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This got posted to r/bikecommuting and this person posted what I think is the dumbest response possible and got voted up to 30 points.quote:I've biked 7000 miles a year for 15 years and the close calls stopped when I followed these rules: Literally NONE of this applies to the situation here. The cyclist was riding on the shoulder of a road in the early afternoon and a driver swerved into the shoulder and killed them. NONE of this poo poo would stop that. But of course this person doesn't say "don't ride on a loving highway" because they are only interested in convincing themself that while a top us cyclist got hit by a car in a way that was totally outside of their control they as a random redditor on r/bikecommuting are safe because they wear high viz clothing and keep a spare helmet at home. This is why I can't stand reading stuff like the advocacy and safety subforum on bikeforums: nobody is willing to admit the possibility that biking in the US in its current stand inherently comes with risk, so whenever someone is killed they just immediately jump into victim blaming to convince themselves that it wouldn't have happened to them. They then are so invested in denying that cycling in the US could be unsafe that I think they start hating actual cycling infrastructure purely because admitting that cycling infastructure would make things MORE safe implies that things aren't optimally safe right now and they can't even handle that possibility. And it's not even like you'll die if you ride a bike once in the US, it's just like there is a certain risk per mile which is much higher than it should be, which doesn't mean that you shouldn't ride a bike, it just means that you should want to make it safer if possible, so it's infuriating that there are all these people who oppose that purely out of dumb cognitive dissonance. Edit: I guess this is somewhat unfair of me in this case because the commenter was responding to a question from another person saying "how do you stay safe" rather than directly in response to the original article, and technically if you interpret that broadly, this is advice on how to stay safe, it is just weird when you consider that none if it would have prevented this cyclist from getting killed mystes has issued a correction as of 20:40 on Aug 1, 2023 |
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Aug 1, 2023 20:25
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eXXon posted:Just lol and lmao if you have a valid driver's license. Ontario is so car brained that many places only accept a driver's license as ID. Not even a passport, which is federal identification instead of provincial.
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Aug 1, 2023 20:28
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mystes posted:This got posted to r/bikecommuting and this person posted what I think is the dumbest response possible and got voted up to 30 points. hold up are you saying reddit is bad and stupid and terrible
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Aug 1, 2023 20:55
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On my morning commute today a cyclist with a kid in the front bucket and a woman driving a car both ran their stop signs at a 4 way stop and got mad at each other when they almost collided. I was fully stopped on my bike opposite side of the cyclist cause I knew that car wasn't coming to a complete stop, he saw me stopped, the car coming and still decided to roll through the intersection with his 5-6 year old. Rare case where I felt the cyclist and driver were both at fault, like dude you have your kid with you maybe stop at a busy 4 way and take a breath before diving into oncoming traffic.
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Aug 1, 2023 21:17
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i saw a f250 extended cab with an uber and lyft sticker in the front windshield driving in san francisco today. i think that technically makes it a working truck
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Aug 1, 2023 21:22
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uber is a horrible financial deal for almost any driver but especially lol at doing it in a late model truck
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Aug 1, 2023 21:23
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I would love to have all of my bike routes planned by one of these hi-vis vehicular cycling advocate guys who bikes ten thousand miles a year and has somehow never seen a drunk or malevolent driver
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Aug 1, 2023 21:26
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mystes posted:Edit: I guess this is somewhat unfair of me in this case because the commenter was responding to a question from another person saying "how do you stay safe" rather than directly in response to the original article, and technically if you interpret that broadly, this is advice on how to stay safe, it is just weird when you consider that none if it would have prevented this cyclist from getting killed Yeah was gonna say, none of that at all sounds unwise from a self-preservation perspective and an understanding that when you’re on a bike or on foot you can’t trust drivers to follow basic road rules Clark Nova posted:I would love to have all of my bike routes planned by one of these hi-vis vehicular cycling advocate guys who bikes ten thousand miles a year and has somehow never seen a drunk or malevolent driver You can’t account for everything but the sad but also entirely true fact is when you’re in traffic and not driving, the only person you can trust to be looking out for you is you
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Aug 1, 2023 21:55
