they find the concept of the do-gooder infuriating and the idea of minding their own business untenable.
Indeed!
I’m not at war with them… The cyclists here are at war with cross walk signals!
Two times in the last couple of years I’ve tried to turn right on red coming home at night, watching traffic on the left, turn back to the right and a cyclist is literally in front of my car as I’m about to apply the gas to turn! They would be laying across my hood without a fast reaction time.
Number one, I don’t believe they are supposed to be riding on sidewalks, and number two they completely disregard traffic signals/walk signals.
Granted this is in the U.S., specifically in Florida, and I don’t blame them for not wanting to be on the normal roads here as they will literally be run over by a jackass in a lifted F350; but I do wish they would at least abide by the pedestrian crossing signs as I really would prefer not to hit anyone!
Our state is so backwards the concept of public transit is an afterthought and very few places are remotely walkable… We have some bike trails here and there, but everything is designed for cars because living near a population center is too expensive for most and requires you to commute by car.
Two times in the last couple of years! I see a trend here those are numbers we can’t ignore
It is true that people ride bikes on sidewalks here in an effort to stay out of the road, I see them every day and am passed by several when I walk to work. Even the ebikes are on the sidewalk. Also true that at intersections it’s dangerous as fuck, and by law they are supposed to be in the road and stopped at Red light. But if you are turning right on red, the pedestrian presumably has the right of way - you have a red light. I’ve had to slap the hood of several cars who were looking only at traffic in one direction and not the direction their car is about to move in, while I’m crossing a street on foot.
They do not have the right of way in this case, part of the issue, at least in my county, is that we have really backwards walk signals.
They show walk, then a few seconds later change to a flashing hand (don’t walk) with a count down, which makes very little sense. I don’t think the people are paying attention to them anyways.
We have those. The flashing hand and countdown, the pedestrian still has right of way - it’s just to let you know not to start crossing the intersection and how much time you have remaining to cross it. Sort of a long yellow light for walkers.
It does NOT give cars turning right on red the right of way. I don’t know where you live but if it’s the US you are misinterpreting that countdown and hand flashy sign.
Yet no mention of how many times they witnessed unsafe/illegal driving behavior compared to the cyclists. Solid case we need to ban these cyclists. They are a threat to motorists, and collision with a bike could scratch their car’s paint.
Cars going over the speed limit is literally just accepted as fine by 90% of drivers but god forbid a cyclists goes through a stop sign at 20km/h looking both ways constantly to make sure it’s safe.
I see cars roll through stop signs at 30km/h weekly.
I encounter cars going twice the speed limit on one of the few designated bike routes in my city multiple times a week. I’ve almost been hit by these cars multiple times.
I’ve seen cars go through red lights at full speed 3 times in the past two years.
People are insanely reluctant to the idea that people bikes should maybe not have to follow rules that were written for vehicles that impair your vision and hearing, regularly kill and maim, and require a license and insurance.
Two times in the last couple of years I’ve tried to turn right on red coming home at night, watching traffic on the left, turn back to the right and a cyclist is literally in front of my car as I’m about to apply the gas to turn! They would be laying across my hood without a fast reaction time.
Maybe don’t try accelerate without looking where you’re going???
Let me further explain to you what is occurring here:
People on bicycles, without stopping, will ride from a sidewalk, across an intersection, 2 or 3 lanes per side here, fairly big roads. When you pull up to a light, you are watching for oncoming traffic in addition to any changes to the area you may turn into. A bicycle, who wasn’t there and rides into an intersection with complete disregard for traffic or crosswalk signals can be in front of your car in a literal split second. If I wasn’t looking before accelerating (I am in a manual car and have to put it into gear and all), I would simply run them over. Clearly, that isn’t the case, but I imagine with the age of people here and the size of the vehicles they drive it is not an infrequent occurrence.
I’m really surprised how many people missed the sarcasm of my first sentence and literally the rest of the post…
If you have a red, wouldnt the crosswalk signal be green?
In my city, bikes can go in sidewalks everywhere except a few blocks downtown.
So chances are it’s the motorists legal responsibility to look out for, and yield to pedestrians and cyclists when they do a right on red.
