[microtonal]

This. Though it doesn’t stop at road design. You also have to change the regulations so that car drivers are (partially) legally responsible for accidents, even when a cyclist or pedestrian made the error. Pedestrians and cyclists are orders of magnitude more vulnerable. Putting much more of the legal burden on car drivers makes them more careful.

The hard part is that you also need to build a cycling culture. Most car drivers in NL are more mindful of cyclists, because they are cyclists themselves as well.

Circling back to road design. In our mid-sized Dutch city, it’s often faster to go from A to B than by bike than by car because of the excellent biking infrastructure and car-free city center. Everything is designed around cycling, some traffic lights will even give bikes a green light more often when it’s raining.

[magicalhippo]

> car drivers are (partially) legally responsible for accidents, even when a cyclist or pedestrian made the error

Here in Norway the traffic law states[1] that everyone should be considerate, heedful and careful to avoid harm, and this stands above everything else.

So you can indeed get (partial) blame even if the rest of the rules and regulations say you did nothing wrong.

For example you can't just ram a cyclist or a pedestrian if you have the right of way, but you saw them, or should have seen them, in time to take avoiding action.

Having a quick look at the NYS traffic rules[2] as a semi-random point of comparison, I'm assuming most states have something similar, it does say at the start that "no person shall operate a vehicle in a manner that will endanger any person or property".

This seems to be similar in spirit but not quite the same. I guess I could see the NY courts could find in favor of the driver where the Norwegian courts would not, depending on how they draw the line of endangering.

[1]: https://lovdata.no/lov/1965-06-18-4/§3

[2]: https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/trafrule.pdf

[umanwizard]

What the law says is one thing. What actually gets enforced is another. There is almost 0 probability of any consequences for a driver in NY who kills a cyclist, regardless of whose fault the incident was, as long as the driver doesn’t flee from the scene.

The US is not really a developed country with stable rule of law in the same way most countries in Western Europe are.

[Cockbrand]

It’s similar in Germany, where truck drivers regularly kill cyclists on right turns and get away with a four figure fine and (if the judge has a bad day) a few months of license suspension.

[umanwizard]

That is not similar at all. In the US they would not get the four-figure fine nor the license suspension.

[magicalhippo]

Here in Norway, the one crossing lanes has the blame almost regardless. So with a bicycling lane on your inside, you have to be very, very careful.

However the exact limits to that are being tested. There's just been a case in front of the supreme courts here[1], where a e-cyclist in a bike lane got run over by a truck doing a right-hand turn in a busy intersection.

A similar case back in 2019 ended with 60 days of jail for the driver of the truck[2], though that one seems more cut and dry.

[1]: https://rett24.no/articles/dodsulykken-pa-st.hanshaugen-opp-...

[2]: https://www.aftenposten.no/oslo/i/XgJWg7/syklist-paakjoert-l...

[mettamage]

Even if the cyclist has the right of way?

[sva_]

All the damn time. Here's a recent one: https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/hamburg/Radfahrer-erfasst-Lkw...

2700 Euro and 1 month license suspension.

In Germany, you have to cycle extremely carefully if you want to survive.

[thefringthing]

It's often said that if you want to get away with killing an American, first give them a bicycle. Drivers just say "they came out of nowhere" or "the sun was in my eyes" and that's that.

[fooblaster]

I don't live in ny. Is this really true, even if the cyclist is in a bike lane?

[umanwizard]

Yes. Due to how space is used in the US (with all but a tiny minority of people living in car-centric areas), most Americans view cars as tools and bikes as toys, think the main purpose of roads is driving, and feel that cyclists on public roads are an annoying nuisance.

This mentality is a bit less common in major city centers, but by no means nonexistent.

So a pro-car and anti-cyclist bias pervades every part of the justice system: police, prosecutors, judges, and juries, and it's extremely unlikely for a driver to be found guilty of anything in an incident involving a cyclist, unless the driver did something overtly malicious like fleeing the scene.

