Cyclists fare best?
#201
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Never mind that you're attributing to Forester what Gene said... so what? We all know this is true at least to some extent. Maybe 5% of MOTORISTS ARE UNAWARE THAT CYCLISTS HAVE THE RIGHTS TO USE THE ROAD OR THEY BELIEVE WE DO NOT BELONG, maybe it's 95%, or even 99%. Whatever the percentage, that doesn't preclude us from having those rights, and riding accordingly. In fact, the more we ride as if we have the right to be there, while at the same time riding in accordance with the rules, our duties, and respecting the rights of others to be there, the more we are treated accordingly, regardless of what they believe.
Now, again, I'm not opposed to more motorist education. But I am opposed to the contention that there is a "need" for motorist education in order for cyclists to be able to ride safely, legally, efficiently, and comfortably in traffic. I oppose that contention because I know it is not true, and this is confirmed by vehicular cyclists all over the country.
Now, again, I'm not opposed to more motorist education. But I am opposed to the contention that there is a "need" for motorist education in order for cyclists to be able to ride safely, legally, efficiently, and comfortably in traffic. I oppose that contention because I know it is not true, and this is confirmed by vehicular cyclists all over the country.
And personally I doubt 95% of motorists do know the rights of cyclists.
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Given that there is practically nothing we can be truly certain about, in most contexts "certain" should be taken to be mean "as certain as we can reasonably be in the given context".
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there it is in black and white: MOTORISTS ARE UNAWARE THAT CYCLISTS HAVE THE RIGHTS TO USE THE ROAD OR THEY BELIEVE WE DO NOT BELONG
All your ridiculous claptrap about 'childish cycling' and 'cyclist inferiority' pales in comparison to this statement, which doubly underscores the need for motorist education.
All your ridiculous claptrap about 'childish cycling' and 'cyclist inferiority' pales in comparison to this statement, which doubly underscores the need for motorist education.
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I couldn't care less about the wrong beliefs and attitudes of the majority users of the road who are total strangers to me. It's just not in the pile of cr@p I care about, and I don't see any reason to put it in there.
#205
Part-time epistemologist
Well, I was being polite. Maybe I should write that it is your wild guess that bike lanes produce such an effect in any meaningful way.
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A narrative on bicycle driving.
A narrative on bicycle driving.
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John the key to what you desire is that ALL users of the road have to "obey the rules of the road;" until that happens, even the most law abiding cyclists are at the mercy of those others that refuse to "obey the rules of the road."
Oh sure, I can "work around" and make amends for their failings through extra effort on my part... but that simply allows those that abuse the system to take advantage of my efforts.
Oh sure, I can "work around" and make amends for their failings through extra effort on my part... but that simply allows those that abuse the system to take advantage of my efforts.
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The undeniable fact that people yell "get in the bike lane" at bicyclists on roads without bike lanes, much less on roads with bike lanes, alone supports this claim as being far more than a wild guess.
The reluctance of bicyclists to leave bike lanes, even when it's the safe, reasonable, legal and practical thing to do (particularly at intersection approaches), also supports it.
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However, I have heard drivers yell "get off the road" at other drivers at least as often as I have heard it yelled at me.
I think strange behavior by drivers and pedestrians supports no claim.
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Don't stretch things beyond reason, not even for emotional effect, genec. The traffic system works well enough with the level of competence and obedience that exists. Sure, it could be better, that's not an issue with respect specifically to cycling. What is important is that cycling in the vehicular manner is the best way to get around town by bicycle, and there is no particular reason to spend one's time complaining about the few errors in some misguided effort to advocate views and programs contrary to vehicular cycling.
That is the key to my rants here about motorists. I can and do act in a manner well according to those laws you mention, and have been threatened by motorists because of it.
I do not find that acceptable. Would you?
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This is far more than a cycling issue. Rather, it concerns the conditions under which it is possible to have a high-density urban center with limited motoring, in a world in which motoring is generally available. Such a center can exist only if its attractions are extremely strong; without such extremely strong attractions people just won't go there, which means that, without people, it cannot be a high-density urban center. Of course, Los Angeles, as an urban area, is high density, but, notice, there is not really a high-density urban center to LA. Those that exist have been from before the automotive era, but have, still, attracted so much motoring as to become very congested.
Suppose that motoring in the urban area would be limited to some small fraction of what it had been. Say by some rationing system, by price or by otherwise. Would sufficient mass transit spring up to serve the center's needs? Would park-and-ride facilities to service that mass transit spring up sufficient to serve the center's needs? Would sufficient apartment buildings spring up to house all those who no longer would come into the center from outside? Or, in the face of these difficulties, would the urban center decline because economic activity moved elsewhere? I repeat, the attraction of doing business in such a center has to be extremely strong to enable it to exist, and the size of its economic activity depends on the strength of that attraction.
