I won’t lie, I’m split on this one. If I’m in a city and the speed limit is 25 and they are going 15, I’m patient behind them. The next traffic light is going to slow me down more than a pair of bikes. If I’m somewhere rural, the speed limit is over 50, and im on a road that sees about 10 cars an hour, yes you have the right of way, but it feels really inconsiderate not to move over for a couple seconds to let someone pass.
a) that road definitely is not with a speed limit over 50 and b) you cannot pass even a single bike here in a safe manner, in Germany for example it would be a misdemeanor to even try.
The speed limit on that road is 70km/h. I commuted to work on it last summer. I suppose it looks a bit slimmer than it actually is. It’s perfectly possible (and legal) to pass a bike safely, or even meet cars. The latter is a tight fit and you’d of course reduce your speed appropriately.
Well in those cases the UK highway code rule 66 says “Be aware of drivers behind you, and allow them to overtake (e.g. by moving into single file or stopping) when you feel it is safe to let them do so.”
Passing two bikes requires moving over more. If you pass two bikes with the same manoeuvre you use for passing one with enough space, you’ll be far too close to the outer bike.
If those cyclists were blocking an ambulance or transit which even take up more room, those cyclists are the biggest assholes on the planet. Size really isn’t the best argument here.
cars pull over as that’s part of the drivers training. You get fined also and that’s part of the course. The cyclists take no training so if the picture were accurate, that car would have pulled over two blocks ago and the cyclists would still be blocking the fire truck. Oh and the warehouse will be burnt down killing all the workers on less than minimum wage all just cuz two cyclists felt entitled to be spiteful assholes.
I don’t think it’s a warehouse, it’s an underprivileged children’s hospital cancer ward. Also the doctors in the ward are the only doctors in the region, meaning those two bike riders committed genocide
What ever it is you’re taking, you need to either take more or less of it. And you should see a mental health expert rather soon. Also, please do the world a favour and stay away from vehicles of any kind.
Bro do you think as soon as someone gets on a bicycle they forget what sirens mean? Do you honestly think that everyone on a bike with an ambulance behind them would just be dumbfounded and confused as to what it wants? And all of a sudden they’re entitled spiteful assholes as well?
Do you realize it’s people on those bicycles, not goblins?
Can you even imagine someone on a bike going “Nope! This is my lane! I have rights! Thou shall not pass!” while a fucking fire truck goes BRAAAAAAAAAH at +100 dB behind them? 😂
Your mental gymnastics is incredible! I have seen hundreds of YouTube videos with cars blocking Ambulances but I am yet to see a cyclist blocking one. My real life experience is also consistent with this.
So, you realize that the expected action from everyone on the road almost everywhere, regardless of the type of vehicle you’re using, is to pull to the side and stop as soon as you hear sirens specifically to prevent people from blocking emergency vehicles right? And since bikes are smaller and more nimble, they can do that much more effectively than a car.
Regardless, real world data shows that there are far more cases of cars blocking emergency vehicles than bikes, so you’re demonizing the wrong mode of transport on behalf of the ambulances here.
Most of the streets around here were built when the idea that every house could have a car would be viewed as a fantasy.
So you’ve got cars parked up and down each side of the road, and if two cars want to pass each other, then you have to hope that there’s space for one of you to pull over.
If you want to overtake even one bike, forget it. It’s probably got some balaclava wearing kid on it, weaving none-handed up the middle of the road.
Those kinds of streets are actually the safest for everyone because they enforce lower speeds and more attentive driving than any posted speed limit ever can. People don’t give two shits about speed laws and will drive as fast as they feel they can, so when the road is not conducive to driving fast, surprise surprise people don’t drive fast and collisions are rarely deadly.
It does matter. It’s safer for everyone if cyclists travel side by side in one lane because then the car driver has to spend less time in the oncoming lane to complete the overtake. A long string of bikes takes more time to safely pass.
It’s especially safer for the cyclists who risk getting side swiped and crushed by drivers trying to avoid going into the adjacent lane, and since cyclists have no steel box surrounding them, it’s a one sided battle that the car initiated in the first place. Riding side by side forces the car to do a normal, legal overtake by moving into the next lane.
Would it be less of a dick move if it was a faster cyclist or a motorcyclist needing to pass by? No, it might actually be worse.