[consteval]

I mean, yeah kind of. You can weasel your way out of manslaughter trivially. Generally people aren't punished for true accidents.

[aqme28]

New York is actually notorious for lax prosecution when it comes to drivers killing pedestrians and cyclists.

[seanmcdirmid]

You can’t really do that without investing heavily in cycling infrastructure like the Dutch do. Not just designing but redesigning roads when accidents happen. A city like Seattle attempts to put the burden on drivers in theory, but crappy road designs (including lots of occluding on street parking) with little to no change when accidents occur often move incident sentiment firmly into the “not much the driver could have done” accident category.

[Reason077]

> "You can’t really do that without investing heavily in cycling infrastructure"

Building cycle paths/cycle lanes is very cheap compared to building motor vehicle lanes.

[seanmcdirmid]

Not building good ones. You have right aways to consider also, often your best option is to build on an existing road, but if you don’t get rid of onstreet parking on that road it’s a huge hot mess.

[consteval]

Yes, but in the US motor vehicle infrastructure is seen as a given, whereas cycling infrastructure is seen as a privilege.

[consp]

Which is why bad road design is a mitigating factor. You can technically get away with speeding in the Netherlands if the road design is very inadequate. This happened a a few times when most cities were simply spamming "30kph" signs everywhere and did not put road furniture in place to limit the speed. They quickly learned that was not enough as drivers fought their tickets. It's not as black and white as a mentioned but you get the jist of it. You thus always need incentive for the municipality to fix the road design.

[USiBqidmOOkAqRb]

>You can’t really do that without investing heavily in cycling infrastructure

With the insane amount of investment put towards appeasing cars [sic] I think it's just a matter of prioritizing.

[WalterBright]

In the Seattle area, cyclists routinely wander out of the cycling lane on the RHS into the car lane, and wander back, and some are determined to ride on the 4 inch stripe separating the two. None of them ever look over their shoulder before doing this.

A couple weeks ago one swerved out of the bike lane so he could draft behind me.

Around the same time, oncoming cyclists (a cohort) not only wandered out of the bike lane, they wandered into my lane (the oncoming traffic lane). I had to brake hard.

I do not understand what is the matter with them. Brain damage? I've ridden a bike on the roads for decades, I always rode as if the cars could not see me.

The people who lay out the paths must be high, as there are multiple places where the bike lane and the car lane swap sides in an X. Don't they remember those kid slot car toys that had an X piece of track for the purpose of crashing the slot cars?

These aren't kids, they're adults.

[aden1ne]

Dutch cyclists also do all these things. As a driver in the Netherlands, you'll quickly learn that cyclists don't stick to any rules, they will cross red lights, use the wrong lane, use the sidewalk if it saves them 2 seconds, ignore yield signs etc, and in general they will come from every direction imaginable.

In a car, the onus is still on you to pay more attention. Defensive driving style is the norm - assume mistakes will be made and rules will be ignored. After all, you're driving a 1-2 ton machine whereas a cyclists will be generally be <100kg at slower speeds, bike included.

That said, road design of course matters a lot. In the Netherlands, bike lanes in 50 kph (~30 mph) zones are preferably separated by a curbstone. Meaning it is often physically impossible to cross into the car lane. Bike lanes for roads with higher speed limits are rare in urban areas, and nearly always curb-separated where they exist. Intersections will have islands for cyclists and pedestrians to pause. Most residential areas are 30 kph (~20mph) zones, where most bike lanes have dashed lines. Counterintuitively, cars are expected to drive with two wheels on the bike path in these cases. This prevents cyclists from being in the car's blind spot[0].

[0]: See example from wikimedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Fietsstr...

[WalterBright]

Is it really too much to ask cyclists to stay in the bike lane? not draft behind cars? don't wander into the oncoming traffic lane?

