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Bigwaves

Booting up
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Try to do 3000 miles a summer in the number of close calls is increasing. I feel safer on my motorcycles and my Bicycle. Here in Connecticut there is not much enforcement of distracted drivers that cause harm.
 

Eleeski

Making fresh tracks
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I use the time I save driving to exercise when I get to the office.. usually a full 45 minutes before anyone else arrives. Much safer that way and don't have to worry about rain or other external variables..

I use the time I save by cycling past the traffic to enjoy a big steak without any carbon guilt.

I'm not going to live in bubble wrap slowed down to 30kph. Stall speed in my Cessna is four times that - it's dangerous to go slow! By bike or by plane - I am not stuck in the dangerous traffic.

Eric
 

4ster

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should!
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Stiffer penalties.... Maybe
How about stiffer restrictions about who can actually own & operate a motor vehicle!

I have ridden road bikes most of my life for both transportation & recreation. I never felt threatened till maybe the past 5 or 10 years. It is rare that I will get on mine now. Even when I need to ride my MTB on pavement I am very selective on when & where I do.
22D21367-E41C-4804-B55E-8FD64F4744FD.jpeg
 

Eleeski

Making fresh tracks
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The cycling deaths are tragic. And cycling is a dangerous sport. So be aware and on guard to minimize your risk. But don't give in to fear.

I have ridden road bikes most of my life for both transportation & recreation. I never felt threatened till maybe the past 5 or 10 years. It is rare that I will get on mine now. Even when I need to ride my MTB on pavement I am very selective on when & wh
View attachment 78462

I know that as I age, my acceptable risk goes down. A fall from my bike that would have left me laughing as a kid now cripples me. The car that passed me closely was easier to catch his draft as a kid - now it nearly knocked me off my bike. The modern world is so safe that anything marginally unsafe stands out like a beacon (and somebody is there with a phone to share the horror). Perhaps the road isn't full of distracted crazies but our minds are convinced that those stories and memories present a danger we are now unwilling to accept.

Get excited by the cool opportunities and toys. Be aware but not hung up on the risks.

Blue Oyster Cult sang "40,000 people every day". If you get flattened by the car that got impossibly Tboned into you, it was your day to join the 40,000. Until then, enjoy the ride.

Eric
 

Jim Kenney

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Common sense would tell me that people who drive where there are regular commuters on bikes would be more keen on bikes being present.
The serious or fatal incidents that I've read about lately have been in areas like NY and DC, which blows my theory away :(

In DC the number of people on bikes has gone up tremendously over the last 15 years since I started dabbling with bike commuting in 2006. With those greater numbers of riders comes a greater number of accidents. And I am not even including all the crazies riding e-scooters and e-skateboards the last few years.
 

KingGrump

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NYC is a royal cluster when it comes to mixed vehicular traffic. Experienced cyclist weaving through traffic with excess speed. Clueless tourists/newbies wobbling around on rental Citi-bikes. Food delivery guys on unregistered /unlicensed motorized scooters with no lights/reflectors going the wrong way on one way streets through out both day and night. About 40% of these riders are on the sidewalk at any given time. I have no issues with any of them when I am driving. Pedestrians are the ones I feel sorry for.

Get on the parkways on weekends and we’ll often find packs of crotch rockets splitting lanes at traffic plus 40. Nights in Southwestern Queens is often plagued with gangs of teens on unregistered/unlicensed dirt bikes. Mostly, it’s just Darwin at work.

That’s why my son termed NYC driving as close quarter combat.
 

KevinF

Gathermeister-New England
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Alsacia has gotten a hand me down road bike and has really taken to it. On one of her first rides, we were on a nearly deserted road in N VT (Rt 14 in Craftsbury for those in the area). A car came up behind us and decided not to overtake on the blind hill. At that moment, the car behind him decided to overtake him and us as fast as he could while giving us the finger and honking. He must have been running low on Twisted Tea or something.

Many moons ago I was doing a tour in Wyoming. I had been slogging up some endless mountain pass for the last hour without seeing another car, a house, another cyclist, ANYTHING to indicate that I was not the last surviving homo sapien on the planet.

Along comes a car going down the mountain, which I found to be exciting because -- hey, there's at least one other carbon-based bi-pedal life-form left on Earth! Sweet! So I waved. :)

They flipped me the bird. Seriously. We were going in opposite directions on the most deserted stretch of road I have ever seen and yep, F--- YOU!
 

James

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19 killed in Nyc this year so far. Including one hit by a concrete truck.

The latest, Aug 11th.

Jose Alzorriz, 52, was hit by the driver of a Honda who had been struck by another driver, an 18-year-old, who ran a red light at the intersection of Coney Island Avenue and Avenue L in Midwood at about 12:30 p.m., police said. Alzorriz, of Park Slope, was pronounced dead at NYC Health + Hospitals/Coney Island. The 18-year-old driver was taken into police custody at the scene of the crash but was later released without charges.
https://www.amny.com/transit/cyclist-killed-brooklyn-1.33644652
 

KingGrump

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19 killed in Nyc this year so far. Including one hit by a concrete truck.

I believe the concrete truck was #15. The cyclist ran a red light and impacted the side of the concrete truck in the intersection and was subsequently swept under the vehicle.
 

tball

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I'm almost completely off the road after getting my first road bike when I was 14 (Univega Viva Sport).

