As semi-autonomous and autonomous cars become the norm, I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road.
Additionally, most cyclists I see never stop at stop signs no matter how busy the intersection is.
That said, this is coming from me as a pedestrian, so maybe someone who was primarily a driver would have a completely different take from both of us.
But I don't go barreling past pedestrians, and make sure I give them the right of way.
While I am sticking to the roads, I don't blame other cyclists for seeking refuge on the sidewalks.
That's not universal, but I do wish they would just learn those laws for their state.
In my state, they have equal rights, and that is that no one has the right of way. If you run into someone, it's your fault full stop. If you couldn't stop in time, then you were travelling too fast for the situation. If someone is blocking the sidewalk, they're a dick, but you can't do anything about it without getting arrested except to find another way around.
Also, if you're on a bike and about to pass a pedestrian, you must give an audible (to the ped) signal so as to warn of your approach. Even then, if you hit them, it's because you were going to fast to stop safely in case they wandered into your path.
I love the laws in my state regarding shared cycling/pedestrian ways, and sidewalks in particular. Very reasonable and fair.
Lol, like hell it would. The supposed "danger" is not worth more legislation and overreach.
That's actually not true. Most surveys I've seen show that drivers are at fault ~80% of the time.
Or is that a de-facto ban on cycling.
If they ride on the sidewalk, they should behave like pedestrians. That is, do not blast into the crosswalk at 20mph (impossible for drivers to safely check for in most environments), do not randomly enter the road from the sidewalk, pass pedestrians at a respectful speed and distance, etc.
If they ride on the road, they should behave similarly to motorists. That is, actually obey stop signs (rolling stop, or even treating it like a yield is okay), and actually obey traffic lights.
I'll even tolerate transitioning from one to the other at appropriate traffic stops. Just please don't get upset if I almost run you over for abruptly taking right of way you never legally had.
Cyclists are not licensed and their bicycles are not tagged or inspected for safe operation on roads, unlike motorists.
Cyclists are rarely subjected to traffic law enforcement despite demanding all of the rights that motorists pay for and are licensed for.
Cyclists are a danger to themselves and others while operating in the same area as motorists, but are not required to carry insurance or wear safety equipment, while motorists are held to more stringent regulation.
In a nutshell, cyclists are free-riding risk takers who are arrogant to boot. When they start acting like motorists and pay taxes like motorists and are fined like motorists for violating the law, I will happily change my opinion.
“Yes I’ve been in an accident on my bike Mr. Poll Taker.”
“What? Of course it was the other guy’s fault!”
You’re absolutely right, roadways are insanely expensive. That’s why it’s infuriating to see entire lanes expropriated for cyclists.
For the record, I support closing that gap, in addition to taxing the odometer on electric vehicles which don’t contribute to gas tax revenue but use roadways like other motorists.
IIUC, cars are pretty much universally permitted to go through red lights at least 1/3 of the time -- right on red is legal (AFAIK) in all 50 states. In many states, left on red from a one-way street to another one-way street is also legal.
Is there a specific state's laws that you think describe a circumstances when a bike may proceed through a red light, but it is unsafe to do so?
If so, how does that unsafety compare to your opinion on cars turning right on red?
Sorry if I wasn't clear in my wording. By "survey" I was trying to point to the specific kind of research methodology where you survey people about what has happened in the past instead of trying to control variables like in a typical experiment.
I wasn't talking about random internet polls or self-reported blame analyses, but actual research papers.
How many cyclists can fit in a space of one car? Or, would you rather that every cyclist was in a car instead? Would that increase or decrease congestion?
> occupy road space that was created through taxes on motorists while paying nothing for these benefits
So roads get funded in full by motorists and cyclists can't possibly also own motorized vehicles and they don't pay tax that definitely doesn't contribute to the roads that they surely wear down at a rate that's not on the order of tens to hundreds of thousands lower than cars. Oh and 16 lane highways are built because of all the damn cyclists clogging up the roads.
