THC posted:

God these loving joggers out on the roads in the morning, endangering themselves and others - haven't they ever heard of a treadmill?! Those exist, you know.

sliderule posted:

Listen, I've driven without winter tires my whole life and haven't killed anyone yet. Why should I make my vehicle safer if I'm obviously a very talented driver. I am completely in control and can ignore unforeseen circumstances.

JawKnee posted:

I'm reasonably certain the people in the cars are risking more lives than the people not in the cars

sliderule posted:

Helsing posted:

As someone who uses both a car and a bike you're all assholes and probably roads should be reserved exclusively for rollerskates and ball hockey.

sliderule posted:

Doing something which is fun is good even if it endangers one's self and others, got it.

quote:

A tiny proportion of accidents involving cyclists are caused by riders jumping red lights or stop signs, or failing to wear high-visibility clothing and use lights, a government-commissioned study has discovered.

The findings appear to contradict a spate of recent reports speculating that risky behaviour by riders, such as listening to music players while cycling, could be behind a near 20% rise in cyclist deaths and serious injuries in the second quarter of this year.

The study, carried out for the Department for Transport, found that in 2% of cases where cyclists were seriously injured in collisions with other road users police said that the rider disobeying a stop sign or traffic light was a likely contributing factor. Wearing dark clothing at night was seen as a potential cause in about 2.5% of cases, and failure to use lights was mentioned 2% of the time.

The figures were slightly higher when the cyclist was killed, but in such cases only the driver's account is available.

The data, which was analysed by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), showed that more than a quarter of all cycling deaths in 2005-07 happened when a vehicle ran into the rear of a bike. This rose to more than one-third in rural areas and to 40% in collisions that took place away from junctions.


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The 64-page analysis found that police attributed responsibility for collisions more or less evenly between drivers and cyclists overall, but this was skewed by the fact that when child riders were involved their behaviour was named as a primary factor more than three-quarters of the time.

With adult cyclists, police found the driver solely responsible in about 60%-75% of all cases, and riders solely at fault 17%-25% of the time.

The cyclists' lobby group CTC said the report showed that the government needed to focus more on driver behaviour rather than on issues such as cyclists wearing helmets. The TRL published a separate DfT-commissioned report today in which it was estimated that the universal use of helmets could save between 10 and 15 lives a year, a conclusion disputed by the CTC.

"The main cause of crashes seems to be 'failed to look properly', whereas very few cyclists are injured or killed acting illegally, such as failing to use lights at night or disobeying traffic signals," said Chris Peck, from the lobby group.

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"We believe this report strongly supports our view that the biggest problem for cyclists is bad driving. With that in mind we are greatly concerned that the government still seems fascinated with analysing and promoting cycle helmets, the value of which appears to be inconclusive. We believe that the government should now focus on tackling the causes of injury which appears to be mainly inconsiderate and dangerous driving. Reduced speed limits, stronger traffic law enforcement and cycle-friendly road design are the solutions."

TRL recommended that more research be carried out into the relatively high numbers of young casualties, finding that those aged 10 to 15 were most at risk of injury for each mile cycled. Riders aged 16 to 29 were more likely to suffer harm than any other adult group.

The data – which covered incidents on the highways – showed that 3% of all collisions leading to deaths or serious injuries took place on bike lanes, and almost 80% of casualties happened during daylight hours. Just over 15% of all such accidents involved the cyclist alone.

Kly posted:

This is something most of these clowns wont even consider since the majority of women dont want to spend a few hours with them let alone have children with them. Just load up a six year old and toddler onto an overcrowded bus in the middle of winter, transit to their daycare then take another bus/train to work all the while hoping there arent frequent delays causing you to be late and losing you your job. THEN after work do the whole thing in reverse hoping you can make it back to the daycare in time before it closes and if you are late too often that place refuses to take your children next year so you have to find a new daycare thats probably even farther out of the way.

cowofwar posted:

It's dangerous because drivers suck at driving.

cowofwar posted:

There's this one neat trick that involves living near a transit hub and not overextending oneself on mortgage payments for an oversized house. As a result two working parents with zero or one cars in a small house can easily afford to hire help with the household and kids.

