Re:Californians may tax the rich more to subsidise electric ...
by aeternum on Tuesday October 18, 2022 @04:07PM
(#33253119)
The stats are telling though, you put your family at 250% risk of death by choosing the bike over the car. That is a major problem that needs to be addressed with infrastructure.
Unless your city has separated bike lanes, it's hard to say that this is a safe choice compared to a car.
In the UK the stats are even worse, with something like 16x risk of death and 78x risk of injury. https://kennettpeterson.com/2016/08/26/riding-your-bike-is-7...
Re:Californians may tax the rich more to subsidise electric ...
by stephencanon on Tuesday October 18, 2022 @04:49PM
(#33253691)
I feel pretty comfortable that riding a bike here is safer than driving a car in the suburbs. Drivers generally pay attention, and speeds are much lower. More infrastructure would make it better, but we have a real protected lane for the part of our commute that actually has significant traffic.
> Not everyone lives in dense cities, nor does everyone want to.
Fortunately, you don't need to in order to not be car-bound. I live in a small college town (10k people), and ride a bike for almost all trips April-November. It's easy, because there's no suburban mess of six+-lane roads or 40+mph traffic to cross. We went to a party at a friend's house on Sunday on the other side of town; my five-year-old daughter road her bike, and I carried our two-year-old on mine. We are hours away from the closest "dense city", and biking is easy and safe.
My parents live in another ~10k person New England town. My 82-year-old mom drives her car once a week to get groceries, and walks for the rest of her trips. This myth that you can only be car-free (or mostly car-free) in big cities has got to die.