
Why Bikes Make Smart People Say Dumb Things - nvk
https://medium.com/p/9316abbd5735
======
zaccus
Cyclists and motorists need to stop demonizing each other. The problem is not
with either of those groups, the problem is with indecisive, inconsistent
enforcement of the law.

A cyclist knows that there is most likely no consequence for running a stop
sign, so even if it is technically illegal, there's no incentive for them to
stop. If motorists could get away with running stop signs just as easily, they
would do the same. It's unreasonable to expect people to act contrary to their
incentives.

We need to agree on what the law is, and enforce it accordingly. Maybe it
doesn't make sense for cyclists to obey the same set of traffic signals as
motorists; if that is the case then we need to explicitly say so.

This business where some people obey traffic signals and other don't needs to
stop. That is the responsibility of city government and law enforcement.

~~~
bryanlarsen
According to the article, 80% of motorists and 95% of bicyclists do not come
to a complete stop at stop signs.

In Idaho, bicyclists are not required to stop at stop signs.

The elephant in the room is speeding. Speeding is responsible for ~30% of all
road fatalities, yet is universally condoned on American roads. Drivers do not
understand how hypocritical they are when they complain about bicyclists
disobeying road rules while they themselves are speeding.

~~~
commandar
>In Idaho, bicyclists are not required to stop at stop signs.

Which, personally, I think is completely reasonable. Constantly stopping and
pushing off again adds a huge amount of effort to a ride, and a cyclist has
plenty of incentive to look before rolling through an intersection.

~~~
adamtj
That argument works even better for cars. Cars are much heavier. It's far more
effort to stop a car and get it going again than for a bicycle. It would
dramatically improve gas mileage if cars could ignore stop signs.

~~~
commandar
Getting people out of cars and onto bikes would save even more oil.

We also have 30 years of data from Idaho which allows cyclists to treat stop
signs as yields: "Idaho bicycle-collision statistics confirm that the Idaho
law has resulted in no discernible increase in injuries or fatalities to
bicyclists."

[http://btaoregon.org/wp-
content/uploads/2009/03/hb2690-idaho...](http://btaoregon.org/wp-
content/uploads/2009/03/hb2690-idaho-stop-second-article-by-ray-thomas-for-
oregon-cycling-magazine1.pdf)

Do you think this would be the case if applied to cars?

~~~
chc
I do. At most intersections, a driver of normal capability should be capable
of determining whether there are any other cars at the intersection without
completely stopping for multiple seconds. And in reality, most drivers in my
area do roll stops and it does not cause an appreciable number of accidents.

~~~
commandar
I think you also need to account for stopping distances and acceleration.

A bike can stop in far shorter distances than a car can (and will be
travelling at a lower speed in the first place).

Bikes are also slower to accelerate than a car. Allowing a bike to maintain
more of its momentum gets it through the intersection quicker, _especially_ on
any kind of uphill grade.

Anecdotal, perhaps, but I know that my personal experience has been that the
combination of those two things means that I'm evaluating whether it's safe
for me to pass through an intersection and making the decision much sooner on
a bike than I would in a car where the assumption is I need to mostly stop
because I may not be able to otherwise.

------
OmarIsmail
This was a well written article.

I'm a commuter cyclist (in San Francisco) and I admit to taking actions that
I'm sure piss off some pedestrians. I always feel bad about it and am working
on it. The one thing is that 99% of my focus is on dealing with the 1-ton
boxes of death metal traveling at 60KM/h and not on the 150lb squishy humans
going 5KM/h.

The new bike lans going up in the city are awesome though. I'm sure if you
looked at biker<->pedestrian conflicts on a street like Folsom before and
after the huge bike lane they put up, you would (hopefully!) see a marked
decrease.

~~~
alooPotato
The thing that really pisses off pedestrians is when bicycles don't stop when
their supposed to and just go through intersections when they aren't supposed
to.

That type of action doesn't help with your safety against motor vehicles, its
purely bicyclists not wanting to stop. That seems selfish on the part of
bicyclists who do this.

