> I see a lot of people with no business in traffic commuting on bikes too.
Bikes should not be forced to drive in traffic anyways.
> Especially with the advent of divvy or whatever your local equivalent is.
We’ve had bike sharing like this for years at this point and it works like a charm. In fact, it’s offered by the local transportation agencies. I haven’t noticed any differences between bike sharing users and others in terms of cycling ability.
> The test is not hard either. Nothing like what our European counterparts have to go through.
I got my motorcycle license last year. When I started to take riding lessons it was the first time that I sat in a motorcycle, it took me about 5 months to get my license (here in Germany). I don’t understand how a few hours of dedicated training is seen as sufficient for safe traffic participation in the U.S.
> Try commuting on your bike without dedicated lanes. It's dangerous as hell
I've been doing it for over a decade. I take the lane and the vast majority of cars switch to the adjacent lane to pass me. It's not dangerous at all if you ride in a predictable manner.
> There is really no fundamental difference between pedalcyclists and motorcyclists on surface streets where traffic moves between 0 and 30 mph. Neither one needs a barrier separated lane to operate in traffic.
Spoke like someone who has little experience of either.
I can tell you from experience that the introduction of a physically separated cycle lane on a 30mph road which is part of my commute as reduced the number of close calls I’ve had from every couple of days to zero.
As would like to remain alive and with all my limbs intact, I would strongly argue that your opinion on this topic is somewhat simple and desperately lacking.
> Of course, most of these wouldn’t be issues if we treated bikes like cars with the exact same rights and obligations as cars.
Hmm, I suppose you did not mean this, but I think that mandating a bike rider's license, registration, insurance and annual tax would not help that much to remove problems.
Overall, I don't see how bikes could have the exact same rights and obligations as cars, although overall both are vehicles and should be treated as vehicles, equally. Still, you can't ride a bike on an Autobahn, and neither can you drive a tractor. You may or may not be allowed to ride bike on a road that is dedicated to buses, although you may be allowed to ride a bike there. Etc, etc. Bikes cannot and shouldn't have *exact' same rights and obligations as cars.
> I mean, go on any public forum and ask people what they think of bicyclists riding their bikes on the road, where we are legally allowed to do.
To be fair, there just is no good way to share a 40mph thoroughfare between bikers and cars. Most of the Northern European countries get away with sharing by having MUCH slower roads.
Bikers need their own dedicated lanes that don't interact with automobile traffic.
>Some people for example would say the same things of motorcycles, yet there is no shortage of people who recognize and take the risk to ride out there.
This is not an equivalent analogy there are no health benefits from motorcycles, people do it purely for fun. If you are getting someone sort of thrill biking around heavy vehicles then, by all means, go for it .
I am talking about people choosing biking for their supposed health benefits.
> many cities have a plethora of bike paths that network through them and lanes set aside for bikes. That combined with high-visibility gear and recognizing those pain points to avoid or tread carefully mitigates a great amount of the risk you take.
I only have experience with chicago lanes. There are very few of them and almost none of them are actually protected from the traffic. For example, a car making a right turn has no option but to go into the bike lane, almost no one is trained to watch out for bikes and cars mirrors are not designed to accommodate bikers. There are many many issues like this.
But as you said it would be much safer if bikers knew what they were doing but biking on street requires no tests, anyone with a bike can get on the streets with 18 wheelers. Some of these people have never driven a car and are just guessing what needs to be done. They don't think general traffic rules apply to them, like zooming past stop signs , running red lights ect. I see this on a daily basis.
I understand why you say that, but no no no. A motorcycle is 200kg+, capable of 150+km/h, and really needs proper training (Unlike as in the US, where it seems being able to steer it is sufficient to get your licence).
E-Bikes should need a proper licence, very very different from motorcycles. Both are very dangerous, but in different ways.
In Europe we have <50cc licences, where you still need to learn a dumded down version of the road code, and that's not even enough to my taste.
(Almost lost my life, with proper motorcycle training, full equipement, in Paris, just getting to confident).
Please do not take motorized 2 wheels lightly, an e-bike can kill you very easily.
> What exactly are the skills that you need to ride your bike in the normal road that are not needed when you ride on a bike lane?
There should not be a set of skills to acquire to be on a road with cars. Roads in city centers should be safe enough for children to cycle to school.
For bigger arteries, this is achieved with segregated traffic in bicycle lanes. For smaller roads, this is achieved with sane city centre speed limits and respectful driving. That is the way it is implemented in countries like the Netherlands and they are in no way achieving this with extraordinarily skilled drivers or cyclists.
Your skills on a bicycle should be as basic as keeping safety distances and signaling your intentions. If I am putting 3 tonnes of metal in motion, it is ny duty to not act recklessly. This is the mindset that needs to change (on top of the infrastructure change).
> Even in dense US cities, being on two wheels is dangerous
I think it's made particularly true because of the very low requirements for driving license in the US, which end up letting dangerously unskilled people on the road.
In 2014 I went from Paris (which at that time hasn't done its cycling transition yet and I was one of the very few cycle commuter in the city by then) to Boston, and it was a terrifying experience despite the city being actually pretty gifted in terms of infrastructures (with the Charles river banks being kind of a bicycle highway).
American drivers (or as least Massachusetts's) have very little spatial awareness, they watch the car in front of them and that's it (well, when they are looking at it and not their mobile phone), most of them don't even check before turning and changing lane. As a result I had 3 really close calls over the course of 4 months, when I never had a single situation as dangerous in 2 years in Paris. I also witnessed roughly as many small accidents between cars in that period than in my whole life.