It greatly depends on the traffic pattern here! I also mentioned this to another reply, but our county has IMO very poorly designed traffic patterns for road crossing. It will generally turn white with a walk sign for a few seconds, and then quickly shift to a flashing red hand indicator with a count down, which means you have X number of seconds remaining to walk until the full red hand (don’t walk) shows up. Flashing red hand symbol IMO is not the best indicator for “you can still walk.”
The times I’ve had this happen are at very large intersections that have 3 lanes each way on one side and 2 lanes per side on the cross road. With lead greens, and various traffic patterns the walk signs do follow a specific pattern, but there are also opportunities for right on red without the pedestrian having right of way. This mostly occurs during the transitional periods, and during lead greens, which can be a significant amount of time in intersections of this size.
Yes of course it’s the motorists job to avoid running over pedestrians, I don’t think that was ever a question.
That’s interesting, I never considered a flashing hand as an indicator to stop. It is timed to a slow walker, so I can tell whether it’s safe to cross if I can run across.
I would argue that the signal you should pay attention to is your red light. Which also doesn’t mean you can’t go through the intersection (this is bad policy in my opinion), but it does mean that you need to look out for and yield to people driving, and walking across the intersection.
It is generally not a good idea to bike on the sidewalk on the wrong side of the road. But sometimes that is the safest option.
Our county and state in general is miserable for biking and pedestrians outside of designated trails. I only know a handful of people who are serious about road biking, and multiple have been in serious accidents due to motor vehicles.
Stop oppressing their cager rights!
Hey there, serious question, could you please inform me as to what a cager is? I have never heard this term before.
Thanks!
@SolNine @negativeyoda Cage is a term some people use for cars, as they act like cages, seperating the driver from everything else.
Cager is a term for a driver.
Right on red is dangerous and kills pedestrians and cyclists alike because of
moronsmotorists looking left and turning right.Right on red is standard driving practice in my entire state unless otherwise posted. No one has a 180 FOV, your head has to swivel, and generally you look in multiple directions multiple times before turning.
Just like people in cars pedestrians and cyclists alike can also be negligent of the law and break right of way.
If we didn’t have right on red here, the traffic nightmare would be significantly exacerbated.
Just like people in cars pedestrians and cyclists alike can also be negligent of the law and break right of way.
Pedestrians and cyclists generally aren’t driving machines that weigh tons and routinely kill people when they’re negligent.
If we didn’t have right on red here, the traffic nightmare would be significantly exacerbated
I recommend you do some reading on the subject. The only thing that fixes traffic problems are robust public transport and increased walkability and cycling infrastructure.
Plus, as a motorist, I’d rather lose 3 minutes on my commute if it saves a few pedestrian and cyclist lives on the regular, while making the city a more pleasant and hospitable place to live in.
Because oil companies and their useful idiots have propagandised them into believing that every cyclist that inconveniences their morning commute and causes them to lose 20 seconds of their drive deserves to die.
I live in California and I am a liberal; but too many times when driving through canyons and mountains I’ve come around the corner and there’s a cyclist straight in the middle of the lane I am in. Now, I don’t speed, I don’t go around corners fast but even at the normal posted speed it is too dangerous.
There’s been countless times too when cyclists take up a lane and think everyone else just has to go around. I mean when there’s a bunch of them.
Have seen aggressive cyclists too.
So perhaps it’s where You live and what the relationship is like between cyclists and motorists. In socal it’s tense 😬 / aggressive at times.
IMHO Cyclists should have their own infrastructure… Mixing (some) idiot drivers and (some) idiot cyclists on the same road is a hazard to us all.
I feel like this article is really missing out the part where oil interests are intentionally funding hatred of other modes of transportation. The PragerU video on “The War on Cars” is a good example. They are funded by oil companies, and this is public information that is easy to find. And they use that platform to prevent other modes of transportation from being safe or viable.
Bicycling industry lobbyists need to step up their game
I think one of the main points in the article is that there is no group of cyclists able to come together to lobby and tbh, I don’t see how it’s really possible. It’s something I’ve been thinking for a while.