What good is a lawsuit going to do for a crippled cyclist?

I once took a performance driving class. One of the lessons is "be predictable". The other drivers have an excellent chance at missing your car if you're moving in a predictable fashion.

[seszett]

Cyclists rarely leave the bike lane for pleasure, it's usually either because a car is parked on the bike lane, pedestrians are walking on it, or because there's litter or a bad surface (bikes are much more sensitive to uneven road surface, but at the same time bike lanes, especially those that are separated from the road, are often built with lower standards than the streets).

Reading your comment one would think cyclists are just suicidal for the fun of it, but try to think of them as humans who have a goal to achieve and are trying to achieve it with the best efficiency/safety balance they can find, like other people. Cars are everywhere on the road, impeding and endangering cyclists, so it's often a matter of trying to find the "least dangerous" way to do something, and that might even involve getting on the wrong side of the road at times. But it's not for fun.

[WalterBright]

> Cyclists rarely leave the bike lane for pleasure, it's usually either because a car is parked on the bike lane, pedestrians are walking on it, or because there's litter or a bad surface

I see them doing it all the time, and I can clearly see there is no problem with the bike lane.

[snatchpiesinger]

> Cyclists rarely leave the bike lane for pleasure, it's usually either because a car is parked on the bike lane, pedestrians are walking on it, or because there's litter or a bad surface (bikes are much more sensitive to uneven road surface, but at the same time bike lanes, especially those that are separated from the road, are often built with lower standards than the streets).

Or you know, turning left (or turning right in the UK). Or entering a roundabout, where it's generally better to take your lane, if you are not leaving at the first exit.

[vfclists]

Why don't cyclists use cycle lanes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1U0BloMOx0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo

Can you think of why it is a good idea for vehicles which weigh 2000kg and more to be used to transport 90kg loads all day long at needless risk to lesser road users?

Why can't the motor vehicle industry develop smaller powered vehicles sheltered from the elements for personal transport, something not much more than a 3 wheeled scooter with a canopy?

As a technically aware guy does that really make sense?

Motor vehicles as they are are primarily recreational vehicles and status symbols, not means of moving 100kg individuals and their handbags or briefcases if they are carrying any around town.

[WalterBright]

> As a technically aware guy does that really make sense?

I've ridden my bike for decades. I:

1. do not veer into traffic without looking

2. do not rely on the cars seeing me

3. stay right as far as I can

4. do not draft

5. do not pass them at speed on the right when they could open a door or turn right into a driveway or other road

6. look at their eyes to see if they see me

7. do not overspeed my ability to brake

8. do not imagine that blaming the car will restore my shattered body

It's just common sense.

[lenlorijn]

You say this as if cars adhere to the rules given at all times. The difference is that bikes do it at their own peril and cars do it at the peril of others. Give cyclists good infrastructure separate from cars and they'll use it.

[WalterBright]

I rarely see cars leave their lane.

The bike lanes around here are wide, clear, and dry. There is no excuse.

They don't even glance back over their shoulder before veering into the car lane. That's pretty perilous.

[consteval]

> Is it really too much to ask cyclists to stay in the bike lane?

Yes, this is like asking cars to stay in their lane. How often do you see a car outside of their lane? For me, every day.

Even if everyone had perfect intentions, mistakes would still be made. What then? Everyone has been operating on the assumption mistakes would not be made. So then, your assumption was incorrect. If you instead assume mistakes will be made, i.e. defensive driving, then you're better off.

[nottorp]

Frankly the one time I visited NL I was afraid of cyclists as a pedestrian.

Not to mention that when getting out of my hotel there was a road and a bicycle path but no pedestrian sidewalk for the first half a kilometer...

[aden1ne]

That sounds like an odd setup. Any chance this was near the airport?

Also did you visit the Netherlands, or only Amsterdam? Because honestly, Amsterdam is in a league of its own with the hordes of tourists who have no clue what they are doing on a bike.