Many people who live in cities in which government did not subsidize motoring infrastructure, like Paris, London, NYC and San Francisco, don't even own cars. Sure, that's because much of that infrastructure was built before cars, but there no telling how L.A. and other post-motoring areas would have evolved without the zoning and motoring subsidies.
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John when motorists break the laws and act in a dangerous manner that threatens me... then I feel the traffic system is not functioning well enough.
That is the key to my rants here about motorists. I can and do act in a manner well according to those laws you mention, and have been threatened by motorists because of it.
I do not find that acceptable. Would you?
That is the key to my rants here about motorists. I can and do act in a manner well according to those laws you mention, and have been threatened by motorists because of it.
I do not find that acceptable. Would you?
Of course they are going to occasionally and even regularly break the laws and act in a dangerous manner, just as surely as hyenas will occasionally and even regularly eat their own. Why would you choose to find the inevitable to be unacceptable? You may as well choose to find gravity to be unacceptable.
Now, don't get me wrong. If someone actually assaults you, that's different, and certainly unacceptable. But the innocent and predictable though irresponsible incidents of inattention, the harmless expressions of impatience and frustration, why choose to give them the power to irritate and annoy you with that stuff?
Last edited by Helmet Head; 02-07-08 at 02:03 PM.
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Well, no, randya, you have it exactly backwards. The statement that you claim so vociferously to be true says exactly what I have been arguing for months, that the public view of bicycle traffic is one of childish cycling and cyclist inferiority. That, of course, is also what so many of you are supporting with your advocacy for the bikeway system that embodies exactly that view of bicycle traffic. I can't help it if your own mistaken beliefs turn this into your emotional quagmire.
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The key to your rants here about motorists is that you choose not to accept that motorists are human beings, glorified animals with arguably too much intelligence for their own good, and that there is no way you're ever going to change that.
Of course they are going to occasionally and even regularly break the laws and act in a dangerous manner, just as surely as hyenas will occasionally and even regularly eat their own. Why would you choose to find the inevitable to be unacceptable? You may as well choose to find gravity to be unacceptable.
Now, don't get me wrong. If someone actually assaults you, that's different, and certainly unacceptable. But the innocent and predictable though irresponsible incidents of inattention, the harmless expressions of impatience and frustration, why choose to give them the power to irritate and annoy you with that stuff?
Of course they are going to occasionally and even regularly break the laws and act in a dangerous manner, just as surely as hyenas will occasionally and even regularly eat their own. Why would you choose to find the inevitable to be unacceptable? You may as well choose to find gravity to be unacceptable.
Now, don't get me wrong. If someone actually assaults you, that's different, and certainly unacceptable. But the innocent and predictable though irresponsible incidents of inattention, the harmless expressions of impatience and frustration, why choose to give them the power to irritate and annoy you with that stuff?
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Originally Posted by Helmet Head
Now, don't get me wrong. If someone actually assaults you, that's different, and certainly unacceptable. But the innocent and predictable though irresponsible incidents of inattention, the harmless expressions of impatience and frustration, why choose to give them the power to irritate and annoy you with that stuff?
I reject the notion that we are sitting ducks out there able to be squashed at any moment by an inattentive, scofflaw and/or ill-educated motorist. I, for one, ride in accordance with best practices that are designed specifically to keep me safe (to a reasonable degree) from those kinds of inevitable encounters which are par for the course.
The guy who intentionally wants to kill me? Yeah, I'm vulnerable there. But that's homicide, to which we're vulnerable everywhere, and not what we're discussing here.
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#217
Part-time epistemologist
First of all, we don't need to go over the cognitive biases when we collect "data" by our personal observations.
Yelling get in the bike lane when there is no bike lane sounds silly ... doesn't it? How do you differentiate between a comment of opportunity and one that represents a change in attitude? Moreover, you have a censoring problem here. You don't know how many people think that bicycles do not belong on the road but accept a bicycle's presence when there is a bike lane.
Similarly, with the cyclist who is reluctant to leave the bike lane, how do you differentiate between the curb-hugging road/sidewalk cyclist who would rarely use lateral positioning from the "VC stud" who would otherwise be sliding left and right with aplomb? In other words, it would be difficult to differentiate between a change in attitudes due to a bike lane and a simple change in who is riding on the road.
EDIT: In reference to "nil" ... I think that is my interpretation of what you wrote as opposed to something you explicitly stated.
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A narrative on bicycle driving.