The point is that we need to do our best to respect other road users, regardless of their method of transportation. Pedestrians, cyclist, motorcyclists, cars, lorries and even animals (perhaps especially animals)
Any side-by-side vehicles increases the amount of space taken on the road, which means it should be avoided when other travellers need to pass by. It’s the same reason that lorries or cars travelling side-by-side at the same speed on the highway is often frowned upon.
I really don’t get people who want to wage a constant social war over our shared infrastructure by being assholes to each other. Being decent and considerate is safer and more pleasant for everybody involved.
A car takes up at least the width of two bikes by default. Why do they have the right to do that while bikes don’t?
Maybe we should focus more on overall efficiency and sustainability of our transport systems, and by that metric, cars shouldn’t even exist. A four lane road takes up the same width as a two track rail corridor and mixed use pedesterian/bike paths on either side, but can transport far more people per hour than private cars while being both cheaper in the long run and more environmentally friendly.
Because they can move fast enough to not be in the way for people behind them, since they are among the fastest vehicles on our roads. Bikes are considerably slower, which makes it more of a nuisance for those they’re sharing the road with if they can’t easily be passed.
Bike lanes are a good thing, and being courteous is a good thing- that goes both for passing when safe and being respectful of bike riders when you’re driving a car, and also for allowing cars to pass where possible when you’re moving significantly slower than the average traffic speed on a bicycle. It doesn’t have to be adversarial.
Tracked vehicles tend to have priority against all other methods of transport on land. They’re just as incompatible with pedestrians and bikes as with busses, lorries and cars.
It’s far easier, cheaper, faster, and more space efficient to build a pedestrian or bike over/underpass than one for cars. A pedestrian overbridge is usually a community project with city involvement, a car overbridge is at the very least a city/country project potentially with state or federal funding.
Being courteous does solve that…? First off, trains don’t share the road, they follow tracks, so thats somewhat of a convoluted comparison. But more importantly, you stop at train crossings so the train can go first…? Is your argument that that’s inefficient? Everything is inefficient. Any solution to a really complicated problem like how multiple forms of transportation co-exist is going to have inefficiencies
Also, no idea where you got the idea that I would be opposed to building more rail and less cars? Cars should increasingly be de-prioritzed in favor of bikes, ebikes, and public transit, but bike riders should be courteous of those who are driving and vice versa, and cars should continue to stop at train tracks to allow trains to go by. Where on earth did you get the idea that my logic of “be considerate of those who are using a different means of transportation” means cars should go away or that cars shouldn’t go away? Also we definitely should be building rail, if we’re gonna deprioritze cars we need public transportation to help fill that gap for people who aren’t in a position to commute or travel by bike/ebike, but all of our infrastructure is currently built around cars, and even in a distant future there will be a need for cars in addition to bikes and trains, we just have way too many of them
I don’t mean to come across as rude, but your response to my comment honestly does really confuse me.
Be respectful of those you share the road with. That means driving in a way that’s safe for cyclists. That means letting cars go by (when safe to do so) when you’re cycling since they travel much faster than you. And definitely stop at train tracks so that trains can go by.
The answer is simple really. The car is one unit, the bikes (in this scenario) are two units, they don’t have to be considerate, but they have the option to do so.
I’ll give an equivalent example. Where I live we have a class of vehicles referred to as “moped cars”, same form factor as cars, but speed restricted to either 30 or 45 km/h. Usually they’re used by teens to get arouns in rural areas with poor public transit options, so they’ll often be trundling along on 70-90km/h roads at slow speed.
This can quickly lead to queues building up behind them during high traffic hours in areas with few passing opportunities. Quite often, when this happens, they’ll pull off to the side for a few seconds at an opportune spot to let other, faster vehicles, pass by. They don’t have to do this, but it is considerate.
As for the second half of your comment, each method of transportation has its niche and purpose. The best system is one that utilizes the strengths of each to complement the others. Attempting to apply a monolithic solution everywhere will generally lead to frustrations and inefficiencies.
Pedestrian - Trivial distances, any density.
Bike - Trivial -> Short distances, any density.
Cars - Short -> Long distances, low density.
Busses - Short -> Long distances, medium density.
Rail - Short -> Long distances, high density.
High Speed Rail - Medium -> Extreme distances, high density.
If my vehicle had the ability to change its width when I needed to, I’d agree with you, but my car does not have that option, the two bikes do, it wouldn’t take much effort for one to slide behind the other to let the vehicle behind pass, it’s a give and take with society, I’ll actively make sure to keep you safe from my vehicle, while bikes should actively try to allow larger or faster vehicles to pass safely instead of putting themselves at risk over something that takes no effort to do.
