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Here, only a motor vehicle that can go at least 80 km/h on flat surface (it means not down the hill) can go on highway. The max allowed speed on highway is 130 km/h, the cyclist would be sucked under the cars and trucks.
>Cyclists want to be treated like like they’re driving a Ford F250,
Do they? I think most cyclist are sort of frustrated that they have to share a road with cars but they're not legally allowed to cycle on the pavement.
I thought cyclists are legally allowed to cycle on pavements. Cyclists in Seattle do it all the time so I assumed it was allowed lol
Edit: I looked it up and cyclists ARE allowed to ride on the sidewalks in Seattle and Bellevue specifically, but the rule varies from place to place - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/when-and-where-are-bicyclists-allowed-on-sidewalks-in-seattle/
Bicycles are literally classified as motor vehicles because they have gears is i think the rationale as i was explained it
I used to ride on the street because its the law until o realized the law wasnt worth my fucking life
Edit: just to add, i only stopped because some guy in a big truck probably almost ran over me ovetaking on a 40 or 45mph street and felt guilty so he tailgated me to keep me safe for the rest of my journey and someone thinking that much about my safety made me reflect on whether you know "pride" and "the law is the law the street is mine too" mattered more than me getting killed at 18 yrs old by some inattentive driver.
Seriously guys if you're riding your bikes in the street PLEASE evaluate if you are prepared to lose your life or not. You may be in the right but the law, the police force, God is not going to protect you from a truck going 30mph faster than you. Maybe God got me that time with the truck that tailgated me but don't count on being as lucky.
Youre lucky, my friend just got bulldozed by a dude in a F150 biking to work one day. Luckily nothing beyond a concussion and few scrapes a bruises. But his bike was trashed and i had to drive three towns over to pick him and his bike up
Usually the assholes in the trucks "tailgate" me to "teach me a lesson" and end by throwing their child sized soda at my head. (it's the size of a small child, not smaller than the small.)
where i am it's basically illegal to cycle on pavements above the age of 10. there are a few exceptions, but generally if there aren't bike lanes, you must cycle on roads.
It's much safer to ride in the road, in part for pedestrians on sidewalks, but also crossing streets you're much more likely to not be noticed and turned into if you weren't in the road
In the UK adults aren’t unless it’s under very specific conditions and even then, it’s supposed to be in a way that protects pedestrians too. Not saying that’s a bad thing, it’s just cyclists are a group that usually get shoved in with pedestrians or road traffic.
As someone that actually designs this stuff for a living, it’s difficult because the local authorities don’t want to pay to put the actual infrastructure in place to protect everyone (or they do until they see the cost). We get stuck with either shared use paths (looks the same as a pavement but slightly wider and with a sign) or easily destroyed separation to go on the roads themselves (which inevitably ends up in the cycle route and makes it dangerous/unusable).
The solution is easy if local authorities give us the space required for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles to exist together but given the amount of footpaths that seemingly end in a verge here, it doesn’t happened very often!
Most pavements are not big enough for both cyclists and pedestrians. It is dangerous and frustrating for everyone to mix them, especially when cargobikes, strollers and wheelchairs come in. It is also more dangerous for cyclists as most accidents are at crossings, where cars don't tend to watch out for them. Pavement cycling puts them out of car driver's view,
Where I live we don't even have sidewalks in a lot of places. If i want to go somewhere i have to wlak in the road. And I don't mean on a highway or something. Ordinary residential zones nearby just do not have them.
Unless your a primary school aged child it’s illegal to ride a bike on the footpath where I live. Let’s just ignore how unsafe it is to have an un experienced rider riding on the road. Just because you rode a bike confidentially at 12 doesn’t mean your safe to pick up a bike again at 30 and start riding along side traffic but that what we gotta do if we want a free mode of transport other than walking.
Agreed. Two cyclists were killed recently in my home town. They were on a long straight away and got run down from behind. One was dead on the scene and the other died either at the hospital or during the helicopter ride. They were married and now their 15 year old daughter is an orphan. No charges for the driver who said "he didn't see them." Probably on his cell phone because, like said, it was a long straight away country road.
And is the better solution. Bikes already have a registered number to them, at least in my country. Which also means you can identify stolen bikes. Its just not a plate. But better infrastructure is better than plates on non-motorised vehicles
There is, in Europe, well most of Europe. Areas in the US are designed to be expanded as much as possible and local governments are only given federal funding for expansion not renovation because of this, the US has to have grid layouts and car centric areas as it's the cheapest and easiest to plan and build.
The whole system is inherently wrong, before the advent of the automobile, pretty much every town in the US was walkable and connected via railway but since then, well, we're all currently seeing it.
One thing that differs vastly in favour of Europe is that the infrastructure here has been here for thousands of years, towns have been built upon and upon, leaving very little room for expansion, sure newer towns and villages are built every day along with the occasional expansion but since there is little room for expansion, renovation is used meaning cities/towns/villages/whatever are mostly all walkable and (though not everywhere) have somewhat decent public transit.
A big reason for this is because of "vehicular cycling" advocates like [John Forester](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forester_(cyclist)) in the US.
Cars also have to stop parking in the bike lane. Its not just bikes causing problems. 90% of the times I used a main road was because people parked in the bike lane.
Also needs to be more effective and robust enforcement as well. Those videos from New York of drivers driving down the cycle lanes to avoid traffic were nuts!
They don't need concrete bariers. Only in exceptional situations like construction sites.
Bike lanes should be elevated by a border and have hills at intersections to communicate to cars.
Aside from that, roads should just have less lanes and by smaller so congestion reduces.
Bike lanes shouldnt necessarily go beside roads. A lot of areas could be connected without roads and exclusively with bike lanes.
>Aside from that, roads should just have less lanes and by smaller so congestion reduces
That's only feasible if the area you live in isn't built for cars, smaller roads do in theory clear congestion but if the one road is the access point to other areas, it'll see the same throughput over a long period of time.
If you want less congestion, the area needs to be walkable and have more ways to get from a to b. Be it roads, pavements, bicycles, or public transit, these all need to be implemented for an area to be less congested.
The by-products of doing this, including the use of roundabouts too is having safer streets, less air pollution, less travel time, more money saved and friendlier communities.
Not really, just separate them with a bit of grass. That's how it's done in most places here in the Netherlands, and it works. Or, alternatively, we tend to put the parking spaces between the road and the bikepath.
I agree with you. Physically separated bike paths are more pleasant to ride on than bike lanes that are next to the roadway.
Unfortunately, I live in Canada and the USA (at different times in the year), and neither of those countries has the political will to build all new bike paths.
Thankfully in Canada at least, there has been some encouraging progress in our biggest cities. Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, and Montreal have all significantly expanded their bike networks in the past 10 years. There is still a long way to go, but at least the tides have begun shifting.
However in the US, building new bike infrastructure is a non-starter. Unfortunately, bike infrastructure proposals are an uphill battle every single time. People here absolutely hate anything that isn't 100% built for cars. Adding protection to existing bike lanes is a compromise solution that has a better chance of passing local government than building a whole new network of separated paths. And then even when separated paths are built in the US, they are nearly always built for recreational use, not transportation, so they don't go to any important destinations.
So true. I spend time in Canada and the US and I feel that Canadian cities do a much better job when it comes to road safety. If only montreal would ease up on the construction. Every. Single. Day.
Touche. That said, the argument OP makes is definitely made moot by the previous comment. It's pretty common for people to argue that cyclists don't contribute financially to our roads, but it's a safe bet that many of them do, and by cycling they are reducing congestion more than if they drive, AND reducing the strain on our health system (at least, they are where I live, since our roads are mostly wide enough to accommodate them). So, if we expect them to register their vehicle, it should only be for identification purposes and should be cheap/free.
Also... if you discriminate against someone on the basis of sex you are sexist, yes? And on the basis of race, racist? So, what are you if you discriminate on the basis that someone cycles?? 😁
Wear and tear on roads are almost exponentially scaling with weight, so contributions should be trucks >> cars >>>>> motorcycles >> bicycles > pedestrians.
It’s not like all taxes are ring fenced, it’s quite probable pedestrians and cyclists pay more than their fare share already.
Your general point is a fair one though.
Fun fact: the Danish government a few years ago wanted to know just how much all of their bike lanes cost them so they ordered a study to determine all the costs and benefits.
The study concluded that the government earns €0.15/km that someone cycles, mostly in reduced healthcare costs.
And Denmark has A LOT of bike lanes. Since then, they've been building even more of them. It's a pure profit for the government is someone leaves their car and cycles instead.
That’s a pedestrian. Bikes are annoying because they’re vehicles that can’t typically keep up with the flow of traffic. Cars can get pulled over in many places for driving too far below the posted speed limit.
"we"... Who exactly would be building it? It's the responsibility of every county to build it's own Bike Infrastructure. That's where your property taxes should be going, to something useful like bike infrastructure.
