I was like most people and passed my driving test (in the UK) as soon as I could as a teenager. I drove for a few years and it was fine but I wasn't ever someone who loved cars. I suppose it was just cheaper not to own a car while at University and that gives you a break from just doing the normal, car ownership, thing. So I just never bothered getting one after graduating. I've never really thought of it in those terms but a significant part of not wanting to own a car is that I am very aware of the potential to do a lot of damage to someone else. Which is sort of what you asked.

It's never really been an issue. Part of that is, of course, that car ownership is so main stream that someone else can always give you a lift at the rare times when there is no alternative. Family wedding this week, I'll get a lift, no trouble. But mainly I walk or cycle to get somewhere. When you think about it, it is a bit odd how many people get in a car to work, then drive to the gym and then back home. Effectively paying for the gym to make up for the exercise they don't get because they drive so much while also paying for the car. I did live in the US for some years and people said it would be impossible not to own a car but I just decided to live somewhere with a nice cycle route to work.

Maybe you all take it for granted but the number of shops and restaurants, in the US, that only had a car park and could not be accessed by foot is a bit odd. I think it's a bit more than a personal decision. You have to choose to build the infrastructure to allow normal people not to own cars. Or even aim for one car per household would be a start,

The other interesting statistic to look at is the relationship that helmets have in death-by-car. Some states, like NY, capture that in their reports. Lack of a helmet is overwhelmingly the case in deaths by car. Every vehicle-bicycle accident is bad, but what if 50% or 60% of the deaths could have been avoided if the rider simply had their helmet on? Oh yeah, and a huge percentage of bicycle-vehicle accidents in general are rider at fault.

In the grand scheme of things, death-by-car is a low probability of death for a cyclist. But when it happens, odds are exceedingly high that it is the rider's fault, both in causing the collision and then by not having a helmet on when they caused the collision.

Had no idea not wearing a helmet was even a thing

I'm in the UK as well, but i've always lived outside of cities. I commute 50 miles each way every day. My kids go to schools 20 miles away. Their sports centre is 6 miles away. If i was to rely on public transport it would take me 3 days to get to work. So car ownership is a necessary evil for myself and many others. I'd imagine that very few people driving along the roads are doing it becasue they want to be there.

I'm also european and didn't get a car until I was 27. I didn't need it before that and the convenience it would have provided on occasion really wasn't worth the cost IMO. Now that I've had one for 16 years and gotten used to it, I'd find it quite an adjustment to live without one again. But I could.
I've lived in the US for short periods and visited regularly (though mostly the same locations in New England) and from my experience, the US is designed very specifically with the assumption that cars are, and should be the norm. There's a lot of sprawl, plus very limited public transport and a total absence of footpaths in many places. So, I think it would be far harder to live without a car. However, a the culture also reflects the normalisation of car use for EVERYTHING. I've often gotten odd looks from americans when they realise I'm intending to walk somewhere, even when it's a short and perfectly safe walk of say 5mins. They invariably (and kindly) offer a lift, apparently feeling that no-one should need to walk anywhere. I like a walk and invariably turn down the offer politely - which elicits more odd looks!

On the plus side, motoring in the US is FAR cheaper than it is in Europe, and certainly Ireland which I think is one of the most expensive places in the world to buy and own a car. However, I'm not fond of cars being central to everything. Ireland, the UK and probably other countries in Europe have been going somewhat the same direction but I think energy costs, traffic congestion and ecological concerns may reverse this again, which would be fine with me. Regardless, widespread autonomous cars are coming, soon, semi-autonomous is already growing, and I reckon self-driving may even be eliminated in due course. That should make a huge positive difference to road safety.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-AbPav5E5M

The above statement is just a perpetuation of societal bias against cyclists and advances myths which are completely unhelpful in the current discussion.

If what you are claiming is true then countries with high volumes of cyclists and low helmet usage rates would be death traps. At same time introducing a mandatory helmet law would slash mortality rates by more than half after they are introduced. Luckily their are four countries with great statistics where we can check if this is true: Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Australia.

The truth is NL, BE and DE have low rates of cyclist-vehicle accident rates and low cyclist fatality rates in spite of high cycling rates and low helmet usage. Australia has been religious tracking fatality rates since introducing a mandatory helmet law a few years ago and the fatality rates aren't dropping when normalised for miles ridden. (On a population basis cycling fatalities have fallen slightly but that because cycling usage has also fallen which is the unwanted true impact of the law).

All you are seeing in NY is a bias to selectively report data which blames cyclists. Their is no way to work out after an accident whether a helmet did or would have saved a life. People should be strongly encourage to wear helmets but wearing a helmet does not statistically reduce your chances of having a fatal accident.

A lot of these deaths are not what we would consider hobby cyclists. Many are people using bikes for local urban transportation for either financial or driving record reasons. Those are the guys you see riding along a four lane highway with no lights or helmet at 2 am.