> Cyclists are not licensed and their bicycles are not tagged or inspected for safe operation on roads, unlike motorists.
A cyclist on the road is only a danger to himself. A motorist can mow down a school trip on a pedestrian crossing on a whim.
The latter two points just repeat the above. Yes, driving a 2 ton machine at 80 mph is going to have be a little more restricted than a 20 kg bicycle at 20 mph.
But the tax is still constantly being collected even though the rate isn't going up. This is like saying electricity must be free if you haven't had a rate hike in a while.
I don't think you understood what you wrote. Non-motorists subsidize motorists.
Feel free to look up the % of funding for roads that gas tax or w/e accounts for in your country.
Also look up the fourth power law, that'll tell you how much tax a cyclist should pay compared to a driver in terms of road wear. Say a cyclist should pay $1, how much should you?
Then check how many millions it costs to build a mile of highway and internalize the fact that cyclists are not allowed there. Nor do they use car parking. Nor do they cause 40 thousand deaths per year in the USA. What's the cost of human life again?
Once you figure all that out, we'll be ready to start talking about pollution and its effects.
Depends on the state. Some are specifically "if there's a vehicle detection sensor and it doesn't detect your bike after 90 seconds", others are just "cyclists may treat a stop sign as a yield sign and a red light as a stop sign".
Paying for our highways circa 1993 [1].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta...
Complaining about cyclists getting bike lanes is like complaining about pedestrians getting footpaths.
Road wear is not the main issue. Roads will deteriorate whether they’re used or not. They will deteriorate faster with heavier traffic, sure. But deterioration from temperature cycling, road salt application, and weather happens whether they’re used or not. If cyclists want to use this infrastructure, they should contribute to its upkeep.
If cyclists have a car and contribute by paying these taxes and fees, then let’s build a regulatory regime that exempts these users from cyclist fees and taxes. The point here is to make those using the infrastructure pay for their share of upkeep and their contribution to congestion.
Deer are only a danger to themselves too, right? People never experience damage to their vehicle or personal injury when they hit a deer? The damage and risk is not proportional to both parties, sure. But it is false to say that drivers experience no risk of damage or bodily injury when in an accident with a cyclist who disobeys traffic laws. Cyclists should be insured at whatever rate is necessary to protect against this risk.
Your school children example is not really applicable here. We’re discussing cyclists who want to be treated like motorists but refuse to act like them and obey common traffic rules. That is about as far as you can get from from an innocent group of school children crossing the street with the flashing red stop sign on the school bus activated.
You can’t have it both ways. If cyclists are going to use roads designed for and paid by motorists, they should be subject to the same rules, regulations, taxes, and enforcement.
You’re welcome to defend a double standard for cyclists, but it won’t change the fact that it is indeed a double standard and is inherently unfair.
I think there exist situations where it's reasonable for cyclists to go through red lights. I think there exist situations where it's reasonable for cars to go through red lights.
Roads are designed for both bikes and cars alike, or do they not have bike lanes where you're from? Since bicycles and cars are fundamentally different vehicles, they should have different sets of laws applied to them. To try to apply the same set of rules would be inherently unfair. You're welcome to try to argue that that's actually fair, but you've currently backed up your stance with nothing but fake leading questions and baseless claims.
"The law prohibits the rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges"
Roads deteriorate whether they’re used or not. If cyclists want to use them, they should pay to maintain them. I don’t know why you find this idea so controversial. Adjust the fees commensurate with their weight if you want, but by definition those fees should not be zero.
Roads are obviously expensive, hence why it is repulsive that cyclists pay nothing to build or maintain them, but actively increase the danger on them and degrade the efficiency of using them.
Pollution? In what world do cyclists not require fuel to operate? Cyclists use the most expensive fuel possible to operate: consumable calories. We burn fuel to operate machinery to produce food, then transport it to stores and then transport it home, cook it, and then use only a portion of the available calories to operate a bicycle because the human body isn’t 100% efficient.
