Bike Friendly City?
- Thread starter The fingers
- Start date
Many years ago we was told that everyone should drive a vehicle with a diesel engine, great, fantastic, until some-else pointed out that diesels chuck out different nasties including particulate matter (soot). Riding bikes was introduced as a good idea in the cities and towns so we will put in cycle lanes, great, normal road users lost third / half of roads to these cycle lanes more congestion, a lot of cyclists did not mind as they just rode anywhere to get thro' the traffic including thro' red lights, on pavements thro' pedestrianized areas at speed. We now have the gangs of thieves riding high power e-bikes along with food delivery riders. The main problem is that our crowded cities and towns are not designed for these cycle lanes. As before councils do not know what they want it just another good idea, there is not proper control over where cyclist go and if you ride an e-bike it's quite likely you will be pulled you be the police.
Following on for example in London there is Lime cycle hire who are unregulated where you can hire a bike for a short period, it has been said there is 50000 for hire, people hire them and they are dumped everywhere one restaurant had over 50 bikes left outside their main entrance because it has a Lime drop-off point next door, people even ride them to the suburbs 15+ miles from the center of London and dump them on the side of the road, in ditches or throw them in local rivers, cheaper than bus or train fares, I regularly see them dumped once their batteries require recharging.
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Yeah rental ebike (and escooter) users are not always thoughtful about where they leave them. Worse here, are the stray wrangling crews that collect and recharge them, and then place them in great numbers blocking the bike lanes, sidewalks, street crossing curb cutouts, driveway ramps, etc. I guess they are trying to make them as convenient as possible for stadium event goers, commuters, and tourists.
The other problem is that the bikes get dumped most of the ones I have seen have been smashed up, we have a similar problem with e-scooters, central London just doe's not have the space for e-bikes and e-scooter be they legal or illegal.As before somebodies "good" idea, we all have them but most people think before jumping in.
marty
10 MW
You think he needs a helmet. He thought he did not need a helmet. Everyone is different.
Been a while since I used them for this, but back when i used to ride DayGlo Avenger and CrazyBike2 all over the valley to pick up things from freecycle/etc, I would use google (and other) maps to find paths not on main roads that gave me the shortest navigable path, and print those out with the path I found on them marked in highlighter.
During the ride I would almost always find *at least* one place where the street or other path it showed on the map didn't exist, and other alternate paths or streets that did exist but werent' even on there, or not remotely in the right place.
So...I'd venture a "good luck" with getting a centimeter-accurate map of *parking spaces* so that a rental-control-app can be sure the rental-vehicle is actually within the space.
Not even mentioning
that GPS itself is typically not accurate enough to be sure it's any more than "near" the space, or "within the general parking area". You'd pretty much need an active radio tag on each space for the vehicle to detect proximity to the center of the space....
FWIW, I've definitely had my brain saved by a helmet, as a kid on a rural gravel road during an encounter with a fencepost, and again in a tumble from another skid on a city sidewalk...but I have also had a crash caused by a structural failure on a stem that sent me on an endo landing on my shoulder and back, sliding across the sidewalk to the road. If it weren't for the cars that stopped, it wouldn't've mattered if I was wearing a helmet or not.
Since the rider was actually struck by the car, it is pretty likely that the lack of a helmet didn't contribute much, if anything, to the lack of survival. That's not uncommon.
A helmet only really helps in survival when it's a "simple tumble" off the bike.
A full-on large-vehicle-collision is unlikely to care whether there is a flimsy foam thing on the head; the crushing mangling injuries to the rest of the body are much more likely to take the rider out.
Nothing wrong with wearing a helmet--it's great head protection in a large number of bicycle-only accidents.
But it isn't likely to make much of a difference when being run over by something dozens of times more massive than the rider, and shouldn't be a reason to disparage the dead for being run over without one.
Now, deliberatly riding out into an intersection with moving traffic, as the article indicates happened (whehter it is correct or not is not yet determined; insufficient detail presented), might be an excuse for disparagement.
Geezer POV over.
amberwolf, you have given me a headache with a big word like disparagement, we all have to look after our selves no one else will, I wear a Endura MIPS helmet to save my last few brain cells I have, plus I get ear ache from her indoors if I don't. I was thank full for a helmet years back when I first changed from a hard tail to full suspension, had this route thro' the forest where I would jump a ditch, problem this time did not take into account the rear suspension movement, front wheel went down into the ditch and I went straight over the top. the ditch was nigh on 26" wide by 26" deep.
we all have to look after our selves no one else will, I wear a Endura MIPS helmet to save my last few brain cells I have, plus I get ear ache from her indoors if I don't. I was thank full for a helmet years back when I first changed from a hard tail to full suspension, had this route thro' the forest where I would jump a ditch, problem this time did not take into account the rear suspension movement, front wheel went down into the ditch and I went straight over the top. the ditch was nigh on 26" wide by 26" deep.
