from his/her side or from driver's side - for a tragedy to happen. That's why I am very reluctant to go on such shared spaces when I'm biking - I'd much prefer to have a space of a sidewalk than on a road.
However, this isn't a bicycle problem: it's an urban planning problem. If you design for cars (multi-lane high-speed roads), this is what you get. Unfortunately, riders and pedestrians will suffer for now.
Hint: Mount a retractable side flag to your bicycle and hang a sharp, metal object at the end where the reflector is. Leave it hanging on a long enough string (10-15cm) so as to allow it to move around easily. That should keep car drivers away, at least those who appreciate the paintwork on their cars.
I'm a Debian guy. I randomly encountered Seth at a hotel in Berlin, and we spent several very jetlagged hours in the lobby waiting for rooms to open up and talking about everything from yum performance to peak oil to blacksmithing. That trip turned out to be my worst European trip ever -- most of my other memories of it involve shivering under an expensive feather duvet and trying not to infect anyone when I dragged myself to meetings. Seth let me have a positive memory of that trip. We swam in different circles online and I only knew him briefly, but he was clearly a great guy.
(Also, this is the second friend of mime to be killed in a hit and run car vs bike. The other was lilo. Sucks.)
It's a shame that this has to turn from a really sad event to another bikes versus car debate, especially with so little information available other than it was a hit and run.
On HN as on any forum (or where people get together and discuss something that just happened) that is what happens.
The event is merely a spark for a discussion.
Would it be better if all you saw was a string of "sorry to hear that" type responses (similar to a guest book in a funeral home). My opinion is no, I like the discussion.
as a fellow bike commuter, this story has impacted me more
than I would have anticipated. I commute by bike, I get
around a lot by bike, and learning that somebody I admired
was killed in this way so close to my home has really
struck a nerve.
It struck more than one nerve. It is extremely easy for the bicycling Hacker News user to imagine themselves in Seth Vidal's shoes. This is the sort of thing we all have nightmares about.
I had the opportunity to work with Seth on the Func project and knew him to be a seriously stand-up dude who cared deeply about the quality of his work and the people who used it. You just had to say 'skvidal' on #fedora-devel and, as if by magic, he'd appear and get you unblocked on whatever it was you were hacking on. It was just unbelievable, I've never known a developer that cared so much about making people's lives easier.
Everyone who had the privilege to be in Seth's orbit knew he was a hell of a developer, a hell of a sysadmin, and a man who worked his ass off to make the world of Linux a better place, and by god did he make it so.
RIP Seth, I will miss you greatly and I know that there must be a massive crowd of folks up there vouching for you, having saved this mortal world from dependency hell.
The influence Seth has had on my career, in fact the way I look at so many things, has been so incredibly huge I don't know what to say. He's helped me so much in so many ways, influenced the way I think in so many ways, without Func my current company wouldn't even exist and who knows what I'd be doing.
If there's any advice here to take away that I might have learned from a lot of great memo-list posts from Seth, if anything at all, is go make the world a better place. Don't just write software. Care about stuff and making the world a better place. It's important. And take some time to let your yard get mowed by goats, because it's funny to watch :)
Fatal vehicle accidents are not always vehicular homicide/manslaughter. A standard of negligence (such as being past the DUI limit) has to be established. Hit-and-run also does not necessarily result in a homicide (or assault) charge being filed.
Someone struck him with a car and killed him. I think leaving the scene after killing someone with a vehicle should satisfy any any standard of negligence.
Let me paint you a picture - an accurate picture, as agreed by both parties in a court of law. Whilst I did not witness the incident, I was an EMS responder. And whilst this did not end in a death, there are many a parallel.
A young man, in a hurry, changes his plans, and driving. He pulls in to an old fire station, turned scout hall, where some boy scouts are having a meeting. In the courtyard that was the engine apron, he yanks the steering wheel and makes his wheels squeal, sprays a little gravel.
Two parents who are outside waiting for their children yell at him. He gives them the finger. They say he's a dangerous driver and that they're calling the cops, and he'd better stay. He says "No, I'm leaving". Voices are raised.
The driver decides no, he really is leaving. The parents decide (rightly or wrongly) that he isn't - they're making a citizen's arrest. He puts his car in gear. From each side, at the same time, the parents open his car door.
They admit that it's to stop him.
He admits he panics. He puts the car in reverse and hits the accelerator - the open doors catch both parents and knock them down. The older parent breaks his hip.
The younger one, however - much worse. His head is caught between the asphalt and the bottom of the car door, and as he reverses, the man's head is dribbled almost like a basketball between the two, before the driver gets free, and flees the scene.
The other parents call the police (and EMS). The driver is picked up nearby and charged with vehicular assault and leaving the scene.
Had he, however, left the scene and immediately called 911, the parents would have been the ones charged, with kidnapping / false imprisonment. The driver's defense, and one which stood in court a great deal, was that the parents had already demonstrated a willingness to physically restrain him against his will for a tenuous "crime", and after his panic, who is to say that he wouldn't be in further physical danger?
The younger driver, as it happens, recovered fully - after an intracranial hemorrhage, surgery, a medically-induced coma, and a 1 1/2" hole placed in his skull to drain blood.