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mystes posted:And it's not even like you'll die if you ride a bike once in the US, it's just like there is a certain risk per mile which is much higher than it should be, which doesn't mean that you shouldn't ride a bike, it just means that you should want to make it safer if possible, so it's infuriating that there are all these people who oppose that purely out of dumb cognitive dissonance. Kind of a tangent, but there are a lot of people who don't think rationally about risk per mile and it's always interesting how that impacts the way people think about cycling. Because yeah, risk per mile is a real thing for cyclists, but it's also a thing for anyone crossing the street, and for anyone driving to the store, and basically anyone who's exposed to cars. People dismiss the idea of cycling in cities, but if you every cross the street you're also deeply exposed to drivers, and it shows year after year in terms of people getting killed or seriously injured by drivers while they're in a crosswalk. I'm sure the numbers are worse for cycling overall, but it seems like for a lot of people the thought starts and ends with cycling. Which sucks, because if you follow that thought to a logical conclusion, it's clear that cars are the through-line in basically every road death, and there's no fixing this problem without dealing with cars. And so here's this reddit dumbass writing a million page thesis about how he solved dangerous driving through sheer willpower, either not understanding or not admitting that you can only get so far on your own efforts; you can eliminate some threats through vigilance, but not all of them. Cars are just too heavy and too fast and there are too many of them being driven too shittily, and if some guy looks down at his phone and slides off the road and smashes 10k lbs of metal into you at 75 mph, your hi-viz vest isn't gonna do poo poo and your own reaction time simply won't get you out of the way - and this can just as easily happen to you while you're cross the street as it could if you're on a bike.
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Aug 1, 2023 22:05
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Yes and you can slip and fall on the sidewalk and go sprawling into the intersection too That doesn’t mean that you can’t do a lot to protect yourself None of that’s bad advice given the car centric world we live in
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Aug 1, 2023 22:18
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My first time biking when i moved to seattle in 2006, I was on greenwood and 105th just waiting in the right hand lane for the light to turn green - there was a dedicated right hand turn lane so i wasnt blocking anyone from turning right to be clear - and this guy just starts revving his car behind me and inching up and bumping my tire. I was tired because I had just biked 80 blocks and back and had cargo and was just so loving done. I basically didnt ride again because it was such a stupid and gross situation. Drivers are loving psychotic and its only gotten worse. Now its about as bad as a pedestrian - saw a guy speed up to run a light and almost hit people just the other day. silicone thrills has issued a correction as of 22:56 on Aug 1, 2023 |
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Aug 1, 2023 22:34
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I've probably picked up enough bits as a groundskeeper to assemble a whole car at this rate. and my job means crossing roads.
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Aug 1, 2023 22:39
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HashtagGirlboss posted:Yes and you can slip and fall on the sidewalk and go sprawling into the intersection too The part of the quote that sticks out for me is the first sentence: quote:I've biked 7000 miles a year for 15 years and the close calls stopped when I followed these rules: The author isn't framing it as some good ideas to follow while we improve the infrastructure. The implication is that cars and roads are immutable facts of life and if you get hit it is your own fault for being a bad cyclist. It's just a rehash of vehicular cycling.
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Aug 1, 2023 22:43
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All the high viz scolding cracks me up cause how are you supposed to be visible to people who literally aren't looking where they're driving? Walk around enough and watch drivers taking turns and so many of them take turns without even looking the direction they're going
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Aug 1, 2023 22:55
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leftist heap posted:All the high viz scolding cracks me up cause how are you supposed to be visible to people who literally aren't looking where they're driving? Walk around enough and watch drivers taking turns and so many of them take turns without even looking the direction they're going Your magical glowing neon vest is totally going to make some absolute loving moron look up from their phone, yes, definitely.
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Aug 1, 2023 22:57
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if you want to be safe you have to be decorated like a christmas tree
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Aug 1, 2023 22:57
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i havent had any bad experiences with drivers but part of that, aside from luck and living in a less car-brained country, is probably that i wear normal clothes when cycling from talking to a co-worker who has had a lot of bad experiences, seeing a cyklist in cycling clothes seems to make drivers go insane
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Aug 1, 2023 23:06
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The one anecdote I picked up was that cars seemed to give this biker more distance whenever he was riding with full pannier bags hanging out the side of his bike, presumably from drivers not wanting to get their car scratched.
