> only because there are more, but cars have to actually follow safety guidelines when they are designed to reduce risks for pedestrians being hit.

But cars kills pedestrians they hit. A lot. And I mean, really a lot, the amount of people cars kill is staggering.

> But cars kills pedestrians they hit.

So do bikes.

see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32376016

> And I mean, really a lot, the amount of people cars kill is staggering.

The amount of kilometers cars run is also staggering.

Nobody is saying cars are good, but at least cars don't run on sidewalks, they stay on the roads and pedestrians don't walk in the middle of the road "just because they can".

Rules are rules, unless someone thinks that bikers are special and aren't subject to the same laws the rest of us have to follow.

Unfortunately it's much easier to encounter bikes going the wrong way, biking on pedestrian only zones, zig-zagging between people walking in a park, jumping on the sidewalk or skipping the red light, than cars (in proportion to the number of vehicles circulating)

> So do bikes.

The comment that you cite doesn’t actually have any supporting citations…

> Rules are rules, unless someone thinks that bikers are special and aren't subject to the same laws the rest of us have to follow.

I would love for enforcement of cyclists who break the law to increase. But that would require actually providing working infrastructure for bikes.

You can’t write someone a ticket for not riding in a bike lane when literally every single block someone has parked in the bike lane. If there was a place where every single day on every block, someone parked in the only road for cars in a major city and on a major road artery, this would be a national news story. But this is what happens on weekdays at ~8:45am where I am in LA.

Every city also has completely different rules about cycling, which very few people bother to know about. In many cities it’s fine to ride on the sidewalk.

> Rules are rules, unless someone thinks that bikers are special and aren't subject to the same laws the rest of us have to follow.

There are indeed different rules for cyclists. There's the Idaho Stop and variants, Paris allows cyclists to go treat red lights as give way. Here in the UK, some one-way roads have a bit of paint to indicate that cyclists can use it in either direction.

Personally, I find that traffic lights are fundamentally designed for motor vehicles and there's better designed junctions that can allow cyclists/e-scooters to go through (with care) whilst the larger vehicles are stopped. Also, zebra crossings are much better for cyclists to use as they don't have to automatically stop (which costs speed, momentum and energy) when there's no-one on it or if they can safely pass behind the person crossing.

> Here in the UK, some one-way roads have a bit of paint to indicate that cyclists can use it in either direction.

if not, they can't

and people on foot need to be sure that nobody is going to come that way, it's not the bikers decision.

rules are rules, they ate there for safety reasons, exceptions to the rules, are still rules.

> , I find that traffic lights are fundamentally designed for motor vehicles

they are designed to simply make precedences rules obvious.

they were invented for railroads.

I dream too of a way for people to always be allowed to cross safely, for example using light bridges, for pedestrians

except that when they are available, like where I live, bikers use them even if they are explicitly forbidden to any vehicle.

this is the bridge, you can clearly see the sign and the blockers

https://blog.urbanfile.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-0...

>> I find that traffic lights are fundamentally designed for motor vehicles

> they are designed to simply make precedences rules obvious.

While what you are saying is true, the crosswalk signals that accompany traffic lights have a considerably shorter green than that for automobiles. Traffic lights are also timed to favour the continuous flow of motor vehicle traffic, rather than pedestrians or cyclists. In other words, pedestrians (and, to a lesser degree, cyclists) are considerably disadvantaged by traffic lights.

Another consideration for cyclists is that amber lights are timed for motor vehicles. Entering an intersection as the light changes means that a cyclists will usually be leaving the intersection once the light is red. On the other hand, stopping under such circumstances is an excellent way to be struck by an automobile from behind since the driver does have enough time to clear the intersection.

Judging from what I've seen on Not Just Bikes, it is possible to design controlled intersections that strikes a more reasonable balance between multiple users. Unfortunately, that is not the case in my neck of the woods yet.

If you look at the details of most controlled intersections in my city, it becomes abundantly clear that pedestrian and cyclist safety were (at best) secondary considerations. Some of them are so bad that pedestrians are expected to wait to cross in a blind zone. Things are slowly changing around here, unfortunately it takes a lot of money to undo something that should have been done properly in the first place. NIMBYism also makes change near impossible in many areas, since the loss of as much as one on-street parking spot per block is considered by some to be a more heinous crime than pedestrians being run down. (Thankfully parts of the city are seeing change due to lower vehicle ownership by nearby residents.)