So, no - be careful to paint such broad black and white brush strokes.
Sorry, I don't see how this is relevant. Kemp struck Seth with his car, killing him, and ran away. That is a black and white issue, he hit someone minding their own business and ran without taking responsibility, turning his accident into a crime.
The situation you describe is about an altercation between parties that results in injury. It's so different from a hit and run that I'm not even sure where the logical connection is (besides both stories involving a car).
That it can't be assumed to be a fait accompli that "negligence" or vehicular homicide is involved in the scenario of anyone leaving the scene of an accident.
This isn't about what should/shouldn't be, I'm talking about how the legal system views these things. Vehicular homicide has a requirement of negligence, because traditionally the justice system sees a qualitative difference between a grandpa who backs over a grandchild who runs behind the SUV and someone who chooses to drive despite being blind drunk.
In terms of the hit-and-run == negligence...the two things correlate...a drunk driver may be so drunk that they don't realize they've killed someone. Or more maliciously, they do realize it but don't want to take a breathalyzer at the scene of the crime. However, there are cases (which does not seem to apply to the case in question) in which otherwise well-behaved drivers have killed someone unknowingly or for some reason panicked and left. It's still a crime, but it's not "homicide"
Honestly, leaving the scene should instantly turn any accident into a crime. I'm sorry that you panicked, but you need to pull over and take responsibility.
I understand that accidents happen, but choosing to leave someone bleeding on the side of the road is not an accident.
Damn, this is sad. I'll echo the other comments here that he was a nice guy. I was an undergrad at Duke circa 1999-2000 and knew him through the Duke LUG. I was a noob, and he always showed a fair amount of patience with my questions on the mailing list. Later on the LUG started meeting for beers on Friday afternoons and he was just as friendly in real life. He was one of those guys that seemed like a computing god for me so early in my career.
At some point in the future we will look back on the era of the automobile as the era of carnage; the amount of life lost is staggering. I bike to work every day in a pretty bike-friendly city (compared to most) and it is still unnerving most days.
This is terrible, but I wonder if there's a technical way we can provide a black box for bicyclists so that these sorts of injustices don't go unpunished.
Punishing someone from running away from an accident, however, is important. These people are not good for society and we need to make them a pariah, so people push away from that behavior.
This sounds like an incredibly bad idea. This pushes even more responsibility onto the person operating several thousand pounds of metal, assuming they will make the correct snap judgement when a bike they didn't see rides out in front of them.
It seems to me the bike riders have a lot more to lose at that stop sign than any car driver who doesn't see the bike.
This is getting further off-topic, but I generally treat stop signs as a yield when I'm riding. I approach slowly and if there is a car stopped/nearing the intersection, I will absolutely yield to them as I would in a car. The only difference is that, if possible, I will try to avoid wasting energy by stopping entirely.
This is both for my own benefit and for those who may come after me. If I can maintain some of my kinetic energy, I can be out of the way much faster for the next person in line.
I sometimes treat red lights as stop signs for the same reason. If I continue through the light safely, the people behind me will be less annoyed (and therefore less aggressive) about waiting for me to accelerate. Not everything cyclists do is simply because fuck cars.
I do the same thing. One thing I'm careful about now though is always slowing down in acknowledgement of the stop sign, even if there's no one in the other directions. I started doing that after I noticed bikers bringing cars along with them when pedaling through a stop (presumably because the cars didn't notice the stop).
No it doesn't. Yield sign has a meaning, and it's not go through oblivious to surroundings at full speed. It is slow down and make sure it's clear. If it's not clear, it means stop.
The biggest thing I lose stopping at a stop sign is momentum. Accelerating from zero is much more difficult than to keep going at 10km/h. For everything else, I have my eyes.
Greatest law on earth. Saves me so much time every single day. I have to pass down my street which has 15+ stop signs just to get to the main intersection.
It's not much of a solution. I'm at work so I couldn't listen to the video, but I watched it. It seemed like he managed to capture what the car looks like (kinda sorta), but what is really needed is something that can reliably capture the license plate.
There was one frame in this video where the license plate was sort of visible, but not readible.
But still, I think the cyclist simply got lucky that he happened to catch the license plate on his camera. I mean, when you're falling off your bike, the last thing you're thinking about is to get a recording of the car.
Perhaps a bike or helmet with both front and rear camera sensors? That way you'll usually have some footage of the car's approach, though in low light it probably wouldn't help very much.
how about better driver education? you say, camera? what if your govt proposes a camera at every corner as a solution? isn't that a good solution? a camera mounted on your bike/helmet might capture who ran you over. what we need is to prevent you from being run over in the first place. prevention is better than cure thus better driver education.
I commute often by bicycle (and motorcycle) and wear a gopro (camera) on the helmets. Hopefully someone never needs to watch the footage, but it makes me feel better.
It's becoming more common for bicyclists to do what they do in Russia with dashcams.
What I don't know is if there is a model that will continuously record and maintain a log of the last hour of your trip. The only thing they would need is an accelorometer that would trigger an auto-shutoff timer of about 5 minutes in the case of a sudden change in acceleration in an accident.