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Aug 1, 2023 23:17
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Research has shown that cars will get closer to cyclist they perceive to be male bodied and even closer if they are wearing a helmet so I am sure certain clothing will make drivers more blood thirsty.
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Aug 1, 2023 23:20
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Ensign Expendable posted:Ontario is so car brained that many places only accept a driver's license as ID. Not even a passport, which is federal identification instead of provincial. What, where? Hell, I used my citizenship card before (but only because it amused whoever was checking it because it had a picture of me as a child).
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Aug 1, 2023 23:27
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I didn't get my drivers license until pretty late so i had a state issued ID card for a long time and its horizontal which led a lot of bartenders and poo poo to assume it was fake or i was underage so that was very annoying.
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Aug 1, 2023 23:36
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spacemang_spliff posted:no not really Strong Town’s foundational argument is that suburban sprawl/car-dependent development is fundamentally unprofitable and can only be paid for with ever-increasing debt, right? I see that and I get it and I even see how that could be used as an argument to convince further urban/high density development. But also it’s sort of uncomfortable because I don’t believe government investment has to be profitable? Like the fares on a subway over 20 years don’t have to make up for the replacement cost of the subway, do they? Obviously the suburb’s indirect positive effects are much smaller and its indirect negative effects much larger than the subway’s, but I don’t see Strong Towns really focus on those, mainly just the direct cost/income analysis. Doesn’t quite sit right.
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Aug 1, 2023 23:37
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The problem with the burbs is it isnt the government planning that space. Its a bunch of home builders like quadrant and co building it all out then sticking the city with the bill and the cities just cant afford it. The builders also regularly dont do reasonable things like - build sidewalks!
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Aug 1, 2023 23:41
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it isn’t that they aren’t “profitable” it’s that upkeep costs more than they bring in via tax revenue. suburban sprawl is subsidized by the urban core.
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Aug 1, 2023 23:44
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raggedphoto posted:Research has shown that cars will get closer to cyclist they perceive to be male bodied and even closer if they are wearing a helmet so I am sure certain clothing will make drivers more blood thirsty. i think its that regular clothes give drivers the impression of a visitor on the road, while cycling clothes give them the impression of someone asserting that they belong on the road - someone trying to take their space rather than just temporarily using it
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Aug 1, 2023 23:45
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silicone thrills posted:The problem with the burbs is it isnt the government planning that space. Its a bunch of home builders like quadrant and co building it all out then sticking the city with the bill and the cities just cant afford it. well the home builders run the zoning board and planning commission, so...
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Aug 1, 2023 23:46
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Megamissen posted:i think its that regular clothes give drivers the impression of a visitor on the road, while cycling clothes give them the impression of someone asserting that they belong on the road - someone trying to take their space rather than just temporarily using it there's also been studies that any kind of decoration of a car makes the driver more aggressive and more likely to road rage. calvin peeing on a ford logo, fuzzy dice on the rearview mirror, those cutesy stick figures of your family, one of them jesus fish, doesn't matter what it is, as soon as someone starts decorating their car, they start to see their car as part of their territory and anyone who interferes by making them not be able to drive as fast or who is taking up space on the road they want to use then gets an aggressive territorial response.
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Aug 1, 2023 23:56
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fermun posted:there's also been studies that any kind of decoration of a car makes the driver more aggressive and more likely to road rage. calvin peeing on a ford logo, fuzzy dice on the rearview mirror, those cutesy stick figures of your family, one of them jesus fish, doesn't matter what it is, as soon as someone starts decorating their car, they start to see their car as part of their territory and anyone who interferes by making them not be able to drive as fast or who is taking up space on the road they want to use then gets an aggressive territorial response. lol that's pretty great
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Aug 1, 2023 23:59
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I like that one study that showed that trucks and suv drivers are more likely to swerve in order to purposefully hit an animal on the side of a road. like literally running onto the shoulder in order to run over a snake or squirrel
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Aug 2, 2023 00:00
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You probably shouldn't ride with your child because drivers will just get more points for the effort which makes you a more tempting target
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Aug 2, 2023 00:05
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cool av posted:Strong Town’s foundational argument is that suburban sprawl/car-dependent development is fundamentally unprofitable and can only be paid for with ever-increasing debt, right? I see that and I get it and I even see how that could be used as an argument to convince further urban/high density development. It's slightly different from the type of analysis that many americans use where they say that public transit has to directly turn a profit, because it's factoring in the economic activity that's produced. I guess you can respond by saying that government spending doesn't have to generate economic activity if it's beneficial in other ways, but then it turns into an argument about whether roads are transit are more beneficial in intangible ways, which makes it difficult to persuade people who already believe that car-centric infrastructure is essential and beneficial. I think that Strong Towns is good even if you don't think that's the right way to view government spending because it will appeal to local municipalities that are probably more concerned about "are we going to go bankrupt" than "in a communist system where there was no money, would it be better to build roads or public transit"
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Aug 2, 2023 00:07
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where would you say a car is weakest
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Aug 2, 2023 00:12
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Catalytic converters are a soft but profitable target.