[nottorp]

> That sounds like an odd setup. Any chance this was near the airport?

No, but near the edge of the town.

> Also did you visit the Netherlands, or only Amsterdam?

Never been to Amsterdam, just two small towns on the other end, towards Germany. My hotel was at the edge of Enschede.

[zezcat]

I cannot agree more, the cyclists and all the high speed scooters are crazy in Amsterdam. Horrible experience. Everytime trying to cross a roads it felt like I am risking my life.

[guappa]

Ah yes, cyclists love to complain about the evil car drivers. They never mention all the times they are a danger to pedestrians somehow.

In DK plenty of bus stops the bus opens directly onto a bike lane, and they won't stop to let people out of course.

[Panzer04]

Can't speak to your specific circumstances, but often bike lanes are just terrible. They allow cars to park in them, or they are too narrow, or they are blocked by construction, etc.

In general far less consideration is given to the blocking of a bicycle lane than a car lane, so cyclists are often disinclined to use them. They also often just... end, at places like intersections (so it's a good idea for the cyclist to occupy a regular lane or somesuch ahead of time).

I guess the point is that you often don't know all of the reasons someone might be riding in a specific way, and it's worth giving the benefit of the doubt.

[WalterBright]

> I guess the point is that you often don't know all of the reasons someone might be riding in a specific way, and it's worth giving the benefit of the doubt.

What would you think of a car wandering randomly into other lanes?

[Filligree]

If there were frequent boulders and rapidly moving aggressive bears in their intended lane, then I would give them a pass for dodging.

Want cyclists to stick to the cycle lane? Make it safe for us to do so. Anyhow, it’s perfectly legal to cycle in the car lanes.

[WalterBright]

The bike lanes around here are wide and clear. Nothing unsafe. They still regularly veer into the car lane.

> it’s perfectly legal to cycle in the car lanes

Reminds me of a phrase: "don't be right, dead right".

[downut]

Here in GA it happens all the time. LoC with the driver staring at a screen or off into space deep in a conversation. It is mandatory for me to drive within the lane because if for instance there is a 2' shoulder with a rumble strip I'll get a full size semi driving 55 mph right on that right white line within an inch or two of me. Ordinarily nice people get very aggressive in their gigantic killing cages.

[bondarchuk]

That would clearly be much worse because a car is much more deadly.

[gwervc]

Living in European cities with multimodal transportations, what I fear the most are cyclists. Cars drive on very clearly delimited space, respect the driving code quite properly and are visible and audible from far away.

Bicycles on the other hands drive fast, both on road and pedestrian ways with a sense of entitlement that they somehow have priority over pedestrians. They are also harder to spot. My worst fear when walking in the city are those Uber Eats guys riding huge electrical bike and going as fast as possible. An impact with that is a sure way to hospital if not worse.

[WalterBright]

As a pedestrian, I had several near collisions with cyclists in London.

[foldr]

I find cyclists in London annoying too, but the vast majority of serious injuries to pedestrians are caused by cars.

As proof, I cite this amusingly stupid 2024 Daily Mail article which notes that "more than 30 pedestrians have been killed by cyclists over the past decade".

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13396307/The-rise-d...

[guappa]

How many are permanently disabled?

[guappa]

Let's not forget that bikes also usually have an electric engine, and sometimes even snow tires. So they are neither slow nor light.

[vfclists]

If it is a proper bike lane, ie a physically separated bike lane that shouldn't happen. If the speed at which you are allowed to drive at is high enough that colliding with a pedestrian or cyclist will cause them serious injury or death then the road design is wrong.

Simple fact is people make errors in judgement, suffer lapses in concentration, or even develop strokes when they are on the highways. A person moving around on urban roads who suffers such an event should not suffer life-changing injuries or death from it.

