I-Like-To-Bike

Wrong; again.

What should be recognized is that the constant wailing on this list about all those "other" cyclists who don't meet the standards of the ranters has no positive effect on cycling advocacy.

I suspect this line of INSULT OTHER CYCLISTS is far more about the A&S purists/elitists/snobs' disapproval and disparagement of cyclists from different socio-economic groups and/or cyclists who don't necessarily share the ranters' reasons for riding a bike.

chipcom 

the "no true cyclist" fallacy runs strong in A&S

bluefoxicy

The area just in front of my car is illuminated by headlights, and that area is visible. My eyes are also well-adjusted by the bright light to see in bright light... and not in the otherwise dim lighting conditions around me. Without that light pollution, I can see much farther in the dark, with much better contrast and much better resolution.

Headlights were never intended for you to see farther. They illuminate street signs at best: one light (the one on the drive side) is purposely angled upwards and outwards more to hit street signs, while the other (the one on the driver's side) is angled down. If both were angled as the driver's side headlight, you wouldn't be able to see street signs.

What use is seeing 10 feet in front of you? Honestly, think about it. The headlights help in reading the small-print signs they have these days, though with the large-print high-contrast signs some towns are using I can still read them fine in the dark. Larger details and especially moving objects--people, cars, animals--are all visible much earlier without headlights.

The only time headlights improve your visibility is when there's no ambient light--no street lights, no lit buildings, pretty much driving a back road in the middle of the woods far away from the city. You cannot see like that. But have you ever fumbled around blind wandering down the street at 1am without a light strapped to your forehead? Of course not. You look way down to the horizon and you see everything pretty well.

The problem is you can't interpret everything that well all the time. Cars and motorcycles and bicycles flying around are sometimes clear; but sometimes they're wisps of movement, objects that you need to focus on for a second or three to understand. If they're lit up, you know what you're looking at: two lights is a car, one is a motorcycle, and those other funny things are just stuff I'm going to avoid because it's probably a jogger or bicycle or just a marked hazard.

It's even harder to see this stuff coming up with your headlights on, especially other cars. Did you know headlights are intentionally set up to not point at oncoming cars? No joke, they specifically aren't supposed to cast light on fast moving objects heading in your general direction. Probably because you'd blind the driver--remember driver's ed, when they told you to shut your high beams off on two-way streets because drivers coming the other way won't be able to see? It's okay, you don't need to see their car; you can see the two little glowing orbs that show where the edges are, and pretty much estimate where abouts the body of the car is.

Come on people, they even teach you this stuff in high school.

bluefoxicy

Those particular areas are wide roads that pass by parks, open fields, and grave yards. These are places people generally don't walk down, where children don't play (the parks are separated by fences, a parking lot, and other stuff... basically the actual interesting area of a park is as far away from the road as you can get). They connect a residential area to a shopping mall 3-5 miles away, which I guess is done to make people feel like they're buffered away from the "big city."

Nobody wants to live next to I-95, or right on the edge of a shopping district (there are houses up right next to US-1, they get to hear the noise from 20-40 cars per minute passing by 24 hours a day), or whatever. Everyone wants to live in a nice quiet town, but they don't want to have a village blacksmith and a village baker and a small town market and whatever. It's modern times, man, we shop at Wal-Mart and at big shopping malls and such. So they put a small town over here, some uninteresting junk between, and run a high speed road (rather than an expensive and ugly highway project) from here to there. Bunch all the commercial stuff on the other end of that road, and now you have a town, graveyard/parks/small farms, and then all the busy shopping malls.

The idea here is to not have a lot of pedestrian traffic in that area (there aren't even sidewalks for like 3-5 miles, but there are wide shoulders), which makes higher traffic speed more viable. The purpose of these roads is high-volume traffic delivery, so it makes more sense to make them faster and wider than your average two-way side street (in fact, 2 lanes each way plus a wide shoulder, no street parking because nobody wants to stop on that road anyway and parks/graveyards have their own parking lots).