The Paris red lights description is not exactly right, there is specific signage on specific red lights to allow them to pass through when the light is red: https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/Céder%20le%...

Not all the red lights are like that.

Electric bikes are a new measure that need to be evaluated accordingly, an added complication because it has a motor. But when talking about pedal bikes it is absurd to expect them to follow rules meant to cars. Bicycles are a hybrid between a pedestrian and a vehicle, and can operate in either mode: a slow moving bicycle is a pedestrian and should be able to go on sidewalks and anywhere else a pedestrian is allowed; a fast moving bicycle is a vehicle and should be allowed anywhere a vehicle is allowed. Some countries already have this on mind when creating their rules, so bicycles are allowed to do all that stuff, the others need to change their rules.

> see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32376016

And a reply to that comment states: […] it does not appear to actually show a per-mile statistic. Where are you getting that from?

And as the tabloid paper itself states:

> Since 2011, bicyclists have injured more than 2,250 pedestrians — including at least seven who died — according to stats from the city Department of Transportation and published reports.

So 6 / 2250 = 0.002666666667, or 0.3%. What percentage of car-pedestrian incidents lead to death? I'm guessing it is >1%.

> Nobody is saying cars are good, but at least cars don't run on sidewalks, they stay on the roads and pedestrians don't walk in the middle of the road "just because they can".

First off, they do not "stay on roads". See "Car smashes into Toronto bike shop and the metaphor is lost on no one":

* https://www.blogto.com/city/2022/05/car-smashes-toronto-bike...

* https://driving.ca/auto-news/crashes/toronto-motorist-drives...

Also "Why Cars Rarely Crash into Buildings in the Netherlands":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_0DgnJ1uQ

And pedestrians walk/cross the middle of the road all the time, at least where I live. This has been dubbed "jaywalking" as part of a campaign of anti-pedestrian propaganda in the earlier twentieth century:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking

Interestingly, this does not seem to be the case in countries with a well-developed car & cycle infrastructure. It still happens, but it is way rarer than anything involving cars.

Comparing it per-kilometer is disingenuous due to the wildly different speed. If you want to make a fairer comparison, you should look at it per travel-hour. And cars definitely do all the things you mention bikes doing wrong - you are probably just so used to it that you don't notice it anymore.

> you should look at it per travel-hour.

that would be awesome. if only there was a way to monitor bikes and who runs them...

anyway, per hour is even more faulty than per kilometers.

nobody drives a bike for 5 hours straight, unless it's a professional competition.

> And cars definitely do all the things you mention bikes doing wrong - you are probably just so used to it that you don't notice it anymore.

I've never seen a car jumping on the sidewalk intentionally or running high speed among people in a park walking their kids in a stroller, in the almost 50 years I've been on this planet.

> nobody drives a bike for 5 hours straight

Plenty of people do, actually. When I was a bit more overweight and trying to lose it, I used to go for 4-6h long rides around London in the weekends, and 3-4h long rides in the evenings after work.

Lots of non-professional cyclists go on cycle tours where they can ride for 10h or more for several days.

On top of that, 1h-1h30min long rides to and from work and other places were quite common as they are for many cyclists, and I suspect this is about the same for drivers in big cities.

Bikes can kill (or severely injure) too. I had cca 3 super close calls in past few years with bikers going downhill like crazy, zooming through the crowd of cars stopped on red light, not even attempting to break, and going through the crowd of pedestrians walking on green through the pedestrian crossing. Missed me by cca 10cm each time, of course completely silent. Their speed was cca 30-40kmh each time.

Another fact is, bikers, electric or not, simply disregard any traffic rule. Cycling (fast) on sidewalks. Ignoring one ways, red lights or well literally anything that makes traffic rules.

The problem with bikers is mostly their mentality. Feeling above others, above rules, 'I have everything under control' mentality, in past few years added the sense of righteousness because they are 'ecological' (on their 5k$ ebike with tons of eco waste required to produce one, instead of boring good old public transport which works pretty great here).

When my wife worked at emergency, they had a case where pedestrian was hit by cyclist in similar situation as my experiences above (crossing road on green, mental cyclist comes speeding on his red light). Pedestrian went into coma and died 4 days after the accident, 40 years old healthy guy with family. These kind of cases don't make big news, its not terrorism but it happens. Just talk to emergency folks.

> only because there are more, but cars have to actually follow safety guidelines when they are designed to reduce risks for pedestrians being hit.

I challenge you to pick any stop sign in your neighborhood and count how many cars come to the legally mandated complete stop before the line.

most dangerous red lights and stop signs are monitored by authorities to reduce accidents.