~~~
kaonashi
Just walk. The cyclist most likely sees you and is waiting for you to move
past. The worst thing you can do is react to the cyclist, stopping and
starting.

~~~
aganders3
I agree, but peds who never ride bikes don't realize this and I don't think
you can expect them to. They're used to interacting with cars, where there's
not enough room for both (a car and a ped) in an intersection, so their
reaction is to avoid sharing it.

------
Mithaldu
As a european biker my theory on the aggressiveness in the debate about bikers
in the USA is simply that, due to how traffic laws over there are structured,
bikers are much more endangered and have to respond with much more
aggressiveness.

As an example: In Germany a biker legally has to keep a minimum distance from
parked cars. This often means riding in the middle of the lane, something
which german bikers are not only, as in this minimum distance case, forced to,
but generally allowed to in every case.

From what friends in the USA tell me, trying to do that is a very quick trip
to a hospital.

~~~
hyperpape
My understanding in the US is that riding on the sidewalks is illegal, and
that cyclists must ride in the road to follow the law (I am not a cyclist).

~~~
67726e
I can only speak for my state (South Carolina) but that is absolutely true,
but rarely enforced. I've had several accidents and near misses pulling out of
my driveway and bumping into people biking down the sidewalk. They were always
at fault, but at the same time the street they should have been riding on is a
major thoroughfare downtown and has speeds of 25-35 MPH with no bike lane. You
really cannot expect everyone to be able to bike anywhere near that fast, but
then you wind up with folks going a few MPH on a bike and holding up traffic.
It's just a terrible situation all around.

~~~
nilkn
> They were always at fault, but at the same time the street they should have
> been riding on is a major thoroughfare downtown and has speeds of 25-35 MPH
> with no bike lane. You really cannot expect everyone to be able to bike
> anywhere near that fast, but then you wind up with folks going a few MPH on
> a bike and holding up traffic. It's just a terrible situation all around.

This is a major problem in Houston as well. I think cyclists are generally
disliked here because the road system is just not at all designed to
accommodate them. There are a lot of roads with 30-40 mph speeds, no bike
lanes, and sidewalks that are very popular for walkers (plus it's illegal to
ride a bike on them). A cyclist has the choice of either biking on the
sidewalk, thereby endangering pedestrians, or biking on the road, thereby
causing a small traffic jam and forcing all the cars to switch lanes.

------
bbarn
Those in cars getting angry at cyclists are most often doing it because they
believe the cyclist to be slowing them down. There are plenty of valid reasons
as well, but by and large, this is the reason when you boil it down. We have
an unrealistic expectation of speed on city streets because our highway speed
limits are so disproportionately high compared to urban ones, that travelling
at the true speed limit is frustrating if one doesn't constantly do it.

Yield to those at greater risk than you, and never assume your travel time is
more important than anothers safety, and all other laws/rules enforcement
arguments go out the window, in my book.

If there was one thing that would greatly improve cyclist-pedestrian
incidents, in my mind, it would be heavily enforcing the stop sign parking
distance laws. Too often I see cars (especially delivery vehicles) parked in
such a way that a cyclist doesn't even see a pedestrian about to cross or vice
versa until the last minute, because the pedestrian side of the crosswalk is
obstructed from view by an illegally parked vehicle upon approach. This stops
the "Idaho Stop" philosophy from working well here in Chicago.

~~~
nilkn
I think it depends heavily on the city and the way the roads have been
planned. There are places where cyclists most definitely do slow down traffic,
and that can be pretty unsafe for the cars.

Houston, where I live, is an example. I don't dislike cyclists at all, but
when a long string of cars encounters a single cyclist going at half the
speed, at most, it really does cause problems. There are no bike lanes here
and it's illegal to bike on sidewalks, so cyclists have no choice but to ride
in the middle of the lane.

What happens is, if there's enough traffic, a single cyclist can cause a mini
traffic jam, because every car will try to switch lanes so they can pass, but
there are too many cars for everybody to safely switch lanes. So one lane
basically comes to a stop behind the cyclist and the other doesn't go much
faster because of people trying to merge into it (which isn't safe due to the
volume of cars).

This is far from the worst situation that can happen on the road, but this is
what happens with probably 90% of the cyclists I encounter in Houston while
driving. In a city like Houston where everything is spread out, it is truly
not practical to reduce all car speeds down to bike speeds.