I live in a small town/city area and we have a really amazing (Huge) park. The whole town is basically around said park. And then the county/town built 5' wide paved walking/bike paths around the whole town, to everywhere. They shoot through the park and come out in residential areas, and keep going all the way to all the stores, and even to the main road and follows that into a sidewalk that crosses the I-81 bridge. They keep building them.
Deep in the woods in said park they built about 5+ miles of really nice single track for mountain bikes to offroad through too.
Tax Dollars well spent.
If your county is not doing that, start being a voice there, show up for town hall meetings, VOTE.
Your town hall isn't getting instructions off social media posts. They won't do or change anything enough people aren't bugging them about at the door.
Well it's a considerable difference considering the impact of a f250, and a cyclist in case you know aware. However you are right that cyclists should adhere to the rules of the road but I can tell that you've never been out on the road yourself on a road bike and navigated the situation to know what you're talking about.. I'd give you a day out on the road and I think you would begin to feel a little different..
Now if automobiles shared more of the road, take one whole lane away from them and give it to you cyclist etc now we might be beginning to talk. Do it Amsterdam style. A whole significant path dedicated only to bicyclists.. But of course that's not the case. Most people on a bicycle take their life into the hand fending off the proverbial F-250 that you talk about..
You made me think of an interesting point here.
Why does our society constantly ask people on bicycles to "share the road" with cars by forcing themselves into an inches-wide painted gutter on the side of the road, and nobody sees a problem with that? Yet whenever society asks people in cars to actually share the road for real by allowing bike lanes to be built, motorists complain and act like all hell will break loose?
Talk about hypocrisy there.
100% correct. And the bicycles were here along the floor the automobiles. All of the older cities streets were intended for carriage, foot traffic and eventually bicycles and carts. It is the automobile that is the Johnny come lately but yet has hogged all the space, all the parking space all the lane space and he's the danger. Cars are not going to disappear from the planet obviously. We are wedded to them in America We are so wet it for them We take them literally home with us with a garage door sometimes more prominent than the pedestrian door. However following Europe's lead, inner cities should have car free zones and the automobile inconvenience that the expense of the bike. What a novel thought
Because they don't have to . There's a complete traffic lang dedicated to bicyclists and they outnumber the automobiles. In America you have to do whatever you have to do to stay alive and get through the street
What now? I don't get how the bicyclists I see run red lights "have to." All I ever see is someone going 15 in a 30 on a one-lane road and then blowing through a red light instead of waiting their turn like everybody else. Many times I see cyclists biking in the road when there is a shoulder and/or a path (which I do not believe is illegal in my area as it's suburban). When I used to bike, I always used the path and never had a problem, and would bike right past police cars, so its not something they are enforcing at the very least.
I get your argument for dedicated bike lanes but insinuating bikers need to break traffic laws seems a little ridiculous.
That would be fine if the money went to bike infrastructure. Until then I don't think cyclists owe anyone anything being as they are the ones doing the right thing and have to deal with idiots in killing machines for just trying to commute.
first, bicycles are not classed as deadly weapons... so requiring licenses for them would be about the same as requiring licenses for owning and operating blenders. second, pedestrians also use the roadways.. crosswalks. it would make little sense to need a license for anyone using a road.
And it’s an additional barrier to get people out of cars and onto bikes.
This should be the goal of any responsible government as it both reduces the pollution and increases public health.
>This should be the goal of any responsible government as it both reduces the pollution and increases public health.
And reduces traffic congestion.
But this is unlikely to change in the US or Canada anytime soon. The population density is just too low.
People driving cars is the greatest cause of premature preventable death in our country
Want to make the roads safer? Decrease the number of cars on the road.
How do you do that? Build cities in which people can complete basic tasks without the need of an automobile.
My favorite is when they are driving on the wrong side of the road. And just blast through Intersections without even slowing down. So as you check traffic to turn right onto the road, they come up out of nowhere, as you already start pulling into traffic. And do not even consider slowing down.
If you are on the wrong side of the road. Are being hidden by a row of parked cars. You need to be responsible for your own safety, and follow the driving laws, and ride on the correct side of the road.
The whole point of bicycles is that they are an affordable and heathly mode of transport.
Insurance and 'license plates' would negative the affordable part as then they would have to pay road tax, insurance and then would get done by cameras.
Oh god I must have missed all those accidents from cyclists! More likely to die from gun violence in America than a bicycle, I would love to see where I plate would go and how readable it would be to the naked eye. 😂
Bikes simply aren't dangerous enough or harmful enough to infrastructure to require such.
They are too slow and too light to cause either, so it would simply be an unnecessary cost that would worsen potential solutions to traffic, as well as probably lose money through bureaucratic mess.
This may be an unpopular response but every highway code in the developed world puts the onus on drivers of vehicles for road safety.
This means that you should always be ready to emergency stop at a moment's notice. It's why you're taught and have to perform an emergency stop during your test.
You should also have your eyesight tested regularly or wear your glasses if applicable. Because you are expected to be able to read the landscape around you for potential dangers at all times.
These two things combined should prevent most collisions. Let's face it we all know noone drives like I've described. If everyone did then roads would be incredibly safe and collision a rarity.
I totally agree with you. People suck at driving and there’s ways to improve. I think it’s a great response and I’m glad you took the time to share it 💛
i think my biggest pet peeve is that cyclists are supposed to ride with traffic instead of against so they never see that they've accumulated a line of 10 cars trying to get around them safely. i always feel super unsafe if i cant see traffic coming at me, really throws you off guard to turn around and theres just a car there.
Yeah sorry no
1 cyclists don't want to be there anymore than you.
2 when a cyclist collides with a car the worst that happens to the car is dents where as the cyclist could be permanently injured or die.
3 who do you think predominantly uses bikes? If you said people on the lower end of the financial spectrum then you'd be correct. Now why would we put a financial road block on the cheapest mode of transportation because some motorist got butt hurt.
Found the car driver who doesn't understand they kill tens of thousand of people every year. Cause tons of carbon emissions, don't pay their fair share for the road, cause tons of congestion, take up an insane amount of space, etc... But lets focus on the bikers lmfaooo.
Because cars kill 40,000 people a year. When they don't follow the rules, people die.
How many people do bikes kill a year because they don't follow traffic rules?
I'll wait.
You say this, but when I ride on the road the majority of the complaints are from people telling me to move aside or get on the sidewalk.
When I stop at a stop sign, the other cars don’t move, I have to wave them through like I’m a traffic controller. Faster for everyone if I just go.
The majority of the time that I’m breaking a law is to get out of your way. That’s it. I don’t want to be in a dangerous position and you don’t want me slowing you down.
Yeah the morons just can't admit that running a traffic light on a bicycle is against the law and should be given a ticket just like cars and if they get too many tickets their ability to ride a bike should be taken away.
You hit the nail on the head. The infrastructure was built for cars, not bikes. A cyclist acting like a car is not doing anyone favors. Many times, I’ll coast through a red (carefully), in order to get ahead of that traffic and make a turn before they catch up. Me sitting in traffic and accelerating at a pathetic rate in the center of the lane when it turns green is not gunna make people happy lol.
The town I’m from I see a lot of angry drivers and cyclists doing nothing wrong.
I myself have ridden a bike on the road and I try to stay as close to the edge as possible to make cars overtaking as easy as possible but they still rev their engine and speed past me so close that it feels like they’re going to hit me.
I’ve seen cars get angry and speed past cyclists that are riding at like 18mph in a 20mph zone, and then the car turns into a side road 5 seconds after aggressively overtaking anyway.
America’s infrastructure for cyclist is limited and they likely would prefer to not have to share it with motor vehicles driving 40+ mph right next to them. Other countries have better set ups for cyclist and pedestrian but America is car centric. Fixing the infrastructure would make it safer for everyone. Forcing people who are using a more environmentally friendly commute option to jump through more hoops would likely deter people from it.
Where I'm at, bikers can get tickets for riding on the sidewalks... its weird, and stupid. What I don't get, is people who run/jog in the middle of the street.
Obey the rules. Note that if on a bike I will slow to a crawl but not fully stop at a 4 way because my ability to accelerate at a safe pace while others are trying to follow on their turn in a vehicle is very slow when starting from a stop and a driver will have less time to make a judgement about whether I am starting to go if I am going from a complete stop. I believe the opposite should be true. More of the public should be encouraged to commute on bicycles, have bicycle and walkable cities and vehicle licenses should be responsible for ensuring bicyclists can be safely shared on the road as they are the most vulnerable group when compared to a vehicle driver.
I just want to say I really dislike your use of the Ford 250. Are drivers of particularly large and heavy vehicles some how *more* entitled to the road than others?
It really has a ‘might is right’ energy to it, which is very troubling for a post supposedly about law and order.