There ate cameras mounted everywhere.

I worked on a mobility project for the city of Monza to make street crossing safer around schools and public offices.

Unfortunately bikes don't have plates and we can't send the rider a ticket after the fact.

Anyway: I challenge you to monitor a stop sign on a road heavily used by riders working for any of the delivery companies and see what happens.

Seems the goalposts shifted. Now cars only follow the rules at the “most dangerous” intersections? They all seem pretty dangerous for a pedestrian in the crosswalk.

My city actually does have stop sign cameras, a relative rarity in the states. There are 8 of them for thousands of stop signs. Maybe it’s different where you are but here almost nobody stops at a stop sign properly and sometimes pedestrians and cyclists get killed because of it. The cameras generate constant complaints from people who live near them because even though they’re marked, drivers are so unaccustomed to a full stop that they struggle to do so even when they know it results in an automatic fine.

> Now cars only follow the rules at the “most dangerous” intersections?

that's quite the interpretation there...

the most dangerous intersections are already monitored, don't need to challenge me to do it, they are already studied to improve safety.

sure enough, the less dangerous are going to be less dangerous. At least I believe that's what's going to happen, no matter if it's cars or bikes.

> e-bikes in particular run much faster than regular bikes and are used much more by incompetent bikers, given they are basically a non-taxed non-regulated non-plated moped (mopeds are quite dangerous for pedestrians)

This is factually false, or at least, in several countries, where their design is regulated:

1. the engines are limited to 250W, which is not weak, but not strong, either;

2. some even have an electronic cap to 25 km/h, and engine turns off after such speed (I believe this is for mid-engine models);

3. can't propel on-demand.

E-bikes are also heavy, not aerodynamic, and don't put the driver in a position to push stronly. The speed demons who overtake me in the streets, are typically non electric racing bikes.

I had both types, and they definitely assist the ride, but they don't push the driver to go faster.

Wheat fits the description you've given are actually electric (kick)scooters:

- they propel only on-demand

- they're often driven by reckless teenagers, which sometimes bring a passenger

- since they're smaller than bikes, there is a considerably lower (both physical and psychological) barrier to traveling on the pavements

> some even have an electronic cap to 25 km/h,

which is a lot.

especially if the biker is a 90kg man.

If your city built shitty, unsafe bicycle lanes and therefore people don't use them it sure sounds like you should be mad at the city instead of the people who are trying to use a sustainable mode of transport without dying

You are assuming that that's even possible, it says a lot about some bikers' mentality (I'm assuming you are one by the way you got all offended, for nothing)

But the city where I live, Milan, built standard bike lanes as they are built all over Europe.

So please, before assuming, ask.

I would also remind you that walking is more sustainable than electric bikes and pedestrians surely don't want to die because of e-bikes mania.

> I would also remind you that walking is more sustainable than electric bikes and pedestrians surely don't eant to die because of e-bikes mania.

So, I'm going to get super pedantic here... But, nope.

Walking burns more calories than riding an ebike and those calories come from somewhere. Walking isn't an efficient conversion of calories into energy.

Biking ends up being more sustainable because it coverts more calories into motion.

E-bikes even more sustainable because it uses less calories and instead relies on a battery (charged from on ever greening grid).

You could debate about whether or not biking is more sustainable than ebiking due to battery production impact. However, both are going to have a clear win over walking.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore

https://www.bikeradar.com/features/long-reads/cycling-enviro....

> Walking burns more calories than riding an ebike and those calories come from somewhere

You can't be serious...

Walking also reduce your risk of going to the hospital, how much energy is saved?

Do ambulances run on magic dust?

> However, both are going to have a clear win over walking.

I seriously hoped you were jocking.

Until we won't be born with wheels, walking will win.

I sincerely hope that you'll at least get this, one day...

I am serious and provided links to back my claims.

Can you do the same?

That's assuming it makes the least bit sense to compare the distances people typically walk when that's the available mode of travel compared to how far they ride when they have e-bikes. And "sustainable" isn't even primarily about energy efficiency - it's about ensuring we don't exceed the capacity of the planet to repair what damage we do it. A human population that relies primarily on walking (or push-biking) to get around is almost certainly going to be far more sustainable than one primarily using e-bikes.

Seems like they only just started and are not close to being done. I wouldn't expect any cultural change, such as drivers respecting and riders trusting new infrastructure, within a year.