I discussed with other Europeans there and the ones who had to get their US driving license told me how lenient the process was compared to the European equivalents.
> I see more people driving break the law every day while driving then I've ever seen bikers do in my entire life. People are jerks regardless of what they use to commute with.
I see more people driving breaking the law every day while driving than I have ever seen bikers in the road, not counting the peloton from the local bike store. Speaking in absolute numbers in this case isn't meaningful, because in most areas of the US the number of people using cars for transportation far, far exceeds the number using bicycles.
> I see more people driving break the law every day while driving then I've ever seen bikers do in my entire life. People are jerks regardless of what they use to commute with.
I don't think he (or many) would claim otherwise. The issue isn't the people who ride bikes, but rather the mode they choose to travel with and the impact it has on your drive. Bikers cause all sorts of added danger to both themselves, and you as a driver.
If you have a moment of human error in car-v-car, you're very likely to have both parties walk away from the incident. You call your insurance(s), your rates go up a bit, and your life moves on. Accidents are very, very common.
Repeat this same scenario in car-v-biker, and the odds quickly swing towards it being a life endangering accident. It's just a step away from hitting a pedestrian.
I don't dislike bikers because they slow me down or anything like that. I dislike them because of the likely increase in severity for almost all car-v-biker accidents.
edit: Interesting, seems i am getting downvotes for my opinion. Care to explain your thoughts? I can't imagine you (downvoters) feel that car-v-biker is an equal risk compared to car-v-car, do you?
There are many many thousands of Dutch who bike daily without a helmet, so this is a false dichotomy.
I bike a lot as in for transportation and running errands, and the speeds are generally quite low, and after many years I'm good at not falling off my bike. The biggest thing that concerns me is drivers and their associated cars. In many cases a helmet will do nearly nothing when you get crushed by an overpuffed SUV or truck.
> There is a real need for society to discuss whether the value of reduced injuries outweighs the cost
You could make an equal argument about driving and car/vehicle use. For example the city I live in has had more deaths by vehicle than deaths by homicide this year.
> On the other hand, the idea that traffic laws are there to protect cyclists just doesn't make sense to me.
I think traffic laws encourage predictability and predictability leads to safety for everyone -- cars, pedestrians, and cyclists.
Having driven in 3rd world countries a few times where traffic laws were completely ignored, it was always shocking to drive again in the US. Everything seemed so controlled and ordered by comparison.
> In a general case though, requiring cyclists to have a licence would reduce the number of cyclists, probably significantly. This would correspondingly increase the number of motorists.
Most cyclists are licensed drivers, and a test for cycling licensing would, at worst, probably be no more difficult than that for driving. The impact on the number of cyclists would be minimal.
A bicycle can injure or kill a pedestrian or cause a motor vehicle accident. What is the justification for licensing motor vehicle driving but not bicycling when done on public roads? I cannot think of anyone who fails a motor vehicle licensing test that I consider competent to not cause others harm while operating a bicycle on public roads. I would much rather suffer the 'dangers' of increased carpooling or public transit use.
> Why shouldn’t cyclists need a license to ride on the road?
I don't think cyclists should need licenses to co-habit the roads with other vehicles. However, I think road safety education should be mandatory, perhaps in schools? When I attended (ordinary state) primary school we were all put through the RoSPA[0] Cycling Proficiency Test[1] at around ages 8-10. This was back in ~1977/78 so I'm showing my age :)
As I remember it the course was good fun. You got to use your own bike - I had a Raleigh Chopper :) - and the instructor set up different road layouts in the school playground to negotiate - he even had traffic lights and road signs. We were then lead out on the actual road where the instructor shepherded us through various real life challenges. We were even taught to perform "life saver" looks over our shoulders before carrying out any manoeuvres. At the end of the course we sat a test and were given wee metal triangular RoSPA badges.
I'm not sure if this is still a thing in schools now (I don't have any kids of my own), but I think it should be. Even basic education such as this prepared me to be a better driver, biker (i.e. life saver looks) and pedestrian.
> It is not uncommon for urban pedestrians in Germany to be more concerned with danger posed to them by cyclists than by cars.
As they should! Cyclists are often closer by and silent.
Add to the fact that many cyclists are using the bike for exercise and seem to want to keep pace at any cost.
But mostly - a car is made for running in to humans at relatively low speed, causing as little damage as possible.
Bikes not so much.
I’d much rather be hit by a car at 30km/h than a bike.
Come to think of it - drivers license for cars probably makes a difference as well.
Edit - anecdote:
A co-worker of mine got hit by a bike at a buss stop.
Not really super fast, but oh my he got tangled.
Punctured lung, ruptured spleen, broken ribs etc.
He was off work for almost a year in total.
A modern car would most likely not have caused him, or the rider the kind of damage they incurred.
Bikes should not be forced to drive in traffic anyways.
> Especially with the advent of divvy or whatever your local equivalent is.
We’ve had bike sharing like this for years at this point and it works like a charm. In fact, it’s offered by the local transportation agencies. I haven’t noticed any differences between bike sharing users and others in terms of cycling ability.
> The test is not hard either. Nothing like what our European counterparts have to go through.
I got my motorcycle license last year. When I started to take riding lessons it was the first time that I sat in a motorcycle, it took me about 5 months to get my license (here in Germany). I don’t understand how a few hours of dedicated training is seen as sufficient for safe traffic participation in the U.S.
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