The last ride I'll typically do on the road is to my parent's house because there's no other route to get there. It's ten miles each way, 50% bike path, 40% bike lane, and 10% decent roads.

I'm not feeling so safe even in the bike lanes between the distractions, carelessness and open hostility toward cyclists. A cyclist was just killed a couple of weeks ago in a Denver bike lane:


 
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Eleeski

Making fresh tracks
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40+ million cyclists in the USA. 700+ deaths per year. Yes it's dangerous. But it's missing a couple orders of magnitude compared to drug and suicide death crisis.

Lots of good things are happening for cycling safety. More bike paths, lanes and street sharing awareness. Maybe hearing about every random bike death helps this but too many of the comments here are testimonials to never again riding on the road. Counterproductive?

Eric
 
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Tricia

Tricia

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Many moons ago I was doing a tour in Wyoming. I had been slogging up some endless mountain pass for the last hour without seeing another car, a house, another cyclist, ANYTHING to indicate that I was not the last surviving homo sapien on the planet.

Along comes a car going down the mountain, which I found to be exciting because -- hey, there's at least one other carbon-based bi-pedal life-form left on Earth! Sweet! So I waved. :)

They flipped me the bird. Seriously. We were going in opposite directions on the most deserted stretch of road I have ever seen and yep, F--- YOU!
That's just rude. :nono:

We see folks riding road bikes up Mt Rose Hwy which has no shoulder and is a hell of a climb. I may think to myself, "That's just stupid." ;) But I'd never flip the bird.
 

KevinF

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That's just rude. :nono:

We see folks riding road bikes up Mt Rose Hwy which has no shoulder and is a hell of a climb. I may think to myself, "That's just stupid." ;) But I'd never flip the bird.

In fairness, I had the opportunity to interact with a fair number of Wyoming and Montana residents on that trip and I found them to be overwhelmingly pleasant people.

Same trip involved a 15 mile descent at 6, 7%. Great sight lines so you could really let it fly. I had somebody safely behind me for the last 10 miles or so. When we reached the valley floor and I finally slowed down they pulled up alongside, rolled the window down and said “damn, that looked like fun!”. I asked for a ride back to the top so I could have a second crack at it :) but they declined.

There are idiots everywhere. There are great people everywhere.
 

jmeb

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We will never fully prevent traffic related deaths. But pretending we can't do a helluva a lot better is nonsense.

Things we could do that would make traffic safer for everyone:

- Stop designing cars to focus only on the safety of the occupants. The SUV craze has made cars deadlier than ever for non-drivers.
- Reduce speed limits in urban areas.
- More importantly, design streets so it doesn't feel as safe to go over the speed limit. Narrower lanes. Tighter turning radii. Parking close to lanes.
- Stop calling traffic incidents "accidents". Occasionally they are, but far more often they are due to a failure of duties. Just because you don't intend to do something, doesn't make an an accident.
- Make penalties for speeding, distracted driving and the like much more severe. Speeding in urban areas kills people. The rate of fatalities go way up when a car is going over 20.
- Stop letting people off of manslaughter charges just because they killed the other person with their vehicle.
- Build real bike infrastructure.
- Stop subsidizing private car ownership and driving.

We have tools to stop many of these deaths. It's just that no one wants to use them.

Oh, and Kyle Clark is a national treasure.
 
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scott43

So much better than a pro
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Jmeb, I like your ideas. I just sit and think about how tough these things are to get done. I think in some states you have a much better chance than us. Our winters are hard and it's a barrier to progress. But even at that, our max speed on residential urban roads, your typical city streets with houses, is 50kmh. To me, it's a no-brainer to make that limit 30kmh. No traction..lots of umms and ahhs.. Even for pedestrians, never mind bikes. Nada. Lots of talk, no action. Rural roads I can't even imagine. Millions of miles of roads with 80kmh limits that are really 100kmh. Gravel shoulder..take 100 years even if they wanted to. It's depressing.

In my mind..most people think cycling is for people who have DUI's and can't drive anymore..or for children or grown children in lycra. It's a tough climb.. :(
 

KingGrump

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We have tools to stop many of these deaths. It's just that no one wants to use them

I am a firm believer of the "God help those who help themselves."
Probably all ten to fifteen close calls with pedestrians in the last couple years were distracted walking. These guys/gals would walk into a intersection against the light without looking up from their phone. Many times, I would come to a dead stop then honk them. At the sound of the horn, they would come to a stop in the middle of the intersection, raise their head and looked totally bewildered. I would look at them in the eye, shake my head and mouthed "F***ing Darwin reject."

It take both sides.
 

jmeb

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It takes both sides -- sure.

But saying that tends to distance the structural problems of how we subsidize private automotive use, how we built environments that are about quick and easy passage by cars rather than the safety of all road users.

Distracted pedestrians or cyclists don't kill people with any meaningful frequency. Distracted "I didn't see them" drivers kill pedestrians and cyclists every day.

In my experience, there is a huge generational gap. When you travel to cities whose leadership is younger -- like the Twin Cities -- you see how different priorities can be. I certainly see it managing the bike commuting program at my workplace (approx 900 employees). And it isn't just a lifecourse thing. Younger people are buying more centrally located homes than they did 20-40 years ago.
 
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