It wasn't Milan, but I know I refrained from renting a bike in Italy because the road traffic seemed to dangerous. Maybe the standard European bike lanes you're referring to (which don't exist, btw, there are various styles in various countries, some good, some terrible) don't work for Italian road users.

https://road.cc/content/news/milan-confirms-new-bike-network...

Road traffic in Italy is definitely somewhat chaotic - I got knocked off a bike in Naples mainly because I was too trusting that cars would stay in their lane and not randomly move over with no indication. But when drivers do know you're there they're generally respectful.

I'm not assuming safe bicycle lanes are possible, I know they are. I've been to Amsterdam. Vancouver built fully separated bike lanes and they're immensely popular.

Second, standard European bike lanes aren't a thing. I would ride a bike anywhere in Amsterdam or Rotterdam. I would think twice before doing it anywhere in Italy.

And idk what you're talking about with walking being more sustainable, obviously you can go farther on a bike than by walking.

> But the city where I live, Milan, built standard bike lanes as they are built all over Europe.

No clue how Milan is. But for me, the most common reason I leave a bike lane is because someone has parked their car in it.

A large percentage of motorists treat bike lanes as parking lanes and often cities aren't ticketing them.

it is still not the pedestrians' fault!

call the police and make them notice it.

if bike lanes are not available, they have to, by the law, use the road, not 'what the biker thinks it's best'

Imagine if car drivers did the same "oh, there's a truck stuck in to middle of the road, let me cut through this park where kids are playing, at 80mph"

> call the police and make them notice it.

They are often the ones blocking the road.

> if bike lanes are not available, they have to, by the law, use the road, not 'what the biker thinks it's best'

As I'm sure you are aware, laws are not universal. In Idaho where I live, cyclists are allowed on the sidewalk so long as they yield to pedestrians. [1]

> Imagine if car drivers did the same "oh, there's a truck stuck in to middle of the road, let me cut through this park where kids are playing, at 80mph"

Bikes and cars are different. It's perfectly reasonable to bike at 10mph on a sidewalk and where I live it happens all the time without incident.

You aren't operating a 2 ton metal box with low visibility.

[1] https://www.bikelaw.com/laws/idaho/

> They are often the ones blocking the road.

Hah - trust me, that's not just Italy either. Though it's more likely to be construction workers who hopefully do actually have some sort of permit to be using the bike lane, but it's still an issue for cyclists.

And yeah, the moment someone starts comparing what you can safely do on a bike (where your total weight is very likely under 100kg, most of which - your body - is squishy, and is rarely moving at over 30 km/h) vs a car (literally a hard metal box weighing up to 10 times as much, and capable of speeds well over 100km/h just with the lightest touch of the driver's foot) I just tune out - the physics involved are fundamentally different.

> Though it's more likely to be construction workers who hopefully do actually have some sort of permit to be using the bike lane, but it's still an issue for cyclists.

Definitely a problem, though at least where I'm at (Idaho) it's generally the case that they are actually doing something that requires blocking SOMETHING and I get why they choose the bike lane over the sidewalk or road.

That said, there are times when they just store their cones in the bike lane, and that can be super frustrating.

If "frustrating" was the worst of it I wouldn't waste time discussing it, but suddenly forcing cyclists in a dedicated bike lane into a busy regular traffic lane with no alternative option available is pretty obviously a recipe for disaster - admittedly it's hard to find solid evidence of cyclists being killed by such arrangements (quite a few cases of cyclists being killed riding in such lanes, seemingly all due to moving vehicles crossing their path) but there are definitely cases of very serious injury.

KE = 0.5 * m * v * v

Oddly bikes kill roughly as many people per mile as cars do, and injure significantly more. Drivers do kill approximately 40x as many people in NYC, but they also travel far more.

The politics around this are tricky in part because of comments like yours. https://nypost.com/2019/08/31/nyc-bicyclists-are-killing-ped...

Your source is a tabloid article and it does not appear to actually show a per-mile statistic. Where are you getting that from?

Estimates for number of miles traveled by cyclists or cars in NYC varies, you can get an order of magnitude estimate just looking at traffic though.

Anyway the article is quoting the same statistics anyone gets from cover, government sources like this: https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/bicycle-crash-da...

Pedestrian killed in 2017 by bicylists/pedestrian accidents 1, bicylists only fatalites 1.

Pedestrian injured in 2017 by bicylists/pedestrian accidents 315, bicylists injured in 2017 by bicylists/pedestrian accidents 88.