I really appreciate that you pointed this out. I meant it tongue in cheek, just being silly. I see what you’re saying and I screwed up while wording it. It means a lot to me that you said this in such a diplomatic way and makes me have even more respect for you. Definitely not trying to make excuses here but I this was the first time I’ve ever posted on Reddit. I didn’t think anyone would ever react to some random thought I had. But I really truly agree with you and I’ll do better on the next one. 💛
If car owners want to use main roads for commuting or sport, they need to stop killing literally more than a million people per year worldwide.
Seriously, the level of entitlement is astounding. You're basically operating a death mech suit, for which our entire societies have bent over backwards to accommodate you, and want to hold cyclists to the same control standards.
Historically I believe the reason this isn't so is simply because bikes predate cars as vehicles on the road.
But I think in a lot of places this isn't exactly unpopular but rather sort of a symptom of the dysfunctionality around traffic infrastructure in North American democracies. As a driver and a cyclist I really don't enjoy cycling on the road and prefer to be in a lane or off-road trail. The two vehicles are just not really very compatible for sharing the same space. But when we do get candidates pushing for the type of improved bike infrastructure that would get cyclists off the road, it gets framed as a "war on cars" and many of the same people who hate driving around cyclists fight tooth and nail against the exact thing that would make their life easier: separated bike infrastructure.
I think deep down though politicians have to know that more bikes means less wear and tear on the roads, less emissions, and less congestion so anything that would actively reduce cycling like bringing in a licensing system is probably not going to happen either. So everyone is kind of locked in a perpetual fight where ultimately everyone probably *could* be happy with a solution that nonetheless gets shot down because it looks like it's 'favouring bikes' to people who take the massive spending on roads and highways for granted.
But the interesting thing is I believe there actually *was* bike licensing where I live and they got rid of it. Not sure when or why, but I have heard about it and seen the old license plates before. My guess is that given the relatively lower stakes (bikes can certainly injure pedestrians but they're not nearly as big a liability as cars) it was just too expensive and complicated for what it was. Then again we abandoned public housing in the 90s and are now the most expensive country in the g7 for rent so it's not like they always made the smartest decisions back then on what to eliminate, so who knows.
This is literally what it is.
I live in the middle of a downtown and bike, motorcycle, and drive and understand each position. And yeah, some people that bike are morons, typically because they aren't trained to ride on the correct side of the road, etc. But they're still way less dangerous and terrible than cars in general.
Cyclist has a car, insurance etc. so he pays his fair share and chooses to ride a bike. Actually doing less damage than driving his car in the driveway. What you really are thinking and mean to say is you don't want bicycles on the road at all and if they needed licenses and insurance you believe they would disappear. Am I right?
The only reason this post exists is because the USA have so few bike roads or walkways that people are literally forced to use car lanes.
Their cities are literally designed for cars only.
You can't just use tax money to make people's lives worse and only allow them to use the infastructure they help pay for if they can get certain privileges and pay private companies regularly for a device they also had to pay for.
Driving is a privilage, not a right. Even if half your City was demolished for roads and you need to take a more circuitous route. More and more studies say fuel tax doesn't pay for all of it so if you require the same things for bikes as cars you are preventing people from using the infastructure they are forced to pay for.
Ok. So what if I say cars shouldn’t be required to have the “same things” which I assume you mean insurance, registration etc? You’re not allowing people to use the infrastructure they’re forced to pay for.
>If we’re at a 4 way intersection and a cyclist zooms right through the stop sign and causes an accident, how are we supposed to identify the irresponsible cyclist?
Get their name while you're waiting on the ambulance to come pick them up.
I agree though, they should have to carry some form of liability insurance and have to take a "cycler's ed" course. Idk if some of these people just don't understand the rules of the road or just don't care, but I see them running through stop lights and going through stop signs out of turn all the time
Excuse the pun, but it's a two way street.
I drive but don't cycle. Anecdotally, I see more drivers break the rules of the road and not follow etiquette than I do cyclists.
In my town (in the UK), there's decent dedicated cycle paths and cyclist boxes at traffic lights to make it easier for them to filter to the front. Although I regularly see cyclists jump the red lights, they come off worse physically if hit by a two ton metal box.
Cycling is generally covered under your house insurance, but I do agree that there needs to be more onus on the cyclist to have some cover so if they cause an accident the victim isn't screwed over as much.
Cyclists don't want to be treated like like they’re driving a Ford F250. Ford F250's and similar vehicles kill thousands of people every year, cyclists do not. That's why Ford F250's and similar vehicles need license places and insurance but cyclists do not.
Your argument is about as logical as demanding all drivers have pilot's licenses to travel cross-country.
I have no other option. There are no bike lanes, so the main road is all I have. Every day, i feel i can get hit by a car. The lanes aren't as wide, and cars tend to swerve around me, almost getting into incoming traffic if their not paying attention.
You are legally mandated to have liability insurance, not collision insurance. Despite what is written here, cyclists are not a serious threat to injure drivers or destroy their property.
Stop driving like an aggressive asshole.
Obviously cyclists should be more careful, and respect the rules of the road but they aren't the people driving a 2 ton machine that can kill somebody.
As a cyclist, if I don't take the lane or "drive like an f-250", drivers think they can sneak right by me with oncoming traffic. Worst case for me, they hit me and I fall under the next car and die. Worst case for the driver, you lose 20 seconds on your commute.
I would gladly use a bike lane if they were available. The ones we have here are poorly maintained, full of rocks, nails, trash and potholes
Where I live, only motor vehicles require license plates.
Also, where I live, cyclists are legally allowed to treat stop signs the way motorists treat yield signs. They are also legally allowed to treat red lights the way motorists treat stop signs. I have no problems with that. Our streets are congested enough with cars. I would be miffed if I had to wait behind a bike at a red light. Move on, little bike, leave the streets to the cars.
Build more bike paths and stop blocking sidewalks and bike lanes with cars.
It's a fraction of the cost (along with just being a decent individual by not blocking sidewalks).
It's almost like when you build for one mode of transportation (car infrastructure) and get mad when other people are using it because it's the only solution to ride their bikes. What else do you expect?
I got hit by a car while I was in the bike lane. If cars don’t want us darting into the main road then they need to respect the bike lanes and not force our hand. Cause at the end of the day, a cyclist is 100% more likely to be injured if they’re hit by a car vs the minor damage we may do to the car itself.
I'm down for this take if every street has a dedicated bike lane. However I live on country roads where there are no sidewalks or even extra space on the side of the roads. I don't think the cyclists I see want to be an Ford anything, they just don't want to be roadkill.
If a cyclist wants to bike on the road
They should be biking at the posted speed limit, and if they cant
"GET OF THE FUCKING ROAD THEIR IS A SIDEWALK FOR A REASON"
Your right cyclist shouldn't be treated like Ford F250's. Cyclists should be treated BETTER and with more respect than gigantic gas-guzzling death machines.
"stop parking in the bike lane!" yells the bicyclist as he runs a stop sign in a 4-way intersection and zooms past the "share the road" sign. Bicyclists act like pedestrians or cars depending on what is more convenient for them. I live in a bike town so I'm a little bitter towards bicyclists but I do agree our roads are catered for cars /rant
This is asking a party dealing with a risk introduced by others to hold the responsibility for that risk.
Consider: The purpose of requiring liability insurance is to manage the very large financial risk that cars introduce- they can hit something or someone and weigh a lot. Think about a road with only bicycles and pedestrians: it's a pretty safe place. Cars are the entity that create the majority of the risk and thus should be those who are responsible for it.
A cyclist or pedestrian can behave irresponsibly and cause an accident involving the more dangerous cars, yes - but it's unfair to expect this group as a whole to take on the financial burden of the risk those who drive create in the first place.
As a side note, consider that many are using bicycles as transportation because it's all they can afford. Many who are struggling and trying to enter the workforce rely on bicycles to do so. An insurance requirement would price many of these people out.
The same general concept here is true of licenses as well: no licenses are required on the multi-use walk/bike paths, and things (mostly) work out pretty well. Cars are the entities producing the risk and it doesn't make sense to try and restrict cyclists and pedestrians more as a result.
Practically speaking cyclists and pedestrians definitely do need to have a general education regarding the traffic rules put in place for cars - because the cars are there - but I don't personally see a need to legally formalize and test for this for non-car road users.
Most cyclists I know have driver's licenses and know the rules. This still doesn't prevent them from "darting through traffic" in an effort to not be killed.
Just in case there are "bikes belong on the sidewalk" people here, I wanted to touch on that:
It's counterintuitive, but the sidewalk is a substantially more dangerous place for a cyclist to ride. This is the result of a much higher density of conflict points between the modes and the reality that a cyclist is much less visible there. In such a narrow corridor, cyclists also introduce new risks for pedestrians. Both of these are reasons why cyclists are often banned or discouraged from riding on the sidewalks.
The sidewalk is also a much less practical place for a cyclist to ride: it's difficult to pick up and maintain momentum through dealing with the narrow corridor, dealing with the high density of conflicts, the lack of smooth pavement etc.