The dream is to get married and have kids in a big house in the suburbs with two cars all while drowning in debt. If you simply maintain all the other variables and try to take transit then yes, it is impossible. But if you actually plan out what you're doing you can live without debt, with hired help, and have a nice lifestyle of vacations. Canadians spend almost all their incomes on housing and car payments, if you reduce those by half or more it's amazing what you can do.

PT6A posted:

It really depends. I'm more than happy to accommodate most cyclists, but when I have to do 10-20 km/h up a hill on a highway that normally has a speed limit of 100km/h for 10 minutes because cyclists want to use it, and there's no opportunity to pass safely, it pisses me off. It's their legal right as road users to do so, but let's not pretend it's not inconsiderate. Depending on visibility and corners, it is not particularly safe either. Heaven forbid that cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians all treat each other with some degree of consideration apart from "IT'S MAH LEGAL RIGHT!" No! We must always be in a constant struggle for supremacy, and being considerate would surely put our victory at risk!

I sympathize with people complaining about motorists, as I've nearly been hit by cars while legally in a crosswalk twice on two consecutive days, but I think no matter whether we are walking, biking or driving, we should show consideration to other road users and act in a way that will keep all of us safe. It's not a competition!

cowofwar posted:

There's this one neat trick that involves living near a transit hub and not overextending oneself on mortgage payments for an oversized house. As a result two working parents with zero or one cars in a small house can easily afford to hire help with the household and kids.

Helsing posted:

Unfortunately most people don't plan their lives out like that. They might have a general picture of the future they want but they end up getting derailed one way or another. They unexpectedly fall in or out of love, they have an unplanned kid, a family member or friend is ill and requires long term care, they develop ties to a specific locality and want to continue to live there, etc. It's very easy to judge someone for living in a community that doesn't properly fit their income or lifestyle but it's unreasonable to expect people to rapidly and easily move to whatever geographic location would be most efficient and logical for them. A lot of people expect to have lives and raise families in the same area that they grew up in and while this expectation isn't always reasonable we should at least be sympathetic.

Cultural Imperial posted:

I hope all you fat gently caress drivers die of a heart attack

Kly posted:

Cool so move your family of four+ into a tiny downtown apartment building for twice what it would cost to rent a house three times the size of that apartment? And then hire a loving nanny to stay at home in that little downtown aparment with your kids. And this is all supposed to be done on 60k to 70k a year? Youre completely out of touch with the reality of average people.

Hire a nanny. lol

cowofwar posted:

There are only speed minimums on highways where cyclists and other users aside from cars are not permitted. There is no difference between a cyclist and a slow car. Pass safely when safe to pass. Move in to the oncoming lane and leave at least a metre between the other road user you are passing.

Femtosecond posted:

Speaking of bad urban planning, the BC Liberals are once again completely ignoring Metro Vancouver's Regional Growth Strategy and have announced that they will replace the Massey Tunnel with the biggest bridge in BC. The $3.2 billion 10 lane bridge will replace a 4 lane tunnel.

Driving in Metro Vancouver is bad enough with the current volumes so I can't even imagine how terrible it's going to be in the Fraser Valley when due to the induced demand created by this new bridge, there are enough cars on the road to fill up these 10 lanes. We know this will happen due to the example of LA and many other places.

In contrast the City of Vancouver has not increased any road capacity in over 30 years and the amount of cars entering the downtown core remains static at 1964 levels despite huge increases in the amount of people living and working there.

Newfie posted:

A lot of this talk about moving to transit hubs is great and all, but it only seems to be a discussion for anywhere west of Montreal. I know the answer to the questions is probably "moving to a real province" but most cities I have been to in Atlantic Canada have had zero opportunity for reasonable public transit. In St. John's we have huge transit issues of the sidewalks not being plowed, a transit system that takes 3x as long to get anywhere compared to car, and cities built almost to intentionally gently caress buses over into being regularly late. I have done the transit thing in Toronto and europe with no issue, and had it be an almost enjoyable experience, but the reality is that outside the few major cities, Canada was never designed to have transit and that is really causing issues with many cities, particularly on the east coast.

cowofwar posted:

Hiring help for your kids doesn't have to be full-time job. When I was a kid I had a bridge nanny who was around for just a couple hours a day between when us kids got home and when my parents got home from work. When my wife was a kid they had a university student working as a bridge nanny as well to move the kids around.

