Maybe, but who decided that heaven is a peaceful, quiet,orderly and boring place?

schlijper.nl today | search | fiets | thu apr 23, 2015 17:58 | korte prinsengracht haarlemmerstraat

This is probably the biggest, biggest city, but it isn't very sophisticated. No roof, no electronic boards to indicate available parking spaces, nothing to remember in which section you parked your bike. It's also a bit of a showcase, to wow the tourists and other visitors and present Amsterdam as the cycling city. But other cities have organized it better for cyclists. Amsterdam is struggling to keep up with the number of cyclists and has to improvise a lot. For example they have barges in the canals just for bike parking, they are mobile so they can be placed near events, but a lot of them have to be permanent to cope with the numbers.

Ooh, great video. That actually is heaven. It looks disorderly, but I see:

- more cyclists than motorists
- more cyclists than pedestrians!
- everyone yields to everyone, except:
- no one yields to motorists

At 2:00 a pedestrian with a baby stroller is afraid to cross the bike traffic, which is not good. She would have done better if she were more assertive.

I enjoy riding in Amsterdam very much, but assertiveness helps a lot, especiallly towards taxi cabs and motorists who act like them. But in general cyclists and pedestrians will work it out togehter, official rules and infrastructure won't help you a lot, it's the anarchy that's working, the unwritten rules made the people themselves.

I recently learned that in the Netherlands, there is a presumption of guilt if an injury or death involves a motor vehicle and the guilt is assigned to the operator of the motor vehicle. That is radically different from the US. By law, no particular type of travel has extra protection or responsibility, but the way things are practiced, the auto driver is often given legal deference. We in the bike and pedestrian communities are working to change it, because basically, injuring and killing people with your car is a de facto right. Getting hurt while walking or cycling is just the cost of living.

That's AMS Centraal Station. Important to remember where you left your bike. :-) I've used it numerous times with no problems. Newer facilities like Delft are a bit better: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2...entral-station

Yes, you should visit NL. Make sure to spend some time outside of AMS. It's second only to Rotterdam for worst bicycling in the country (however still much better than ANY city outside of The Netherlands). AMS is getting better though. A lot of stuff that would have been updated before now was put on hold until completion of a new tube and other projects. Things are finally starting to move again.

Strongly suggest doing Cycling Study Tour in Assen and Groningen, Netherlands (Holland) if you have time. David does a good job explaining Dutch infrastructure (the good and bad) and does everything in a way to create an enjoyable 3 days.

When ever I get a job, that'll be it.

Yes, but that's in civil law, there's no punitive damages or other form of punishment, that's a seperate course of action that will only be taken in case of purpose or negligence to quite an extend. So this concerns the paying of the bills related to an accident in relative amoral way, where it's about causation and responsability, not guilt in a moral sense.

As I understand it and I'll happily stand corrected if necessary, the civil legal protection of cyclists and pedestrians is threeway:
- As the user of the more dangerous vehicle, the driver has the responsibility to avoid accidents by considering how things are on the road, not how the rules say they should be. Erratic riding kids, drunk students without light in the dark, playing kids near a schoolyard, those are things that are part of traffic and have to be expected and the driver should be able to react to that in time.
- There is behaviour of cyclists and pedestrians that goes beyond the margins of what could be reasonably expected by a skilled and alert driver, but the burden of proof is on the driver.
- Even if the driver isn't to blame in any way or any part for causing the accident, he has to pay half of the damage because it's his choice of vehicle that causes the damage to be that high. With two cyclists hitting eachother, the damage usually willl be very limited. This is the starting point, case specific circumstances can change the ratio.

These are insurance matters, insurance for the damage to others is mandatory for cars, and these 'precedents' (different legal system, but this is closest) are the results of insurance companies litigating. So all drivers pay for their potential to cause damage in their monthly insurance bill. But the companies give them no claim discounts, so they end up paying little damages themselves because that's less expensive.

In slow city traffic this often makes the driver the more vulnerable road user. If you're not careful enough and hit a cyclist, the paint is scratched, the front light is broken and you have to prove, in court if necessary, the cyclist was extremely reckless to get half of your repair bill payed by that cyclist. With a lot of blame but not full blame on the cyclist, it's often both parties pay their own damage. Often the cyclist just bends his fender in the right or workable shape again on the spot and goes on his way. So to save money on driving make sure you don't hit anybody.

These liability rules preceeded the rule that cyclists are equal to cars and don't have to yield when a car is coming from the left in a situation with no other rules of precedence. But because of the influence of that liability on driver behaviour and other factors on the mindset of drivers, that rule change didn't make a lot of difference, drivers already stopped taking precedence and made sure they didn't hit a cyclist who refused to yield.

Maybe, depends on what you like. Groningen is a cycling city extreme, but cycling there isn't as 'adventurous' as in Amsterdam, it's way more relaxed. It's a nice city to visit but it hasn't that enourmous density in things to see and experience that Amsterdam has. Cycling in and around Assen is nice if you like peace and quiet in a rural environment.

