livedarklions

Gee, are you saying infrastructure matters? Weren't you the one that was saying that this was only about what's happened since 2020?

Yes, things in the US are structured for the convenience of drivers over pedestrian and cyclists. Film at 11.

Kontact

Gee, you really have trouble understanding stuff, eh?

The initial article emphasized the major difference between the direction in stats in the US and Europe during COVID. I replied to that. I didn't insist that there was no difference previously.

And I'm not talking about the difference in designed infrastructure between the US and Europe, but the fact that many parts of Europe you simply can't drive a car because there is no room to do so. Old cities, narrow roads, no room to park. Those places only allow for walking or cycling, and that greatly increases the number of cyclists that everyone has to deal with.

The US could quadruple bike lanes tomorrow, but the number of cyclists that everyone else would see and be aware of would not change much. The wide open spaces, modern layout of our cities and a lack of need to cycle would keep the numbers low. The average US commute distance is 41 miles a day, round trip, because we have a suburban housing model. Only the most ardent commuters are going to ride that far on a daily basis - regardless of whether there is a special lane or trail available. Add to that much more severe weather in much of the US with colder/snowier winters and hotter summers than much of the Gulf Stream.

So exposure to cyclists is always going to be relatively low - especially in parts of the country that are very rural or have long average commutes. Drivers just aren't thinking about the bikes that they hardly ever see.

livedarklions

If you thought that the OP article was not about how this is a continuing trend that went through COVID involving systematic differences between US infrastructure and European, it's not me who's having the comprehension problems. The article was also about more than just cycling and commuting, it's also about the dangers of being a pedestrian.

You seem to be arguing with a point that literally no one is making. You do so in a manner that, if anything, actually understates the differences between Europe and the US. And your point about commute distances is completely consistent with y main point, which is that the US infrastructure has overwhelmingly been constructed for the convenience of drivers over pretty much every other consideration. The US is an outlier in this regard, you're just identifying one of the major reasons.

You really don't understand that roads ARE infrastructure? Europeans also do a lot more of their commuting by public transportation (also infrastructure). I also think we haven't seen the end of the rise of telecommuting and remote work. Obviously, there's some retrenchment from that since the lockdowns, but it is being used increasingly as a perc to attract employees. But no, we are not likely to see car-free roads permeating through the U.S. The closest equivalent is MUPs like the Minuteman through several of the Boston suburbs, and those do get trafficked, but they aren't anywhere near the network you'd see in much of Europe.

So given that the US infrastructure is not going to change drastically in the next few years, it is rational for us to approach this as an individual safety problem. That approach, however, can only have limited effectiveness, and shouldn't preclude thinking about and advocating for reforms that can happen within the current crappy framework we have.

Kontact

You are talking to me like we've been having some sort of discussion. I have no idea who you are.

And I didn't say the article was only about one thing, I said the article appears to focus first on the most recent part of a larger trend. And that first portion of the article is what I initially decided to write about. That's my decision - not yours. Tough if you don't like that.


Major cities were designed in the US with wide streets and grid structures long before cars. Many European cities were designed around the need to defend themselves against medieval armies. There really is no comparison - and neither were designed for or against cars. Throwing the word "infrastructure" at that difference doesn't clarify anything - Europe's inability to accommodate cars and shorter commute distances aren't by design to favor pedestrians and cyclists. They are structural restrictions that citizens have to deal with. Add to it that the US is an oil producing country and the relative attractiveness of different transportation modes gets more stark.

Personally, I have commuted in many US cities by bike, and never found it to be particularly difficult or especially dangerous. I suspect that the cyclist casualty rate in the US is high when compared to the population size, but relatively low compared to the number of car miles driven. But that doesn't fit with the mindset of angry people like yourself that are itching to fight with anyone they think isn't toting the party line.

I hope you've scored whatever points you think will make you more popular on this subforum, but you just sound like an angry knob. I'm not making an argument with anyone - you are.

livedarklions

Well, now you're just lying about saying the OP was about one thing. See above.

I really can't take you seriously if you're going to pretend that the urban renewal and development of the interstate highway system of the 1950s and 1960s didn't make US cities more car-centric, and just coincidentally happened at the same time of the rapid growth of the suburbs. Those were accompanied by systematic degradation of mass transit in the US. I don't know what your agenda is in pretending these weren't policy choices, but don't expect anyone to play along.
Also, many European cities and infrastructure had to basically be completely rebuilt after WW II. Do you honestly think that the mass transit systems, pedestrian/bicycle friendly cities etc. of Europe, just happened by accident?

