To be sick of cyclists making pedestrians feel unsafe

[OptimismvsRealism]

Life is so much worse than it was ten years ago in cities precisely because of this

If cycle helmets offer such great protection, would you suggest that pedestrians and car occupants should also wear them? After all, there are many more pedestrians and car occupants killed and seriously injured on roads in UK than cyclists, so it would make sense.

There it is, the arrogance.

This is the thing I don’t understand- every single thing that’s mentioned; jumping lights, speeding, riding on pavements, not wearing the appropriate safety equipment etc is always met with ‘they did it too! Its not fair, they did it first, why are you picking on me?!’

Just take responsibility for yourselves.

Cycle helmets offer fuck all protection when you're under the wheels of a lorry.

HTH

Said without arrogance!

It's actually just logic.

I’ll confess to sometimes setting off early at red lights if it is definitely safe to do so (e.g. a pedestrian crossing with no pedestrians around), to give my self the safety buffer of getting ahead of the the traffic.

As someone who wears a helmet on every journey on my bike, the helmet is there for my benefit and safety, so if something does happen to me then my head is protected .

If I don't wear helmet, then how does this affect you as the pedestrian and how does it make you less safe?

The arrogance of telling other people what to wear on their head, something that doesnt affect you at all - do you tell smokers off as well?

It is basic bike safety, no?

Same as wearing a seatbelt in a car.

To be fair, I don't think she was telling them what to wear but rather internally feels angry for the position they could be putting themselves in. I really hate seeing kids cycling without helmets as one of my neighbors suffered a serious head injury when we were kids when he was cycling the at most 300m from his house to ours.

Some people are dicks. Some dickish people have bikes, some dickish people have cars, some dickish people have neither and are dicks on foot.

I think we should have No Cycle Day in places like London where there are lots of cyclists. All cyclists with a driving license must, on this day, leave their bike at home and either go out in their car or find themselves a hired car if they don’t have one at home.

And then we’ll see what happens to the congestion on the roads, the additional traffic jams, the inability to find parking spaces, added crowding on the underground and so on.

I suspect the people on here moaning about cyclists will moan about that too. Some people like moaning and it’s just the way they talk. There is no point paying any attention to them.

Ah yes, "they"

Every single person on every single bike in the world.

I would never deny that in my part of London, a proliferation of people are riding bikes dangerously. But I don't assume that every person on a bike is out to get me. I'm also aware that the danger from a non-electric bike is minimal because the momentum (mass times velocity) is low.

The danger might be low to you, but for many elderly or disabled people, or children, it is higher.

Bike handle bars are head hight to me and I can’t jump out of their way!

Obviously being hit by a car would be worse, and there are more cars so it’s statistically more likely- but the traffic and road conditions in my area are such that bikes are frequently travelling much faster than cars and are on the pavement- because the cars are crawling along in traffic jams/between parked cars/interrupted by speed bumps-

the fact you can fly around faster ignoring the traffic calming measures and avoiding queues is often sighted as a reason to cycle rather than drive!

So more cars, means more deaths? So surely the answer is fewer cars, more bikes - given a bike collision is very unlikely to cause death, cars do.

The first answer is every vehicle using the road follows the rules and isn’t a dick.

It definitely isn’t for some of the users to meet all requests for safe usage by pointing to the next vehicle and saying ‘they are worse!’ and think that makes it ok.

If I take out your nan or your toddler with my large and heavy power chair will that be ok because bikes and cars both cause more injuries and deaths on the roads than wheelchairs do?

It's a logical question. Lots of people are seriously injured while driving and walking. Race car drivers wear helmets to avoid injury, and driving is one of the riskiest things many of us do.

In fact it has been suggested in the past that drivers be encouraged to wear helmets. Car manufactures opposed it because they felt it would make people think driving was risky, to be avoided.

Bike helmets are an interesting thing because while they seem to offer some protection to individuals, at a population level they don't improve safety and may even be associated with more accidents.

Yeah, but it's a basic human nature thing, really.

If you make the roads awful and unwelcoming for cyclists, you incentivise riding on the pavements. It doesn't make it right, but it's going to happen.

Honestly, I feel like I can't win. I ride on the road, and I'm abused for holding up traffic. I ride elsewhere, I'm abused for that too.

its illegal to cycle on the path not to mention dangerous.
you shouldnt be on there. I walk, i would feel embarrassed and a nusiance to ride on the path so I dont do it,

People are really bad at assessing risk, and very emotional about it - most people 'feel' safe driving and unsafe on a bike, and so conclude that they must be much safer in the car. In the same vein: I've had multiple people tell me that they think it's irresponsible that I cycle with my toddler because he'll be exposed to the air pollution from cars. The evidence is really clear that actually you're more exposed to air pollution sat in a car (the car traps it; I'm in the open air) and also obviously the car is contributing to the problem! But people feel that they're protected in a car even if they're objectively not.

I don't cycle on paths. I don't cycle much at all now, because of the awful behaviour by some drivers and the complete absence of options. Which means another car contributing to traffic, parking congestion, air pollution...

I really can't get angry about people cycling on paths though, when I know what the alternative can be like.

Well, I think it's great that you are keeping an eye out for bikes in cities. You should be. We really need to get rid of this idea that cars are the default.

Was waiting for this. Cyclists are " saving the planet" [ single handedly ofc] so can never be criticized.

99pc of them ime as a pedestrian are selfish, arrogant wankers. Hth.

I also used to live in Cambridge, and it was a great example of how the more bikes there are, the safer cycling is for everyone. I felt so much safer cycling there because bikes were expected and accepted. It did make driving around in the centre a bit harder (though it would have been pretty tough anyway - Cambridge is just not a city where the infrastructure works well for cars) but as someone who both drove and cycled it always felt like a good trade-off to me.

you would if they injured you,