A safe road environment which pedestrians and cyclists are allowed to use is one in which the horizontal impact of a collision shouldn't result in serious injury or death. Death should only come from an impact which involves in serious head injury, such as the head striking the sidewalk, a heavy vehicle rolling over a person, or the case of a frail elderly person.

If you get back to UK law for instance, there are 19th century laws(they still on the books) which forbade "furious riding" on public highways which should tell you that riding at a gallop on a public road was illegal, and would be even more so in a built up area shared with pedestrians and other horse carriages. There were no cars or even bicycles them. It is one of the laws under which cyclists can be prosecuted.

Cars doing 30mph outpace galloping horses which should tell you that even at 50kph cars are driving at speeds considered dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists around them.

Yet a cyclist who has no more protection than a pedestrian is supposed to share a road with 2+tonne vehicles of reinforced steel travelling at speeds far faster than a horse rider or carriage driver riding furiously.

How does that make sense?

I see you are Walter Bright of Zortech C++ infamy and the D language ;)

[close04]

> Cars doing 30mph outpace galloping horses

> Yet a cyclist who has no more protection than a pedestrian is supposed to share a road with 2+tonne vehicles of reinforced steel travelling at speeds

By speed alone, bikes are to pedestrians what cars are to bikes. A pedestrian will walk at 3-5km/h. A bike will be 5-7 times faster than that at 15-35km/h (especially since the advent of e-bikes which ignore assist requirements). Cars will be 1.5-4 times faster at 40-50km/h. Where I live I feel less safe as a pedestrian sharing the sidewalk with a bike lane than I feel on the bike sharing the street with cars (except car doors randomly opened in my path, that's what terrifies me). Not a day passes without a cyclist almost running me over when I cross on a green light, or because they try to squeeze around on the sidewalk at unsafely high speeds.

When it comes to protection, the usual killer is a strong hit on the head. You don't need too much speed to cause a fall. But despite cyclists riding and implicitly hitting the ground at higher speeds, protecting the old melon with a helmet is still seen as optional (embarrassing, unfashionable, uncomfortable). Cyclists take fewer precautions than drivers while exposing themselves to higher risks than pedestrians.

Can't tell you how many times I was asked why am I bothering with the helmet, "I'll get suntan stripes". In my circle of friends the only other one wearing a helmet for city riding (everyone wears it on the long roadbike rides) is one who has a lot of kids as is terrified of leaving them without a father. Everyone else rides as if the epitaph of "The other guy should have paid more attention" will give anyone consolation.

[Illotus]

If only the speed was the big issue, but mostly it is the mass. Even with all the reckless cyclists there are very little fatalities where cyclist runs over pedestrian. Ultimately separating all groups would be the best, but heavy consequences for the heaviest road users is ultimately the solution.

[close04]

> Ultimately separating all groups would be the best, but heavy consequences for the heaviest road users is ultimately the solution.

I agree that physical separation would be the best, with curbs or fences not just painted lines.

As a pedestrian I would very much like to not share the sidewalk with any vehicle under any circumstances. Most people riding a vehicle on the sidewalk have no real legal constraints and the least respect I've witnessed anyone having towards the rest of the people. Pedestrians come in all shapes, sizes and ages, can't walk like robots and will easily step into the bike lane, or drop something, or a child will run around, etc. Riding at 30km/h in that environment is common and stupid.

As a cyclist I'd much rather have the cycling lane on the street. Cars are more dangerous but also generally more predictable than pedestrians on a narrow sidewalk. Driving also has more regulation and enforcement. From my experience cars are a danger to me as cyclist at intersections (the dreaded right turn) and a terrifying thought when it comes to doors opening in front of me.

As a driver I'd rather lose a driving lane to a cycling one than to have cyclists randomly bobbing in and out of my lane, crossing my path after crossing a red light, or after ignoring the right of way.

[steve_gh]

The classic one is the number of cyclists riding along with their helmet dangling from the handlebars.