Electricity shouldn't be a problem since pedaling should recharge the batteries. Four cellphone-type cameras and some flash with a small rechargeable battery and generator wouldn't be that big on space. It would be interesting to mount (maybe, 3 cameras under the seat and one strung in front). If I was going to the trouble I would probably add some LEDs to light up when I am riding.
That is interesting, but probably not a viable solution for _today_. Something like an always-on dashcam [1] would be the way to go. I'm thinking there are some out there whose energy is generated by pedaling your bike.
yum was good software. Vidal will be missed.
Rob Levin, lilo (founder) of FreeNode, was another person lost to a hit and run accident while he was riding his bike. What can be done to make biking safer in the states?
>What can be done to make biking more safer in the states?
Require more stringent testing to grant drivers licenses. It seems as though issuing DLs is treated too much as a revenue stream and not enough as an education/screening process.
I wouldn't mind using a rule where a certain number of DLs are permitted each year and that only the safest drivers get them. They are a responsibility not a right, yet we treat it like a right. Most likely self-driving cars will save us first, but if not some sort of leveling up system that awards points for things such as adherence to the speed limit or aggressiveness in acceleration/deceleration could be useful. All this information could be managed via a black box in your car. If you aren't in the top 80% or so, you shouldn't be allowed to drive.
That's a really interesting comment. I think there are battery limitations, but maybe you could design Google Glass with an App that triggers on abrupt physical displacement (IE a collision).
I wonder if that would help. You definitely couldn't stream continuously because of battery and bandwidth limitations.
Not necessarily. When you ask glass for a photo, it finds the best focus lock over some time period that includes a short time before and after the command was executed. It has some sort of running buffer. This could work exactly the same way.
Right, but you could have it continuously recording for as long as its memory will allow, and delete from the beginning when it gets too full. Then, have it save when it detects a collision.
With bike commuting becoming more and more popular, I'm guessing this will be a thing soon. And it should be, as this terrible story shows.
I personally think the world would be a much better place if cars were relegated to intercity travel and walking/biking/public transit were the only means of intracity movement. The world would be cleaner and in all likelihood much healthier, and needless accidents like this would be avoided.
Unfortunately, this is not remotely feasible in many of the most populated cities of the US, nor many of the rural cities. [0] It's a nice thought, but not one that could ever happen.
Till we learn to drive responsibly and be aware of our environment as a matter of course, these accidents will continue to happen.
How is public transit not remotely feasible in large cities? At one time, many US cities (large and small) had extensive streetcar systems that were far more efficient than cars. We are now left with just a handful of such systems, not because automobiles are technically superior but because of the intersection of business and politics:
The executive summary is this: car companies took advantage of stupid laws to destroy almost all American streetcar systems.
The sooner we undo that damage, the better. Cars make a lot of sense in rural areas and for a few very niche uses in suburban and urban areas, but they are a dangerous, polluting, and inefficient way for people to commute to work.
"JonSkeptic"..not surprised by the sentiment of your comment.
I think it is feasible..certainly not in all cities and maybe not in any established cities..but some small cities could implement such a solution. That or entirely new cities could be created with this design.
Just require cars to be parked when entering city limits and traded for a golf cart or Segway or something of the sort. The boundaries could be expanded as the city grows if the idea was popular..
An incremental alternative would be to impose a congestion tax for people who choose to drive their cars into the city. The tax would create an incentive not to drive and could be used to fund things like transit and bike sharing.
Even if you start designing new small cities to accommodate no automobiles, you will not be able to eliminate automobiles outside those cities, nor will you be able to force everyone to live in them.
You'd basically just be building a car-less retirement community and hope that young people opt into it.
Build light rail in existing cities, build parking lots for people who need to drive to a light rail station, and start charging a toll for people who drive in places where light rail could take them. Slowly but surely you can turn a city built around cars into a city built around public transit. This is possible in small and large cities and would reduce congestion, pollution, and the danger to pedestrians and cyclists.
This is very sad, but not every tragedy requires a corrective response.
"5 Whys" is great, but expecting a solution to everything that happens is unreasonable; at a certain point we just have to say "shit happens" instead of incrementally covering the world in bubblewrap.
Not every place on Earth looks like your immediate neighborhood. For example, large chunks of Silicon Valley (not the most remote or undeveloped place in the world) are effectively inaccessible other than by car - unless you are willing to spend 3 hours commuting in each direction and are ready to subjugate your whole life to extremely sparse and inconvenient schedule of public transportation.
Like it or not, cars are the only way people can get from place with reasonable costs of living to place where it is reasonable to situate offices/industry buildings in numbers and with speed that is required by modern economy.
Well, of course, if you could make it better - sure, go ahead. Do you think I like driving 30 mins twice a day? I'd rather spend the same time in a bus reading a book. But I don't have such option and do not foresee it happening anytime soon. You can say "we should" as many times as you like, but in reality it's not happening - and I'm not sure it's even feasible to cover an area of San Jose size with adequate public transport and keep the costs reasonable. But if you know how to do it - sure, let your plan be known to the San Jose city council, I support it a lot. I'm sure amount of cars would decrease once you pull it off - I'd gladly give up my daily commute if I had an alternative. But not before the alternative is there.