You’re delusional if you somehow think cycling is good for the environment.
By your logic, this is fine because the kids aren’t pooping in the park which degrades it less.
Never mind that the park was created for dog owners, and their enjoyment of it is impaired by these new restrictions placed on them by people who shouldn’t even be there.
To be like that, almost everyone would need to own a dog, and everyone including the non-dog-owners would have things delivered by dog, the dog park would have to actively block access to most places, and the fees for the dog owners pay for the dog park would have to be insufficient for the dog park and the park instead subsidised by general taxation even from the people who only get stuff delivered by dog… which would be quite fair and reasonable because almost all the damage to the dog park that the maintenance fees would need to cover, would be due to specifically the delivery dogs.
The actual point of the dog park fees in this scenario would be to reduce the usage of the dog park, due to everyone riding their dogs everywhere. Which is a heck of a mental image.
Roads aren't for pleasure, they're economic infrastructure that some people happen to enjoy.
You are using a state service whenever you use the road. It is a subsidy that people who are the largest offenders consistently choose to entrench.
Allowing cyclists to run red lights significantly reduces mortality. Waiting at an intersection is provably one of the most dangerous moments for cyclists.
Your “obvious” example is something that’s unknowable to you as an individual. You have no knowledge of the effective throughput of the road ahead of you.
The disdain you have for cyclists seems bizarre and misplaced. The idea that it’s a double standard is wrong — the standards are set to minimize harm and maximize effective throughput. Having separate rules is entirely consistent here. If we subsidized the lifestyle of cyclists as much as motorists, this would be a non problem.
There were no bike lanes in the city I live in until ten years ago. They took lanes on roads that were never designed to accommodate cyclists and and made them bicycle only lanes. The result is increased traffic congestion and more accidents.
The reality is that very few roads in America were ever designed to accommodate cyclists and in order to please a small but very vocal minority of people, lanes were stolen, in the literal sense of the word, from motorists and given to cyclists.
That is what it takes to keep cyclists safe on roads: redistribution of property from those who funded it and for whom it was designed for originally, giving it to cyclists. And even doing that can’t truly protect them when they do dumb things, like run red lights.
The truly unfair and dangerous thing here is propagating the illusion that cyclists can coexist with motorists. They can’t, for all of the reasons you yourself stated.
Obviously I’m discussing things as I believe they should be, not as they are, so I’m not sure what evidence you want me to provide, short of the logic inherent in the arguments I’m making. Feel free to point out where you think there are gaps in the logic.
Why are you okay with the double standard of redistributing property to the motorists, but not redistributing property from the motorists?
I find your position immensely hypocritical.
What do you think is the leading cause of death for Americans younger than 45?
Thank you for sharing that. I hope you feel better now.
> Allowing cyclists to run red lights significantly reduces mortality. Waiting at an intersection is provably one of the most dangerous moments for cyclists.
The second sentence of the abstract of this study would imply you're ignorant, but I won't stoop to name calling:
"Red light running violation of bicyclists is the major contributory factor to the crash involvement of bicyclists worldwide."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22143...
> Your "obvious" example is something that's unknowable to you as an individual. You have no knowledge of the effective throughput of the road ahead of you.
If I'm following a cyclist who is going 20mph in a 30mph zone, they're contributing to congestion. This is obvious to every human, even those who have never even seen modern infrastructure or the vehicles that operate on it. It happens when walking in hallways or on stairways. When someone is slow and people can't get around them, you get congestion.
> The disdain you have for cyclists seems bizarre and misplaced
I don't have any disdain for cyclists, only those dumb enough to try and coexist with motorists and arrogant enough to try and change traffic laws and infrastructure to fit their needs at the expense of everyone else.
I ride my bicycle at the park with my kids, and partly why I feel so passionately about this is because I don't want my kids riding in situations where they are very likely to get themselves injured or killed.