I think the term "urban sprawl" goes in here somewhere. It's highly inefficient.

ladyraestewart

Blame is an interesting mistress --- we are all quick to take advantage when we believe we are getting away with something yet quicker still to cry foul over another's use when we don't like their tactics.

Cyclists want motorists to respect their right to use roadways and in many, if not all municipalities, bikes ridden on public streets are considered vehicles as defined by many transportation codes. That means cyclists have the same obligations and responsibilities as a vehicle with respect to traffic laws. Translation, we should stop at stop signs, signal, etc. etc. AND use proper lighting when circumstances require it, i.e., it's dark outside, turn on your lights.

However, failure of one participant to follow the law does not negate any fault of the other. In this situation, the cyclist was at fault for failing to obey the law by using lights while riding during hours of darkness. The driver of the van was at fault for not keeping adequate watch and being fully aware of his surroundings. As to the minute details, who knows. Did the cyclist dart in front of the driver making the collision unavoidable or was the driver focused on a phone call instead of the road? Those are all plausible factors and none of them negate the responsibilities the other participant should have exercised.

All that aside, there is still a level of common sense everyone should maintain to keep themselves safe or at least increase the odds. We were all told as children to never walk on a street after dark in dark clothing. The same applies to a cyclist. Why would you want to be riding your bike after dark wearing dark clothing? That just doesn't make sense and most of us know it's stupid.

Here's something else -- what if this was a cyclist who hit a pedestrian walking on the road who was wearing dark clothing? It is possible to seriously injury a pedestrian in a bike/pedestrian collision and under the right circumstances you could kill the pedestrian. Sure, less likely but the point is, we all have an obligation to be responsible in whatever situation we place ourselves. Riding a bike in the dark without lights and wearing dark clothing is stupid. It is reckless and irresponsible. That doesn't negate the driver's obligation to be aware of his surroundings but it could have made a tremendous difference in the ultimate outcome.

bluefoxicy

Sorry, but in America we have an adversarial system: it's "Us" versus "Them." In court, you are at fault or they are.

We have a law in Maryland: If I'm speeding down a 20mph road at 135mph, and I pop over a hill and just 20 meters ahead of me is a car turning onto my road, I will destroy him. It is impossible to stop. It is also impossible for either of us to see the other before it's far too late. However, it is his fault because he pulled out in front of me, and my insurance company will extract as much money from his insurance company as it can. Automatic win.

This has been put to the test. The worst case I've seen was indeed a motorcyclist traveling at over 100mph who impacted a car making a (safe and legal) turn (still safe even with people speeding 15-20mph over the speed limit!), and successfully won in court! The defendant (guy in the car) did submit that the motorcycle was speeding; the courts accepted that the speed was above 100mph, likely higher. The courts still ruled that the car pulled out in front of another vehicle, and so the driver of the car was at fault.

End of story.

Your fault, not my fault.

This is a stupid law; not the point. The point is one person is at fault and the other is not. This very concept is ludicrous. It's also something we expect in our entitlement society: people would fly into a rage if they had to play by any sane rules. People want everything to be fair, they want to throw a tantrum and get what they want. That's why we're so sue-happy, that's why we keep claiming "I DIDN'T SEE HIM" when we hit people or bicycles or cars, that's why we do everything wrong but blame the guy who actually caused the problem when we could have prevented it.

YES it's your fault for being stupid; that doesn't absolve me from having to at least try to counter your idiocy. What the hell?

ladyraestewart

Texas has a similar doctrine -- called the last best chance. Regardless of illegality of one party or the other, if you had the last best chance to prevent the collision, you have a percentage of fault assigned to you. It is not an automatic win for the other guy though because the other side is negligent per se meaning you do not have to prove they were at fault since they broke the law -- fault is automatic. It gets them generally a 51% percent of liability meaning you get assigned some responsibility but they get the lion's share. Definitely a fairer way to handle those situations.

dougmc

Not always (at least the part about who's at fault.)