I am a cyclist and a driver. I am not personally in a lobbying group for either. However, like another poster said, oil companies and car manufacturers have the money and reasoning to come together to lobby on behalf of drivers regardless of my actual wishes but they’ve got lots of my money from having bought and maintained a car. Cyclist manufacturers aren’t exactly large, have much money or are as combined into a few multinationals. There is no fuel industry either.
I don’t really know any other cyclists like me who are more casual, and use it for local journeys. I want better segregated lanes, better and more secure parking (my bike got stolen recently), the police to actually care about bike thefts, and more considered routes/junctions. There are social groups of long distance weekend cyclists but tbh, they have completely different priorities and interests to me. Even when I used to commute my cycling habits were completely different so my requests would be different.
Depends where you live, of course, but in the UK, where this article was published, there are quite a few organisations for cyclists, like the London Cycling Campaign, British Cycling and Sustrans (which advocates for Sustainable Transport generally, hence the name, but I think focuses mainly on cycling).
I think all three are membership organisations, with slightly different focuses (like obviously the LCC focuses on London!). The LCC definitely is partly funded by the bicycle industry.
EDIT: Somehow forgot about the greatest cycling club of all for UK-based cyclists: The National Clarion Cycling Club, which is a socialist cycling club!
Sure, there are lots of advocacy groups for good things with positive externalities that exist… but the funding for them tends to be vastly lower than the amounts thrown at lobbyists from industries with negative externalities.
Very interesting, thank you for sharing!
Some of these are exactly what I was thinking so will join or see how they can help. However, I do get the sense they have no real say in local politics here given what I’ve seen in proposals and plans from the local and county councils. I noticed new caveats to some of the 20mph and LTN type plans (which are far behind other areas already) with “depending on the wishes of actual residents in that area”, or something along those lines added that sounds like full on NIMBYISM or anti-woke to me. I do reply to consultations with my concerns as a local cyclist but don’t see much changing. Perhaps doing so as part of a group will be better.
Unfortunately I’m just outside London in Surrey where the infrastructure is awful. There is a noticeable drop in quality as soon as you cross the invisible border. It’s worse for cyclists and pedestrians.
For example, the behaviour of car drivers outside my child’s primary school is terrible and they school constantly asks people to be more careful but the council doesn’t seem to care. They have yellow lines on the smallest stretch you can imagine and not even on both sides of a small road, which are ignored anyway. The road is still 30mph, there are no ped crossings, let alone crossing guards. I even requested parking enforcement to come. They said would add it to their list but have seen them once in 6 months.
Sorry, turned into a bit of a rant towards the end!
There’s not exactly the same amount of money sloshing around in the cycling manufacturing industry. It’s a relatively cheap product, and there’s no consumables involved. In contrast, if you drive, you give the oil industry something like $100/month.
I’ve been to the Pacific Cycle corporate headquarters, the current owner of well-known brands like Mongoose, Schwinn, GT, and Rioadmaster, supplier of most of the bicycle-shaped objects sold by mass-retailers like Walmart and Target.
That’s right, into the very belly of Big Bike!
And, uhh, they’re not very big. I’ll bet more people work at the Toyota dealership just down the highway. That is to say, bicycle industry lobbyists don’t stand a chance against automobile lobbyists.
its from british neoliberal media what did you expect
Agree. Bad media is bad.
Because car is freeeeddddooommmm.
And as we know all too well from history, enabling other freedoms (women’s suffrage, marriage equality, or now getting around by bike) disrupts those already established freedoms!
For many drivers, a car is debt in addition to a large recurring expense.
Debt == freedom?
Yea thats pretty much the lie we are sold and forced to participate in for most of car centric North America.
Because the right are a bunch of fucking screaming babies that need their goddamn asses beaten to a fucking pulp.
LIBERALS: STOP BEING NICE TO THESE FUCKING SHITS. NO, THEY DO NOT HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN YOU.
It’s pretty simple when you realize that conservatives are addicted to hate. In order to prioritize their hatred, they target people who make them feel like an asshole and people who are in their way. You can boil these down to people who make them uncomfortable.