~~~
bbarn
Ah Houston. I spent a month there for work a few years ago, and brought my
bike only to find the stretch I was staying at it was incredibly difficult to
find a good road to ride on. Of course, in 105 degrees and 90% humidity I
rarely felt like riding my bike :)

That's a real tough place to find a happy medium. Many of the places people go
to are long fast stretches with few alternate routes. As much as I love
riding, my bike barely saw any use other than driving it in my rental car
miles north on the weekends to find somewhere to go.

------
timr
Say what you will about the relative dangers of autos vs. cyclists, but my
closest call to death in SF traffic (as a pedestrian) was due to a cyclist,
not a car: I was about to cross an otherwise-empty intersection legally, when
a bicyclist shot through against the light at high speed, missing me by
centimeters. Had I been hit by the guy I'd have been severely injured, if not
killed.

Moreover, riders around here don't seem to pay much attention to pedestrians
-- they're so focused on cars that they routinely do things to endanger the
rest of us (I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I've had to
dodge bikes on crowded sidewalks, even though it's illegal to ride on
sidewalks here.)

There's a certain type of "activist" rider here who has made flaunting the law
a badge of honor. I don't own a car and I do ride a bike, but at this point, I
have a lot of sympathy for the people who criticize cyclists -- the
entitlement is a little out of control.

(edit: thanks for the downvotes, folks. you're definitely changing my mind on
this issue.)

~~~
Mithaldu
> (edit: thanks for the downvotes, folks. you're definitely changing my mind
> on this issue.)

You're getting downvotes because you managed to completely miss the point the
article is trying to make:

Anecdotes are not generalized evidence.

~~~
timr
This is from the guy whose other comment on this thread is a personal
opinion/theory? [1]

Let's be honest: you don't have a problem with opinions, you just don't happen
to like mine.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7999941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7999941)

~~~
Mithaldu
The difference is that i noted from the get-go that my post is a theory,
which, as theories go, is implicitly understood to maybe be right or maybe be
wrong. Take care to note for example how i marked which statements i made were
either fact or hear-say.

Now the article, which freely admitted that there are black sheep on both
sides and that there are certainly situations where bikers are MORE likely to
break the law than others, merely tried to make the point that the, often
unreflected, demonization (not all criticism, the demonization) is undeserved
and that the situation would be better for everyone if people simply thought a
bit more.

Your comment on that? "I had some trouble with bikers who broke the laws, so
some criticism is deserved." The latter part of that was already a sentiment
in the article, and the entirety of that is what the article tried to point
out as thoughtlessness.

------
bowlofpetunias
The problem has already been solved a long time ago, but Americans just don't
like the answer.

Driving a car means driving a vehicle that can easily murder an entire family
in a split second. Drivers should have a greater amount of responsibility for
traffic safety and that responsibility should be enshrined in the laws.

It's so hypocritical that Americans do apply that logic to guns and use it to
justify responsible gun ownership, but any 16 year old can wield a car like
it's toy and get away with it.

Amsterdam cyclist all act like anti-social a-holes, but over here that is _not
considered an excuse to just fucking run them over with your car_. Period.

It's a pointless argument. Unprotected cyclists and pedestrians should not be
held to the same standards as drivers because the consequences are wildly
different.

It's like saying because people are hitting me with fluffy cotton balls it's
okay for me to fire live rounds at them if nobody stops them. Insane.

~~~
VLM
"Amsterdam cyclist all act like anti-social a-holes, but over here that is not
considered an excuse to just fucking run them over with your car."

