Can someone explain this to me?
What safety standards are they not held to?
No airbags
Motorbikes don’t have airbags either
They aren’t moving fast enough for airbags to deploy.
Sorry, that was a joke
I think you have the wrong community…
I misunderstood. I thought the community title meant you are VERY attracted to cars.
Bicycles aren’t held to the same safety standards as cars because bicycles are inherently way less dangerous than cars.
Your question is like asking why BB guns aren’t held to the same safety standards as actual guns.
My question stems from the fact that certain areas expect cyclists to share the road with cars while drivers are protected by higher safety standards, and cyclists are exposed to a higher level of danger.
Cars are the danger.
I think almost everyone misunderstood what you were getting at. To be fair, it was pretty confusing.
You’re saying “Cyclists are told to be on the road. Cyclists aren’t protected as well as drivers are. Why should bikes be on the road if that’s the case?”
To address your question pragmatically, because the next best option most of the time is to be on the sidewalk, and cyclists die more often per km cycled on the sidewalk than on the road.
cyclists die more often per km cycled on the sidewalk than on the road.
Really? That surprises me. Do you have a source for that?
Right of way crossings are extremely dangerous, and riding on the sidewalk creates more such crossings that are even more dangerous than the ones encountered on the road, because drivers don’t have the visibility to anticipate the cyclist. Riding through right of way crossings where drivers expect pedestrians gets you killed.
Ah, that makes sense.
When I ride on sidewalks, I cross carefully. If there is any chance of a car coming, I slow down significantly to the point of getting off my bike at times.
Where I live, I have more close calls at such intersections in the bike lanes because cars like to try to make right turns in front of me. The first one can usually get in front, and I have to stop to not get hit, then the one behind thinks that they get to do the same thing.
I figure that walking my bike across an intersection isn’t much different than someone pulling a grocery cart across the street.
I found this source with some info. Quoting a relevant bit:
Most studies that considered sidewalk-riding suggested that it is particularly hazardous for cyclists, with estimates of 1.8 to 16 times the risk of cycling on-road [29,66-68,71]. However one study found that the risk of traveling on the sidewalk was the same or lower than riding on residential streets [64]. Another considered the direction of travel and found that the elevated risk when sidewalk cyclists entered intersections was almost exclusively related to cycling against the flow of adjacent on-road traffic
It can seem counter-intuitive that riding where the cars are is safer, but if you think about it, it makes sense. Cars don’t expect fast-moving vehicles on the sidewalk (they often barely expect pedestrians…), the constant curbs impacts your flow while riding, people more often ride against traffic on the sidewalk than on the road, and honestly people riding on sidewalks probably tend towards more inexperienced than people who feel comfortable riding on the road.
people more often ride against traffic on the sidewalk than on the road
There may also be a case of taking the sidewalknis done on my risky roads, that is difficult to control for.
In my case I ride one section against the road on the sidewalk because the alternative is to cross a road of 80kph+ traffic twice in 600m with a toddler. In the other direction we ride on the road because we don’t have to cross it, and the traffic is usually only doing 10 kph.
It’s situational surely, and I think an experienced cyclist knows when to take the sidewalk. But an experience cyclist also needs to know that sidewalks ARE NOT SAFE, they are just a less unsafe alternative when road conditions become intolerably unsafe, and they need to use even more caution than they normally do on the road when they take that option.
I agree, I’m just curious if you see more sidewalk riding because the roads are so unsafe, thus making the adjacent sidewalks unsafe, thus making sidewalks appear more unsafe than they really are.
It’s not an easy factor to tease out of the data; and frankly it’s a discussion that should be avoided because it pits cyclists and pedestrians into discussion about the sliver of space left over when tons is already given to motorists.
Thank you for sharing; great points.
To me, this sounds a bit like crosswalks/intersections are the unsafe part rather than sidewalks.
It’s a rule of thumb for cyclists to walk their bikes across intersections (even on bike paths/trails!), turning cyclists into pedestrians. Not that pedestrians are particularly safe where I live, but that would address part of the issue here.
Sidewalks where I live tend to have boulevards (grass off to either side for cyclists to pull onto), which may be different than the environments where these studies took place (I’m picturing buildings on one side and roads on the other).
It’s a lot less mass and speed (and thus momentum) and it also isn’t a room-sized suit-of-armor that can allow accidentally plowing through the brick wall of a store (unscathed) because they dropped their cellphone between the couch cushions.
