People complain daily about the bad drivers they face during their commute. But that's quickly forgotten. That one time a cyclist did something wrong, however, is etched into memory.
Drivers (not cars) kill an incredible amount of people every year, while cyclists virtually none. Cars pollute, make noise, destroys cities.
And still, people go out of their way to harass cyclists every chance they get. Weird how that works.
Sure I want a full biking city and what not but the cyclists here are such a bad testimony to everyone else that it starts this strong negativity. Being jerks to the pedestrians and the drivers earns you few allies.
- Failure to use signals to merge lanes
- Speeding in excess of 80 mph
- Tailgating (because otherwise someone would cut in front of you and you'd never get where you're going)
- Left lane camping
- Aggressively punishment passing left lane campers
- Not stopping for right on reds
- Having 1000 yard stare to the left when turning right on red and being oblivious to pedestrians
- Failure to get up to speed on onramps
- Stopping in the middle of the freeway when missing an exit
- Multiple lane changes without looking to make an exit
- Backing up on the breakdown lane to make a missed exit
- Backing a semi down an exit lane to rejoin the freeway because it was the wrong exit
- Merging into the merge lane of an onramp to pass traffic
- Using the shoulder to pass traffic
- Distracted driving and blowing through red lights (with the resultant T-bone side impact collisions)
- Drunk driving
- Wrong way driving (drunk, elderly or suicidal)
- Lane cutting
- Failure to zipper merge properly
- Playing "follow the leader" through non-permissive left turns without looking for oncoming traffic
- Turning left immediately when the non-permissive light turns yellow without yielding for oncoming traffic
- Multiple cars turning left long after their permissive green arrow has changed to red
- Detroit/Massachusetts left turns
- The "right on red / illegal u-turn / right turn" trick (not an actual legal Michigan left / Mexican returno)
- Entering the oncoming traffic lane when their lane is blocked without checking for oncoming traffic
- Using honking as a means to "punish" other drivers
- Blocking other drivers and aggressive lane changes and road rage
Why do the cars get a pass for all bad stuff they cause?
Cyclists do not follow the rules of the road here. They simply don't. In particular, they go through red lights as if they don't exist. As a pedestrian crossing a crosswalk -- with the cross signal -- you still need to look left and right for bicycles. I don't see cars running red lights too often, but bicycles are a constant threat. And they are silent and sometimes hard to see.
To be fair, this report[1] from 2018 shows the disparity in injuries caused by bicycles (134) versus cars (2,272). With that in mind, it doesn't make sense for me to be complaining about the bicycles.
At the same time, there's a reason these statistics don't match my experience and the experience of many others. I dodge bicycles every day and don't get injured, probably because they're relatively easy to dodge most of the time. I've been hit by a bicycle twice but never reported it because I wasn't injured enough to seek medical care. I've never had to dodge a car.
If you stand on any corner in NYC, you will see cyclists running red lights several times within an hour. You won't see cars doing it as often.
So, I think this issue would be solved if the majority of cyclists followed the rules of the road like the majority of drivers do. Until then, people like me are going to keep complaining, despite the apparent damages not being as severe as what cars cause.
[1] https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/bicycle-crash-da...
Again there are lies. Majority of cyclists do follow the rules, no worse than drivers do. You're just blind on one eye. If you're not a cyclist, you're for instance probably ignoring the tens of cars illegally parked on bike lanes we see every trip.
And majority of issues where cyclists break the law would be solved if cyclists got proper infrastructure. If you want to make your city safer, vote for that, instead of letting your hate for cyclists blind you.
I'm not saying a free pass, I'm saying they act outside the flow of traffic so strongly and regularly compared to cars that people get angry with them.
I don't know why bikers are so un-self-aware that they blow red lights and stop signs as a matter of principle, bully pedestrians in my experience far more than cars, then act like the victim
Because it doesn't. None of that is true, except in maybe some isolated incidences. Those incidences just happen to be etched in your memory, because you took them personally. It's not enough of a norm for your sweeping generalization to hold water.
Cue the Boston driver jokes on the Tesla, but that’s just really bad driving there. I do not expect them to get usable self-driving for another 10-15 years at least.
It's a different story on 4-way stop intersections. You look at who is where, which order they stopped in, and go when it's your turn.
The real bottom line ultimately is, are the average accident rates up or not?
