I’m in my early forties and live in an area where no one can fathom that I live without a car. I don’t make a lot of money and spent most of my adult life hovering around the poverty line. I have not had a car for twenty years. I understand that living car free is difficult but global warming is going to be a lot more difficult. Our addiction to convenience is a problem. Additionally until a significant minority of people decide to make life choices that allow them to live car free capitalism is just not going to cater to a better model. I feel like defensive reactions like this come from people who know that they are doing harm but don’t have the willingness to change their own behavior. I know it’s not easy but when has doing the right thing ever been easy.
there are many people who say the same thing as you. “would love to both replace my commute with a better option”
i don’t know if this applies to you but personally, i know lots of people who say want to give up the car but won’t do it because they don’t see public transit as the better option. but they will NEVER see transit as a better option because they are using flawed metrics to decide
let me give you a simple example i hear over and over. “driving takes me 20 mins, but taking public transit takes 30 mins! i’m saving 10 minutes!”. no you’re not saving ANY time. 30 mins spent on public transit is 100% YOUR time. read a book, listen to podcast, or do nothing… 20 mins of driving is 100% lost paying attention to the road (in theory). people just need to have a different perspective of what “better” means instead of just comparing the minutes of each mode of transportation
My coworker says his commute is 2-3 hours by car so I suggested he take the train which would take around 45mins. He kept making excuses on why he couldn’t and later asked me why I ride my bike to work instead of driving.
Some people just cannot take public transit seriously.
Also, your time argument only makes sense with tame numbers. Trips often take 2-3 times longer by public transit. Yeah I can read a book on the train but I can’t cook my dinner, do my laundry, or clean my apartment.
I don’t understand you. If driving takes 20 mins and transit takes 30 mins, it’s fair to argue transit is superior because I could be responding to emails or doing some productive task on the bus, and I’m only “losing” 20 mins a day of time at home.
If your commute takes 45 mins by car and 2 hours by bus, pointing out that the person on the bus can read their email on the way home will hardly be a consolation to the fact that they are “losing” 2.5 hours a day of time at home.
I am not arguing against public transit, I’m pointing out that when public transit sucks, it’s really hard to make an argument that taking it is more convenient than driving.
This is stupid. We understand people need to use a car for certain jobs. If you have to transport people or materials throughout the day, then yeah - I think most people agree that you should use a car or truck to do so. We make this point over and over again on Reddit or here.
Republicans love big government so I won’t be surprised if they do. Just like they prevented Austin from enacting a city-wide requirement for construction workers to get a mandatory 10 minute water break when working outside in +35c heat.
I think a lot of car enthusiasts are coming around to this point of view. Cars are fun, but traffic isn't. Give people alternatives and they'll be off the road.
Plus, car dependency makes cars suck. The reason they're all egg shaped CUVs or boxy SUVs is because they're essentially appliances. Everybody needs one so they make them for the lowest common denominator. Fun, affordable cars just don't exist anymore. And even Ferrari is making an SUV.
Finally, I think every car enthusiast will recognize that there are a lot of terrible drivers out there. Making licensing more stringent would weed a lot of these people out, but unless they have a viable alternative they'll just drive without a license.
I disagree with you. If you need five digits of precision, 12345 mm is precise and perfectly usable (and slightly less complex than 12,345 meters). Others might just say that the machine (or whatever) is twelve meters long. And all the math you need is removing three digits.
In countries that aren’t America, we use centimetres and metres. But it was suggested that yanks are a bit thick and might be happier using woodworkers units of millimetres and metres.
I’m curious to see how the arguments for using mm instead of dm varies from the argument for using imperial vs metric. You’re right that there’s way better units to use here, but I think mm is used out of convention. Which is the exact same reason that feet and miles are used, because everyone is used to it.
How is it different though? In the original picture you can safely overtake the two of them in about half the time and half the available opening in traffic compared to them riding single file.
Because the image assumes that a driver can only ever safely overtake if they’re completely in the other lane, which simply isn’t true.
It also assumes that there will be an opportunity where the other lane is completely free for them to move into it.
Overtaking eight people in a line is going to have a large time saving if they’re cycling in twos, but when you scale that down to just two then the difference is negligible and the space saving is more important.
Your theory rests on the assumption that I value my life and safety lower than two seconds the driver could shave off of their journey time. Or thirty seconds. Or two days.
Well, buddy, you’re wrong.
Even if I’m riding alone I’m not riding in the gutter where I have a greater risk of puncture from debris, and a greater risk of some idiot close passing in a 3 ton umbrella.
Have a closer read of points 2 and 3 in the image. For most lanes there isn’t enough width for cyclist + wobbling side to side + 1.5m margin + car. So the car needs to overtake in the other lane, which means the other lane needs to be completely free of cars.
This image is odd. The whole point it’s trying to make is that it’s quicker to overtake cyclists who are two abreast as opposed to in a line.
In points 3 and 4 it suggests that because the driver can go completely into the other lane, they should, it doesn’t actually ever say why they should. It completely ignores that it obviously takes longer to drive across into the other lane and then back than to pass the cyclists as closely as is safe. Maybe not a huge difference in time but it’s not like this overtake is going to take a very long time in total.
If it wanted to suggest that it’s only ever safe to overtake a cyclist by driving entirely into the other lane then the diagrams aren’t necessary. It could just say:
More cyclists fit onto a given stretch of road if they’re side by side.
You have to drive into the other lane to overtake anyway.
Therefore it’s always quicker to overtake cyclists who are side by side.
