I’m curious. I know where my life diverged and where I would’ve been a car guy otherwise, would be interested to see what the dealio with other people is or whether they even ever thought about it
As a biker the main reason that anyone should not bike is if they live in the US and value their life. Biking in the US is TERRIFYING and I know zero people who bike regularly who have not been injured by a car. I still do it and others should too but it’s basically one of only 2 valid excuses as far as I am concerned
I do think people are bad at estimating this risk (both over and under estimating it at times), and frankly the data on it isn’t the best. My city has pretty good infrastructure and culture around biking, but the stats are still not great I imagine. What is my risk level if I stick to the high quality paths and calm side streets? Is it better for the people that just bike down sidewalks and don’t follow the separated lanes and paths? I don’t know. I do the former and it feels pretty safe, but there’s still a ton of cars around that could maim me any day. I assume the majority of the injuries are happening off of the dedicated bike infrastructure (not to say they deserve it at all, just that one can probably lower their risk by being cautious and staying away from busy roads with poor to no bike infra)
You can put that zero up to a one though. I’ve biked much of my life, give or take a few years of car dependency, and not been injured by a car yet. I think I have a lucky horseshoe up my ass or something.
In most parts of the US its defs hazardous, but as someone living in one of the better places for biking as transportation in the US, people still act like it’s instant death out there, so I’m becoming less and less receptive to the safety argument, as I think it’s mostly used here at least as a thought terminator by people who haven’t tried it and don’t want to. Same with weather in some ways.
I guess it’s less a worry about actively dying, and more a worry about being doored and breaking something. That’s how the vast majority of people I know have been hurt, by being doored. There’s just only so much you can do about that as a biker and most cities put it like road | bike lane | parking | sidewalk so the risk of getting doored or having a car turn out into you at low speed trying to get from parking to the road is just massive.
Yeah. I’m extremely lucky that there’s a lot of options where I am that aren’t a painted bicycle gutter. I still end up on those roads all the time, but it’ll usually be less than half of my trip distance so when I’m in one its easier to keep my guard up. I’m also just getting really comfortable riding in mixed traffic on calm side streets tbh, because there’s enough critical mass of bikers where I am that outright rage at a cyclist “in their way”, on streets that aren’t main streets or highways, seems to be uncommon. But where possible I do love a good separated path or lane. We have a variety, some totally off street, some on street but 2 way and parking-protected, or curb-protected. Some are at sidewalk level, especially in the CBD, which I have mixed feelings about but is great protection from drivers and doors. And of course lots of legacy painted bicycle gutters too
Like yesterday I had to go across town to pick up a package from an unusual pickup location. I went like:
- 3 blocks in my neighborhood (2 with a basic bike lane, one without),
- got onto a sort of unofficial trail (technically private property but is widely used as a walking/biking connector due to its prime location), took that half a mile,
- connected up to a walking/biking trail (with its own bridge), another half mile,
- got on a curb protected 2 way lane, took that a few blocks,
- spent ~3 blocks on regular side streets with no lanes,
- got on a rail trail thingy that took me another mile and a half,
- got off onto a stroad with a painted gutter, took that 1-2 blocks
- pulled into the enormous shopping center parking lot, locked up my bike and went in.
3-4 miles total. And the most dangerous bit in that entire journey genuinely might have been the parking lot at the end, though the side streets between the bridge and the rail trail are pretty bustling (but very low speed).
Plenty of journeys are much worse than that example (venturing into most suburbs is a mixed bag) but like, the whole metro area is honestly much better than the national average and I still get people here acting like its suicide. I’d rather live with the risk than let my (un)happiness be dictated to me by amorphous, ill-defined fear. I know so many people with chronic injuries (whiplash, concussion, back problems, etc) from car accidents, but they don’t just stop driving cars, even though they’ve been hurt by them and know how bad they are for the planet and society. It’s dictated by social norms and going with the flow much more than most people like to admit, so they rationalize. It can be exhausting going against the flow, but its worth it
A lot could be done simply by banning huge pickups without a permit and banning semi-trucks entirely tbh, with no investment in infrastructure.