Personally I don't believe the infrastructure is that interesting. It's the behaviour of cyclists and their anarchism that is much more interesting and much more important part of making mass cycling work. If a tourist knows and respects the rules of the road and uses the best infrastructure like it was intended, he will still get in trouble in any city. Not in serious trouble, but the flow of traffic depends on unwritten rules and all kinds of non verbal communication.

I see more bicycles in parking garage then cars when I was an Amsterdam back in 2001.

I really enjoy Chamonix, France and Geneva, Switzerland.

The Twin Cities are pretty good for commuting and living though it depends of course on where exactly you are and where you're going. And that's not as true December-April

When we decided to move house, we had some search parameters like school/daycare for the children.
And I needed a railway station in the neighbourhood.


Before, I had one at 500m walking distance.
Now, I have one at 2300m (partial uphill), so now I take the bike.
Some days like today, I go to another railway station where I have more trains, but that's 7900m (7,9 km that is) distance.


In fact, my new home pushed me on my bike. As I don't like to drive a car instead.

Thank you for this and for your extensive description of the law. I find it fascinating. Still, I think there was a concerted effort to create this kind of culture. I don't believe it just happened. I saw a video about how many people in the Netherlands called for change from the government in the 1970s to make the country more bike friendly so people wouldn't die by far as much and so the place would be a nicer place to live.

I agree if people call the city planners the unsung hero's of the infrastructure and the cycling, and I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I think the citizen deserves a lot of credit too. As a cyclist, as a voter, as a protester and as a driver or pedestrian. Most people are all of them, expect for protester, and they make it work every day. By yielding when they formally have right of way, by making eye contact, by communicating with their legs, upper body and front wheel, and if necessary, by bell, the drivers ride bikes on different occasions so they recognize all those subtle signals and the danger or nuisance a car can be.

It certainly didn't just happen. It's a lot of things coming together at the right time and the early 70's as a turning point was very important. Cycling had caught on extremely well in the 20's already and continued after WOII with not much money available for cars, so there was a lot left to be conquered by the car. In compact fortress cities with narrow streets, where kids traditionally play in, I assume a lot of young mothers and fathers with a rebellious 60's mindset who still thought the world could be made better wanted to get their kids out of the house, safely. That's always been important here especially for kids, just beeing outside, sun, rain, hail or snow, the kids have to play in the street. That includes riding their bikes, but I believe the most agressive protest was against so many kids getting killed or hurt by cars while on the streets, and much less about the specific interests of commuting cyclists.

In the early 90's there was probably a second turning point in the sense that the right wing went along with cycling and from then on the consensus lslowely grew even wider. In politics, in judges, in insurance companies, in the private sector who started building bike parks for their employees, everybody chipped in, including the car drivers. Now the consensus is about 100%, right wing politicians love to have themselves photographed while riding to emphasize they are just normal guys, but they like to ride a bike anyway so they indeed are quite normal.
I do see the irony of Shell's biggest oil refinery constructing bike lanes between the public road and their offices to get their employees in, but I wouldn't have noticed that irony myself. Of course Shell puts in a bike lane, most of the employees arrive there by bike.

But with all their good intentions and great infrastructure and city planning, daily city cycling is ruled by cyclists. They make their own rules, but they make them together, it's anarchy in the sense there's order and there are rules, but the rules are not top down but come from the grassroots. City planners, legislators and the cyclists are working it out together in a dynamic process where they interact and take turns in leadership. There is planning, but within things that just happen. It's like the behaviour of crowds in and around airports and stadiums etc, they don't bump in to eachother either and don't need many top down rules for that. Cycling just speeds to movement up and that makes it much more complex, but not much more difficult. The city council of Amsterdam has supported cycling since the seventies, but it's mainly the cyclists taking over and the council reacting with plans to smoothen things out. Hypothetically, if the council should stop doing that the drivers and maybe pedestrians would be the victims, cycling has become too independent. In my city it started in the 70's with the council with a specific and infamous plan, but also here the city planners have to adapt the infrastructure to facts on the ground and cyclist behaviour. For example, it starts with pedestrians walking in the middle of the road or cyclists riding in pedestrian zones, and the council reacts with putting up a 'shared space' sign, because it already worked. With the sign it works better, because no one feels the other is in violation of the rules so everybody gets more polite and patient.

For me it's a bit strange, because I think it's fascinating to, but it's easy not to be fascinated when you're in the middle of this daily normality. Often over the past 25 years foreign visitors or foreign inhabitants have reminded me of the fact that it's not normal everywhere else, but still I tend to forget about it. Also when I'm in a foreign country, it's not like I am noticing the lack of cyclists all the time, it has always been like that on vacation. And allthough foreigners tend to be and stay a bit behind on cycling and traffic skills, the switch between percieving it as normal instead of exceptional is very easily made by them also. After one week or a couple of days (back) in town, they're just in the middle of it like it's never been any different anywhere. That's one of the reasons I'm very hopeful for cities everywhere, mentally it's a very easy switch to make, people and bikes are just a natural fit.