Why? Anything other than "just because"?

I'll give you a personal example where I was not directly involved but I was
sort of present. So I'm at my place of employment, there's streetlights with a
dangerous blind corner less than a block away from the front door, trucks
parked on the street and stuff. Teen on his bike tries to run a red light at
this blind corner, ends up dead underneath a bus in an instant. I ran the math
based on some trig and the speeds involved and at this blind corner both the
biker and bus driver thought the intersection was clear until, at most, the
last 1/20th of a second of the kids life. The passenger side wheels went right
over the kids head, likely he never knew what hit him. Wasn't much left of
that kid.

Most drivers I work with were infuriated because everyone's got experience
with bikers not following the law and its bound to happen sooner or later. And
frankly its going to happen again, and maybe I'll be the one hitting a red-
light-running biker. And I don't really feel bad about it and I refuse to
accept responsibility for the kids actions. There's nothing the bus driver
could have done about it and nothing I can do about it in the inevitable
situation I hit a biker. So there seems little point in not allowing it as an
excuse.

Note that I've got nothing against suicide prevention, I'd be the first guy to
suggest maybe education, or rebuild that intersection, or ... something? But
the kid willfully and intentionally played russian roulette and lost. I don't
wanna have to wash his innards off my car, but I'm probably going to have to
do something like this, sooner or later. Who pays for the damage to my car,
thats whats important to me. The bikers might not care about their own lives
so I feel no obligation to do the caring for them, but I do care about my car.

~~~
kaonashi
> I don't wanna have to wash his innards off my car, but I'm probably going to
> have to do something like this, sooner or later

Sounds like selection bias. The amount of bike fatalities is nowhere near
large enough that you should be _expecting_ to run someone over.

~~~
VLM
Then they should keep running red lights. What could possibly go wrong?

Its also a strongly social discussion, not private. Someone I know or care
about will run a red-light running biker over, although ahead of time there's
no way to tell who.

~~~
kaonashi
> Someone I know or care about will run a red-light running biker over

Also very doubtful. It's much more likely that your or someone you care about
will run over a law-abiding cyclist.

------
kazinator
Running a stop on a bicycle is perfectly safe when there is nobody around. You
can be sure that nobody is around because, first of all you're not in a cabin,
and nothing blocks your vision: you have a 360 view of the situation, and you
can hear well also. A driver's vision is blocked by window posts, the rear-
view mirror, and additional things like object hanging from the mirror and
passenger's heads. These objects can occlude an entire pedestrian or three.
Secondly, on a bicycle, you will rarely go faster than 30 km/h. If you sustain
30 km/h on flat pavement in the absence of wind, you're pretty fit and going
at it quite hard. The higher speeds are achieved when going down hill or in a
tailwind. 30 km/h is in the ballpark of what cars slow down to when running
stops. Drivers don't even consider that running because they believe they
really slowed down and looked very well; it's called "rolling" through a stop,
or making a "taxi stop".

If you still runs stops at full speed on your bicycle when going downhill at
50-60 or more, or barging into intersections where visibility is poor, then
you're crazy.

Obeying traffic rules to the letter is not a substitute for knowing the
limitations of the machine, accounting for weather conditions, being "radar
aware" of everything that is going on as far as your eye can see, and
predicting the possible thing that drivers are going to do several moves into
the future. Oh, and being properly clothed and lit for visibility at night! If
you're doing all that, then reward yourself by rolling through a few stop
signs.

Being vigilant for drivers swinging their doors open into traffic will pay off
a lot more than coming to a full stop at stop signs. Cyclists are often killed
in "dooring" accidents.

------
lvs
I have no idea why this is on HN. In any case, he's absolutely right. It's not
overgeneralization when everyone sees it day-in and day-out in every major
American city. This article simply seems to be shocked that anyone would
criticize bicyclists for doing what they do every single day. Source: I cycle
myself.

~~~
VLM
"I have no idea why this is on HN."