It's the same with following the speed limit on roads where everyone speeds. Nobody is going to like self driving cars if they're going 25 on a road where everyone goes 40, where the speed limit should clearly be adjusted. The accidents that occur from drivers not being able to stop for a slow car in time, drivers getting annoyed and attempting to overtake, or drivers causing road rage incidents will dwarf whatever crash rate you'd get by just letting the car go faster.
>How many people are going to get rear ended because every Tesla stops at a stop sign now?
So bad drivers roll through stop signs, and this behaviour is somehow at equilibrium with terrible drivers who follow too closely and are thus perpetually on the verge of rear-ending someone? Best not upset this equilibrium, it clearly works so well!
>It's the same with following the speed limit on roads where everyone speeds.
Of course it is. Can't wait for speeding self-driving cars taking out cyclists or pedestrians. Whaddaya want from me, I put it in 'hurry mode' because I've got places to be!
>Nobody is going to like self driving cars if they're going 25 on a road where everyone goes 40, where the speed limit should clearly be adjusted. The accidents that occur from drivers not being able to stop for a slow car in time, drivers getting annoyed and attempting to overtake, or drivers causing road rage incidents will dwarf whatever crash rate you'd get by just letting the car go faster.
Speeders that endanger lives of everyone not currently inside a car, now embedded in an efficient algorithm. Whatever could go wrong? My North American barely liveable city is gonna be so much better for it!
> Speeders that endanger lives of everyone not currently inside a car, now embedded in an efficient algorithm
Maybe pedestrians should be voting to improve public transportation instead of trying to walk in roads clearly not meant for pedestrians. Has nobody heard of trains or buses? How is it a solution to make every car go 25 mph just in case some random person decides to jaywalk?
Weird, Musk is always talking about how FSD is far better than human driving, and far safer.
He's never once said "it's trying to mimic humans", or that it's "much safer unless that might cause an accident, and only then will it drive unsafely (like rolling through stop signs)".
This sounds like post-facto rationalization to me.
Great! I don't roll or blow through stops, follow too closely or speed by more than 5 kmh within city limits. I drive carefully and defensively, avoiding dangerous manoeuvres, especially when a driver close to me seems erratic (for example, blows through a stop sign, speeds or follows too closely).
Tesla should mimic my driving.
Pedestrians should be voting to improve public transportation in addition to improving walkability of their neighbourhoods, not instead of that.
>How is it a solution to make every car go 25 mph just in case some random person decides to jaywalk?
In my Canadian province, crossing mid-block is perfectly legal as long as you yield to traffic, and 'jaywalking' is not a legal concept. Slowing cars down is safer not just because it reduces the likelihood and severity of hitting pedestrians when they cross incorrectly. It is also safer because it reduces the likelihood and severity of hitting pedestrians when they cross correctly, or walk on a sidewalk. It is also safer because it reduces the likelihood and severity of hitting cyclists and other cars. Highways should be designed for speed, whereas streets should be designed for safety at the expense of speed.
Besides, when a city gets above a certain size and is not missing traffic lights where they should be, speeding within city limits is often quite a futile endeavour. I can't tell you how many times I see drivers who go 70 in a 50 kmh zone zoom past me, just to be waiting at the next light, or the one after that as I pull up after going 55 kmh the whole way. I won't lie, it can be amusing.
If self-driving cars just emulate the stupid, dangerous and illogical habits of human drivers, then to hell with self-driving cars, and you can bet I'll be voting for that.
Every rear-end accident I've ever been aware of at a stop sign would have happened whether the person in front stopped for 2 seconds, 5 seconds, or 7 seconds. They were all due to the person in the back not paying attention and not driving safely. Whether the person in the front did a slow 5 second rolling stop or a 5-7 second full stop has never been relevant.
I'm unaware of anyone I know around here ever getting rear-ended because someone stopped at a stop sign. Granted, the culture here is to actually stop at each stop sign, so, you know, it's expected that people will actually stop and not just assumed that they're going to roll through.
Ironically, she hates Elon Musk and everything he does, so memes about how self driving cars are a terrible idea.
Probably not many, and they'll mostly be low-speed. And the person who follows to closely and doesn't brake at stop lights is 100% at fault in that situation. Why blame Tesla for following the law? If you think the law is stupid, get the vote out and change it.
I once got pulled over for driving 5 over the limit. There was a squadron of tens of motorcycle cops who pulled everybody over. I challenged the ticket in court, complaining that one cannot drive the speed limit on that road without other drivers getting aggro, and that I was driving with the flow of traffic. The judge did not care. He said it's my responsibility to follow the law. So, good luck.