I am a bike guy. I don’t own a car. Haven’t for over a decade. But I’ve been hit by cars a couple times (only one major one that luckily only put my bike out of commission and not me) and had close calls way more than that. I live in a city with decent, for America, infrastructure with 100 miles of protected bikes lanes. And I get why safety wise, people aren’t ready to do it. I am taking my life into my own hands in a way every time I get on my bike and try to share the road with motorists, who are insane.
Like, I think the term ‘carbrain’ has gotten over used a bit by urbanists and anti-car folks because it is such a tantalizing term. But it’s certainly not without its use. Something happens to people when they drive cars. They become impatient and entitled on a way that borders on psychological transformation. I’ve never seen an average American more entitled to break the law than when they are a motorist. The speed limit is a suggestion, if you’re not going at least five miles over it, you’re not really driving. There is almost no other activity in American culture I can think of where people suddenly become rule breakers like this (and there should be many times where it would actually be good to break the law and they don’t!), but they suddenly think the most important thing in the world is for them to get where they are going and literally fuck everyone else.
How many times have any of us seen people double park or otherwise put their car in everyone’s way and just throw on their flashers as if ‘fuck everyone else, my shit is more important’ than we do with motorists? I can’t really think of any other situation where this happens so publicly, so nakedly as it does when people drive.
And the anger driving causes in folks, I think mostly comes from the cognitive dissonance of their behavior in their car and knowing, deep down, that it is wrong. That they shouldn’t be doing a lot of things they do in their vehicles. Stuff like pedestrians and bikers, who they literally have license to kill (look at the average criminal punishment for murdering someone with a vehicle versus literally any other way one can kill another human being and notice how little consequence there is for ending a human life while driving), remind them of the fact that their decisions are bad. Similar to how certain people get so angry about vegans/vegetarians. It’s the guilty that drives fear and turns it into rage. And that rage, in turn, makes them even more deadly.
Driving is hard. It’s demanding. And honestly it should have a much higher bar for who can do it because it is so dangerous. But, we’ve completely destroyed people’s ability to get to most places in our society without cars. So, until we make it safe and easy for folks not to drive, we’re stuck in this hellish predicament.
Rambling today, I guess.
People have absolutely no respect for the heavy machinery they use that could easily kill themselves or the people around them.
Have you seen the temper tantrums they throw when they’re told to put on a front license plate lol, muh aesthetics are worth more than being held accountable for what they do with their death machine
Or the meltdown that starts whenever registration fees come up - how DARE they make me pay for the infrastructure I’m destroying one drive at a time! How dare they make me go the speed limit, how dare they make me have a license plate, how dare they not let me wake up the entire city doing 60mph through the streets billowing out black smoke, how dare they make me stop at red lights, how dare they not let me park wherever I want, how dare they make me pay for parking, how dare they make me yield to pedestrians, how dare they make me get a smog check, how dare they how dare they how dare they
It’s all me me me - drivers are the most entitled people in the world
im into bicycles but i cant use them outside of recreation in very specific areas like parks. like i would need to drive my bike somewhere in a car to ride it.
because i would be dead right now if i were a bicycle commuter
edit: to clarify, like i literally cant even illegally ride my bicycle on the sidewalks to a safe place to ride bicycles, because the sidewalks leading from my neighborhood abruptly end in the middle of nowhere after a few minutes’ ride
bc if i rode a bike around town i’d get run over by one of the thousands of psychotic, homocidal cagers in my city
Death to America
Theft rates where I live. You can have all the expensive locks you want, if you leave your bike out of eyeshot for more than a few minutes you’ll never see it again.
Is where you live like really cycling friendly (apart from that) or how come every bicycle gets stolen? Scrap metal value?
how come every bicycle gets stolen? Scrap metal value?
Nah. my area isn’t so so bad for theft (still wouldn’t leave anything outdoors overnight) but it’s generally either easy money resale or because the thief wants to use it to get around. Even if you only get 1/4 of what the bike is worth, its so trivially easy to cut a cable lock, and not all that hard to cut most U locks either, and then sell it for cash the next day. Its easy money and people are destitute.