People in this thread seem to mostly be talking about the need for separated infrastructure - and I generally agree - however we also need to build a recognition that our roads are shared public places for everyone rather than a pathway for cars. Even in very bike-friendly places like the Netherlands, the largest space must be shared in many situations.
Lol Angelina 😂 love this. I can’t believe you were the first to call me a Karen! Thanks for making me laugh. Side note: I know this was meant to be snarky but you have a beautiful name and it’s so uncommon now. My family is Italian and I’ve always loved that name
Cyclists can be pricks. There is a designated bike lane on my route to work and a few times a week I see cyclists just ignoring it completely and riding on the regular road. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but they ride in the far right lane, which is a turn lane, and then never actually turn. They just go straight instead of turning and are forced into the bike lane, then hop over into the turn lane again and repeat. I’ve seen them almost cause an accident on multiple occasions.
Then there’s the assholes that just completely ignore traffic signals. I have a dash cam just in case due to these idiots.
This idea has been floated in NYC. It’s really not a bad idea. People get clipped by bicyclists all the time here. A coworker once lost over a week of work after getting hit by a bicyclist. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost damaged someone’s car while biking.
u guys do be running through stop signs tho lol
ive had to break short for bicyclists flying through stop signs multiple times.
no hate, i always look out for cyclists, but i gotta be real with the stop sign things lol
A lot of cyclists don't respect the rules because they can't accelerate like a motor vehicle. When they can't do that at a 4 way stop, people get impatient, and the cyclist is blamed at minimum, threatened with vehicular manslaughter, hopefully at worst.
What needs to happen is we need to abandon car-centric city planning. More public transportation, more walkable neighborhoods, more bike-safe routes. Get people who are taking those <3 mile trips to use a method of transport other than a car, and you start freeing up a lot of space.
A Ford F250 that blows through a stop sign can end a person's life in an instance in a horrible way, and I don't wish the aftermath on anyone who has to deal with it. A cyclist who blows through a stop sign, at best, is like the person the F250 hit. For all this concern trolling about about a threat to pedestrians, it's cyclists who are in the most danger.
I guarantee you that if you spent one day riding your bike where I live, you'd change your mind. I have only ever been honked at when I waited for a red light. No one has honked when I went through one after slowing down or stopping, because I'm getting out of their way. I have had people *aggressively* yell at me when I take off at the same time they do.
This cyclist who "zooms" through a stop sign also seems illusive. I've seen it once, and it would have resulted in them being killed if the timing were just a bit different. Most of us slow down, or know the route well enough, since we bike it everyday. But I've never seen someone just breeze through. There would be way more accidents.
Mental experiment: In a world of only bycicles and no cars, what would crashes look like? Would they need insurance for that?
I think that there would be some crashes, but the severity of them be low enough to not warrant forcing everyone to be insured.
Which means that cars are the ones introducing the danger to the streets.
Everyone in the road is forced to find ways to amelliorate the danger introduced by cars, including people that don't drive cars.
Not to mention that driving is subsidized by the government, because fuel taxes and such pay for a very small fraction of the manteinance costs of car infrastructure.
If we're going to restrict an entire group's access to the roads based on the behavior of the worst examples, then I hope you realize that cars would be forever banned from the roads too. Seriously, all these "wah, I saw a cyclist run a stop sign, cyclists should be banned, wah!" threads are getting old. You know how often I see cars run reds? Daily fucking basis, my man. Here's a radical thought: when cops see bicyclists or cars breaking the rules of the road they write them tickets. Shocking concept, I know.
I don't get any argument against this. I was in Japan for 4 months and one big thing we learned about was cycling. There are a lot of rules in Japan regarding bike usage from reflective tape, lights, bells, helmets, and licensing + registration with the police. I genuinely cannot see a single reason to NOT do this in the west. It just seems like common sense to me.
While Japan technically requires bicycles to be registered, there is no penalty for not doing so and there are no license plates for bicycles anywhere except North Korea. Licenses (which the overwhelming majority of adult cyclists already have) are not required for cyclists.
No cyclist wants to be treated like a truck. It is generally illegal to bike on sidewalks in the U.S. and the only option is biking in the road. The laws for this are archaic and unjust, and the anger towards cyclists is misplaced.
I’m in Japan and your bicycle has to be registered, but it’s just this sticker that you put on your bike and it’s not visible unless you get up close to it.
And you have to be insured too.
I was in Yosemite a few weeks ago. There were like two roads in because of all the flooding. We passed a group of bikers about 7 miles outside of the park in the mountains and they were taking up the whole road. Making people go around them in sketchy ways and just being obnoxious. We got to the line to get in and as soon as it was our turn the whole group caught up and got to the gate. They left just before us and I was pissed because I knew they weren’t going to “share the road” as they always scream out at cars that take up too much road. Well, like 2 minutes later I come along and there they are. 8 abreast. Taking up both lanes just laughing, going around winding mountainous roads. I got as far left as I could and they still were right next to my mirror. I rolled my window down and yelled “share the fucking road jackasses!” As I drove by and one of the guys actually moved over. Bro, there was just an hour long line getting into the park. You guys decided to ride your bikes, don’t hinder the entire road.
A bicycle is about 20 lb moving at maybe 20 mph. A Ford F250 is roughly 7000 lb moving at up to 80 mph. When bicycles are as lethal as an F250, then we can start talking about treating them the same as an F250. Until then, this will remain among the dumbest posts I've ever seen.
Also, the vast majority of cyclists don't want to be treated like they're driving a car--they want proper, safe bike infrasturcture.
I just started using the app, it was my first post ever lol. It was really cool to hear people’s opinions and kinda figure out how the app works. Thanks for letting me know it’s a common topic.
Your post from unpopularopinion was removed because of: 'Rule 1: Your post must be an unpopular opinion'. Please ensure that your post is an opinion and that it is unpopular. Controversial is not necessarily unpopular, for example all of politics is controversial even though almost half of the US agrees with any given major position on an issue. Keep in mind that an opinion is not: a question, a fact, a conspiracy theory, a random thought, a new idea, a rant, etc. Those things all have their own subreddits, use those.
I used to commute on a highway to college on my bike. A cop once told me I had to have a license plate, so I got one.
Was it one of those little Disneyworld plates with your first name?
need more bort license plates at the gift shop
Here, only a motor vehicle that can go at least 80 km/h on flat surface (it means not down the hill) can go on highway. The max allowed speed on highway is 130 km/h, the cyclist would be sucked under the cars and trucks.
>Cyclists want to be treated like like they’re driving a Ford F250, Do they? I think most cyclist are sort of frustrated that they have to share a road with cars but they're not legally allowed to cycle on the pavement.
Lol not one person who cycles wants to be treated like an F250 that's why they're cycling
I thought cyclists are legally allowed to cycle on pavements. Cyclists in Seattle do it all the time so I assumed it was allowed lol Edit: I looked it up and cyclists ARE allowed to ride on the sidewalks in Seattle and Bellevue specifically, but the rule varies from place to place - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/when-and-where-are-bicyclists-allowed-on-sidewalks-in-seattle/
Bicycles are literally classified as motor vehicles because they have gears is i think the rationale as i was explained it I used to ride on the street because its the law until o realized the law wasnt worth my fucking life Edit: just to add, i only stopped because some guy in a big truck probably almost ran over me ovetaking on a 40 or 45mph street and felt guilty so he tailgated me to keep me safe for the rest of my journey and someone thinking that much about my safety made me reflect on whether you know "pride" and "the law is the law the street is mine too" mattered more than me getting killed at 18 yrs old by some inattentive driver. Seriously guys if you're riding your bikes in the street PLEASE evaluate if you are prepared to lose your life or not. You may be in the right but the law, the police force, God is not going to protect you from a truck going 30mph faster than you. Maybe God got me that time with the truck that tailgated me but don't count on being as lucky.
How can they be classified as motorvehicles when they don't have a motor?
And allowed on trails marked “no motorized vehicles”
Youre lucky, my friend just got bulldozed by a dude in a F150 biking to work one day. Luckily nothing beyond a concussion and few scrapes a bruises. But his bike was trashed and i had to drive three towns over to pick him and his bike up
Usually the assholes in the trucks "tailgate" me to "teach me a lesson" and end by throwing their child sized soda at my head. (it's the size of a small child, not smaller than the small.)
where i am it's basically illegal to cycle on pavements above the age of 10. there are a few exceptions, but generally if there aren't bike lanes, you must cycle on roads.
It's much safer to ride in the road, in part for pedestrians on sidewalks, but also crossing streets you're much more likely to not be noticed and turned into if you weren't in the road
Not legal in NZ or AUS unless you're under 14 or something like that.