Policy matters, it has to be implemented in a context, yes, but you're wildly overstating how much of this was determined by medieval war structures.

Kontact

As I alluded with references to oil, commuting distances and climate, comparing the US and Europe directly is absurd.

It isnt one thing, like infrastructure policy, it's everything. You're not arguing with me, you're arguing with what you'd like to think are my politics. And you're wrong.

But foolish assumptions are the bread and butter of argumentative forum bullies

base2 

Kontact



To quote this guy in another video:
"Main Street wasn't built for the car. Main Street was bulldozed for the car."

Here is the Alan Fisher video he referenced about Pitman which is/was moreorless typical of US cities before the automobile industry forced us along the current path of limited options and product dependency.

You don't need to be obtuse. The stats & article in the original post have been a long time in the making. Defending establishment for establishments sake because you don't know any better or inventing frames where you "could be right; If only...!" exposes your ignorance.

It's ok to learn new things.

livedarklions

You came into this thread telling the OP repeatedly that he didn't know what the OP he had written was about and you're calling me the "forum bully"?

You have such a persecution complex, geez. I didn't "assume" anything, I quoted it in black and white and I said clearly I have no idea what your agenda is. You just keep making absurd statements like "neither were designed for or against cars", when it was explicitly clear and overt in the US that our urban areas and infrastructure were being redesigned and expanded on this basis for decades. You're talking about an era of "urban planning" when whole neighborhoods were being leveled and/or divided to make way for interstates and parking lots/structures. I just don't like it when people make up phony baloney history that weirdly ignores the internal combustion revolution. Seriously, do you think the average commute would be as distant as it is if automobile driving hadn't been privileged? Housing patterns didn't cause high reliance on cars in the US, reliance on cars changed housing patterns. A passing understanding if post-war mid 20th century history would have told you that.

And I'm sorry, but saying you can't directly compare countries because they're different is rather silly. On this, you're not even wrong. Trying to figure out which of those differences matter and whether there are any lessons to be drawn from those differences that may have any usefulness is exactly why such comparisons are made.

If you're happy with the way things are, fine. But don't come in here with a bunch of fake erudition and think we're going to bowled over by it.

And I hate to break it to you, but if I'm following a party line, good luck identifying which party. Most of my views are as popular as syphilis around here.

Kontact

All I've experienced in this thread is that makjng relatively simple observations licenses the kooks to be rude. It doesnt even make sense why you and 3alarm are acting like this. I don't have an agenda, so it is bizarre why you two react like you're combatting one. That's your "politics".

livedarklions

You are the one being rude and accusing people of having an agenda. All I've done is point out you're factually quite wrong about a lot of things, contradicting yourself, and that you have been nasty to people pointlessly throughout this thread. I thought it was especially ironic that you first told the op he was acting like a bot when he was insisting that the discussion was about a lot more than the trends during the lockdown, then lecture the same guy about some of the supposedly systematic differences between Europe and the US.

Please review your own postings and see who is the one calling people names. You have done so to several people.

retswerb

Good Lord, this forum is tiring. I'm new here as a participant after having used the site as an information resource for a long time. Wish you guys could see the culture of this place from an outsider's perspective - incredible how predictable it is here that small disagreements will continue, and continue, and continue, because people can't let someone else have the last word.

ANNNNYYYwayy...

Great video, thanks for posting it. Frustrating that we've let this happen.

livedarklions

I agree that base2 posting those videos was good. The reason I have been so vehement here is that it's obvious that some of the issues leading to our higher rate of automobile-caused deaths are likely intractable in any reasonable time scale, while others are possibly addressable through some relatively minor policy fixes. It's easy to.make up a policy-free fictional history that suggests that the differences are accidental and somehow inevitable, but these rates having multiple causes suggests that partial measures can have some meaningful effect in narrowing the gap between US deaths and other countries. Simple things like encouraging smaller vehicles and lower speeds, along with copying some of the vehicle design regulations of the Europeans do not require major redesign of our cities, suburbs and infrastructure. Yes, they may not reduce the number of people being hit, but they could reduce the severity of injury when they were.

JW Fas

As much as I like the idea of BEVs, their heavier weights and instant torque will only exacerbate the existing situation. Realistically, I think the only motivation to move away from large vehicles or to become a less car-centric society will be economics. With housing costs occupying a greater percentage of people's incomes and automobile ownership costs recently outpacing normal inflation, the desire to adopt cheaper forms of transport and/or more public transport may be in the not too distant future.