I believe its a really good example of how to manipulate statistics to meet a
predetermined conclusion. I'm not sure if there was one number in the entire
article that wasn't manipulated into propaganda. The text prose was OK but the
manipulation of statistics was masterful.

Here's one example. If a skinny biker, hit pedestrian me, at a "normal" speed
maybe 10 MPH, the kinetic impact would be similar (for me, anyway) to a normal
size person hitting me in the hallway. Oh we'd both get knocked down, and if I
was 80 like my grandma, or 8 like my kid, it might kill, and maybe 1 in 100
odds someone would break a bone, but the fatality rate per accident would
hover near enough zero. In comparison, hit a pedestrian on a 45 (really more
like 60) MPH country road and the only question is if they'll be enough left
to fill a coffin or not, so we'll call that near 100% fatality rate per
accident. So the fixation on comparing fatality rates is meaningless. There's
more to a good day than merely not dying in a bike-ped accident and I have no
great desire to be hit over and over and "its OK because I wasn't killed and
my desire to wear spandex is more important than your desire to live". "Well
sorry I killed your kid or grandma but statistically they don't count." That's
not really a culture to aspire to.

Another example is the fixation on counts without discussing percentages. Lets
see, on my commute home about 60000 of my closest friends and I will drive on
that major interstate over the course of the entire commute, while what, maybe
a handful of bikers will spend hours taking the surface streets? So if bikes
were rabid death machines I'd still expect the death counts to be
spectacularly higher for cars than bikers because practically no one bikes.
The death count from a rounding error will in fact approach zero. That doesn't
mean Russian Roulette is a great game to recommend and the authors observation
is meaningless.

I have mixed feelings in that my opinions and biases generally match the
authors, because I like to ride my bike (although I ride safely, which even I
admit is unusual for bikers), but I can't decide if I should complain about
the evils of propaganda or compliment the guy on doing a near legendarily good
job at generating propaganda. You have to respect competence, even if its
doing something evil. You can always learn something from competence. Just
don't confuse successful competence with good ethics. Life isn't as simple as
merely success = goodness.

------
lsh123
A few thoughts...

1) Current US roads infrastructure is not designed for bicycles. If we are
serious about getting people to use bikes, then we have to re-think how we
design roads and re-build the ones we currently have. Same goes to the traffic
laws.

2) Personally I feel that not stopping on a red light or a stop sign is far
more dangerous than going over speed limit in the flow of traffic on 280. I do
understand why bicyclists don't want to stop. We should re-think the roads and
traffic laws to fix this instead of accepting the fact.

3) While this is true that the number of deaths from bike is not even close to
the number of deaths from cars, this comparison is not fare. We should look at
the total number of accidents with death or a hospital stay and factor in the
number of bikes/cars on the road. Not sure if this kind of research exists.

4) Lastly, the bikers on public roads need to be regulated. Right now there is
an implicit assumption that all bikers are also car drivers and they know the
rules. However, it is not really the case anymore. Moreover, bike rules ARE
different.

------
eumenides1
I've done both biking in the city and driving. City governments need to push
both parties to be better on the road.

In Toronto, bikes are considered slow motor vehicles. We have these kinds of
problems. I think from a biker's perspective, it's dangerous because their
life is on the line. But from a car's perspective, bikers are a danger to them
finacially.

The problems IMO is asymetrical. Bikers put themselves on the line, but it's
low cost (realatively) and no pre-requesite knowlege on how to behave on roads
(no bike exam vs driver exam). A Car has low risk to themselves on the road,
but it's costly (car cost + insurance + maintenance), and they have to past an
exam on how to behave on the road.

To a driver: Bikers pretty much break the rules of the road and there isn't
much consequence execpt an accident. I've never seen a cop pull over a bike
for behaving badly. Bikes also have this thing where they can behave like cars
sometimes, then behave like pedestrians when convienient. To me this needs to
stop. Cities need to police bad bikers, and maybe have some training
course/licensing for cyclists. There is a right way to behave on the road and
I've seen alot of good cyclists, they just have to be more of them.