So sad to hear this! I met Seth at FUDCon a few years ago, he was a nice guy and very interesting to talk to. My condolences to his family and loved ones.
Probably the day after we stop tolerating the even more egregious waste of life that occurs every day from mass over consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and, well, food.[1]
Accidents are only 7th in the top 10 killers, and automobile accidents are a fraction of that category[2].
If we want to tackle major causes of death, this is the place to start:
On the other hand, when it comes to alcohol and, to some extent, tobacco, one can at least make the plea that most of the damage isn't external. I can't kill anyone other than myself if I drink too much, whereas if I'm speeding on the road, chances are I'm going to kill whatever I smash into, not only myself. Of course, there's the added penalty related to the social consequences of alcohol consumption (e.g. alienating those around me and wrecking a couple of lives).
Don't get me wrong -- I agree with your premise and with the point you are making -- but I think that, as far as the legal and public safety systems are concerned, traffic issues don't go into the same category as alcohol consumption. Alcohol consumption is primarily self-destructive, whereas dangerous driving is not (arguably, someone wearing a seatbelt and protected by airbags is probably safer than someone riding a bike when they get hit by a car).
A good first step would probably be to discourage the superfluous use of cars. I passionately hate people who absolutely have to drive their cars over a distance they could cover, on foot, in thirty minutes, when they aren't really rushed by anything. Seriously, get off your lazy ass and walk, or at least take the bus...
There are real dollar costs to our overall quality of life from society's health self abuse expense. Excuse the graphic image, but a car accident is generally walk away or dead, while health care for the long term unhealthy keeps bleeding once it starts.
"The motorist advocacy group AAA said accidents cost $164.2 billion each year, which based on the methodology used in the report comes to an annual per person cost of $1,051." (2008)
By comparison, some other systemic costs:
- $190 billion in annual medical costs due to obesity (2012)
- CDC reports excessive alcohol consumption cost the U.S. $224 billion (2006)
- Total annual public and private health care expenditures caused by smoking: $96 billion
- Productivity losses caused by smoking each year: $97 billion
Obesity alone or alcohol alone cost us all more than accidents. I for one have other "quality of life" things I'd like to do with my money than subsidize "self destructive" choice.
> I passionately hate people who absolutely have to drive their cars
I clock under 4K miles a year, mostly long distance trips with four or more passengers. But I'm fortunate enough to live near NYC and use public transportation. It's a lot harder in most of the US. Comparing communities across the US and Europe, it seems the best way to affect driving culture is with community layouts that put food (groceries and restaurants) within easy walking distance.
> There are real dollar costs to our overall quality of life from society's health self abuse expense. Excuse the graphic image, but a car accident is generally walk away or dead, while health care for the long term unhealthy keeps bleeding once it starts.
Agreed. But there are other factors at stake in alcoholism or obesity, too. Excluding drunk driving, which is in a league of its own (and alcoholism definitely plays a factor there!), most of the people who drive dangerously are simply jerks. Many alcoholics have legitimate economic, social, personal or even psychical problems that lead them on this track, and many obese people are obese as a result of, or partly due to underlying conditions (e.g. endocrine system problems) or simply due to not being able to easily get the amount healthy food and exercise they need. Whereas a lot of people involved in accidents like this one are just idiots.
Personal consumption is a completely different realm than dangerous systemic infrastructure decisions. I'll give someone the right to die fat and drunk on their own, but I absolutely abhor how our roads make murderers out of us.
I am willing to wager that there are more alcohol related deaths involving chronic drinkers than there are binging college students who forget to vomit.
We've just termed those deaths "acceptable" or pretend that they are "natural causes" because the victims tend to be in the second half of an expected lifespan.
Well, I'm curious what the numbers actually are. Either way about it, I agree we should fight for addicts. I've lost two dear people to alcohol, and I'm fighting for a third right now.
However, other than increased mental health care funding I struggle to imagine what governmental policy would have helped those I've lost. A sin tax would have done nothing for these people (hell, prohibition wouldn't have worked either).
Legislating 1 meter barriers between auto and bicycle traffic is incredibly simple compared to attempting to legislate the psycho-social forces of addiction. We don't have to limit our social change to legislation but that's the mindset from first reply was made in.
Exactly this. Alcohol is linked to over 75,000 deaths per year [1] while bicycle related deaths are around 700 per year [2]. There needs to be much more focus on alcohol/tobacco related injuries than deaths.
Worship? Hyperbolic bullshit. The automobile, and the high mobility it affords, is the primary cause for a lot of social and economic progress over the past century for the average person.
When we can find a viable, safer alternative. The automobile has been a staple of growth of modern society since it's invention. There's no other current form of transportation that can be a drop in fit.
But in reality, no matter the form of transportation, there will be deaths involved, be it accidental or not. It's a fact of life. Sad, but inevitable.
The bicycle could have been, and is in many cities (see Copenhagen or Amsterdam). The decision to include the automobile as "a staple of growth in modern society" is the reason it isn't a drop in fit. We designed our cities around dangerous, pollution producing power tools, and in doing so squashed out any hope of implementing something better.