Yeah, you gotta reframe it. “Don’t you miss when people used more traditional ways to get around? Give me a horse or a bicycle any day”.
They will agree to fucking anything if you preface it as “traditional”
We’re not ‘wokerati’
But we are, though: cyclists are “better people” than drivers. And the right hates better people.
Yeah asking why conservatives think bicyclists are all radical leftists is a boring question full of answers we already know.
The real question is why the hell anybody who enjoys riding a bicycle (and walkable infrastructure in general) can at the same time be a conservative or even a centrist?
Like…. what are you doing? Have you not thought through the history of why the simple act of riding a bicycle or walking through your community puts your life at risk because our public spaces starting right outside our front door are utterly devoted to cars?
If you ride a bicycle on public streets and you vote conservative or even centrist you are literally using your vote to make yourself more likely to be killed.
There could not be a more direct example of how the idea of neoliberal individualism and libertarianism totally ignores material realities where an individual’s actions, such as driving a 6000 pound pickup truck for no reason, can directly lead to your death.
There could not be a more direct example of how prioritizing individual freedoms (and let’s be frank, only certain individuals) to an extreme degree can result in tragic consequences for everyone.
The freedom of the group has to be considered too… which is basically the whole point of leftism.
Huh, interesting article, thanks!
the study didn’t attempt to determine whether people more oriented toward the common good are simply more likely to ride bikes, or whether riding bikes actually increases people’s interest in the common good.
I’d be curious which is the chicken and which is the egg.
go vegan
It’s true. I know I should be vegan. Convincing me it’s the right move isn’t the hard part.
I mean it more in the sense of, “go vegan, get hated by everyone.” It’s not the right, it’s everyone right of you… In other words, a fundamental aspect of human psychology. :-/
They’re afraid the lycra will awaken something in them
Stupid Sexy Flanders
Feels like I’m wearing nothing at all!
Nothing at all!
Dental plan!
Monorail!
Lisa needs braces.
Canyoneroooo!
The GOP want to maintain civil liberties.
Just not YOUR civil liberties.
This is an article in a British paper, written by a British journalist, about her experience in Britain, and names multiple British people.
There is no mention at all of America, nor Americans.
So what does your republican party have to do with it?
Far right conservatives around the globe are using the same playbook.
Yeah my bad I didn’t read it, just kind of browsed through and left my two cents on the headline.
conservatives don’t get mad at anything they don’t personally do or don’t make things up about other people to get mad at challenges (impossible)
Look, I’m generalizing here, but there seems to be an almost intentional effort on the part of many journalists and journalistic outlets to misunderstand “The Right”.
Its the charity part, which, like I get the journalistic training and the importance of giving someone you might disagree with the the charity required to have a conversation, but “The Right” has been using this act of good faith to further their agenda. We shouldn’t be giving them charity. Period. They’ve broken with the good faith required to support that charity. “The RIght” aren’t arguing or acting in good faith, and so charity shouldn’t be extended to them. They are captured by a kind of cynicism that is not compatible with civil society.
I frequent both right and left wing areas of the web to try and keep tabs on what everyone is talking about, and literally the only place I’ve ever seen this sort of anti-cyclist circle jerk is on reddit.
It definitely still happens in the conservative tabloids, although that has been around for many years already.
It absolutely happens many other places, including Facebook, nextdoor, local blogs, and get this, irl. I have been threatened more than a couple of times directly, and even more times indirectly. People fucking hate cyclists. All because they dare to not drive a fucking car (sometimes).
I used to be annoyed by cyclists because from my perspective I thought I could easily kill them by accident and they were clogging up the road. That was a very selfish attitude but it was mine. I don’t know if that’s what others are thinking but the hatred is very, very real.
Really? I’ve seen it literally on fuckCars, here on Lemmy!
Really? Try riding a bike in a city once.
Google Aaron Freeman and Indiana SB-52. Granted, he was opposing dedicated bus lanes rather than bike lanes, but it’s the same argument. Then google who his biggest donors are.
I think cyclists secretly love cars. Otherwise why do so many end up on a car hood or under its wheels? It’s probably one of those BDSM things really…
Fearing change.