According to who? The driver of the car, the police, the insurance company?



Kind of on the subject....I can't believe they would bother arguing with this video. Just admit it and pay her.

https://6abc.com/...parking-lot/5390133/

There's a very good reason that motorcyclists call car/truck vehicle drivers "cagers".

Consider that, then rethink what you've posted.

Survive-ability is a huge factor. Don't look at motor vehicle deaths just by mileage, consider how many deaths per incident with vehicle-on-vehicle versus vehicle on "pedestrian and/or cyclist".

Around here, a LOT of pedestrian deaths (non cyclist) are in the middle of the night where the pedestrian is wearing dark clothes and circumvents highway dividers to cross instead of going down 1/4 mile to the nearest bridge. Several per year locally.

Groups annoy the crap out of motorists, but, for some reason provides some weird level of additional visibility and survive-ability to riders. Either you do get hit and have witnesses to aid OR the people saw the huge blob or had to slow up because someone else saw them and has slowed. By group, I mean maybe 10 to 12. Not two people, and not 30 to 40.

I think this is the fundamental shift that will need to occur if we want to meaningfully reduce car usage. Instead of waiting for public transport to come to us, we will have to go to public transport.
People will have to become more used to living in cities, while also finding a way to get their peace outside the city. This will increase ridership and while encouraging infrastructure investment so that we can continue building out public transport more.

We might get some urban sprawl, which leads to encroachment on "natural" land and displacement of native species, but we're going to have to figure out which evil we want to embrace.

You’re never going to have this fundamental shift. Unless for some reason living in suburbs becomes so astronomically expensive, that it’s cheaper to live in a city. That hasn’t happened anywhere that I know of.

This argument of we could fix this if we just all moved to cities and used public transportation is a non-starter. If people wanted to live in cities in far higher numbers than we already have, we would have figured out the housing piece already. But that’s just not the case. People want to have bigger houses or at least more land, they don’t in general want to be crammed in a city in a condo.

If you want to dramatically decrease the number of cars on the road then require companies to allow work from home for any employee that doesn’t need to physically at the office.

The number of people we have commuting, even within a suburb, so they can go into an office to stare at computer screen is astronomical. That fix at least could provide some solution. You just aren’t going to be able to force people to live in cities nor should we go down that path.

Ummmmm... actual data, i.e. facts, suggest otherwise. I think if you took the time to dig around objectively, and not follow your bias, you might surprise yourself. And, your jump-to-conclusions of what you think I said are also inaccurate. I never said that we could determine after death whether a helmet would have saved the rider. And I think that helmet laws are awful. Would it shock you to know that around 25% U.S. cyclists who died in vehicle-cyclist crashes were legally drunk (in most states)? And, around â…” occur in urban areas. How about this... in the U.S., only 16% of vehicle-cyclist fatalities had helmets (33% are unknown, but that would probably not raise the percentage enough to mean much.)


Facts: In the U.S., cyclist fatalities occur largely in cities on helmetless riders. Oh, and a bunch of those riders are drunk. This is not societal bias, this is our reality. This profile is not that of a typical triathlete or active cyclist.

Cars are evil and drivers are operating death machines, blah, blah, blah. Yes, this is true. But it is also true that the riders bear a significant shared responsibility for the deaths on U.S. roads.
Video, witnesses, sometimes obvious data at the scene. Many sources. Your video example ties back to the NYC fatality a week or two ago. This forum erupted in anger against the dump truck driver until the video showed the cyclist clearly at fault.

How's that? Explain the women being at fault.

She blew through a stop sign or red light and hit the side of the truck.

I was talking about the woman in NYC who died when she rode off the sidewalk into the truck. That video helped exonerate the driver. I was not referring your your video. My point was that video is a useful and increasing source of accident culpability data.

I see your point. I think the one thing we can agree is on the need to eliminate the commute. Either through living close to your work, or working from home.

The big issue I have with bicycle statistics is it needs to be 'per mile' or 'per hour' because the sheer amount of drivers is greater; in some areas maybe 1000 to 1. You add miles to that it may be 10,000 to 1 (in rural areas). In SoCal we have roughly 50 motorists die each week and 2 cyclists, and there is no way there is 25/1 ratio of distance travelled. I don't know what that is but its at least 100/1.


I do think we need to ignore statistics to a point and eliminate gross negligence on the cyclists' part. I don't want to victim blame, but running a red, riding drunk in oncoming traffic, those are very common deaths which are not on the car. If you're an idiot on a bike you pay the consequences, if you're in a car you don't. But I'll also say many of these deaths have twisted stories. Once the driver gets over the grief of killing someone they realize a good story is the only thing keeping them out of jail, and many people will side with them.