You're absolutely right, waiting at an intersection is one of the most dangerous moments for cyclists. This is because riding on roads with motorists is the most dangerous moment for cyclists.
There is no way to make it safe for cyclists to coexist with motorists. Mixing the two results in more people getting injured and dying. This should be reason enough to ban them from roads with motor vehicles, putting aside every other issue I've raised.
Allowing them to run red lights is a recipe for disaster. Use your brain: motorists reasonably and rightfully expect to have the right of way when the light is green. Literally every other moving object yields to them at intersections with a signal. Making an exception for cyclists will result in more people running red lights, and more corresponding injuries and deaths.
> The idea that it's a double standard is wrong — the standards are set to minimize harm and maximize effective throughput.
Go look up what the phrase double standard means. It is by definition a double standard. You can defend the double standard, but that doesn't change the fact that it is one.
> If we subsidized the lifestyle of cyclists as much as motorists, this would be a non-problem.
If by this you mean we should reduce the amount of subsidization to zero for both, I agree completely. Infrastructure should be paid for with use fees. If cyclists want to use it they should pay for it. If motorists want to use it, they should pay for it. Currently motorists contribute, while cyclists do not.
Dog owners are the motorists. Dedicated infrastructure was built specifically for them to use.
Parents with kids are the cyclists. They want to restrict how that infrastructure is used so that they can enjoy it in the way that is most convenient for them, at the expense of the dog owners.
Initially, dog owners used the park freely without any interference from parents with kids. But at some point, parents with kids felt they were entitled to use the dog park in ways it was never intended to be used, and changed regulations to restrict dog owners enjoyment of the park.
I intentionally left out any discussion of how these things are paid for to highlight the unfairness of this situation. It doesn't matter how it's paid for, since the infrastructure already exists for a specific purpose and is being used for that purpose.
To include the finance side of things in this analogy, it would be like funding the dog park with a special sales tax on dog food, which increases the unfairness of the whole situation when it's taken over by the parents with kids, who paid nothing to maintain or build it.
In case you don't understand how analogies work, they highlight critical similarities between two situations that are otherwise dissimilar to help understand the underlying concept. They aren't parallel in all respects, nor can they be.
If your best argument against my analogy is to introduce irrelevant dissimilarities to distract from the obvious point of the analogy, I'll take that as an endorsement it was effective.
I know that’s not really what you were getting at with you comment, but it’s worth noting when people try to demonize cars, as cyclists are wont to do: they’re the least bad and most versatile mode of mass transportation available.
The context in which the automobile met horses matters: contrary to your portrayal of roads, very few of them were actually paved in any meaningful sense. They were mostly compacted dirt, sometimes gravel. Lanes existed in a less explicit way, and speeds were much slower because pedestrians were always mixed in as well.
Cars were a vast improvement over this situation along every meaningful axis. They’re faster, don’t leave manure on streets, and are safer when you consider operation. Horses get spooked and buck their riders, they can kick, they weigh hundreds of pounds and can crush you. And most importantly, they were cheaper than owning a horse. People didn’t switch overnight for no reason.
To the heart of your comment, the reason why we have the infrastructure we do is because cars were so much more capable than horses. Traffic signals, lane demarcations, signage: all of these things came about because cars were so much faster than horses. Congestion doesn’t matter if you can get there in half the time.
When you need to get to the hospital, do you ride a bike? When you want to buy a couch at the store, how do you get it home? When you need to visit your grandparents the next state over, how do you get there?
Overwhelmingly, the answer is a motor vehicle. Unfortunately, the value of that vehicle is proportional to the infrastructure available to use it.
Here’s the rub: cycling is a luxury. Access to a motor vehicle when you need it is a neccesity. When you need to get to the ER, the last thing you want to do is be fighting a bunch cyclists to get there. When it’s snowing and -20F outside, you’re only taking the bike if you absolutely have too.