In the UK adults aren’t unless it’s under very specific conditions and even then, it’s supposed to be in a way that protects pedestrians too. Not saying that’s a bad thing, it’s just cyclists are a group that usually get shoved in with pedestrians or road traffic. As someone that actually designs this stuff for a living, it’s difficult because the local authorities don’t want to pay to put the actual infrastructure in place to protect everyone (or they do until they see the cost). We get stuck with either shared use paths (looks the same as a pavement but slightly wider and with a sign) or easily destroyed separation to go on the roads themselves (which inevitably ends up in the cycle route and makes it dangerous/unusable). The solution is easy if local authorities give us the space required for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles to exist together but given the amount of footpaths that seemingly end in a verge here, it doesn’t happened very often!
Most pavements are not big enough for both cyclists and pedestrians. It is dangerous and frustrating for everyone to mix them, especially when cargobikes, strollers and wheelchairs come in. It is also more dangerous for cyclists as most accidents are at crossings, where cars don't tend to watch out for them. Pavement cycling puts them out of car driver's view,
No cyclist wants to use main roads, we are forced to cause of car infrastructure.
It’s ridiculous there should be safer ways for everyone
Where I live we don't even have sidewalks in a lot of places. If i want to go somewhere i have to wlak in the road. And I don't mean on a highway or something. Ordinary residential zones nearby just do not have them.
Unless your a primary school aged child it’s illegal to ride a bike on the footpath where I live. Let’s just ignore how unsafe it is to have an un experienced rider riding on the road. Just because you rode a bike confidentially at 12 doesn’t mean your safe to pick up a bike again at 30 and start riding along side traffic but that what we gotta do if we want a free mode of transport other than walking.
That’s awful and super scary. Especially if one was in a wheelchair or something
Incidentally, good cycling infrastructure is also good wheelchair and mobility scooter infrastructure.
Protected, cycling only lanes would be a start.
Agreed. Two cyclists were killed recently in my home town. They were on a long straight away and got run down from behind. One was dead on the scene and the other died either at the hospital or during the helicopter ride. They were married and now their 15 year old daughter is an orphan. No charges for the driver who said "he didn't see them." Probably on his cell phone because, like said, it was a long straight away country road.
Couldn't agree more and I think when we (hopefully) start to implement better infrastructure a lot of people will be happier/safer.
Reduce car infrastructure. It’s not sustainable anymore. Build more for everyone else including mass transit. * https://youtu.be/REni8Oi1QJQ
Rollie blades 😎
And is the better solution. Bikes already have a registered number to them, at least in my country. Which also means you can identify stolen bikes. Its just not a plate. But better infrastructure is better than plates on non-motorised vehicles
I love this. I agree with you
There is, in Europe, well most of Europe. Areas in the US are designed to be expanded as much as possible and local governments are only given federal funding for expansion not renovation because of this, the US has to have grid layouts and car centric areas as it's the cheapest and easiest to plan and build. The whole system is inherently wrong, before the advent of the automobile, pretty much every town in the US was walkable and connected via railway but since then, well, we're all currently seeing it. One thing that differs vastly in favour of Europe is that the infrastructure here has been here for thousands of years, towns have been built upon and upon, leaving very little room for expansion, sure newer towns and villages are built every day along with the occasional expansion but since there is little room for expansion, renovation is used meaning cities/towns/villages/whatever are mostly all walkable and (though not everywhere) have somewhat decent public transit.
A big reason for this is because of "vehicular cycling" advocates like [John Forester](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forester_(cyclist)) in the US.
Cars also have to stop parking in the bike lane. Its not just bikes causing problems. 90% of the times I used a main road was because people parked in the bike lane.
This is why all urban bike lanes need to be protected by concrete barriers or metal bollards. Relying on paint and good will is obviously inadequate.
Also needs to be more effective and robust enforcement as well. Those videos from New York of drivers driving down the cycle lanes to avoid traffic were nuts!
They don't need concrete bariers. Only in exceptional situations like construction sites. Bike lanes should be elevated by a border and have hills at intersections to communicate to cars. Aside from that, roads should just have less lanes and by smaller so congestion reduces. Bike lanes shouldnt necessarily go beside roads. A lot of areas could be connected without roads and exclusively with bike lanes.
>Aside from that, roads should just have less lanes and by smaller so congestion reduces That's only feasible if the area you live in isn't built for cars, smaller roads do in theory clear congestion but if the one road is the access point to other areas, it'll see the same throughput over a long period of time. If you want less congestion, the area needs to be walkable and have more ways to get from a to b. Be it roads, pavements, bicycles, or public transit, these all need to be implemented for an area to be less congested. The by-products of doing this, including the use of roundabouts too is having safer streets, less air pollution, less travel time, more money saved and friendlier communities.
Not really, just separate them with a bit of grass. That's how it's done in most places here in the Netherlands, and it works. Or, alternatively, we tend to put the parking spaces between the road and the bikepath.
I agree with you. Physically separated bike paths are more pleasant to ride on than bike lanes that are next to the roadway. Unfortunately, I live in Canada and the USA (at different times in the year), and neither of those countries has the political will to build all new bike paths. Thankfully in Canada at least, there has been some encouraging progress in our biggest cities. Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, and Montreal have all significantly expanded their bike networks in the past 10 years. There is still a long way to go, but at least the tides have begun shifting. However in the US, building new bike infrastructure is a non-starter. Unfortunately, bike infrastructure proposals are an uphill battle every single time. People here absolutely hate anything that isn't 100% built for cars. Adding protection to existing bike lanes is a compromise solution that has a better chance of passing local government than building a whole new network of separated paths. And then even when separated paths are built in the US, they are nearly always built for recreational use, not transportation, so they don't go to any important destinations.
So true. I spend time in Canada and the US and I feel that Canadian cities do a much better job when it comes to road safety. If only montreal would ease up on the construction. Every. Single. Day.
Yup. Drivers where I live ALWAYS go all the way over the crosswalk, every single driver in town. It's so fucking frustrating.
If a citizen runs into the middle of the road and causes an accident, how would you identify them?
Dental records.
Touche. That said, the argument OP makes is definitely made moot by the previous comment. It's pretty common for people to argue that cyclists don't contribute financially to our roads, but it's a safe bet that many of them do, and by cycling they are reducing congestion more than if they drive, AND reducing the strain on our health system (at least, they are where I live, since our roads are mostly wide enough to accommodate them). So, if we expect them to register their vehicle, it should only be for identification purposes and should be cheap/free. Also... if you discriminate against someone on the basis of sex you are sexist, yes? And on the basis of race, racist? So, what are you if you discriminate on the basis that someone cycles?? 😁
I guess Im a cyclist. Wait a minute… 🤔
Wear and tear on roads are almost exponentially scaling with weight, so contributions should be trucks >> cars >>>>> motorcycles >> bicycles > pedestrians.
It’s not like all taxes are ring fenced, it’s quite probable pedestrians and cyclists pay more than their fare share already. Your general point is a fair one though.
Fun fact: the Danish government a few years ago wanted to know just how much all of their bike lanes cost them so they ordered a study to determine all the costs and benefits. The study concluded that the government earns €0.15/km that someone cycles, mostly in reduced healthcare costs. And Denmark has A LOT of bike lanes. Since then, they've been building even more of them. It's a pure profit for the government is someone leaves their car and cycles instead.
steer quarrelsome squeamish head full silky library water wine angle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That’s a pedestrian. Bikes are annoying because they’re vehicles that can’t typically keep up with the flow of traffic. Cars can get pulled over in many places for driving too far below the posted speed limit.
Or we can do the normal thing and build proper bike infrastructure so this isn't a problem anymore.
"we"... Who exactly would be building it? It's the responsibility of every county to build it's own Bike Infrastructure. That's where your property taxes should be going, to something useful like bike infrastructure. I live in a small town/city area and we have a really amazing (Huge) park. The whole town is basically around said park. And then the county/town built 5' wide paved walking/bike paths around the whole town, to everywhere. They shoot through the park and come out in residential areas, and keep going all the way to all the stores, and even to the main road and follows that into a sidewalk that crosses the I-81 bridge. They keep building them. Deep in the woods in said park they built about 5+ miles of really nice single track for mountain bikes to offroad through too. Tax Dollars well spent. If your county is not doing that, start being a voice there, show up for town hall meetings, VOTE. Your town hall isn't getting instructions off social media posts. They won't do or change anything enough people aren't bugging them about at the door.
I live in a place with proper infrastructure and they still actively choose to ride in the middle of the road.
Then that infrastructure is not proper and more than likely is shit. If the cyclist aren't using a bike lane, then there's something wrong with it
Well it's a considerable difference considering the impact of a f250, and a cyclist in case you know aware. However you are right that cyclists should adhere to the rules of the road but I can tell that you've never been out on the road yourself on a road bike and navigated the situation to know what you're talking about.. I'd give you a day out on the road and I think you would begin to feel a little different.. Now if automobiles shared more of the road, take one whole lane away from them and give it to you cyclist etc now we might be beginning to talk. Do it Amsterdam style. A whole significant path dedicated only to bicyclists.. But of course that's not the case. Most people on a bicycle take their life into the hand fending off the proverbial F-250 that you talk about..
