When the mundane task of cycling is seen as some risk activity, there is something wrong. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the health benefits of regular cycling far outweighs the relative risk of cycling, even in places that is hostile to bikes.
I love cycling, and I wish I lived in a place where it was more practical and safer. As great as it is for the environment, traffic, and health (mental and physical!), if you know a decent number of people that cycle a lot, you will see a continuous stream of injuries among your friends.
wait. you cycle because driving is too risky? are you statistically less likely to get injured while cycling, or is it mainly about caring for not injuring others?
Roads are dangerous by their nature and bicycles are unpredictable and unprotected modes of transport to use. It is entirely understandable that there will be a large amount of lethal accidents involving cyclists, particularly on roads which aren't designed to accommodate them safely.
Choosing to cycle subsequently bears significant risk and those who choose to do it surely carry a large proportion of the responsibility if they get injured, not mention the risks they pose to drivers by causing traffic to change speed and be forced to overtake.
I understand cycling where it is safe to but am not convinced cycling on major roads is worth it.
Cycling isn't risky, sharing poorly designed roads with cars is risky.
Dedicated, fully separated paths with no conflict points have very low fatality rates. Also, even in risky areas there is a net positive effect on mortality.
You are not alone. Transport for London found safety concerns as the biggest reason people do not cycle in London. Interestingly, many people who do cycle also considered it too dangerous.
For what it's worth, your risk from diseases of inactivity (diabetes, heart disease, etc) are far greater than the risk of cycling, even with poor infrastructure. Most people who take up cycling to work see an increase in life expectancy.
The solution is to separate cyclists from motor traffic on all major roads and introduce 30kmph limits on quiet roads. The Netherlands did this and has far lower accident rates, despite having more children and elderly people cycling. They don't wear helmets either!
Cycling on shared roads is far too dangerous for ordinary people. I bike to work each day. I have been fortunate enough over the years to not be hit by a car.
Almost every serious cyclist that I know has been hit by a car to varying degrees of lethality. I have been riding on shared roads (as has my father) for most of my life, and have been fortunate to not be hit. It takes a while to get a good sense of when it is safe to cross a road, and how to anticipate the behavior of drivers (many of whom are distracted and not expecting a cyclist).
Bike lanes do not protect cyclists from being struck at an intersection.
It is very easy for 'thought leaders' to bleat about how wonderful it would be if everyone were to ride a bicycle to work. It would cut down on road maintenance costs while raising health costs due to injury. Our dippy 'thought leaders' abstract out that the suburban lifestyle makes people obese, and prescribe a ridiculous solution that requires no special thought or changing the urban planning regime fixed in place by Eisenhower through the highway system.
It is easier for medical professionals to keep cashing insurance checks and floating impractical health advice without wondering as to why a system that incentivizes reactive care over preventative care seems to produce so many grotesquely unhealthy citizens.
Fat people should not be cycling to lose weight or to commute -- if they are physically disabled, they will not be fast enough to react when drivers act unpredictably. Even fit cyclists who participate in races are not always fast enough to react to drivers.
Further, cycling at safe commuting speeds is not a good workout. It is a bad workout. It is pleasurable in some cases, and in some states that make room on the shoulder for cyclists, but if you commute at an aerobically active pace, you will be killed at an intersection.
That's what killed the former CFO of Amazon, Joy Covey -- certainly an intelligent, accomplished, and fit woman.
It is not compassionate to our piggy brothers and sisters to tell them to partake in an activity that will get them killed.
This hits all the SWPL high status points:
* Biking is high status; low-status fatties should be more like us and bike more.
* Liking European things is high status. I can ape other high status people by suggesting copying a European policy without going into the details of why it works.
* Academic studies are high status. I will name drop a study without going into detail about what it was about to an audience unqualified to interpret it.
Has anyone noticed that 'thought leaders' lead no one but themselves and people who look like them?
Perhaps it is time to personally set a better example for the lower class, rather than proposing multi-billion dollar bureaucratic solutions that permit the upper class to hand off their responsibilities to a bureaucracy while they wall themselves off in their Elysian neighborhoods from the lumpenfolk who disgust them.
Sucks as its properly dangerous due to simple statistics (you need just 1 out of 10000 drivers to not pay enough attention, be high, super tired, getting seizure or heart attack, etc.). Riding on roads without dedicated full cycle lane sucks, period.
Another point - directly breathing all fumes from thousands of cars every day, lorries, buses and other diesel marvels. More than compensating a healthy activity with equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes.
Fanatics always propagate their sports/activity as next coming of jesus, but as with everything there are pros and cons. Biking on standard roads has massive cons.
but it's not unduly dangerous to ride on city streets, even in large cities.
I love cycling (I cycle a lot), but unfortunately this isn't true. In the US, you are roughly twice as likely to die as in a car[1]. It is much, much, much safer than motorcycling! (Somewhat old data, though)
So I cycle around SF, but am considering stopping. The data varies depending on which source you use, but it seems like cycling is about 3 times less dangerous than motorbiking, and considerably (at least ~5-10x) more dangerous than driving. Most people who've lived in SF have plenty of anecdotal evidence of friends who've been hurt, often seriously, by bike accidents.
I'd love to be proven wrong about this: I love cycling and particularly like getting built-in exercise in my routine. And I'll continue to donate to the SF bicycle coalition, and vote for improving infrastructure to support cyclists. It just seems most rational to stop actually cycling.
Most reasons to not cycle are not inherent to the bike. The same cannot be said about cars, they are inherently dangerous to all road users (and as a society we paper this over to make driving feel way safer than it actually is)
Friends have lost friends cycling on mixed-mode roads. Drivers don't expect to see cyclists, and the normal traffic speeds involved leave little room for the kind of error that even benevolent humans make all the time, to speak nothing of the many hostile drivers.
I would love to cycle. I love bicycling, and am glad it was an option for you! But I don't believe it's viable where I am without significant structural changes.
I disagree. You're sharing the road with vehicles 10x heavier than you. People have heart attacks, go into diabetic shock, blow their tires, etc. Sure, those things don't happen often. But if they do and you're in the way, you'll have brain damage at best. There's not only other drivers to be wary of, simple road hazards that are nothing to a car can cause great harm. Sewer grates, random debris, pot holes, pot holes hidden by puddles, oil slicks after a rainfall, people pulling over to the side of the road without looking because of a siren etc. At times, even the wind becomes a dangerous element.
You mention walking should be fairly effortless. However, I've seen so many near misses because people walking are so buried in their phones that they almost get hit. Also I find that people put too much trust in traffic lights instead of simply looking both ways before crossing a street.
Cycling in large American cities built for automotive traffic is, unfortunately, not for everyone, not yet.
You have to reach the point where vigilance doesn't cause anxiety.
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