I think the other issue with bike safety is the fear mongering of the youtube generation. Every crash is posted on social media, many close calls are; it skews the reality of what's actually out there. That being said, it only takes 1.

I agree with your general message, but it's worth noting that while there may not be protests to stop driving, there are certainly political action to get people to drive less and instead take mass transit/walk/ride more. This is a major political issue where I live (New York City) and I just gave money to a mayoral candidate who is working toward that.

If anyone wants safer streets and roads, I urge them to look at politicians through the lenses of street/road safety and mass transit. And to give to support advocacy groups working toward that.

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exxxviii wrote:

In the grand scheme of things, death-by-car is a low probability of death for a cyclist. But when it happens, odds are exceedingly high that it is the rider's fault, both in causing the collision and then by not having a helmet on when they caused the collision.

This is not true where I live (New York City).




This is wrong on multiple levels. First off, many of the people killed by drivers where I live sustain massive injuries that helmets cannot prevent. Here is a recent look at helmet for protection in cycling - they help when the cyclist crashes, but not "in most high-energetic crashes, especially when motor-vehicles or trains were involved"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753517302059?via%3Dihub


Second - blaming the victim if a driver hits them is absurd. Do you blame other people killed by cars for not wearing helmets? Helmets would certainly help drivers and passengers - do you blame people hurt inside cars for not wearing them? If, as you say, death by car is super rare, it's utter nonsense to blame someone for not wearing armor against it.


Take a look at theses photo from the site where a person was killed by a driver in my city a few days ago (there is no dead body in the images BTW). No helmet on - but do you think it would have helped? Her head was severely injured. And look at the shoes. This person was doing nothing illegal.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/bklyner/bklyner/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-08-at-2.08.47-PM.png
https://s3.amazonaws.com/bklyner/bklyner/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-08-at-2.10.21-PM.png



And in this case other case, no one was killed, but this is what's happening in my city every few weeks. Note, none of the victims were wearing helmets!!!
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-cab-crash-manhattan-20190711-domv64i2l5gpfb57mlucs2fycm-story.html

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There will always be a risk. Here's what I do now to reduce my risk:

- Rear and front flashing lights now all the time

- Think carefully about route and traffic volume - always choose a route with less!

- But to the above, sometimes a busy road WITH a good and full bike lane or extra wide paved shoulder is the better choice!

- Generally avoid rush hours for more serious riding (unless you are commuting by bike obviously!)

- Generally avoid School Zones at pick-up drop off times (You have never seen more driver idiocy than at these times) - Drivers completely lose their minds!

- Think carefully about light conditions - riding directly into a rising or setting sun? Cars coming up may not see you, at all!

- Signal EVERYTHING and EVERY move you are going to do. Be ridiculous about it!

- At road pinch points - always check what's going behind you and what's going on ahead of you, and anticipate what will be happening in 5 sec.

- When you can, ytu and make eye contact with drivers!

- Sometimes these pinch points are "virtual" - two cars going opposite directions on a two lane road, and reaching that crossing point at the same point you do. Drivers have no idea how fast we can be going - 30kmh - 50kmh. So even if they see you, they will be WAY off in their anticipation of this event!. Again - be thinking 5 sec ahead.

- In heavier slower moving traffic in urban areas where you are more or less moving along at the flow of the traffic speed, and there is no bike lane - ride with confidence, and take your space (But signal EVERYTHING - see previous)

- Ride in groups as regularly as you can

- Ride Gravel roads . . . WAY less traffic!

- When a car gives me that 1.5m buffer or more space (In some jurisdictions now this is a law), I almost always bow give them a friendly wave

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

My comments are absolutely true for NYC. In fact, NY DOT did a great job studying this and did more analysis than most states. And my comments have nothing to do with victim blaming. It is stepping back and looking at the data rather than the N=1 anecdotes. Your response is actually anecdotal and what the OP is calling out in the theme of this thread.

The fact is, >50% of vehicle-cyclist deaths occur when the rider was confirmed to not have a helmet while only 16% of the deaths were confirmed to have a helmet is an alarming disparity. Any anecdotes about pictures of a crash are irrelevant and do not alter that fact. Now, there is a lot more analysis to make that one metric actionable, but a simple rational man test would suggest that wearing a freakin' helmet would eliminate a crapton of deaths.

I live here, and I've read the report you are referring to. It may have extensive data (I can't really say) but it lacks proper analysis. The authors fell into the same trap that so many others fall into (and you appear to be predisposed to) when looking for data that supports their position - They did not evaluate causation vs correlation.

In a nutshell they did not answer this question: Does wearing a helmet make you safer in an accident, or do people who wear helmets do things that make them less likely to get in an accident?

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Exactly. The way he's stating it, we could say that almost 100% of cyclists killed were not wearing yellow ribbons. It's startling but true - almost none!

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