The other thing it doesn’t take into account is that to overtake a cyclist you’d typically be accelerating, so the 2nd cyclist in a row would be passed more quickly than the 1st.
it doesn’t actually ever say why they should. It completely ignores that it obviously takes longer to drive across into the other lane and then back than to pass the cyclists
Because it’s SAFER. Oh my god, have we really got so selfish that a human life is worth like a second.
Oh my god, have we really gotten so stupid that we can’t even read the next paragraph? If the point is that it’s more safe (which is totally valid) then why does the the image specifically avoid saying that?
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, in the UK (which is where this image seems to be from), the “safe” passing distance for a car overtaking a bike is supposed to be 1.5m. Add that to the 0.5m minimum distance the cyclist is supposed to be from the kerb and the width of the cyclist themselves, and overtaking even a single cyclist should have the car almost entirely in the other lane anyway (UK lanes are typically narrower than their US counterparts).
Whether anyone actually follows those rules is another question, but that is how motorists are supposed to behave.
It is also written into our Highway Code that motorists should “give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders and horse drawn vehicles at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car”
The image appears to be from the UK. Here in the UK cyclists are supposed to stay at least 0.5m from the kerb, with a recommendation for more distance if possible (rule 72 of the Highway Code). Cars are supposed to keep at least 1.5m away from cyclists when overtaking (rule 163). Taking an average cyclist width of 60cm (some handlebars go much wider than that, as might pannier bags, but let’s use that as an average), that means a single cyclist should have control of ~2.6m of the lane at least.
Let’s say that the average lane on urban roads in the UK are around 3m wide (an estimate based on a quick google, not a rule), this means a legal overtake of a cyclist should have the car leaving no more than 40cm of the car in the lane. It’s not a big jump from that to moving entirely into the other lane.
Admittedly almost no one in the UK actually follows these rules, but this is how it’s supposed to be. Given that, adding another cyclist riding abreast shouldn’t affect overtaking time significantly, whereas the two cyclists riding in line will double the amount of time in the oncoming lane.
Great image, but you see people really don’t want to use their steering wheels. And if possible they’d like pedestrian crossings removed as well. In ideal world there would be a race track from their home to exactly where they need to go and everyone else in traffic is a dick. Including other car drivers. Learning traffic laws and rules is too much of an effort anyway.
I disagree since overtaking a cyclist in the same lane is unsafe anyway. In the city I always cycle in the middle of the lane because it prevents unsafe takeovers and dooring.
If cyclists can use the whole lane (common situation in the United States for example), it is (almost always) illegal for a driver to leave their drivable portion of the road to pass someone, bicyclist or otherwise. That includes crossing any lines, going to the opposite side of the road, being on the shoulder or sidewalk, etc.
Without a separate bicycle lane, it is not permitted to pass a bicyclist.
If a sign is posted saying ‘Bicyclists may use full lane’ then that lane is now a bicycle lane with cars being allowed on it for some reason. Check your car brain.
Transit should ideally be on its own section anyway (preferably on rails) and literally everyone has to pull to the side and yield to emergency vehicles. If their lights and siren are off and they are driving on a road/bicycle path in this case, yes they can wait.
I’m not sure I’m understanding… as a driver you can legally pass by going into the opposing lane momentarily, as long as the line in the center is dashed (not solid) on your side and there is no oncoming traffic. That’s kind of the whole reason the center line is painted like that, combined with those signs that say “do not pass” and “pass with caution” when the line goes solid and back to dashed.
In that scenario, that would be part of the drivable area yes. However, that is exceedingly rare in the United States at least from my experience in smaller cities/suburbia (east coast). I regularly see people breaking the law by driving on the shoulder to go around someone turning left, and illegally crossing a solid double yellow line to pass a bicyclist.
In my experience in midwest suburbia the center line is almost always dashed unless there’s poor visibility (seeing around a tight curve or over a hill) or more than one lane of traffic in each direction (eliminating the need to overtake in opposing traffic). Or its a pedestrian zone, with reduced speed regardless.
True, some people break the laws. I don’t see it nearly as often as you claim to, and usually not in especially unsafe conditions, but the point stands that those people are selfish and impatient. I don’t see why bicyclists should have to sacrifice either their freedom (to bike to where they please and utilize existing public infrastructure) or their safety (by leaving the illusion that a full size vehicle might squeeze by at cruising speed) for such people. It’s not bicyclists’ fault that the infrastructure fails to serve all of its users equally.
And just so we’re clear, the reason it’s a dick move is the car can move faster than the bike so blocking the car robs the people in the car if its full utility. They’re now forced to go your speed, which is probably less than the speed limit.
While we’re at it let’s just block emergency vehicles cuz they are even bigger taking up more space. Boo them for not all just havin bycycles and saving on emissions
So it’s a bit of a conundrum. Because there are pros and cons in riding abreast.
On one hand, cyclists are more compact and more visible. On the other filling whole lane would mean drivers behind them would have to time their overtaking. However, car drivers almost never leave enough space when overtaking cyclists and 100% never think about wind that might push them or that cyclist might need more space to avoid potholes and stuff. So being a dick driver is not exclusive to cyclists.
Traffic law, at least where I live, states when overtaking cyclists driver must leave enough space between him and the cyclist so as to not inconvenience cyclist. Which is vague and not helping one bit. However I think it’s far better to be forced to slow down and time overtaking than not slowing down and flying next to a single lane of cyclists. Because if and when there’s a car coming from opposite direction, car driver won’t care or look twice to move closer to the edge of the road and push others out.
Where do you see another vehicle “waiting to pass”? There’s absolutely nothing in this picture telling you how much traffic there is, how wide the road is, etc. Nothing.
What can be seen in the picture, however, is a car that, no matter the speed, is tailgating way too close. Which is a misdemeanor in some countries.
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