Many states can divvy the blame up between parties and assign each a percentage. (This would be for civil cases, not criminal cases.) So they can say that party 1 was 90% responsible and party 2 was 10% responsible.

Now, what happens after that varies. In some states, there's a 51% rule, where you don't have to pay anything unless you're at least 51% responsible, and then what you pay is modified by your blame. So party 1 would pay 90% of party 2's damages, and party 2 would pay nothing.

In some other states, the court will see that party 2 is partially responsible for their own damages, and so they're not owed anything by party 1. In general, I think this is being slowly changed to the first system -- it's certainly more fair.

Here's more on this -- https://www.thelaw.com/guide/accident...ages-defenses/

Digital_Cowboy

True, but by the same token just because a person is riding ninja style or salmon style or even ninja salmon style that doesn't absolve the driver of their responsibilities either. As we all have responsibilities when we're on the road. Just because one road user is in violation of the established rules/laws of the road doesn't excuse other road users from their responsibility.

No argument there.

Again, no argument.

I made that mistake as well, however we do not know that the bike didn't have reflectors on it.

Digital_Cowboy

Agreed, his riding without lights and/or in dark clothing is in most states/countries illegal and makes his ride illegal. And it's the same thing about a certain hot button issue. Where certain people have entered the country illegally and than years later turn around and try to justify their being allowed to stay in the country because for the last X-number of years they have been "law abiding citizens."

His lack of lights aside he still could have been riding in a legal manner if he had had lights, or if it was daytime. Plus given that as we know that unless lights are actually screwed to the bicycle frame that on impact with a car that most lights and/or reflectors have a nasty habit of flying off in every direction. So it is entirely possible that the cyclist had had lights but the were lost on impact. Or it is also possible that the batteries in his lights died prior to his being hit.

We weren't there nor do I think most of us here know the cyclist.

Digital_Cowboy

True, as I'd said in another reply none of us were there, and the majority of us probably do not know the cyclist. Nor the first or second driver. So we do not know what really happened that fateful night.

Digital_Cowboy

I think that that would require a rewriting of the existing laws. As if I am not mistaken that in most states all that is required for bicycle lights is that they be visible from x-feet in front and x-feet in back of the bicycle. And with the exception of a few places the law only requires one of each light, but recommends using multiple lights.

Digital_Cowboy

That's good to hear that you're getting him as much wheel time as possible/practicable.

Which is part of why most of us here would like to see bicycle education return to the classroom. As well as schools holding/sponsoring bicycle safety rodeo's.

Digital_Cowboy

+100

I-Like-To-Bike

Just like the A&S Forum!

"Us" versus "Them"; The self proclaimed "competent" Holy Roller/Dudley-Do-Rights vs. the lowlife Darwin Candidates who do not comply with the tenants of the ranter's version of the Good Book of Righteous Cycling. The "Others" are always guilty and apparently not considered worthy unless they measure up to "Us".

I-Like-To-Bike

Cycling in dark clothing is illegal? Where?

Digital_Cowboy

Around here most of the parks that I've seen/gone to have on street parking (yes, some have parking lots) and few if any fence separating them from the road. Also the shopping centers and mall(s) have sidewalks around the perimeter of their parking lots.

Okay if the shopping mall is only 3 - 5 miles away why is there a "need" to travel at 40 - 55MPH to get there? Why can't the speed limit be 20 - 35MPH? Also around here most of the malls/shopping centers do have residential areas within easy walking distance. I have a major grocery store about a block a way and a mall/shopping center less than a mile away from me. I also live pretty much in the middle of triangle formed by at least three parks. And as I said if I am not mistaken most of those parks have on street parking and no fences separating them from the roads. They are also located in residential neighborhoods.

True, no one "wants" to live alongside of an inter/intrastate, but some may not have a choice in the matter either. As I said above most of the shopping centers around where I live do in fact have residential areas bordering them.