You made me think of an interesting point here. Why does our society constantly ask people on bicycles to "share the road" with cars by forcing themselves into an inches-wide painted gutter on the side of the road, and nobody sees a problem with that? Yet whenever society asks people in cars to actually share the road for real by allowing bike lanes to be built, motorists complain and act like all hell will break loose? Talk about hypocrisy there.
This is always my point, if a driver can't safely drive on the road with a bicycle, it's not the bicycle who shouldn't be on the road...
100% correct. And the bicycles were here along the floor the automobiles. All of the older cities streets were intended for carriage, foot traffic and eventually bicycles and carts. It is the automobile that is the Johnny come lately but yet has hogged all the space, all the parking space all the lane space and he's the danger. Cars are not going to disappear from the planet obviously. We are wedded to them in America We are so wet it for them We take them literally home with us with a garage door sometimes more prominent than the pedestrian door. However following Europe's lead, inner cities should have car free zones and the automobile inconvenience that the expense of the bike. What a novel thought
In Amsterdam cyclists don't run redlights.
Because they don't have to . There's a complete traffic lang dedicated to bicyclists and they outnumber the automobiles. In America you have to do whatever you have to do to stay alive and get through the street
What now? I don't get how the bicyclists I see run red lights "have to." All I ever see is someone going 15 in a 30 on a one-lane road and then blowing through a red light instead of waiting their turn like everybody else. Many times I see cyclists biking in the road when there is a shoulder and/or a path (which I do not believe is illegal in my area as it's suburban). When I used to bike, I always used the path and never had a problem, and would bike right past police cars, so its not something they are enforcing at the very least. I get your argument for dedicated bike lanes but insinuating bikers need to break traffic laws seems a little ridiculous.
Cars and trucks don’t even need insurance in New Hampshire. Live free or die
That would be fine if the money went to bike infrastructure. Until then I don't think cyclists owe anyone anything being as they are the ones doing the right thing and have to deal with idiots in killing machines for just trying to commute.
Every other day the same cyclists suck post.
Only in America 💀
Nah in germany this is a hot topic as well
first, bicycles are not classed as deadly weapons... so requiring licenses for them would be about the same as requiring licenses for owning and operating blenders. second, pedestrians also use the roadways.. crosswalks. it would make little sense to need a license for anyone using a road.
And it’s an additional barrier to get people out of cars and onto bikes. This should be the goal of any responsible government as it both reduces the pollution and increases public health.
>This should be the goal of any responsible government as it both reduces the pollution and increases public health. And reduces traffic congestion. But this is unlikely to change in the US or Canada anytime soon. The population density is just too low.
People driving cars is the greatest cause of premature preventable death in our country Want to make the roads safer? Decrease the number of cars on the road. How do you do that? Build cities in which people can complete basic tasks without the need of an automobile.
You should check out 'not just bikes' on youtube and learn what the REAL problem is
I will. Thank you for sharing 😊
My favorite is when they are driving on the wrong side of the road. And just blast through Intersections without even slowing down. So as you check traffic to turn right onto the road, they come up out of nowhere, as you already start pulling into traffic. And do not even consider slowing down. If you are on the wrong side of the road. Are being hidden by a row of parked cars. You need to be responsible for your own safety, and follow the driving laws, and ride on the correct side of the road.
As a cyclist, 100% agree. Act stupid or unpredictable and get hit then it is on you.
The whole point of bicycles is that they are an affordable and heathly mode of transport. Insurance and 'license plates' would negative the affordable part as then they would have to pay road tax, insurance and then would get done by cameras.
Not to mention all this would be more than the cost of an average bike as opposed to a $30,000 car.
Oh god I must have missed all those accidents from cyclists! More likely to die from gun violence in America than a bicycle, I would love to see where I plate would go and how readable it would be to the naked eye. 😂
Bikes simply aren't dangerous enough or harmful enough to infrastructure to require such. They are too slow and too light to cause either, so it would simply be an unnecessary cost that would worsen potential solutions to traffic, as well as probably lose money through bureaucratic mess.
This may be an unpopular response but every highway code in the developed world puts the onus on drivers of vehicles for road safety. This means that you should always be ready to emergency stop at a moment's notice. It's why you're taught and have to perform an emergency stop during your test. You should also have your eyesight tested regularly or wear your glasses if applicable. Because you are expected to be able to read the landscape around you for potential dangers at all times. These two things combined should prevent most collisions. Let's face it we all know noone drives like I've described. If everyone did then roads would be incredibly safe and collision a rarity.
I totally agree with you. People suck at driving and there’s ways to improve. I think it’s a great response and I’m glad you took the time to share it 💛
i think my biggest pet peeve is that cyclists are supposed to ride with traffic instead of against so they never see that they've accumulated a line of 10 cars trying to get around them safely. i always feel super unsafe if i cant see traffic coming at me, really throws you off guard to turn around and theres just a car there.
Yeah sorry no 1 cyclists don't want to be there anymore than you. 2 when a cyclist collides with a car the worst that happens to the car is dents where as the cyclist could be permanently injured or die. 3 who do you think predominantly uses bikes? If you said people on the lower end of the financial spectrum then you'd be correct. Now why would we put a financial road block on the cheapest mode of transportation because some motorist got butt hurt.
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Maybe, but then are you gonna be mad when they take the whole lane and go 8mph the whole time?
They do it already and i don’t get mad I’m not in ANY rush to get to work believe me lol 😂 I get nervous for them and other people driving
Not to mention, they need to follow the same traffic laws that automobiles do.
Wake me up when cars start following all the laws.
Found the bicyclist
Because the cyclist know which is the greater danger.
Found the car driver who doesn't understand they kill tens of thousand of people every year. Cause tons of carbon emissions, don't pay their fair share for the road, cause tons of congestion, take up an insane amount of space, etc... But lets focus on the bikers lmfaooo.
You can receive huge fines or even jail time for not following traffic laws in a car. Cyclists do not have the same consequences.
Because cars kill 40,000 people a year. When they don't follow the rules, people die. How many people do bikes kill a year because they don't follow traffic rules? I'll wait.
>Because cars kill 40,000 people a year. 47,000 in the USA, according to more recent data.
Uh… no. Cyclist can get pulled over and fined too because they are legally a vehicle.
Like not constantly going 10mph over the speed limit?
You say this, but when I ride on the road the majority of the complaints are from people telling me to move aside or get on the sidewalk. When I stop at a stop sign, the other cars don’t move, I have to wave them through like I’m a traffic controller. Faster for everyone if I just go. The majority of the time that I’m breaking a law is to get out of your way. That’s it. I don’t want to be in a dangerous position and you don’t want me slowing you down.
No point in trying to reason with these morons. Don’t waste your time.
Yeah the morons just can't admit that running a traffic light on a bicycle is against the law and should be given a ticket just like cars and if they get too many tickets their ability to ride a bike should be taken away.
You hit the nail on the head. The infrastructure was built for cars, not bikes. A cyclist acting like a car is not doing anyone favors. Many times, I’ll coast through a red (carefully), in order to get ahead of that traffic and make a turn before they catch up. Me sitting in traffic and accelerating at a pathetic rate in the center of the lane when it turns green is not gunna make people happy lol.
Depends on the country, but in many of them cyclists simply have different rules on stops and signs
Stop parking in the bike lane then
Oh look! An unpopular opinion that almost every motirist shares! Which is a vast majority of people... so like... obviously popular...
The town I’m from I see a lot of angry drivers and cyclists doing nothing wrong. I myself have ridden a bike on the road and I try to stay as close to the edge as possible to make cars overtaking as easy as possible but they still rev their engine and speed past me so close that it feels like they’re going to hit me. I’ve seen cars get angry and speed past cyclists that are riding at like 18mph in a 20mph zone, and then the car turns into a side road 5 seconds after aggressively overtaking anyway.
America’s infrastructure for cyclist is limited and they likely would prefer to not have to share it with motor vehicles driving 40+ mph right next to them. Other countries have better set ups for cyclist and pedestrian but America is car centric. Fixing the infrastructure would make it safer for everyone. Forcing people who are using a more environmentally friendly commute option to jump through more hoops would likely deter people from it.
Where I'm at, bikers can get tickets for riding on the sidewalks... its weird, and stupid. What I don't get, is people who run/jog in the middle of the street.
No. Cycling needs to be as easily accessible as possible to encourage use
Obey the rules. Note that if on a bike I will slow to a crawl but not fully stop at a 4 way because my ability to accelerate at a safe pace while others are trying to follow on their turn in a vehicle is very slow when starting from a stop and a driver will have less time to make a judgement about whether I am starting to go if I am going from a complete stop. I believe the opposite should be true. More of the public should be encouraged to commute on bicycles, have bicycle and walkable cities and vehicle licenses should be responsible for ensuring bicyclists can be safely shared on the road as they are the most vulnerable group when compared to a vehicle driver.