[WalterBright]

I've been told by a cyclist that a lot of Seattle bikers have implants for front teeth.

[microtonal]

Which shows that there is something wrong with Seattle. In my city the vast majority of people cycle. In my 42 years, I can only remember one person who lost a tooth cycling. We were kids and there was no car nearby.

I cannot even think of many people with a serious injury at all. And me and my peers started cycling when we were 4 or 5 and most still do it daily (it’s the primary means of transportation within the city).

Build a bike infrastructure, make car drivers more responsible. People will be healthier because they have daily workouts.

[vfclists]

> By speed alone, bikes are to pedestrians what cars are to bikes. A pedestrian will walk at 3-5km/h. A bike will be 5-7 times faster than that at 15-35km/h (especially since the advent of e-bikes which ignore assist requirements). Cars will be 1.5-4 times faster at 40-50km/h.

When it comes to collision you should remember the formula "half m v squared". A cyclist with his bike is usually less than 100kg which yields on impact. A collision with a pedestrian can be as bad for the cyclist as it is for pedestrian.

A car will be at least 20 times heavier and twice as fast as the cyclist and will not yield on impact. The bonnet and windscreen maybe, but not the chassis after the bumper yields.

> Where I live I feel less safe as a pedestrian sharing the sidewalk with a bike lane than I feel on the bike sharing the street with cars (except car doors randomly opened in my path, that's what terrifies me). Not a day passes without a cyclist almost running me over when I cross on a green light, or because they try to squeeze around on the sidewalk at unsafely high speeds.

Statistically you are in far more danger of getting killed by a motor vehicle on the sidewalk or an intersection than you are by a cyclist riding the sidewalk or jumping a red light. A cyclist will usually inflict a painful bruise on collision. Even needing to be hospitalized is unlikely.

Despite the blatant and often overlooked red light jumping by cyclists on busy city streets, how many fatalities occur from that behaviour, compared with those from motor vehicles?

Another thing to be said. The danger from the cyclist stems primarily from the cyclists riding manners, and has more to do with the social and cultural attitudes. The danger of the motor vehicle comes from the nature of the motor vehicle itself, its mass, steel reinforcement and speed which is compounded by the attitudes of drivers.

The average speed of a cyclist on urban streets is roughly that of a top level marathon runner if not less, and how scared are you by the danger a marathon runner with a metal bar held in front of them poses in a collision?

> Can't tell you how many times I was asked why am I bothering with the helmet,

On the matter of cyclists wearing helmets, how different is a cyclist riding on a narrow road without a sidewalk differ from pedestrian walking the same road? Does the absence of a safe sidewalk to use mean the pedestrian should wear a helmet in case they collide with a car?

Helmets worn by cyclists are no different from those worn by horse-riders or in other high impact sports. They serve to protect the helmets from impacts incurred on their own account, not from collisions with motor vehicles, although they do help in the latter.

[close04]

> When it comes to collision you should remember the formula "half m v squared"

Of course a car is faster, heavier, and more dangerous but spherical cow and all that. I've never seen a "frontal" collision between a pedestrian and a cyclist. And 99% of incidents I've witnessed between cars and cyclists were side swipes (the car slides into the cyclist's path and the contact is on the side) or the car flat on cutting off the cyclist who subsequently hit the side of the car like a wall. Neither are influenced much by speed.

> how different is a cyclist riding on a narrow road without a sidewalk differ from pedestrian walking the same road?

About 25km/h of difference. Meaning anything the cyclist does happens 7 times faster than with the pedestrian. Hit a pothole? You fly over the handle bars for some meters at 25-30km/h instead of 1.5m under pure gravity.

> They serve to protect the helmets from impacts incurred on their own account

Helmets are there to protect your head from an impact. They don't bother to assess blame.