Again, as I asked above if the mall/shopping center is only 3 - 5 miles away why is there a "need" to have high speed roads connecting them? It would make more sense to leave them as low speed roads.

I think you're right.

dougmc

The court of popular opinion as ruled, over and over and over, in the forums and the comment sections and around the water coolers and on the roads, and they have found him to be GUILTY.

bluefoxicy

You're right. Typically, when the planners do this, they don't even zone the area for residential! It is ILLEGAL to put houses or apartments there!


Some here as well, and those roads are no faster than 35mph when within a mile or two of these residential areas.

Why is there a need to have a speed over 45mph on the highway? The difference between 45mph and 55mph on your 30 mile commute down I-95 to work is 32 versus 40 minutes, a whopping 8 minutes difference. Few highways around here have a 65mph speed limit, which would make that 27 vs 40 minutes, a whole 13 minutes.

Faster cars are more efficient. When traveling at a high speed, you are reducing traffic on the road by getting off the road faster. Traffic will still reach the intersections merging onto that road at the same rate, because urban traffic must be slower and so can only reach the high-speed roads so fast. The cars on that road won't slowly pile up as they feed in from multiple sources along the way, though; more of the cars will pass off the road onto other roads or to their destination, reducing the amount of stop-and-go traffic, and the amount of fuel consumed.

Cars are only geared to cruise so fast, though. My car cruises at 3000RPM (peak efficiency, VO2Max for the car really; its torque will taper off past there as it consumes more fuel to supply less of an increase in power) at 60mph in its top gear; it's more efficient than cruising in a lower gear at 40mph, because it's slightly more fuel (to overcome wind resistance) for significantly more distance covered. Pushing the car up into its direct drive and overdrive gears is an improvement in efficiency.

Further, on highways, you will start to lose returns around, say, 70-80mph: wind resistance increases fuel consumption. Still, the highway passes much more traffic at higher speeds, because the traffic moves on before becoming congested; in effect, it becomes congested a few minutes later. More gas is burned crawling in highway traffic well exceeding design specifications than cruising along in a second overdrive burning at 2mpg less efficiency. More importantly, you can pass more traffic without widening the road, meaning you can plant more trees around the highway to suck up that CO2 and smog.

So, higher speed passes more traffic, allowing for less road real estate for cars, meaning more room for cycle paths or bike lanes and more room for trees to remove CO2. If we coat the grills of cars with manganese dioxide, we could also convert 2O3 to 3O2, so all that smog (ozone, among other things) becomes tasty oxygen to help you to pedal your bike faster.

You have to remember, everything in this system is at odds. Faster vehicle traffic is a good thing; politicians are abusing this "speed kills" crap because they want to look like they're concerned about something, and pretending vehicular accidents are more dangerous at high speeds is a good way to scare people into voting for them come election year by use of the Politician's Syllogism, as well as derive revenue via speeding tickets and cameras. At the same time, while faster traffic isn't a significant problem in one-way collisions between vehicles (head-on collisions are a different matter; I do like the barriers on the highway), it is a problem for pedestrians and cyclists; this is why school zones and high-pedestrian-traffic areas have lower speed limits.

So yeah, motorists want to go faster; pedestrians and cyclists want motorists to go slower. There is a point where motorists should not go faster because it becomes MUCH more dangerous to them; it is both above the point where the motorists' speed becomes MUCH more dangerous to cyclists/pedestrians and below the point where an increase in speed would be systemically beneficial to motor traffic. Unfortunately, motorists are pretty dangerous to cyclists at a low speed--in fact I'm pretty sure a 20mph rear-end or side-long collision with a motorist would destroy me on a bike, while I'd be fine as a pedestrian.