A few weeks ago I was walking and a guy approached me on a bike that very much did not fit him. He offered to sell it to me for $10.
It’s 98 degrees outside today
Also I live on a 45mph stroad with terrifying bicycle gutters and no shade
Live in a part of my city where there’s been a lot of hit and run deaths from cars. Wish they’d redesign the roads here to make them less deadly :(
Did you always live there?
Like 10+ years, and housing prices spiking make it near impossible financially to move. Fun times!
I mean don’t dox yourself or whatever but would you be willing to share where that 10+ years brings us? Like me i was heavily into bicycles until about 12, then there was the dark times, then again after about 21.
I’m in my 30s, and pretty risk-adverse since I’m a parent. Infamousblt’s comment really resonates - I like bicycles but also like not getting hit by cars that run a red light (it’s already dangerous enough driving a hatchback around all the trucks and SUVs here) or right turn on red without looking. I like your bike posting, though - makes me wish I had the ability to live in a less bike-hostile place lol.
Yeah no fair point there, I also wish to not die
Honestly never really thought of it. I’ve used public transit my entire life and occasionally ride bikes.
When I was a kid I always dreamed of having a car, but the older I got and more I dealt with cars as a pedestrian (including being struck by one in a low velocity collision), the more I grew to dislike them in a city environment.
Then I always hear what a pain in the ass it can be to own one and that more or less solidified my car-free life.
As for bikes specifically, I usually rent out a bike when the weather is nice. I’ve been doing a lot of walking/running this year so I haven’t ridden as much as I have in recent years but I’ll probably get back to it later this summer.
CW child abuse
I grew up in the world’s most boring suburb so I had no real impetus to learn to ride a bike, but nevertheless when I was around seven my dad insisted that I was going to learn. I told him I didn’t want to, and we got in a big fight about it, and he grabbed me by the neck and told me I was gonna ride that bike or else so I rode it around the block, came home, and cried into my pillow for the rest of the day
That’s rough, I’m sorry
It’s ancient history now but
That’s why I’m not into bicycles
Yikes. Sorry to hear that
I am uncomfortable with the fact that “bike” is not short for “Bichael.”
Bichaelangelo says cowabunga dude!
Cars
brevity is the soul of wit
everyone i know who bikes regularly has been run over at least twice and i hit the tolerable limit on health issues a while back
The older I got the farther I wound up living from places that I needed to go.
When I need to go to places (beyond work) I need to be able to carry about 100 pounds of stuff (minimum) and 700 pounds (maximum). Pretty much the only time I leave the house is to go to work or get groceries/farm supplies where the closest we can get some stuff is around 25 miles away (50 mile round trip).
I actually live really close to where I work now, I think the shortest route is about 10 miles. Which should be totally doable by bike, distance wise. But its almost all on a dirt road and past several CAFO style chicken farms. And that makes it dangerous to bike as lots of semi’s and overly large pickup trucks like to fly along the road, the road is in terrible condition often made worse when limestone gravel is spread on it, and during the 1/3 of the year that is now “Summer” the smell from the chicken houses can be overwhelming (and can cling to clothes), and the heat index will regularly be close to 100 degrees F so I’d get to work looking like I walk in from a rainstorm.
ebike with a trailer or cargo bike could almost make that base commute tolerable, but yeahhhh it’d be a sacrifice for sure. Especially the chicken barns, god poultry farming is foul. And 50 mile round trip to get groceries is also pretty non-feasible unless you really commit to some craziness lol
I didn’t get to bike as much as I liked growing up because my parents lived on a mountain and climbing 500 vertical feet in a mile gets old fairly fast.
I used to be an exclusive bike commuter when I was younger, in rural parts of a state where that was a pretty fucking dangerous thing to be. Close safety calls and a series of moves got me off the bike and I never really got back on. Now where I live the state of the infrastructure makes cycling straight up suicidal, way worse even than anywhere I lived in the States, and I’ve got more to lose.
