[ktosobcy]

Everything boils down to terrible (USA?) "city" planning - instead of having anything relatively close-by so you can walk to to get the groceries or the "burrito" can be delivered on bike it has to involved absurdly heavy car...

[Gigachad]

It’s crazy that Americans have to come up with such absurd schemes like self driving cars to move burritos. Rather than just walking outside and to the restaurant.

Very much treating the symptoms rather than the root problems.

[rajamaka]

Food delivery exists outside of the US too fyi

[ktosobcy]

Yes they do but if I want to grab something to eat I just go downstairs and have a supermarket or a restaurant within 5 minutes walk so there's that.

[ben-schaaf]

Yes it does, and at least for me locally it's all done by motorcycle or E-Bike.

[windward]

dabbawalas have existed for a century

[asdff]

Here in socal everything is in biking distance. Best weather in the country. People just refuse to do it.

[zonotope]

How's the bike infrastructure? Do bikes have to share the road with cars? Are protected bike lanes ubiquitous, or do bikers have to worry about being run over by a distracted driver?

There's a lot of empirical evidence that people will chose bikes over cars if the infrastructure made it safe and convenient, even with terrible weather. Paris, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam come to mind, but there are many more examples.

[WheatMillington]

Isn't socal famously extremely expensive to live? I don't live in America but that's my understanding.

[asdff]

It is expensive like London is expensive. There are rich people and there are not rich people like other expensive places around the world. Median income in la county is only $38k however.

[dzhiurgis]

Imagine getting paid for riding bike in beautiful weather in a beautiful city.

[asdff]

Oh I tried at one point to get paid while I'm spending time biking anyhow. Doordash wasnt taking new dashers. Ubereats let me sign up but 3 days of having the app open I got no orders so I gave up. I guess they deprioritize bike delivery that heavily. Little do they know I am faster than cars on surface streets.

[hshdhdhehd]

Jobifying anything makes it a bit shit. There be deadlines. There be angry customers. There be rain and hale.

[dheera]

Mostly because biking in socal is actually dangerous. Drivers see bikers as scum, not as bona fide road users.

[asdff]

Ehh, I take the full lane. I survive. They honk sometimes sure.

[hshdhdhehd]

Sample size 1. May be an element of survival bias.

[asdff]

Look at the very low rate of accidents for cyclists and then consider the fact that the bulk of that dataset at least among american populations is going to be comprised of cyclists who are drunk, high, both, mentally ill, or otherwise showing little regard for the rule of law on the road. Don't be drunk, be sane, follow the rules of traffic, and you have shifted to an extremely low risk demographic where the accident rate may well be close to zero.

[Fricken]

Statistically cyclists live longer than non-cyclists.