This creates a problem of balance, which is why infrastructure and regulation are so important: we can't just say "drive slower" because it generally doesn't matter all that much. 40mph, much worse than 20mph; but honestly, do you think you'd laugh off a 20mph collision? We need to make sure motorists are more capable, not slower and more chatty on their cell phones. Someone going 20mph and drifting into the bike lane while changing CDs in his stereo is more dangerous to you than the guy rushing by you at 45mph but paying attention to the road.

There's too much focus on just motor traffic; but there shouldn't be too much focus on just cyclist/pedestrian traffic. We need a shift to the center, not to the other extreme; that it's in the same direction is both irrelevant and very relevant. Also take notice that the correct (or most correct) answer is not a simple twist of one dial; life just isn't that simple.

crhilton

The beauty of statistics are two fold here:
1. They actually apply and you can use them rationally. This is an anecdote (which I think the statistics support that this is a problem).
2. They add anonymity so that you can talk about things like this without going "wee wee" on somebody's grave.

dougmc

Possibly, but sometimes the houses are there and the Interstate comes later.

You seem to be defining efficient in this paragraph as how many cars pass in a unit time. Considering that the distance between cars increases as the speed increases, I'm not sure this is true. I imagine the most efficient (as in cars that can pass a given point in a given time) situation is very heavy traffic, but not so heavy that it stops moving. Perhaps 25 mph? Either way, I'm not looking to argue this point.

OK, you're way off here. VO2 max is how much oxygen your body can use. For a car, the equivalent would be exactly the same -- how much oxygen it can use. If it can burn more gasoline, it's using more oxygen, even if it's becomes less efficient (i.e. energy output per unit of fuel burned.)

In any event, power output by a engine is (torque x RPM), and in general your maximum power output is likely somewhat close to redline -- even if the torque decreases somewhat at higher RPMs, the increase in RPMs usually makes up for it.

In general, the most efficient (maximum power divided by fuel used) speed for an engine is somewhere near it's maximum power output -- so a high rate of RPM. Of course, most cars have way more power than they need to cruise at their most efficient (as in most distance covered for a given amount of fuel) and that's usually the efficiency that matters.

(There's many different ways of measuring "efficiency". It's important to be specific about what you're referring to, or people can be confused.)

Like bikes, cars expend energy to aerodynamic drag. If you double the speed, you quadruple the energy lost to aerodynamic drag to go a given distance. A higher percentage of their energy used goes to overcoming rolling resistance than it does on bicycles simply because of their large weight, but at higher speeds aerodynamic effects dominate with cars too. In general, the most efficient (as defined as maximum distance gone per fuel used) speeds in a car are probably more like 40 mph than 70 mph.

(And it's only that high (40 mph) because cars have huge engines, because people want to accelerate and go up hills fast. It would be fairly easy to design a car that could carry five people, but have a maximum speed of 30 mph and could get well over 100 mpg -- just give it a much smaller engine and make it lighter.)

Ultimately, it's all a series of tradeoffs. Hell, life is a series of tradeoffs ...

smasha

monster? no. just an idiot who played russian roulette with a semi-automatic and lost. stop acting surprised by his loss. he loaded the gun, he pointed it at his head, and he pulled the trigger. to follow that analogy, some people now want to blame the gun manufacturer for something that he did to himself.

monster or idiot, other people are directly and adversely affected by his death; thus it's selfish. so don't try to imply that the guy on the bike was a victim of anything other than his own stupidity, or that he's the only victim.

part of his selfish idiocy will now trickle down into statistics and headlines that make people think cycling is dangerous. cycling like a ninja on a highway at night is dangerous! this guy completely failed to take responsibility for himself, and cycling as a whole will now suffer because of it... people will feel safer in their cars and less likely to even try cycling; more cars, less bikes. that's the legacy he leaves for us.

i address driver responsibility further down.

personally, i have no problem with mandatory "bicycle training" for schoolkids but let's bear in mind what "training" is required for a DL - essentially zero in the US or NZ. there's a written test and a brief "practical test" and you're done. a DL certifies that one can basically operate a motor vehicle - driving is a different skill altogether. anyway, it would be odd if cyclist training/certification was more involved than motor vehicle training/certification.