Yes, as I said, when you are in a bicycle-only accident, a helmet is fairly likely to prevent some of the more serious head injuries. Has done so for me (though I no longer use one because there's nothing worth protecting in there).
But it won't protect any of the rest of your body from being crushed by a large vehicle many times your own mass, at multiples of your velocity. :/
That's where the problem with articles that focus on helmets (or even bother to mention them) are problematic, because the helmet or lack thereof almsot certainly has nothing to do with the cause or the results.
But it won't protect any of the rest of your body from being crushed by a large vehicle many times your own mass, at multiples of your velocity. :/
That's where the problem with articles that focus on helmets (or even bother to mention them) are problematic, because the helmet or lack thereof almsot certainly has nothing to do with the cause or the results.
The fingers
10 TW
Back in the late 70’s my dad bought me a bike helmet (styrofoam type) because he had a friend who just fell on a bike and became a vegetable. I eventually got a skateboarder hard helmet which I still have.
Might not have helped in every case. Both times I endoed I forgot my helmet that day and didn’t hit my head fortunately.
Doesn’t need one anymore:
Might not have helped in every case. Both times I endoed I forgot my helmet that day and didn’t hit my head fortunately.
Doesn’t need one anymore:
The fingers
10 TW
Bicyclist in Vernon killed after being hit by 2 hit-and-run drivers
Investigators said a bicyclist was killed in Vernon after being struck by two hit-and-run drivers.
The fingers
10 TW
Bicyclist dies after being hit by a car earlier this month
This is the 47th traffic fatality reported by the LBPD this year, up from 40 last year, data shows.
lbwatchdog.com
Is it a case of no care or don't care with the way cars are being driven nowadays, I have quite a few times where drivers have been close enough to nearly push me off my bike with their wing mirrors. Another time riding out on a tee junction with the traffic lights on green in my favor a driver has gone thro' a red light right across in front of me. General driving standards have gone right down, at the same tee junction a week or so back a woman driver nearly took me and the other half out, this time we were in our car, woman driver again went thro' a red light, had a kid in the front passenger seat, but we do have a dash cam in the car.
Many consider bike riding a hobby, my bike riding is main transportation, a necessity, but within the necessity I have sub-hobbies.
One of my sub-hobbies when riding is a game I call
"How many minutes before I witness a stupid/dangerous/road rage incident?"
Usually within 10 minutes, almost always one or more within 20 minutes.
For some reason, people's driving abilities, thoughtfulness, consideration, and attention markedly deteriorated during covid times. Kind of interesting because traffic overall was WAY down during that time, should have been heavenly.
One of my sub-hobbies when riding is a game I call
"How many minutes before I witness a stupid/dangerous/road rage incident?"
Usually within 10 minutes, almost always one or more within 20 minutes.
For some reason, people's driving abilities, thoughtfulness, consideration, and attention markedly deteriorated during covid times. Kind of interesting because traffic overall was WAY down during that time, should have been heavenly.
gromike
10 kW
When the COVID lockdown was full on, and (almost) nobody was around, I was riding my bike up a hill and bird started singing a song and then stopped.. Another bird on the other side of the road started to sing the same song at the exact note where the other bird stopped.
I have never heard that before, and maybe never again, but I will remember that moment until the time comes I can't remember.
The fingers
10 TW
Man dead after hit-and-run crash in Petaluma
A man is dead following a hit-and-run in Sonoma County, the California Highway Patrol said Saturday.
www.nbcbayarea.com
offGridDownUnder
10 kW
I've read suggestions of a combination of increased personal stress (due to lockdowns and deadly disease) and extended periods without reminders that there are other people and consequences for ignoring the other people.
I don't have enough attention to spare to keep track of them all, and too many occur simultaneously to make a game of wiating for the next one--you don't have to.
Here, while traffic was down then (is acutally still down now, in my area, though it has been increasing the last couple years it's not back to where it was), there wasn't any noticeable deterioration, but it's so bad to start with it might be hard to tell.
I keep thinking "I reallly ought to stick a 360-panoramic camera on top of the trike and post the videos" but I would need to have some sort of automated process to cut up the ride vids into segments to highlight each dumb thing and uplaoed them automaticlaly to a YT channel just for that. I'd probably get several minutes of new content every day.
Not all of it is drivers, much of it is other cycle and pedestrian stuff too.
The fingers
10 TW
Investigation launched after South Los Angeles crash leaves bicyclist dead
The chase began in San Bernardino County, according to CHP officers.
www.cbsnews.com