If you think about it, the only reason the bicycle isn't a safe alternative is because there are cars on the road. I don't have statistics on this, but you almost never hear about solo bicycle accidents resulting in fatalities, only ones involving cars.
We're on our way back now, but it's a long road (so to speak).
I agree that in a dense urban environment, the bicycle could be a much better fit for personal transportation. But as someone who has lived in smaller Midwestern cities, many more lives that some people care to think about depend on the automobile as a livelihood. Even in smaller metro areas, a bicycle would not be a viable option in the least. Cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam precede automobiles by hundreds of years, and are a better fit for bicycles and smaller personal travel mediums. That's where the disparity between the how the US travel system is structured compared to one with a much longer and storied history, like Europe.
Many smaller Midwestern cities (speaking as someone who grew up in one and went to college in another) were founded and to a significant degree built out in the streetcar era, and have a physical form in the central city that reflects that. In architecture and urban form, the neighborhood I grew up in quite resembles the walk/bike/transit hotspot inner neighborhoods of Portland, Oregon, for example.
In many of those cities, the older, walkable neighborhoods have been left to decay, with gutted transit service, failing schools, and many fine old structures demolished to build parking lots or simply let to collapse., while many residents and jobs have decamped to auto-oriented exurban areas. But that is to a large degree a policy choice designed to maintain residential segregation, and something which can and must be reversed by different policy choices.
It is more the Sunbelt than the Midwest where a vast majority of the infrastructure was built in the postwar automobile era, and most neigborhoods (if you can even call them that) are nearly inaccessible to the pedestrian, cyclist, and mass transit user.
That's my point though, the US travel system didn't just become structured this way arbitrarily, it was a conscious decision to design our infrastructure in a way that was hostile to anything other than cars (pedestrians, bicycles, even horse-powered transportation). Cars were the way to the future, or so they thought.
Now, we have a hundred years of data and experience with the automobile, and it's become obvious that the fossil fuel powered car isn't a good long-term solution to the urban and suburban transportation problem. Literally everything about them is bad for the world, gathering and burning the fuel, the destruction required for their roads, the massive amount of space needed to store them, and the death and destruction they cause daily. Electric (and other alternative fuel) cars are less bad, but only in one small way, they address a single issue in an inherently flawed model.
You say that Europe has an advantage because it's cities are much older, but it's important to understand that the Netherlands and Denmark were both on the same auto-centric trajectory that the US was on coming out of the World Wars and industrialization. Denmark only started rebuilding their cycling infrastructure after decades of disuse when the energy crisis in the 70s made using a car extremely expensive. In both countries, people realized just how bad cars were. The deaths of cyclists (especially children) sparked mass protests where people demanded cycling infrastructure, and they got it. They were able to convert a car-focused city (perhaps less so than Los Angeles or New York, but still) into a bike focused city. They were able to do it, why can't we?
Modern Rotterdam was built almost entirely after World War II, the same era that many American Sunbelt cities were built to their current size. In Rotterdam, the mode share is: 5% pedestrian, 14% cycling, 25% transit, 56% automobile. This is very auto-oriented for the Netherlands, but still more than twice the 6% bike mode share of Portland, Oregon, a mid-sized American city famous here for loving bikes.
That illustrates quite well that America's near-exclusive automobile use in many cities is a matter of city planning and development policies in this country (wide, high-speed roads optimized for moving the maximum number of cars, minimum parking requirements, minimum lot size requirements and setbacks, strict zoning laws separating residential from commercial uses and single-family homes from apartments) mandating a suburban form that makes non-automobile transportation difficult or impossible. It's not simply a question of the age of a city.
"But in reality, no matter the form of transportation, there will be deaths involved"
Sure, but:
1. This was a hit-and-run, a problem that is unique to automobiles. Buses and trains do not have a significant hit-and-run issue; they are operated by people whose job is to operate them, and they are on regular, organized schedules.
2. Automobiles are among the most dangerous forms of transportation.
On the whole, though, I agree with the sentiment: Seth's death would be just as terrible if he had been hit by a bus, train, or airplane. This is not a story about how terrible cars are, it is a story about a man's tragic death.
> When we can find a viable, safer alternative. The automobile has been a staple of growth of modern society since it's invention.
This is true in areas where car manufacturers bought up all of the light rail and ripped it out. GM was convicted in the 50s and paid a $1 fine for anti-trust behavior. The US gov't has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on roads and highways, so that might be why it looks so viable.
He was killed by an automobile driver. The U.S. is notorious [1] for bicyclists (and pedestrians) being hit by cars at a relatively high rate, because it prioritizes automobile infrastructure and speed (and culture) over bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure/accessibility/safety.
[1] Not to say it's the worst, just relatively bad for an advanced country.
The U.S. is huge and spread out. Not everyone has the luxury of having all their needs within a 10 minute bike ride. We need that automobile infrastructure to get places so it makes sense that it is prioritized.
But you've got it backwards. The point is that the "spread out" nature you're talking about was created with the idea in mind that everyone will have a car and will drive. That was a conscious decision, and not a necessary one.