You're really taking this as "but that's worse so nothing else matters". And this makes you forget one obvious thing: everyone is a pedestrian, not everyone is a cyclist or a driver. Whether you're 8 or 80 years old you're a pedestrian so there's no excuse to endanger them because "it could be worse". And another big difference is street traffic is regulated, sidewalk traffic is not. A cyclist among pedestrians is a more immediate and unpredictable danger to pedestrians (sure, not deadly, a broken wrist is just really unpleasant).

The bottom line is that from my personal experience looking around as mainly a pedestrian and a cyclist, this conversation withstanding, cyclists are the group of people who always expect the favorable treatment even though the cyclist who respects the law is more of a mythical creature. On the street the cars are bigger and faster so should pay more attention. On the sidewalk the same logic no longer applies, the bike is "not that fast or heavy", the injuries aren't "that serious" so the pedestrians should pay attention instead.

[bluGill]

Almost all roads are designed in the US by a professional engineer who is legally liable for the design. we need hold them responsible for not designing good infrastructure. If politicians don't allow for something safe than their job is to say it cannot be done.

[guappa]

Because professional engineers never once in history made a mistake.

[bluGill]

If you are ignorant of things well known in the literature that is not a mistake. Even if everyone else is, that is not an excuse, their job is to design things safe.

[guappa]

I wonder about your life, if you can be so certain that people do not make mistakes. I really am curious how it would be to live in such a world.

[zezcat]

please never change to how the dutch do it. If you do not cycle in the netherlands, it's a nightmare. The cyclists don't obey traffic laws, hell they don't even look down roads most of the times for oncoming traffic.

[guappa]

The dutch also invested in having a completely flat nation.

[tromp]

They're quite rare but we do have some steep hills, like this 22% one:

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8471239,5.8741469,3a,90y,196...

[GateCrasher]

Which is a valid, but much less important argument since the advent of the electric bike

[richardw]

I wonder if the flatness of the country plays a part? I live on a hill and am surrounded by hills. A 3km ride in any direction and back is hard work. Lots of e-bikes here, and lots of mountain biking. But when I suggested getting a bike to my SO for her to get to the closest bus stop faster, the hills were the reason why she’d rather walk.

[tfourb]

This is almost completely solved by e-bikes. You can convert practically any bike to an e-bike and while it does cost money, it is cheaper than the costs associated with driving a car or the bus by orders of magnitude over the life time of the bike.

Walking is fine as well, though. No real reason to play off walking and cycling against each other.

[richardw]

> Walking is fine as well, though. No real reason to play off walking and cycling against each other.

Reason 1: a 6 year old who would like more time with an overworked mother who can’t move from her job (yet) due to visa reasons.

[dncornholio]

E-bikes are at least 5 times more expensive. Not everyone can afford one.

[Filligree]

Far cheaper than cars though. But compared to walking, yeah.

[seanmcdirmid]

I rode a bike in Lausanne, which was a primarily 3D city. T was a bit of a struggle to get up the hill in the morning though, you could coast back down at night. Before that I lived in Seattle which wasn’t as extreme, but if you lived on say Queen Anne hill instead of Ballard, I could see where that wouldn’t work out. Maybe that’s why Minneapolis has better cycling infrastructure than Seattle.

[loa_in_]

The best part of biking uphill is that you can just walk alongside your bike if you want to take a break and you lose nothing

[Reason077]

e-bikes are getting pretty popular. Solves the hill problem.

[robertlagrant]

Yes, super-recent developments may obviate hills, but 40 years of city design have already happened. The Netherlands case was easy mode, and they leaned into it while extending their cities. That's not useful for almost any other country.

Also e-bikes are expensive and heavy, of course, so they're a good gentrification measure, if you're into that sort of thing, but they aren't for everyone.

[GateCrasher]

Alot cheaper and less heavy then a car.

[robertlagrant]

And cheaper and less heavy than a space shuttle. But neither will seem that relevant when it comes to parking and securing your electric bike when you live 5 floors up.

