[papermule]

No, I don't think so?

1. Pedestrians move at much slower speeds than bicycles. If two pedestrians walk into each at 5mph the damage is much lower than if two cyclists collide at 30mph.

2. Since pedestrians move much slower than bicycles they can manoeuvre much faster. The stopping distance for a walking pedestrian is less than 1m, the stopping distance for a bycicle travelling at 30mph is much greater.

3. If two pedestrians walk into each other the chance of collateral damage is quite low. It's quite easy to walk around two people that just walked into each other.

If two cyclists collide, there is a good chance that cyclists on each side of them will get caught up in the collision, crash and injure themselves too. A good example of this are the crashes seen on Tour de France.

Of course, if people started running as a mode of transport it would become increasingly dangerous, and you'd have to start separating the walkers from the runners as the damage from a potential collision would be much greater.

[TheCoelacanth]

> A good example of this are the crashes seen on Tour de France.

Basing rules for cyclists on the Tour de France is like basing rules for automobiles on F1 or Nascar. Normal commuters just don't reach anything close to Tour de France speeds. Most would be lucky to even maintain a third of that speed without the help of a hill.

Most commuters will be going about 10 mph. Even getting hit with a car at that speed will only cause an injury at all about 25% of the time, a serious injury about 15% of the time and is almost never fatal[1]. A bicycle will barely do anything at that speed.

By all means add special rules for using bicycles at unusually high speeds, but don't act like normal commuters are going to be going that speed.

[1] https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_...

[cornyNetHandle]

Ok, so licences for runners then, as you may need to have a test to see that people know the rules and presumably ban people from running if they break them.

[papermule]

Since running is largely recreational most runners avoid congested areas on purpose. If this changes it will have to be revisited. Nice strawman though.

[cornyNetHandle]

Was trying more for reducto ad absurdum. I didn't come up with the idea of having laws to separate runners from walkers, you did. I was just exploring the enforcement mechanism for such a suggestion.

[papermule]

Well I think the issue is that unlike the pavement, the roads are much more stringently regulated with sign posts, markings and lights.

For as long as cyclists have to cycle on the roads as we know them a cyclist should be required to demonstrate that they understand the signs and rules of the road. That could be by presenting their official drivers license, or, should they not have one, be required to take a theory test. I think that would be a sensible first step.

You could then imagine a practical test for hazard perception, efficient use of gearing and safe filtering through queues of traffic.

Naturally, people don't walk on the road, and pavements don't have the same kind of mandatory control flow unless they intersect with the road, and most children are taught how to cross the road from a young age.

[cornyNetHandle]

I walk on the road all the time, having grown up in an area with plenty of rural roads without pavements.

I would get into a ton of shit should I visit anywhere that had jaywalking laws, though in the places they exist and are enforced, they presumably get by without a dedicated licensing and testing regime.

[papermule]

Dude, you're missing the point. You do not walk on the road the same way a cyclist cycles on the road. You do not walk up to T junctions, indicate with your arms and turn left. You neither come to a set of traffic lights in the same way. Cyclists have to do all these things.

[belorn]

In so many discussions on HN I see this silly myth of 30mph bicycles.

Did you know that in Sweden, the legal maximum speed of a electric bike is 15mph? Anything faster and it is classified as a moped and you need a driving license. Did you also know that the average speed of a bike in a city in the Netherlands is around 9mph? In context, a common running speed is 8mph.

So here is the stage. Two bikes are traveling more than 300% faster than the average speed and about 200% the legal limit of a electric bike, and they collide. My question would not be if that situation is safer if two pedestrians walk into each other, but rather why two bikes is traveling that fast in the first place.