Also realize that it was by design that you don't view having a car to be the luxury.
On a large scale, yes. But urban sprawl is directly caused by the automobile.
The design of US cities is just godawful from any perspective (environmental, social, business efficiency, crime rates, ghettoization, etc), compared to those in Europe. I'm fairly certain that Manhattan and San Francisco are so vibrant and livable largely because they're constrained by geographical barriers.
The urban cores are very old, but many of them are surprisingly small, with the bulk of the city dating to the past 100-150 years. Copenhagen's old center, for example, was less than 10km across (confined within city walls until the 1850s), so nearly the entire city was laid out according to 19th- and 20th-century urban plans (the 20th-century one was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_Plan).
The city where it's architecturally most visible is probably Barcelona, where you can see the medieval core's winding streets, and then a massive expanse of centrally planned regular squares outside of that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eixample_aire.jpg
I thought it was people fleeing the inner city for the suburbs that caused sprawl.
It sucks, but so do the cramped cities like SF and Manhattan. You can never get a moment's peace and contemplation, and they're even more crassly commercial than your average strip mall.
Sure, it was always large, but suburban sprawl was not always a thing. As cars became ubiquitous, things got more spread out, and designed with cars as the assumed primary mode of transportation. This was not necessarily a good idea.
Or it could be that not everyone wants to live in a crowded city in a small apartment. Some people prefer to be a bit more spread out, perhaps near nature.
The US was huge and spread out before the automobile was invented. People used to live close enough to local markets that they could get by on foot, bicycle, or horseback. We used to have train stations everywhere, enabling long-distance travel, but day-to-day travel did not require mechanization.
There is no reason we cannot create towns and cities where people do not require cars. New York City is like this (having grown up there, I did not get my driver's license until I was 25 and living in a different state). We can create local transit systems with buses, trolleys, and light rail. The only place where cars really make sense is in very rural areas, where the population is extremely sparse.
Without living in the US it is hard for you to come up with a valid argument against prioritizing automobile infrastructure.
Population density alone makes it an issue outside of large cities like New York, because of that you'll also find most cities have pretty lackluster public transportation.
It is tragic that people are hurt and worse because of automobiles but they are a fact of life in America and cyclists are a very minor subset of the population for which taxes rarely cater.
One of the major problems with bicycling is the lack of respect between the cyclist and the motorist, it goes both ways but there are plenty of motorists who do not understand the laws and despise cyclists. But there are also many cyclists who fail to follow the laws which helps perpetuate the hate from motorists.
If more cities had the budget for dedicated cycling paths and road usage I'm sure they would use it but as it is now only some "greener" cities are able to do anything.
> Without living in the US it is hard for you to come up with a valid argument against prioritizing automobile infrastructure.
I'm American, and have lived in the U.S. for about 90% of my life, so I'm pretty familiar with the issues. Even leaving aside major change, and just taking cities as they exist today, pedestrian/bicyclist access and safety is just not prioritized even within cities. I lived in midtown Atlanta for three years, and two people I know were hit by automobiles while crossing in a crosswalk (fortunately neither killed, but one injured seriously). Bicycling safely was pretty much impossible, because the roads were designed exclusively for cars. And god help you if you were anywhere worse for pedestrians than midtown, which was relatively good.
It's partly infrastructure and partly culture imo. If you compare how drivers and pedestrians interact in, say, a German city center, with how they interact in Atlanta, the German intersections give much more formal protection: more crosswalks have lights, whereas many Atlanta crosswalks are not signalized, and the lights will typically give at least a short fully protected period to cross, while the Atlanta ones leave you dodging left/right turning cars even on a 'walk' signal. And culturally, the German drivers are just much more conscientious about yielding right of way when the law says they should. Pedestrians in a crosswalk are supposed to have right of way in the U.S., too, but at least in Atlanta you can't rely on it.
I could tell you about the years I lived in Houston or Los Angeles if you prefer. The situation for pedestrians there was not any better. I've also, more relevant to this article, spent a little time in Raleigh, though I haven't lived there. There is about a 2 block by 8 block area of downtown Raleigh that is reasonably safe for pedestrians.
Maybe somewhere like Portland is different; I haven't been there.
I don't find any difficulty when being a pedestrian in L.A., besides actual distances.
As a pedestrian you don't need to "share the road", only to cross it. Sidewalks seem plentiful, even if underutilized, and most road crossings have been well marked and signaled. Cars have generally been respectful when I cross.
Cycling here would certainly make me more nervous, outside of the corridors with well-spaced dedicated bike lanes. But walking is fine. It's good exercise and the weather's great.
All three of the cities you've lived in are notorious for sprawl. It would be reasonable to strive for improvement in those cities, but don't make the mistake of thinking that the problems those cities have is representative of the rest of the country.
It's like living in rural Idaho then complaining that America needs to learn how to pave roads because packed dirt just isn't cutting it.
Drivers are courteous to pedestrians to a fault in the north-west US.
Sometimes several times a day I will be approaching (as a pedestrian) an intersection (double stop-sign), say 10 to 15 feet away, and a car will stop and refuse to move until I reach the intersection, step into it, and fully cross it.