To a cyclist: Drivers need to be punished for dangerous actions against
cyclists. Like not checking your mirrors before opening doors, or changing
lanes. There needs to be civic campagins from the government urging drivers in
the cities to be aware of cyclists and to remind drivers how to co-exists with
cyclists.

I've thought of both sides of the arguement, I've changed the way I drive and
cycle. Driving rules are pretty clear, but when I cycle, I just pretty much
act likes a car with my hazzard lights on and hand signal like my blinkers are
broken. I take up a lane and people can pass me when they can do so safely.
Does it imped traffic? Yes, but I don't see anyone complaining about heavy
trucks on the road.

~~~
jev
> .... where they can behave like cars sometimes, then behave like pedestrians
> when convienient. To me this needs to stop. Cities need to police bad
> bikers, and maybe have some training course/licensing for cyclists. There is
> a right way to behave on the road and I've seen alot of good cyclists, they
> just have to be more of them.

Biked in Europe for 20+ years, and now live in North America. The problem is
exactly your attitude: that there is only one "road", that there is one right
way to behave on it, and both drivers and cyclists should follow it. It's like
North Americans can't wrap their head around the fact that driving is just one
mode, cycling is another, walking is yet another, trains are yet another, etc.
and what you call "the road" is the disproportionate part of the pavement that
you dedicate uniquely to drivers.

------
brianstorms
The core problem is nobody gives a shit. The traffic designers, the urban
planners, the cyclists, the drivers, the pedestrians, the cops, the
government. Everyone cheats, everyone makes excuses, it's someone else's
fault, yadda yadda.

It makes perfect sense for cyclists to obey the effing law but they don't.
They'll rattle off an infinite number of excuses, ranging from it doesn't make
sense, to everybody does it why should I be the good rider, to laws of
physics: it is hard to stop a bike and then restart at an intersection so I
will just race right through, yadda yadda yadda. It's lazy, cheater thinking.

Everyone out for themselves. No empathy anywhere in sight.

------
ap22213
Before I moved to the DC-area, I was quite familiar with automobile assholes.
They're everywhere. But, before I moved here, I had a pretty good impression
of bikers - I always thought that they were a mellow bunch. But, DC introduced
me to the biker asshole, a species that seems to flourish here, like
mosquitoes.

While it's bad to generalize, like the journalist in the article did, I can
see how he could become irritated after a while.

~~~
sampo
What about DC pedestrians? Are there assholes among them, too? Is everyone in
DC an asshole?

~~~
ap22213
The pedestrians aren't bad, except maybe the ones near the Mall and the other
tourist attractions.

DC has some nice bike/hike trails that extend way out (50-100 miles or more).
I happened to have lived on one of these trails, called the 'W&OD', at three
different locations.

These trails are somewhat overcrowded, especially during commuting hours. But,
it's not unusual for a biker, traveling at high speed, to swerve extremely
close to a walker. A lot of times it's out of spite. I've gotten physically
hit several times - and, I try to do a good job at staying on the margin.

------
aidenn0
One (slightly off-topic comment):

I live in Santa Barbara, and the bikes going 30+MPH down Alameda Padre Serra
at night with no lights on is a significant source of injury. That is a
stretch where bicyclists are regularly hit by cars backing out of driveways.

Even a bike with the average headlamp is far less visible than a car with its
lights on to a car backing up, and this is a _very_ windy road. It is just not
true that cars going 30 on this road at night are more dangerous (to the
operator of the vehicle) than bicycles, as serious bicycle accidents are more
regular there than serious car accidents. Of course, a car doing something
unsafe is far more of a danger to others, but that's a universal truth.

I can't speak for the author's mother, but nearly everyone I know would agree
that 40mph is far too fast for cars on that stretch of road (30mph speed
limit, and most cars tend to go 25-35mph on it). I've even seen a resident
there standing next to the road raising up rude signs to cars they feel are
going too fast.

On another note, bicycling here is very frustrating as the roads are not safe
for cycling (even where there are bike lanes, cars are often parked
overlapping them), there are few dedicated bike paths, and bicycling on
sidewalks has its own issue. It's particularly frustrating since the weather
is amenable to year-round cycling.

For those interested, here's a streetview of the downhill stretch likely
talked about:

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/181+Alameda+Padre+Serra/@3...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/181+Alameda+Padre+Serra/@34.428906,-119.674207,3a,75y,252.79h,76.97t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1srkOzRxDxp5xOilKwwHNTkg!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x80e9139f418bd513:0xf1b6ebb9f422c33e)

------
jcromartie
Zero fatalities per 15 million miles is not a great metric. For one thing,
cars boast less than 0.3 fatalities per 15 million miles, so if anybody dies
between now and 45 million bike miles that will not be a great statistic.

I'd wager that 1 million bike miles represent far more trips than 1 million
car miles, though, since obviously bikes are (usually) used for shorter trips
than cars.