Your freedom of movement depends on infrastructure built for motor vehicles. Your ability to really do anything beyond get to work and back in a city depends on reliable and efficient access to a motor vehicle.
We should stop wasting money on bike lanes and build real public transit in our cities. The reason people feel compelled to use a bike is the alternatives are too awful to be competitive.
If you think that’s hypocritical, I don’t know what to tell you. Cyclists degrade infrastructure built for motorists. Infrastructure you need. Infrastructure they contribute to the upkeep of via gas taxes.
Not sure about the answer to your question without looking it up, but probably “car crash” given the context of our conversation.
[Citation needed]
That's really a...unique...take. The reduction in disease was due to things like antibiotics and water treatment facilities, and preventing contamination from human sewage. Horse manure does not cause widespread disease.
Are you just making things up? Like, that's LLM-level hallucination right there.
The rest of your comment is just you stating your opinion as though it's fact because I guess you live somewhere 100% car dependent. Just because your freedom of movement and ability to do things other than commute relies on a motor vehicle, does not make that true of others outside your bubble of wealth.
That said, as established above I'm either arguing with a robot or with a person who has no problem inventing swaths of history out of whole cloth, so I guess the joke is on me.
https://www.nytimes.com/1869/03/08/archives/velocipedes-thei... | https://archive.is/UDhZf
Bike cops in NYC in the late 1800s were likely more common than cars.
https://flatironnomad.nyc/history/brief-history-of-bicycling... | https://web.archive.org/web/20250713044710/https://flatironn...
> In 1896, then New York City Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt launched the first-ever group of bicycle-riding officers. This team evolved into a 100-member organization with its own station stated Evan Friss, co-curator of the Museum of the City of New York’s 2019 exhibit Cycling in the City: A 200-Year History[0].
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20250319112028/https://www.mcny....
By the time this film was created in 1911, cars existed, but they had to share the road with pedestrians, cable cars, and horse carriages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx5sUa_2SD8
> This documentary travelogue of New York City in 1911 was made by a team of cameramen with the Swedish company Svenska Biografteatern, who were sent around the world to make pictures of well-known places.
> Opening and closing with shots of the Statue of Liberty, the film also includes New York Harbor; Battery Park and the John Ericsson statue; the elevated railways at Bowery and Worth Streets; Broadway sights like Grace Church and Mark Cross; the Flatiron Building on Fifth Avenue; and Madison Avenue. Produced only three years before the outbreak of World War I, the everyday life of the city recorded here—street traffic, people going about their business—has a casual, almost pastoral quality that differs from the modernist perspective of later city-symphony films like Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler’s "Manhatta" (1921). Take note of the surprising and remarkably timeless expression of boredom exhibited by a young girl filmed as she was chauffeured along Broadway in the front seat of a convertible limousine.
Jaywalking wasn't even really a concept until ~1915. It's legal again in NYC as of last year. Jaywalking laws against pedestrians and other non-drivers could be viewed as a taking from or enclosure of the commons; in this case, roads as public thoroughfares for one and all. In this light, the behavior of drivers towards cyclists is a continuation of their hostility towards horse carriage users and pedestrians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking
https://www.cnn.com/travel/jaywalking-legalized-new-york-cit... | https://archive.is/Y2MCk
Folks have been cycling in NYC long before cars were common. Before that, folks were using the roads for all manner of pursuits. Roads are tools for living, and they're for everyone who needs them if a better option more suited for your mode of transportation isn't available.
“Industrialization contributed greatly to the elimination of typhoid fever, as it eliminated the public health hazards associated with having horse manure in public streets, which led to a large number of flies, which are vectors of many pathogens, including Salmonella spp.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_fever
I appreciate the compliment, but no, I’m not an LLM, just an ordinary guy who has more understanding of these issues than you do.
Here’s a wild idea: fact check the stuff you claim I’m making up before you make a fool of yourself.
I think this conversation is over. You’re clearly an angry, closed minded person. Have a nice day.