Contrast this with the east coast where a car will stop and pause for one second. If after that second nobody is in the crosswalk, they will continue. This allows pedestrians to comfortably stand in the general area of intersections without feeling as though they are holding up traffic. It also allows considerate pedestrians, like I consider myself, to allow a car to continue first (I often (try to) do this when I notice that a car has waited for several pedestrians already by the time I arrive). It also allows cautious pedestrians (as I am) to courteously opt-out of stepping in front of a car that seems impatient but begrudgingly stopped, or cars that appear distracted.
It drives me crazy. It reminds me of my mother/aunts all arguing that they should be the one that pays for everyone's meal; trying to be "polite" but ultimately just making the situation worse for no reason. Absolutely maddening. Cars and pedestrians should have a safe but adversarial attitude towards each other, it just makes everything run smoother for everybody involved.
Even in this article, the driver didn't seem to have done it because of disregard for cyclers or pedestrians. It claimed s/he moved out of the way to avoid traffic, and probably didn't see the cycler.
In China, they might actually go on the sidewalk intentionally and drive at you assuming you will move out of the way for them.
I do not think you understand the definition of hyperbole.
I live 40 minutes outside of Seattle, in a rural area that is considered a great destination for a full day weekend bike loop. Our highways are curvy, have very little shoulders and are regularly traveled by speeding logging trucks. I am a former biker. I know what I have seen and it is just not a safe hobby. Your disagreement with the reality of a 50 ton truck traveling blind corners at high speed will be of little solace to your family at your funeral.
Hyperbole is a word reserved for exaggerated claims. I am not exaggerating. It is a dangerous hobby here in the states, and the biking community might as well be shaking their fists at rain clouds.
You're letting your perception of a local situation determine a proposition about the entire concept of bicycling. That is exaggeration and that is hyperbole.
For the population as a whole maybe. That doesn't take away the not insignificant risk to any one individual of being killed or crippled.
Biking "could" give you an increased life span of 5-10 years IF you don't replace it with other exercise. In exchange for this, you have a slightly increased chance of being crippled or killed far sooner. There are arguments to be made on both sides, but don't dismiss his argument as being unreasonable. It's not unreasonable at all. I can happily get the benefits on biking on a closed course or at a gym while not subjecting myself to the dangers of biking near people in cars that don't always pay enough attention.
No, this is not a joke. Having heavy motorized vehicles zooming around our urban landscape is incredibly dangerous and violent. Worse, the pilots are inattentive and feel entitled to the asphalt in front of them. Automobile worship has completely dominated city infrastructure, demanding that cyclists and pedestrians simply learn how to use a road designed for automobiles. Automobile worship has also reshaped how we've done city development, making it more difficult to do anything but drive.
If I could transport myself and goods without driving, I would. But in my present life/location, it's not possible. I could give a fuck about automobiles except for their utility.
I completely appreciate that and am not automobile free myself! I just want 4 wheel solo travel to be the exception, and treated with constant caution.
If you want to save lives, ban bikes. Bicycles are responible for 2% of transportation-related fatalities, but less than 1% of trips. On a per-mile basis it's even grimmer.
UK residents - please consider signing the .gov.uk epetition [1] for the government to implement the "Get Britain Cycling Report" [2]. Report Summary [3].
The petition is close to 70,000 signatures and should be debated in parliament when it gets to 100,000.
A tragedy. I knew Seth - albeit just barely - through friends in Durham. Great guy; I knew he was a fellow cyclist but I had no idea that he was also a programmer.
One of his most recent tweets is about bike commuting: "Just enjoy the ride."
The general availability of bike friendly travel options in the United States is one that it woefully underserved.
In the past couple of years I have heard of so many bike/vehicle accidents that I no longer ride anywhere that can be reached by a motor vehicle.
I used to ride on the road but the best option for me was a bike lane that offered about a meter of space between myself and vehicles in a 55 mph zone. In many places I had to risk just riding on the edge of the roadway and hoping for the best and I had my share of getting brushed by side-view mirrors. No more. It is simply too unsafe to risk riding anywhere that I am not physically separated from traffic.
That's one of the both wonderful and sad things about our field; it is so young and burgeoning that we get to interact with many of its founders and grandmasters on a daily basis, but we also get to see them pass away.
You will likely see Gates, Stallman, Torvalds, Lessig, Knuth, Norman, Minsky, Alan Kay, Abelson, Rivest, Sussman, [...] die in your lifetime. Sure, Turing, Church, Curry and others have already died, but their numbers are low compared to the ones that have not yet (and some of the older users here might actually have been alive at the time of their passing).
If you were in a field such as chemistry/philosophy/biology/etc., you would also be alive for the deaths of some eminent people in your field, but not in the same proportions.
Sad truth is that if you get hit and hurt or killed while riding a bike, chances of guilty part being punished are almost non-existent. In some places people will actively try to run you from the road, almost everywhere you gona get doored time to time. Thats just the reality of biking in a city in North America.