Aside from lower lethality for pedestrians than vs cars (especially 30mph+, high hood height trucks, blind spots or malfunctions), a bike rider is at risk to injure themselves in any sort of adverse event (be it flipping over the handlebars, falls/skids, or something like a faulty bicycle frame/fork).
That makes sense, so why aren’t bikes allowed on the side walk? Based on your argument.
I mean… they sometimes are (if the sidewalk is designed for it), look at multi-use trails. A city near me allows bikes (coming from the trail) on wide sidewalks to the main street.
It depends on the flow of pedestrians (too many people would be difficult to navigate with a bicycle anyway) and it can be a visibility issue with doors of storefronts (especially as people leaving likely aren’t expecting/looking-for someone passing on a bike).
Yea I guess it comes to the infrastructure, I’m in Chicago and we seriously need more REAL bike lanes, not something just painted on the road. I see drivers doing crazy shit all the time swerving into bike lanes almost hitting cyclists. I’m just really still confused about the logic of forcing cyclists to ride on the road where there are no bike lanes while the side walks are wide enough for them.
They should not be allowed in the sidewalk because they’re a hazard to pedestrians.
Bicycles are to pedestrians like cars are to bicycles. Every argument you can make about cars endangering cyclists also applies to cyclists endangering pedestrians.
Bicycles belong in the road because their speed is more similar to cars than pedestrians, their (lack of) maneuverability is more similar to cars than pedestrians.
Clearly three separate protected rights of way would be better than the current two
This seems demonstrably false. Bicycles can go about 10mph. Cars on a busy road will go 55 or faster. Cars weigh 1000lbs. Bicycles weigh like 10 lbs, maybe. A pedestrian getting hit by a bicycle might get some nasty scrapes. A cyclist getting hit my a car becomes a pancake. Cyclists are far more comparable to pedestrians than cars
Bicycles can go about 10mph
I’ve bicycled over 50 mph. Granted down a steep hill with a death wish. (Imagine bombing down a hill at insane speeds on a 45 mph road zooming past the cars).
Realistically people can and do maintain double that speed, and even faster for short distances or on an e-bike. That’s close to typical in town speed limits of 25-30 mph
Pedestrians include kids, who may not be predictable enough for cyclists to avoid and the huge difference in inertia between a kid and an adult travelling 20 mph is more than enough to cause serious injuries
- We’re talking about bicycles, not ebikes
- So that same child should ride their bicycle on a street with pickups going 65mph while texting and driving?
A lot of issues like this are how things are designed. Taking a page from NotJustBikes (look them up if you haven’t heard of them), lots of things are car-centric (cities, housing, zoning, parking-lots, lack of public transportation) even when it comes as a detriment to everyone not in a car (and sometimes even those in large vehicles, because congestion).
It’s also another culture-war thing and not even just in the US, look how in Canada Doug Ford wants to remove even the painted bike lane.
They’re allowed in some places.
Depends on the location. In some states bikes HAVE to be on the sidewalk if it exists.
In japan they don’t but they all do anyways. Imo they should just be allowed on sidewalks
How so?
On a bicycle in Ontario I can get stopped roadside and forced to prove I can stop from 20kph in 30m on flat pavement, have a working head and tail light, have two separate functioning brake systems, have a bell, and have reflectors on forks.
There’s another tranche of rules for ebikes.
No similar rules exist for cars, with maybe the exception of the stereotypical busted tail light.
What safety standards are you thinking of? Vehicle maintenance? Proof of competence to operate it? Following laws while moving?
The easy answer to it is probably “because enforcing cyclists is hard and doesn’t pay for itself in fines.”
Safety standards like seat belts, airbags, turn signals, brake lights. Things that protect the individual operating the vehicle.
I think you’d get your answer by looking into how that works with motorcycles, since that’s a better analogy than cars.
Yea this is a good point. I think bicycles should be required to have some lights at least to make them more visible to drivers.
Cyclists on the road are supposed to use hand signals to indicate turns, just like cars whose blinkers are not functioning
please tell me it’s a joke.
Cars are not held by the same safety standards that trucks or buses neither. Is about the potential of damage that every vehicle could cause the standard they are subject to.
OP that this was “Fuck, cars!” But it is actually “Fuck cars!”
Nope, I read the description pretty clearly “A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all.”
deleted by creator