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Aug 2, 2023 00:13
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Weembles posted:The author isn't framing it as some good ideas to follow while we improve the infrastructure. The implication is that cars and roads are immutable facts of life and if you get hit it is your own fault for being a bad cyclist. exactly. it's all fine on its own, because of course we live in a shithole country that was redesigned as an experiment to produce as many car deaths as possible, but the effect is to tell people that they have to live with their head on a swivel like they're in an active combat zone whenever they leave their house *and* they have to look like a huge orange doofus if they want to live. which a) is an insane request to make of everyone and b) doesn't fuckin' work, because you can't individual responsibility your way out of a systemic problem of this size. Electro-Boogie Jack has issued a correction as of 00:18 on Aug 2, 2023 |
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Aug 2, 2023 00:16
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Jokerpilled Drudge posted:where would you say a car is weakest I've said this before but anchovy oil in the AC ducts (where the windshield meets the hood) on a hot day is the ultimate way to gently caress with some rear end in a top hat's car. They will never get the smell out.
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Aug 2, 2023 00:16
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fermun posted:there's also been studies that any kind of decoration of a car makes the driver more aggressive and more likely to road rage. calvin peeing on a ford logo, fuzzy dice on the rearview mirror, those cutesy stick figures of your family, one of them jesus fish, doesn't matter what it is, as soon as someone starts decorating their car, they start to see their car as part of their territory and anyone who interferes by making them not be able to drive as fast or who is taking up space on the road they want to use then gets an aggressive territorial response. this is also a big part of why road rage exists too. there are so many class signifiers involved with driving a car and that's before you even get into the weird poo poo people do like stickers and truck nuts. by the time you make someone mad enough that they want to fight you, it's because they've already decided who you are.
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Aug 2, 2023 00:16
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Jokerpilled Drudge posted:where would you say a car is weakest Usually only the windshield is laminated glass, the other windows are tempered and quite weak E: allegedly. So I've heard SimonSays has issued a correction as of 00:23 on Aug 2, 2023 |
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Aug 2, 2023 00:19
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haha i once saw someone grab a driverside window and shatter it just by yanking on it back and forth as hard as he could
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Aug 2, 2023 00:21
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mystes posted:I think that Strong Towns is good even if you don't think that's the right way to view government spending because it will appeal to local municipalities that are probably more concerned about "are we going to go bankrupt" than "in a communist system where there was no money, would it be better to build roads or public transit" even in a communist society without money how efficiently you can deliver services would matter the kind of money saving strong towns advocates would be largely transferable, its not mckinsey style money saving they also do a lot of "this will make the city nicer to be in" stuff silicone thrills posted:I like that one study that showed that trucks and suv drivers are more likely to swerve in order to purposefully hit an animal on the side of a road. like literally running onto the shoulder in order to run over a snake or squirrel as someone who tries to catch insects that get inside with a drinking glass and a piece of paper so i can let them out again i just cant comprehend why someone would do that
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Aug 2, 2023 00:24
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the point strong towns makes is that it's not just the roads that car centric infrastructure makes unsustainable but the whole pattern of development - water, sewer, gas, electricity are all too expensive to deliver given the revenues that can reasonably be extracted from that same area. yeah the roads are going to get really lovely but you'll also end up with undrinkable water, sewage pipes that break constantly, power outages, flooding if you need to have flood defense stuff in the area, none of it can work.
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Aug 2, 2023 00:54
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