I’ll actively make sure to keep you safe from my vehicle
As someone who cycles on the road, I don’t trust you. Not in the slightest. Far too many close calls with cars trying to “sneak” by me because “oh I’m sure there’s plenty of room to the right” even in a bike-oriented city. I ride alone the vast majority of the time but having someone ride beside would actually make me feel safer because it means you actually have to perform a legal overtake which involves moving into the passing lane. Also, drivers are distracted all the time and I absolutely do not trust that every driver will actually notice a bike that’s off to their side when drivers are prone to straight up miss traffic lights that are right in front of their eyeline.
Ohh and I don’t trust the bikes I see riding around, the amount of people on bikes who have crossed In front of me while I’m driving the speed limit while never once looking behind them, causing me to have to slam my brakes on because I don’t want to hit someone on a bike.
Both sides of this argument need to show respect to each other on the road, it’s not a bikes are the problem or cars are the problem, people are the problem.
Like I said I actively try to ensure you guys are safe on the road when I pass you or see you coming up in front.
Great image, however slightly wrong. In some countries car pictured should be a huge fucking truck which people use to go and buy Starbucks because of deadly combination of ego issues and laziness.
Canada is kind of split on between urban and rural it seems. The major Canadian cities are all investing tons of money into public transportation with mostly positive reception, but as soon as you get out of the metro area it’s basically hillbilly truck country.
Exactly, but not in Canada because we don’t want to for whatever reason. Ironic thing is that public transport takes up a lot less physical space for infrastructure than freeway of similar capacity with interchanges, so public transportation actually protects farmers from having their livelihood encroached on by highway development. Two tracks and a station not much larger than the average barn leaves way more arable land than a 6-lane looping highway interchange, not to mention rail infrastructure is way narrower than a similar capacity road to begin with.
Actually, Canada used to have pretty good rural rail transport pre WWII, on par with rural Europe in the same time period. Passenger and freight trains used the same tracks without issue before the rise of precision scheduled railroading (which was implemented purely to save costs and gives lower quality freight service than the conventional system). You can thank CN and CP for being openly hostile to passenger rail nowadays.
The amount of time the square area of a car occupies a given square area of road for the distance travelled and people carried is a fraction of that used by cyclists.
I’m all for this com making good arguments, I do truly believe change is needed with regards to many issues, social and environmental.
By the arguments that come up here do nothing but show this place to be a circle jerk for some truly gifted morons.
Serious question… Are you lot taking the piss or do you really believe the rubbish that gets pushed here?
Your metric is completely worthless. Why compare that? Cars and bikes spend upwards of 22h a day parked somewhere, taking up space while not moving. A city has limited steet space, cars simply do not make sense. Even in american car-centric cities you get large-scale traffic jams every morning. Does your calculation still hold in the real world?
Calling others morons and saying they believe in rubbish is rich coming from someone who evidently didn’t bother spending 3 minutes to think about what they actually wrote.
I’ll start with last point first. Square area is what the OP image referenced (length X width of space taken).
So if it’s wrong for me to use it then it’s wrong for the op too.
Cars gotta be parked… People have garages and carparks exist. We seen to manage that fine.
And for for done people with disabilities cars are the only way.
I’m short on time so I’ll make this quick… As much as you can drag up edge cases where cars are bad, I could do the same about bikes… But the difference between the morons here and I, is that I’m not trying hard to shit on one mode of transport over another.
It might surprise you but for the most part cars and bikes co exist fine.
Length * width is area, not “square area”. This is what I meant at the end of my comment. It’s just a nitpick.
The start of my comment refers to your strange metric of unit area per unit time for which you have no doubt still not run the numbers.
You complain about what you call “edge cases” (somehow 22h a day is an edge case) then immediately bring up people with disabilities. No one here wants to make disabled people’s lives harder. They may need cars and everyone still needs buses and trucks.
What we don’t need is your shitty SUV which drives you to work and back for a grand total of an hour a day. It’s a huge, wasteful, and inefficient wellness centre spanning several square metres and weighing multiple tons only to carry a single person. Due to their terrible inefficiency and choice of fuel they not only waste space but actively worsen the air for everyone around them.
As for parking, no, we do not manage fine. Have you ever been to a major city? Then you will know that parked cars line both sides of most streets, taking up valuable space for 22h a day in the middle of a dense city. It’s insane. Fortunately some cities are trending towards closing streets in the city centre to cars and making them available only to pedestrians and bikes. It’s beautiful and benefits everyone.