insurance is another story. here in NZ car insurance isn't even mandatory. but when a motor vehicle crashes into something, financial damage could easily be several times the drivers annual salary. how much damage can a bicycle do? sure, there are documented cases of a bicycle causing/contributing to the death of a pedestrian, but those are probably just as common as another pedestrian or a dog bumping into someone and causing/contributing to a death; and no one's advocating that pedestrians carry liability insurance. liability insurance for cars makes sense because of the speeds and forces that cars are capable of; for the same reasons, it makes no sense for bicycles.

this is NZ, but the system isn't radically different.

if i were the prosecutor, and the information i had available to me is consistent with what's been reported, there's no way i'd pursue charges against the driver.

of course it absolves the other party of responsibility. doing what is legally and reasonably necessary to be visible to other road users is the responsibility of the cyclist. when the law and reason are BOTH violated by the cyclist, and there's no evidence to suggest that the motorist did anything wrong or unreasonable, fault rests with the cyclist. case closed.

riding ninja is like wrapping oneself in a cloak of invisibility. as far as i care, this relieves the driver, on a highway at night, from having any responsibility to have seen the cyclist. more so when the LAW requires lights and reflectives. it's just not reasonable to expect a motorist on a highway at night to see a ninja cyclist. put some good blinkies and reflectives on the bike/rider, and then i'd reasonably expect that a motorist should be able to see the cyclist.

so, if you where driving a car on a dark highway at night, you'd slow down to 30m/h, put on your hazard lights, and keep vigilant watch for ninja cyclists? gimme a break. you could have been driving reasonably attentively and hit this ninja... or any other ninja. drivers are not responsible for seeing cyclists who wrap themselves in a cloak of invisibility.

you are primarily responsible for your own safety - not other road users. this guy failed to take proper steps to look after his own safety, and you want to blame the driver? you want to point fingers at cyclists who actually do look after their own safety? i think what this comes down to, for you, is that it's always the motorists' fault, even when the cyclist does everything wrong. act like a grownup and take responsibility for your own self preservation.

the conditions (type of road, time of day, etc) dictated by ANY reasonable standards (and NZ law) that lights and reflectives would be not just legally required, but common sense. i'd be slightly amused to hear how you might justify this guy's idiocy. instead, all you can do is refer to cyclists who do look after their own safety and call them names.

it can be - in NZ.

https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regul...html#DLM303679
A person must not ride a cycle on a road, during the hours of darkness, unless—
(a) the cycle has pedal reflectors; or
(b) the person is wearing reflective material.

i don't know if he had pedal reflectors, but he seems to have been doing everything else wrong.

I-Like-To-Bike

You don't know if he had pedal reflectors or other reflectors. In fact, you and the other self appointed Hanging Judges don't know if the cyclist was legal or not, or did anything "wrong." Your last post, castigating the dead cyclist make you out as even a more mean and contemptible character than your OP.

smasha

me "and the other self appointed Hanging Judges"??? he hung himself.

based on the information that's available i do know that he was riding a bicycle in violation of NZ law and common sense.

again, all you're contributing is finger-pointing and name-calling at those of us who are pointing out that his demise resulted from his own stupidity, lack of common sense, lack of following the minimum legal requirements, and ultimately his lack of accepting any responsibility for his his own life and safety. you still have nothing to contribute towards any defense of his actions, and nothing that legitimately raises questions of the motorist's actions.

if you want to debate the facts as they're known, feel free to join in when you're ready. name calling doesn't advance anyone's argument... especially not yours.

smasha

@ILTB - feel free to call me "mean and contemptible" or whatnot. it doesn't change the fact that this guy died as a predictable result of his own actions, because he failed to teach himself or learn from others. it also doesn't change the fact that pointing out this fact may help teach others to not die like he did.