[WalterBright]

A local nurse told me they had a lot of victims of "Lime Disease" in the hospitals, i.e. people who rode those Lime bicycles without a helmet.

[dncornholio]

> The hard part is that you also need to build a cycling culture.

> You also have to change the regulations so that car drivers are (partially) legally responsible for accidents

This is all easy to create. It all starts with infrastructure. If you have infrastructure that is safe for bikes, you will create culture. You will also open up extra legal safeguards, but it has to start with infrastructure.

[hansvm]

> even when a cyclist or a pedestrian made the error

Surely this depends on how bad the error is?

Suppose you have a cyclist and driver traveling opposite (180 degrees) directions on the same road toward a 4-way stop. The driver stops, looks all ways, notes the cyclist approaching the intersection soon, and enters the intersection. The cyclist then does not stop, does not signal, and turns left (from their perspective) in front of the car which was already in the intersection.

Most of the time, you'd probably need one more failure for that to result in a collision (manufacturer's defect in the accelerator, cyclist slips and falls, ...), but suppose the car did hit the cyclist and none of those other failures were the driver's fault either. In your model, how much legal blame should the driver have?

[lenlorijn]

I briefly studied law in the Netherlands and it was used as an example. Our lecturer told us that if "A person on a bike would jump out of an airplane on a bike, land with a parachute on a highway and get hit by a car, just maybe would the car have a case." The reasons for this are varied. Cars are insured, bikes are not. But most importantly, in basically all traffic situations with cars and bikes the car introduces the danger and should thus bear the responsibility of any accidents.

If I go out in public swinging a katana, and someone walks in to it. I'm still the person swinging a katana in public. Driving around in 1.5 metric tonnes of steel and glass comes with certain responsibilities.

[CalRobert]

I think the big issue here is that drivers are tested (poorly) and licensed. Cyclists aren't, which is good because it includes kids. Are we going to hold 8 year olds legally liable? They're allowed to bike on the public streets and roads, after all.

[dncornholio]

> Surely this depends on how bad the error is?

Not really. If you cross the road on a bike and you get hit by a car, they will have to pay at least 50% of costs, even if the car didn't speed.

Another example is a car crossing the green light but a cyclist crosses when it's red and gets hit. Again the car has to pay up.

This seems out of this world but with how protected the cylists are on the road from infrastructure, these events happen way less than you think.

[tyre]

and the incentives already exist for cyclists to avoid accidents!

[short_sells_poo]

This also requires said vulnerable participants to stop having a deathwish. I'm scared to hell from cyclists in London, because they are inconsiderate and extremely unpredictable. Try rolling up to a major 4 lane intersection, and you are going to have cyclists materializing out of thin air on both sides.

Furthermore, visibility on UK roads is very poor. You often have very tall hedges lining streets, which means you can't see more than a few meters until the very last moment.

You'd need to basically rip up the entire city and rebuild it from scratch, and then replace all the inhabitants with rational actors. It's simply not going to happen otherwise.

[vfclists]

> and you are going to have cyclists materializing out of thin air on both sides.

It is called filtering and it is totally legal in the UK. It should be no problem if you are patient and allow the cyclists to ride off first when the lights go green.

In a properly designed system the green light should come on for the cyclists first, then the larger vehicles can follow on after that.

[short_sells_poo]

Ah yes, thanks for mansplaining that to me. I was totally unaware that the concept of filtering exists - particularly as a motorbike rider of 20 years...

With that out of the way, like all things, filtering works when all participants are careful. Motorbikes are actually quite a bit easier to deal with (as a car driver), because a) they can be heard and b) they are quite a bit bulkier.

Even as a motorbike rider, it's not cars that I'm most afraid of, but cyclists. Again, this is not about arguing against being careful - on the contrary. I'd like the cyclists to exercise just as much care as they are asking others to exercise. It's basic self preservation. What good is it to a dead cyclist that it was the truck driver's fault?