3alarmer 

...I missed this, because I've been ignoring this thread since it went south for the winter. I can only speak for myself, but I simply posted a relatively extensive pinion piece from the NY Times that speaks to a lot of my own observations on how many bike fatality items I see posted in my local news. I don't intentionally look for them, or I'd probably stop riding. But they are definitely there.

I don't think it's bizarre that I simply stopped responding to you, when your initial entry into the thread ignored the majority of the data sets included by the Times author, as well as the links on things like bigger cars and SUV/truck things, in favor of some smaller portion of it about the Covid years . The data sets go all the way back to 1995, and there's a clear beginning to the rise in fatality stats here in America. Sometime around 2013 0r 2014, in America we started going back up in fatalities, and we've been diverging from the rest of the first world straight through 2022.

After responding to two or three of those, I quickly concluded you either did not read the article (maybe you lack access to the Times ?), or did not care to read and digest it, to focus on the points it makes. Anyway, here's another link, since someone brought up BEV's. It also makes some salient points about size and weight, and the way cars and trucks are marketed in the US that adds to this already significant problem. It's a cross post from another thread, on electric cars in the P+R.

Electric Vehicles Are Bringing Out the Worst in Us

There's another link in there, to an extensive article in the Atlantic, on how this market trend is killing more people, but the Atlantic is another subscription magazine, and I'm not sure if you can get access to it either. It's here: The government can no longer allow the auto industry to treat walkers and bikers like collateral damage.
On the personal anecdote side, I once took a class from Mr Ditlow, while at the U of Maryland. He was still working for Nader and PIRG at the time. It was a long time ago, and it was interesting in a lot of ways. It was in that class I finally learned the definitive answer to why Nader went after GM and the Corvair, rather than Volkswagon, which sold a much more dangerous car, responsible for many more crash deaths and injuries. And don't even get me started on VW busses of that era. But those were mostly killing the drivers and passengers who rode in them.

3alarmer 

...have you ever lived in Europe ? I spent a year living in Naples, and drove frequently from there to Rome. I drove extensively in both cities, because I had a fun little Alfa Duetto. My experience in Italy runs counter to what you have expressed above.

...the Dutch have some of the crummiest winter weather I've ever experienced, situated where they are, yet bicycle use is relatively high. I'm not sure your weather observations are a good place to hang your hat.

...if you want to talk about the long distances driven by rural inhabitants in the US, you probably need to start another thread. I'm not prepared to presume that people living 20 or 30 miles from the city limits are suddenly going to embrace bike commuting. It's a real problem in discussions like this, when people (you, in this case) start tossing in stuff that is not relevant to the discussion. It's factual, there's no denying it. But it lacks merit in the context of the original discussion. Those people are an outlier, for out purposes here.

...I'll go back to not responding to you now. I don't want to come off as "angry", and there's no way to respond to this statement without the appearance of disrespect. I'll just tote my party line along as I go.

Kontact

No one said it is bizarre that you stopped responding. Where did you get that idea?

My initial post didn't "ignore" anything. I chose to respond to a portion of it, not as a negation of the rest or of the theme in general. Pointing out that Covid changed driving and biking in the US in a way different from Europe doesn't mean that I'm in denial the other points the article makes, or even that I disagree in general. So you're response as if I was arguing with the article and failing to even acknowledge the fact that there was a cycling and motor camping surge between 2020 and 2022 comes off as passive aggressive.

Kontact

I also lived in Naples, and saw little to no city cycling. But I wasn't suggesting that Europe has a homogenous cycling/driving culture. Germany has some of the best freeways in the world! But clearly the old cities, with their tiny streets, cause people to think about pedestrians and other non-auto people in the streets with an awareness that our much more segregated urban sidewalk system requires.

The Dutch get 2 inches of snow a year and there are virtually no hills. Chicago gets 37. Yes, the Netherlands have mild winters. It sounds much easier than living in Seattle.

The average distance people commute has everything to the point I was making about driving culture and exposure to peds and cyclists. You may want to separate it because it doesn't make whatever point you want it to, but it is exactly what I've been getting at - people learn to deal with the things that are most relevant to their daily driving. Encountering cyclists and walkers is less common in the US per mile driven. In fact, I'll bet that the US is safer for peds and cyclists per car mile.