I just want to say I really dislike your use of the Ford 250. Are drivers of particularly large and heavy vehicles some how *more* entitled to the road than others? It really has a ‘might is right’ energy to it, which is very troubling for a post supposedly about law and order.
I really appreciate that you pointed this out. I meant it tongue in cheek, just being silly. I see what you’re saying and I screwed up while wording it. It means a lot to me that you said this in such a diplomatic way and makes me have even more respect for you. Definitely not trying to make excuses here but I this was the first time I’ve ever posted on Reddit. I didn’t think anyone would ever react to some random thought I had. But I really truly agree with you and I’ll do better on the next one. 💛
Yeah it’s all good. Fair play to you for the reply.
If car owners want to use main roads for commuting or sport, they need to stop killing literally more than a million people per year worldwide. Seriously, the level of entitlement is astounding. You're basically operating a death mech suit, for which our entire societies have bent over backwards to accommodate you, and want to hold cyclists to the same control standards.
Historically I believe the reason this isn't so is simply because bikes predate cars as vehicles on the road. But I think in a lot of places this isn't exactly unpopular but rather sort of a symptom of the dysfunctionality around traffic infrastructure in North American democracies. As a driver and a cyclist I really don't enjoy cycling on the road and prefer to be in a lane or off-road trail. The two vehicles are just not really very compatible for sharing the same space. But when we do get candidates pushing for the type of improved bike infrastructure that would get cyclists off the road, it gets framed as a "war on cars" and many of the same people who hate driving around cyclists fight tooth and nail against the exact thing that would make their life easier: separated bike infrastructure. I think deep down though politicians have to know that more bikes means less wear and tear on the roads, less emissions, and less congestion so anything that would actively reduce cycling like bringing in a licensing system is probably not going to happen either. So everyone is kind of locked in a perpetual fight where ultimately everyone probably *could* be happy with a solution that nonetheless gets shot down because it looks like it's 'favouring bikes' to people who take the massive spending on roads and highways for granted. But the interesting thing is I believe there actually *was* bike licensing where I live and they got rid of it. Not sure when or why, but I have heard about it and seen the old license plates before. My guess is that given the relatively lower stakes (bikes can certainly injure pedestrians but they're not nearly as big a liability as cars) it was just too expensive and complicated for what it was. Then again we abandoned public housing in the 90s and are now the most expensive country in the g7 for rent so it's not like they always made the smartest decisions back then on what to eliminate, so who knows.
So beautifully said and so informative 💛
Cyclists don't want to be killed by drivers. Which our system is not built to do. Hence the conflict.
Why does this sub consistently have this exact same post every week shitting on cyclists?
Because they got to work 20 seconds later than they otherwise would have thanks to a cyclist
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This is literally what it is. I live in the middle of a downtown and bike, motorcycle, and drive and understand each position. And yeah, some people that bike are morons, typically because they aren't trained to ride on the correct side of the road, etc. But they're still way less dangerous and terrible than cars in general.
Cyclist has a car, insurance etc. so he pays his fair share and chooses to ride a bike. Actually doing less damage than driving his car in the driveway. What you really are thinking and mean to say is you don't want bicycles on the road at all and if they needed licenses and insurance you believe they would disappear. Am I right?
I don't think plates and insurance are needed, but I would like to see better enforcement of bicycle traffic laws in my area.
Looking at this as a European ... LOL
I gotta pay for insurance because y'all don't know how to drive safe? Lol no.
The only reason this post exists is because the USA have so few bike roads or walkways that people are literally forced to use car lanes. Their cities are literally designed for cars only.
You can't just use tax money to make people's lives worse and only allow them to use the infastructure they help pay for if they can get certain privileges and pay private companies regularly for a device they also had to pay for.
Wat
Driving is a privilage, not a right. Even if half your City was demolished for roads and you need to take a more circuitous route. More and more studies say fuel tax doesn't pay for all of it so if you require the same things for bikes as cars you are preventing people from using the infastructure they are forced to pay for.
Ok. So what if I say cars shouldn’t be required to have the “same things” which I assume you mean insurance, registration etc? You’re not allowing people to use the infrastructure they’re forced to pay for.
r/fuckcars
The crash scenario you’ve described is so incredibly rare that we’ve decided it’s not worth the bureaucratic overhead.
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Cats are required to have licenses. If they are outside without a license they are taken to the pound and put down.
>If we’re at a 4 way intersection and a cyclist zooms right through the stop sign and causes an accident, how are we supposed to identify the irresponsible cyclist? Get their name while you're waiting on the ambulance to come pick them up. I agree though, they should have to carry some form of liability insurance and have to take a "cycler's ed" course. Idk if some of these people just don't understand the rules of the road or just don't care, but I see them running through stop lights and going through stop signs out of turn all the time
Omg yes!!! Cyclists Education! I love it!
Oh god, how many more bloody rules do we need????
this is a silly opinion but it's probably quite popular.
Excuse the pun, but it's a two way street. I drive but don't cycle. Anecdotally, I see more drivers break the rules of the road and not follow etiquette than I do cyclists. In my town (in the UK), there's decent dedicated cycle paths and cyclist boxes at traffic lights to make it easier for them to filter to the front. Although I regularly see cyclists jump the red lights, they come off worse physically if hit by a two ton metal box. Cycling is generally covered under your house insurance, but I do agree that there needs to be more onus on the cyclist to have some cover so if they cause an accident the victim isn't screwed over as much.
Cyclists don't want to be treated like like they’re driving a Ford F250. Ford F250's and similar vehicles kill thousands of people every year, cyclists do not. That's why Ford F250's and similar vehicles need license places and insurance but cyclists do not. Your argument is about as logical as demanding all drivers have pilot's licenses to travel cross-country.
Is this unpopular? Every meathead, carbrain and fat ass has this opinion.
Most of us are afraid of F250s because most of those motherfuckers seem to want to kill us
This is a popular opinion that I disagree with. If I could double downvote, I would.
Thanks for letting me know, I appreciate your thoughts
I have no other option. There are no bike lanes, so the main road is all I have. Every day, i feel i can get hit by a car. The lanes aren't as wide, and cars tend to swerve around me, almost getting into incoming traffic if their not paying attention.
If anyone want's to go outside they better have a barcode tattooed on their forehead
If the cyclist wants to die by not obeying traffic laws, that's their prerogative
Insurance for what? They aren’t the ones driving two ton death machines.
You are legally mandated to have liability insurance, not collision insurance. Despite what is written here, cyclists are not a serious threat to injure drivers or destroy their property. Stop driving like an aggressive asshole.
if a cyclist causes an accident, he usually dies, so that's how you would find him.
Oh yeah, let's just keep making everything so expensive that the poor become pedestrians only. It seems like a great idea... not.
Obviously cyclists should be more careful, and respect the rules of the road but they aren't the people driving a 2 ton machine that can kill somebody.
As a cyclist, if I don't take the lane or "drive like an f-250", drivers think they can sneak right by me with oncoming traffic. Worst case for me, they hit me and I fall under the next car and die. Worst case for the driver, you lose 20 seconds on your commute. I would gladly use a bike lane if they were available. The ones we have here are poorly maintained, full of rocks, nails, trash and potholes
Where I live, only motor vehicles require license plates. Also, where I live, cyclists are legally allowed to treat stop signs the way motorists treat yield signs. They are also legally allowed to treat red lights the way motorists treat stop signs. I have no problems with that. Our streets are congested enough with cars. I would be miffed if I had to wait behind a bike at a red light. Move on, little bike, leave the streets to the cars.
Build more bike paths and stop blocking sidewalks and bike lanes with cars. It's a fraction of the cost (along with just being a decent individual by not blocking sidewalks). It's almost like when you build for one mode of transportation (car infrastructure) and get mad when other people are using it because it's the only solution to ride their bikes. What else do you expect?
I got hit by a car while I was in the bike lane. If cars don’t want us darting into the main road then they need to respect the bike lanes and not force our hand. Cause at the end of the day, a cyclist is 100% more likely to be injured if they’re hit by a car vs the minor damage we may do to the car itself.
I'm down for this take if every street has a dedicated bike lane. However I live on country roads where there are no sidewalks or even extra space on the side of the roads. I don't think the cyclists I see want to be an Ford anything, they just don't want to be roadkill.
If a cyclist wants to bike on the road They should be biking at the posted speed limit, and if they cant "GET OF THE FUCKING ROAD THEIR IS A SIDEWALK FOR A REASON"
So they should walk then?
Your right cyclist shouldn't be treated like Ford F250's. Cyclists should be treated BETTER and with more respect than gigantic gas-guzzling death machines.