~~~
dllthomas
Though most _pedestrian_ fatalities would be on relatively short car trips or
relatively short stretches of long car trips (before/after the highway).

------
r0m4n0
I have to contribute to this because I have this deep pent up rage against
most bicyclists in Sacramento...

>The few studies that look at specific violations have found that people on
bikes do roll through stop signs about 15% more than drivers do (at least in
Oregon), but also that drivers roll through them almost 80% of the time

This is the source of all my aggression. First off, this is an incredibly high
percentage, basically confirming almost all bicyclists don't stop at stop
signs. Looks like I have reason to generalize. This statistic is deceptive in
that it doesn't compare speed through a stop sign. Most drivers roll through
stop signs (no source but based on personal experience), they don't blow
through them at full speed. Downtown/midtown Sacramento has hundreds of stop
signs and I almost hit bicyclists on a weekly basis.

There were lots of statistical goofs in this article but this one made my eyes
turn red.

rant over

------
pmdulaney
I think zaccus and OmarIsmail are on the right track.

Re: zaccus - Google the "Idaho stop." The folks in Idaho got it right:
cyclists should slow down at stop sign intersections and come to a full stop
(with foot on ground) if a car got there first; otherwise proceed through with
caution. As far as red lights in a crowded city like SF -- sorry you gotta
stop like everyone else.

Re: OmarIsmail - We cyclists can do a better job. It's all about showing
respect to everyone, ESPECIALLY pedestrians. Get off your bike and walk if
necessary to not spook them.

Overall I would say that Scott Simon got a raw deal. There ARE a lot of jerks
on bicycles and it is just plain honesty to say so.

------
JacksonGariety
The smiling man on the bike in the last photo on the page was my high school
psychology teacher. Can confirm: not a hipster.

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kazinator
I bought a cool rear-view mirror today: it clips onto the temple of your
glasses rather than your helmet.

Off the bike, it doubles as a cubicle rear-view mirror.

If I turn my head about 45 degrees to the left, I see the "third quadrant"
behind me, and if I turn a little bit more, I see directly backwards, all with
a decently wide angle.

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JoeAltmaier
Bikes can go 20-30MPH = 10X what pedestrians can do. In comparison cards go
35-45 in city traffic - may 2X what cycles can do.

Bicycles and pedestrians do not belong on the same path. I know we WISH they
could, or that they could just get along somehow, but the math says it isn't
going to happen.

~~~
dllthomas
I'm not sure what you're responding to, but I agree that bikes do not
generally belong on sidewalks.

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JoeAltmaier
...Or in crosswalks when pedestrians are there. So bikes must respect stop
signs and signals, period.

~~~
dllthomas
I don't think the author of this piece disagrees with you, there. In fact:

 _" I tense up when I see a cyclist approaching a stop sign without slowing
all the way down, but I tense up a lot more when a car does the same. And I
fantasize about a cop showing up and ticketing them both, so I can make it
safely to work today."_

I mostly agree, although if there is sufficient visibility and no one around I
might relax "period" _slightly_.