3alarmer 

...OK, now this is truly bizarre. I feel like I'm talking to someone with multiple personality disorder.

Kontact

And talking to you two gentlemen feels like you're guessing at motivations rather than reading the text I post.


This whole Advocacy forum seems to thrive on people talking past each other and taking offense that other people don't immediately appreciate whatever viewpoint is being fronted. I thought my first post was very clear and very mundane. The gent who posted about boating fatalities seemed to understand my point.

3alarmer 

...it also results in smaller cars being much more popular. That was the point I was trying to make with my Alfa Duetto comment. I wasn't bragging about the car.

...so you're convinced that snow is more of an impediment to cycling than is rain ? I have cycled in both, and snow is much less miserable per mile.

...I had to Google this, to make sure I was remembering the same country. You're right, it sounds just delightful for cycling. My mistake.

...the point of this whole exercise was to share some thoughtfully constructed prose on how the people who are in a situation to commute by bicycle are getting killed more frequently in the US than in other countries. If you want to "bet that the US is safer for peds and cyclists per car mile", feel free to do so. But let's not pretend it's on topic, because it's not.

​​​​​​​

Kontact

I've bike commuted in Madison, Chicago and Seattle. Putting up with just wet on flat streets would be better than either place. But snowy, slushy roads that ice up are about the worst you can as for. The weather on the Med. would be much better than the Netherlands, but that doesn't mean that the what the Dutch cycle in with upright, fendered bikes and relatively short distances is miserable.

I didn't say anything about your car. I don't think car size matters all that much. They all can kill cyclists.

What's on topic are the underlying causes of cars hitting cyclists. I'm asserting that people that drive in the snow a lot are good at driving in snow, and people that drive around pedestrians and cyclists a lot are similarly good. So when it is asserted that the cause of US bike accidents MUST be a single major factor like infrastructure design - I really wonder how people jump to such conclusions. It's much more complex than that. Why do so many more Japanese cyclists get killed? Bullet trains?

3alarmer 

...I would like to point out to you that it is not me calling you "passive aggressive". I can assure you that when the situation calls for aggression, mine is right out there, for all the world to see. I do admit that I am not as ___________ (fill in the blank) as you seem to be, because I would never, ever, ever make the statement, "Personally, I have commuted in many US cities by bike, and never found it to be particularly difficult or especially dangerous."

I worked for local fire here as a firefighter/EMT, and I used to joke all the time about how the most dangerous thing I did on the job was commuting to and from the stations by bicycle.

I'm not guessing at anything, with regard to motivation. You've made it abundantly clear over the course of this thread. And please try not to lump me together with anyone else. It makes it sound like you're some sort of victim of a coordinated attack. I simply disagree with a lot (not all) of what you've written. I've been very clear as to why, and painfully polite in addressing your points, many of which seem poorly thought out to me. If you are so easily victimized, you should probably just avoid these discussions. Some people here are really very mean.

3alarmer 

...what you think about this is not borne out by the many fact based links I've provided for you. I can't make you read them.

...OK. I'm out again. No one, and certainly not me, has asserted that "the cause of US bike accidents MUST be a single major factor like infrastructure design". I'm the guy posting up all sorts of information and articles about various factors, all of which you apparently disbelieve. There's a rhetorical technique called "argument by assertion". Your responses in this thread are the very definition of this. I'm sure it must be very enjoyable, because you can respond instantly to anything, with another assertion. No need to consider those pesky alternative facts. You have it all figured out, and that's just how it is. I think that's great for you, but honestly, do not expect me to respond further. Life is too short. Be careful out there. Paranoia, when not the unreasonable paralyzing sort, is something I find useful in riding a bicycle here.

I'm sure it must be very different where you live.

Kontact

The only thing I've made clear in the thread is that my personal commuting experience and technique has left me with no impression that I'm constantly about to be killed. Drivers do dumb stuff around me all the time, but I know they're going to do those things and have avoided them. I see plenty of bike commuters who ride with a very rigid set of rules and set themselves up for failure. Commuting isn't karmic - you don't become safer because you politely follow the rules and are predictable. That philosophy makes you invisible.

I'm not the victim of a coordinated attack - I was just attacked twice by two different guys for the same posts.

I can see you think very little of my points. You have yet to address the first one I made in the thread.

Kontact

What kind of argument is it when you completely ignore a post you're quoting and just offer an unrelated link?