When I was a kid my sibling and I shared a room with a bunk bed. Kids don't need their own rooms until they are teenagers.

There are a poo poo ton of people that rent small units for their families at rates way lower than servicing a mortgage, only have one or zero cars, and have family or part-time nannies to help with their kids. Presumably you grew up in suburbia or something because I assure you that there are way more people that do what I'm proposing in large cities.

Furnaceface posted:

Worst part is you can build suburbs that are very self supportive and easily serviced by public transit, but city planners are never told to do this and instead are told to just pile up crappy houses as far as the eye can see in stupid patterns that make navigating those hell holes even more tiresome.

Also doesnt help that vacancies in most large city cores are at or near zero currently, and anything you can find is at astronomical prices which forces people out into the crappy new areas where renting and buying is cheaper.

Like I said, its not a situation where one change will solve anything. There are way too many factors involved outside of the vehicle itself.

Helsing posted:

Conversations like this one make me think that bad urban planning, especially regarding transportation, was the ultimate social disaster of the 20th century. In addition to the social atomizing effect of living in the suburbs, the environmental and foreign policy implications of being so dependent on fossil fuels and the massive species-wide opportunity costs of using up our planet's one time endowment of cheap fuel, there's the political impact. It's striking how many social and political conflicts arise from disputes about the competing lifestyles of cities, towns and suburbs, and all the political spillover that these endless battles have.

cowofwar posted:

Hiring help for your kids doesn't have to be full-time job. When I was a kid I had a bridge nanny who was around for just a couple hours a day between when us kids got home and when my parents got home from work. When my wife was a kid they had a university student working as a bridge nanny as well to move the kids around.

When I was a kid my sibling and I shared a room with a bunk bed. Kids don't need their own rooms until they are teenagers.

There are a poo poo ton of people that rent small units for their families at rates way lower than servicing a mortgage, only have one or zero cars, and have family or part-time nannies to help with their kids. Presumably you grew up in suburbia or something because I assure you that there are way more people that do what I'm proposing in large cities.

cowofwar posted:

When I was a kid my sibling and I shared a room with a bunk bed. Kids don't need their own rooms until they are teenagers.

PT6A posted:

Kilometre and a half ain't poo poo. It's seven kilometers from the nearest C-Train station to the airport, because the station is on the opposite side of the airport from the terminal, and it turns eastbound after that instead of continuing north to the terminal. We just built that extension a few years ago, too. I have no idea what the hell the city was thinking.

JawKnee posted:

Hey now there's going to be a giant mall that will definitely pull so many people into south delta for I can't even finish this post I'm too disgusted with it

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

Guess what would have child services crawling up your rear end these days? This part right here.

sitchensis posted:

And it's not like we don't have any idea of what works. There's a reason why inner city neighborhoods like Mission or Inglewood (to use Calgary examples) are rapidly becoming gentrified: they offer a lifestyle that you simply cannot get anywhere in the suburbs.

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

Guess what would have child services crawling up your rear end these days? This part right here.

sitchensis posted:

Yeah pretty much. The big nightmare now is how do we retrofit suburbs that were constructed with a shelf-life of maybe three decades. No lie, these areas have 'best before' dates. Many power centres are purposefully constructed to only last a maximum of two decades. It's incredibly disgusting how wasteful we've become.

quote:

And it's not like we don't have any idea of what works. There's a reason why inner city neighborhoods like Mission or Inglewood (to use Calgary examples) are rapidly becoming gentrified: they offer a lifestyle that you simply cannot get anywhere in the suburbs. There is a definite urban planning tradition that existed up until the mid-twentieth century that managed to balance the needs of people, vehicles, and urbanity. Take a look at this blog for a good American example.

There exists a gradient of how we construct our communities. Not everything has to be huge mega-towers with retail in the podium; likewise, we don't have to keep constructing lovely sprawl and enormous power centres that are isolated from any kind of spontaneous human interaction except what you get in Wal-Mart. Hell, in many places, going to Wal-Mart has become the equivalent of walking down main street to meet people. For many small towns, going to Wal-mart is a social outing where you run into neighbors.

Basically, tl;dr:



A french village vs an American Walmart