A narrative on bicycle driving.
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Then we have more yutzs driving around with a headfull of incorrect and potentially hazardous notions. Whereas if they are educated when they are getting their licenses and reinforced in the exams, and touched upon by say traffic schools, law enforcement, and PSA's, the attitude of entitlement behind the wheel and the "it's my right to drive" ideas may start to fade. In order to ease the weirdness on the road, I think adjusting the one's doing the damage seems logical. As above this could lead to more people being willing to get on the bike, and less dead ones on the side of the road. This isn't just a cyclists' issues either, pedestrians are routinely being mowed down by texting, cd changes, failure to acknowledge crosswalks, etc etc etc and the list goes on..
Last edited by TRaffic Jammer; 02-07-08 at 02:44 PM.
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It's tempting to compare the treatment we get here to Europe. But the culture is totally different there. If the driver is not a bicyclist, he probably used to be, and probably knows and cares for people who are. They have an inherent link to bicyclists in that culture that we just don't have here, and that's why they have and show more respect for bicyclists. All the education in the world can't create that in our culture.
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unacceptable? You may as well choose to find gravity to be unacceptable.
Now, don't get me wrong. If someone actually assaults you, that's different, and certainly unacceptable. But the innocent and predictable though irresponsible incidents of inattention, the harmless expressions of impatience and frustration, why choose to give them the power to irritate and annoy you with that stuff?
Now, don't get me wrong. If someone actually assaults you, that's different, and certainly unacceptable. But the innocent and predictable though irresponsible incidents of inattention, the harmless expressions of impatience and frustration, why choose to give them the power to irritate and annoy you with that stuff?
I will no longer care about my fellow man on bike or car. Excuse me for trying.
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Again, that's not what I'm using. This is precisely why I created the poll I referenced earlier. Now, maybe all these people responding to the poll lied. So, yeah, I'm assuming they were truthful. Are you challenging that assumption?
#222
Part-time epistemologist
I should add that there is a lot of wiggle room between wild guess and certainty. "Wild guess" is too strong in the uncertain direction. But I have doubts that bike lanes produce meaningful negative changes in driver attitudes.
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A narrative on bicycle driving.
A narrative on bicycle driving.
#224
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Yes, irritate and annoy. Gene allows their inevitable inattention and errors to irritate and annoy him.
I reject the notion that we are sitting ducks out there able to be squashed at any moment by an inattentive, scofflaw and/or ill-educated motorist. I, for one, ride in accordance with best practices that are designed specifically to keep me safe (to a reasonable degree) from those kinds of inevitable encounters which are par for the course.
The guy who intentionally wants to kill me? Yeah, I'm vulnerable there. But that's homicide, to which we're vulnerable everywhere, and not what we're discussing here.
I reject the notion that we are sitting ducks out there able to be squashed at any moment by an inattentive, scofflaw and/or ill-educated motorist. I, for one, ride in accordance with best practices that are designed specifically to keep me safe (to a reasonable degree) from those kinds of inevitable encounters which are par for the course.
The guy who intentionally wants to kill me? Yeah, I'm vulnerable there. But that's homicide, to which we're vulnerable everywhere, and not what we're discussing here.
Sounds to me like you are the one "allowing others."
So that is what you want me to do?
And regarding the "homicidal" guy... uh try toning it down a bit and then re-examine your beliefs... try that the driver is not intentionally homicidal, but acting in a manner that has the potential to kill you, and if they do, you just become the statistical "I didn't see him." You are just as vulnerable there. (much like the thief that stole your bike... you were vulnerable... as you indeed are not perfect, and therefore cannot "prevent" everything.)
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Do you really think more motorist education would make a significant difference in motorist attitudes and behavior towards cyclists?
It's tempting to compare the treatment we get here to Europe. But the culture is totally different there. If the driver is not a bicyclist, he probably used to be, and probably knows and cares for people who are. They have an inherent link to bicyclists in that culture that we just don't have here, and that's why they have and show more respect for bicyclists. All the education in the world can't create that in our culture.
It's tempting to compare the treatment we get here to Europe. But the culture is totally different there. If the driver is not a bicyclist, he probably used to be, and probably knows and cares for people who are. They have an inherent link to bicyclists in that culture that we just don't have here, and that's why they have and show more respect for bicyclists. All the education in the world can't create that in our culture.
To the comparison.... you'll never know, if you never try. Education can be a wonderful thing.
Remember... "opps I didn't see you" can kill, and not just one person. This isn't even taking bad attitudes or drunks into the equation, just inattentive.
Last edited by TRaffic Jammer; 02-07-08 at 02:53 PM.