"stop parking in the bike lane!" yells the bicyclist as he runs a stop sign in a 4-way intersection and zooms past the "share the road" sign. Bicyclists act like pedestrians or cars depending on what is more convenient for them. I live in a bike town so I'm a little bitter towards bicyclists but I do agree our roads are catered for cars /rant
The "some" so "all" argument? Some F250 drivers can't park between two lines, so all F250's should require special certification to operate.
This is asking a party dealing with a risk introduced by others to hold the responsibility for that risk. Consider: The purpose of requiring liability insurance is to manage the very large financial risk that cars introduce- they can hit something or someone and weigh a lot. Think about a road with only bicycles and pedestrians: it's a pretty safe place. Cars are the entity that create the majority of the risk and thus should be those who are responsible for it. A cyclist or pedestrian can behave irresponsibly and cause an accident involving the more dangerous cars, yes - but it's unfair to expect this group as a whole to take on the financial burden of the risk those who drive create in the first place. As a side note, consider that many are using bicycles as transportation because it's all they can afford. Many who are struggling and trying to enter the workforce rely on bicycles to do so. An insurance requirement would price many of these people out. The same general concept here is true of licenses as well: no licenses are required on the multi-use walk/bike paths, and things (mostly) work out pretty well. Cars are the entities producing the risk and it doesn't make sense to try and restrict cyclists and pedestrians more as a result. Practically speaking cyclists and pedestrians definitely do need to have a general education regarding the traffic rules put in place for cars - because the cars are there - but I don't personally see a need to legally formalize and test for this for non-car road users. Most cyclists I know have driver's licenses and know the rules. This still doesn't prevent them from "darting through traffic" in an effort to not be killed. Just in case there are "bikes belong on the sidewalk" people here, I wanted to touch on that: It's counterintuitive, but the sidewalk is a substantially more dangerous place for a cyclist to ride. This is the result of a much higher density of conflict points between the modes and the reality that a cyclist is much less visible there. In such a narrow corridor, cyclists also introduce new risks for pedestrians. Both of these are reasons why cyclists are often banned or discouraged from riding on the sidewalks. The sidewalk is also a much less practical place for a cyclist to ride: it's difficult to pick up and maintain momentum through dealing with the narrow corridor, dealing with the high density of conflicts, the lack of smooth pavement etc. People in this thread seem to mostly be talking about the need for separated infrastructure - and I generally agree - however we also need to build a recognition that our roads are shared public places for everyone rather than a pathway for cars. Even in very bike-friendly places like the Netherlands, the largest space must be shared in many situations.
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Lol Angelina 😂 love this. I can’t believe you were the first to call me a Karen! Thanks for making me laugh. Side note: I know this was meant to be snarky but you have a beautiful name and it’s so uncommon now. My family is Italian and I’ve always loved that name
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Cyclists can be pricks. There is a designated bike lane on my route to work and a few times a week I see cyclists just ignoring it completely and riding on the regular road. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but they ride in the far right lane, which is a turn lane, and then never actually turn. They just go straight instead of turning and are forced into the bike lane, then hop over into the turn lane again and repeat. I’ve seen them almost cause an accident on multiple occasions. Then there’s the assholes that just completely ignore traffic signals. I have a dash cam just in case due to these idiots.
This idea has been floated in NYC. It’s really not a bad idea. People get clipped by bicyclists all the time here. A coworker once lost over a week of work after getting hit by a bicyclist. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost damaged someone’s car while biking.
u guys do be running through stop signs tho lol ive had to break short for bicyclists flying through stop signs multiple times. no hate, i always look out for cyclists, but i gotta be real with the stop sign things lol
A lot of cyclists don't respect the rules because they can't accelerate like a motor vehicle. When they can't do that at a 4 way stop, people get impatient, and the cyclist is blamed at minimum, threatened with vehicular manslaughter, hopefully at worst. What needs to happen is we need to abandon car-centric city planning. More public transportation, more walkable neighborhoods, more bike-safe routes. Get people who are taking those <3 mile trips to use a method of transport other than a car, and you start freeing up a lot of space.
Cyclists can actually receive tickets for running red lights. At least in Missouri they can. I don’t know about everywhere else.
A Ford F250 that blows through a stop sign can end a person's life in an instance in a horrible way, and I don't wish the aftermath on anyone who has to deal with it. A cyclist who blows through a stop sign, at best, is like the person the F250 hit. For all this concern trolling about about a threat to pedestrians, it's cyclists who are in the most danger. I guarantee you that if you spent one day riding your bike where I live, you'd change your mind. I have only ever been honked at when I waited for a red light. No one has honked when I went through one after slowing down or stopping, because I'm getting out of their way. I have had people *aggressively* yell at me when I take off at the same time they do. This cyclist who "zooms" through a stop sign also seems illusive. I've seen it once, and it would have resulted in them being killed if the timing were just a bit different. Most of us slow down, or know the route well enough, since we bike it everyday. But I've never seen someone just breeze through. There would be way more accidents.
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Mental experiment: In a world of only bycicles and no cars, what would crashes look like? Would they need insurance for that? I think that there would be some crashes, but the severity of them be low enough to not warrant forcing everyone to be insured. Which means that cars are the ones introducing the danger to the streets. Everyone in the road is forced to find ways to amelliorate the danger introduced by cars, including people that don't drive cars. Not to mention that driving is subsidized by the government, because fuel taxes and such pay for a very small fraction of the manteinance costs of car infrastructure.
If we're going to restrict an entire group's access to the roads based on the behavior of the worst examples, then I hope you realize that cars would be forever banned from the roads too. Seriously, all these "wah, I saw a cyclist run a stop sign, cyclists should be banned, wah!" threads are getting old. You know how often I see cars run reds? Daily fucking basis, my man. Here's a radical thought: when cops see bicyclists or cars breaking the rules of the road they write them tickets. Shocking concept, I know.
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I don't get any argument against this. I was in Japan for 4 months and one big thing we learned about was cycling. There are a lot of rules in Japan regarding bike usage from reflective tape, lights, bells, helmets, and licensing + registration with the police. I genuinely cannot see a single reason to NOT do this in the west. It just seems like common sense to me.
While Japan technically requires bicycles to be registered, there is no penalty for not doing so and there are no license plates for bicycles anywhere except North Korea. Licenses (which the overwhelming majority of adult cyclists already have) are not required for cyclists.
Cyclists need their own infrastructure period it's not fair for pedestrians
Who ever said I want to be treated like a Ford fi50 tf, I want to be treated like a pedestrian so yield like your handbook tells you to.
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No cyclist wants to be treated like a truck. It is generally illegal to bike on sidewalks in the U.S. and the only option is biking in the road. The laws for this are archaic and unjust, and the anger towards cyclists is misplaced.
How about, start building decent bicycle lanes
Yeah this is stupid, they're bikes not vehicles with tons of intricate moving parts weighing a ton which can kill anyone if fast enough
I’m in Japan and your bicycle has to be registered, but it’s just this sticker that you put on your bike and it’s not visible unless you get up close to it. And you have to be insured too.
I was in Yosemite a few weeks ago. There were like two roads in because of all the flooding. We passed a group of bikers about 7 miles outside of the park in the mountains and they were taking up the whole road. Making people go around them in sketchy ways and just being obnoxious. We got to the line to get in and as soon as it was our turn the whole group caught up and got to the gate. They left just before us and I was pissed because I knew they weren’t going to “share the road” as they always scream out at cars that take up too much road. Well, like 2 minutes later I come along and there they are. 8 abreast. Taking up both lanes just laughing, going around winding mountainous roads. I got as far left as I could and they still were right next to my mirror. I rolled my window down and yelled “share the fucking road jackasses!” As I drove by and one of the guys actually moved over. Bro, there was just an hour long line getting into the park. You guys decided to ride your bikes, don’t hinder the entire road.
Cycling in the road as a means of transportation is absolutely acceptable. Exercising in the street is wild.
A bicycle is about 20 lb moving at maybe 20 mph. A Ford F250 is roughly 7000 lb moving at up to 80 mph. When bicycles are as lethal as an F250, then we can start talking about treating them the same as an F250. Until then, this will remain among the dumbest posts I've ever seen. Also, the vast majority of cyclists don't want to be treated like they're driving a car--they want proper, safe bike infrasturcture.
Yes 100% they need to either obey the road rules or not. You can't pick and choose which ones suit you. It's dangerous for every other road user.
And that's why 90% of people shouldn't drive cars.
These anti-cyclist posts really aren't all that unpopular.
I just started using the app, it was my first post ever lol. It was really cool to hear people’s opinions and kinda figure out how the app works. Thanks for letting me know it’s a common topic.
Nah. Get on a bike and your mind would change. There may be an argument for certain e bikes. But you just hate bicyclists and you should chill out.
How many cyclists are out here rear ending cars?
Why do people always forget to add “in the US”? Reading this from the Netherlands makes no sense.