Still chances of death or a really bad accident are relatively low, and biking is way more fun then public transit. I have not been doored or hit in a few years so I continue with it, but I am also very defensive while riding basically assuming that every car will try to run me from the road so I try as much as I can to give myself space to react. Remember police do not give a shit at all, so your life is in your hands and those of random fucks trying to shave 5 seconds from getting to wherever they are going.
I used to drive a bike trafficked roads, even at night, but I stopped doing this after almost hitting a biker while driving when I realized how hard it is for a driver to see and avoid bikers in traffic or for bikers to go through heavy trafficked area safely.
Driving a bike through traffic or on a trafficked road at night or driving through a bikers area is basically the same as driving while drunk and stoned at the same time, only you don't realize it until you get hit by a car or you hit a biker with your car and its too late for both of you then (though if you do it, have at least the freakin decency and humanity to call an ambulance before running from the scene!)...
...there's a very simple non-technical solution to this, but I won't tell you (read: "everyone" instead of "you" as we're on a public forum) what the solution is because after knowing it you may be more tempted to flee from an accident scene (you can probably figure out the solution by yourself if you have a brain and an opsec oriented mind) and I'd feel morally responsive for it :P
we all supraevaluate our competencies in lots of areas, including driving. I haven't ever actually hit anyone and I adopted a more prudent driving style in biker areas since, but I'm just being realistic about it and recognize the fact that I tended to be over confident in my driving skills, and considering that most people I know have equal or worse driving skills, I can only assume that they also supraevaluate theirs (maybe other would have just rationalized an "almost hit accident" and think something along the lines of "if my reflexes were good enough to avoid it this time, they will be good enough to avoid it next time too" and ignore the statistical side of things). And I would never do a hit-and-run but I'm realistic about assuming lots of people will be tempted to do so and some will give in to this temptation (imagine hitting someone in a foreign country and contemplating the possibility of spending time in a foreign jail for this!).
...that's why I really think that driving is and area where machines can get to be much better than humans and really hope to see thing's like Google's autonomous car perfected and used.
How is this a "bike accident"? It sounds like a hit-and-run murder, for which the driver ought be prosecuted at the very least for vehicular manslaughter.
Disgusting that so many post about what bicycle riders are to blame for instead of getting together here and work hard on identifying the driver of the car that killed Seth. Community, show your power and do something good in all this evil.
A hit and run driver ranks very low on my acceptance level. As a fellow Red Hatter that knew Seth I want to have the driver identified and brought to justice.
People, avoid driving on roads, especially after dark. There's too much risk involved in your negligent handling of several thousand pounds of metal for it to be worth carelessly ending the life of somebody simply going about their business using public infrastructure that they pay for and use in a manner much less obtrusive and obnoxious than your own.
I guess you are also a proponent of walking through shady neighborhoods at late nights then? While at it, do you also recommend carrying a holier than thou placard to appeal any wandering criminals to change their ways? :)
My blog is intended for a small local audience, and I never intended it to "break" this story to the Internet.
I wrote my post for a couple of reasons:
- I wanted to add some context for my readers who might not be familiar with Seth's work; in the original WRAL.com article, Seth is mentioned only by name, with no other information about his accomplishments.
- I feel horrible about what happened to Seth, almost physically ill. A man I admired, an experienced cyclist, was killed on a road I have biked on many times myself. I just felt the need to write... something.
I sincerely apologize if my actions have caused grief to the family.
Create a space (website) with a voicemail phone number, guestbook, etc, designed to accept people who want to reach out to a victim of a current tragedy. Then when the news spreads, spreader include a link to something like http://reachout.to/sethvidal
So that the interested acquaintances and public can go there for official information, memorial info, and to share their thoughts, privately or publicly with pre-moderation.
Obviously, it should be quick an easy for the grief-stricked to flip on a site, and follow up with it later.
You can't stop people talking about the incident, but you can help direct people away from frustrating the victims/families with emails/calls.
damn... how stupid human beings can be? One's life is priceless, and we sacrifice it because we have no patience for traffic ?
Damn... this is so hard to bear, I hope family will receive all positive energy and love we are sharing here and beyond, and that this energy will surprisingly shape their life in the future in a way that it will somehow ease up their suffering a bit, and then one day make their life normal again, togheter with the reaching of the wisdom that he is still around us/them.
Seth was also outspoken and political. In the political environment in which Americans live, which seems to resemble the old Soviet system in some ways, one cannot discount the possibility of it not being an accident.
As only one example, Michael Hastings is a warning. Political dissent and protest are now being met with death and prison. Barrett Brown is another example. Smart, literate and technically proficient outspoken people are in danger if they fall afoul of the Powers That Be.
I'm not saying that this is what happened to Seth. I'm merely saying that it can't be discounted.
> I answered what I always answer: “I’m going to write a story; some of the stuff you’ll like, some of the stuff you probably won’t like.
> Jake came up to me. “We’ll hunt you down and kill you if we don’t like what you write,” he said. C. will hunt you down and kill you.”
> The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan
He wasn't just a prolific contributor, he was a really good guy. He helped people out in irc channels near constantly. After my first ever conference presentation he came up to me and complimented and thanked me for it. He was both a code and cultural pillar of the greater redhat community, I will miss him.