Cars are objectively the worse and more selfish option compared to many others in a densely populated city, yet you somehow insist they are equals because it would be wrong to shit on one over the other. But sure, we’re the morons :')
Also, a question remains of whether the law should dictate the ethical standards that all autonomous vehicles must use, or whether individual autonomous car owners or drivers should determine their car's ethical values, such as favoring safety of the owner or the owner's family over the safety of others.[13] Although most people would not be willing to use an automated car that might sacrifice themselves in a life-or-death dilemma, some[who?] believe the somewhat counterintuitive claim that using mandatory ethics values would nevertheless be in their best interest. According to Gogoll and Müller, "the reason is, simply put, that [personalized ethics settings] would most likely result in a prisoner’s dilemma."[50]
And they left out that emergency vehicles and transit take up more room but really shouldn’t be blocked on speed just on argument of size and space alone. Not even cars would block based on ‘me smaller than them and take up less room’. So it’s a shit attitude and argument here all the way through about size and space as somehow more entitled.
This sub is pointless until it can provide a solution to having to get somewhere 30 miles from here when it’s 10 below outside for most of the winter.
Dont give me that it’s not always 10 below excuse. It is often 10 below or lower for long stretches in the north. Biking is simply not viable or practical.
Look at this example. Looks like it’s 80 and sunny with the top down on a convertible and everyone in summer clothes.
Public transport? Or cars. Some people on here may be militant about getting rid of all cars, but most of us aren’t that extreme. We simply want to have the option to not use cars, which is currently not the case in many regions of the world.
@Dkarma@theplanlessman public transportation can absolutely work for rural populations. As long as it's designed and built well. But our governments keep robbing us off that possibility. And we keep letting them.
Talking about the problem is literally the only way to further the cause. Change starts with a dialog. We’re not going to “get the laws passed and THEN talk about it”, that’s backwards.
80% of the US lives in metropolitan and micropolitan areas. In small towns, suburbs and cities.
People on this sub aren’t saying that we should force Old Macdonald to take the bus from the farm to the feed store. You’re never going to get rid of all cars. They have an important niche.
You always have the option to not use a car if weather permits no one is stopping you.
I mean, in a technical sense that’s true. Practically, though, people respond to their built environment. There’s a reason way more people drive to work in Rome than Barcelona, and it ain’t the weather. And there’s a reason way more people bike in the winter in Oulu, Finland than Syracuse, NY despite having similar populations and climate.
Most people aren’t ideological “drivers” or “pedestrians”, they’re just people who want to get somewhere and will follow the path of least resistance. Put them in Amsterdam and they’ll happily bike to their destination, put them in Houston and they wouldn’t.
Dont give me that it’s not always 10 below excuse. It is often 10 below or lower for long stretches in the north. Biking is simply not viable or practical.
“It’s sometimes cold, therefore you can never bike”
This sub is pointless until it can provide a solution to having to get somewhere 30 miles from here when it’s 10 below outside for most of the winter.
-10F or -10C?
-10C really isn’t very cold. The average low in Oulu, Finland in February is -12C, and ~10% of all trips there in the winter are via bike because they have an extensive network of well-plowed bike paths.
Biking in -10C is really just a matter of having appropriate gear to block the wind - similar to what you’d wear skiing like a jacket, mittens and a neck gator/ski mask. -10C isn’t warm, but people do outdoor winter sports literally all the time in -10C. It’s fine.
-10F needs better cold gear, and is probably going to be pretty uncomfortable for most people. You definitely have to worry about preventing frostbite, and I definitely know skiers who would stay inside.
But most places don’t really stay -10F. That’s like Fargo or Fairbanks cold, not Buffalo or Boston cold. Chicago has only gotten down to -10F in three years in the past decade. Relatively few people live in places that regularly stay -10F.
Although there’s a standard solution for 30 mile trips that works in basically all temperatures: a bus or train. Which isn’t really practical in American style suburban sprawl, but is very practical in denser walkable European towns and cities.
If we assume there isn’t another solution to that, why does it matter? Why does your need for a car for your specific use negate any use of alternatives anywhere? We can still advocate for better transportation and land use in cities, even if the proposed solution doesn’t work for your journey between Plunkett and Blucher.
The picture doesn’t account for the fact that in many places you have to give 3 feet when overtaking cyclists. Not saying that everyone does that but the graphic should show an extra three feet on either side of the cyclists if we want to represent how much space they are actually occupying
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