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#41
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NY Times article - Cycling will kill you!
On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 07:29:17 -0600, Stephen Bauman
wrote: On Sat, 09 Nov 2013 21:59:02 -0800, Frank Krygowski wrote: snip I suppose that may be true in some areas, but in almost every place I've ridden, the traffic signals have been easily visible when I've been stopped at the light. You move your head when you are stopped at a light. This brings the light within your field of vision. When you are riding your eyes and attention are on the road ahead of you. In most cases your concentration is looking at the near field to avoid potholes. Your vertical field of vision is limited to +/- 15 degrees. Even if your head looked straight ahead (level with the horizontal plane), a traffic light would leave your field of vision 56 feet in front of it. The brain processes what the eye sees. It abhors discontinuities and will make you think you see things you do not. This is why those people with blind spots in their visual field have a difficult time recognizing their condition. Many optical illusions are based on the brain's propensity to interpolate between discontinuities. Motion pictures are the best known example. Similarly, objects to not appear to suddenly disappear when they leave one's field of vision. The brain makes you believe you still see them. The brain cannot account for state changes in these objects, once they have left the field of vision. Therefore, a light changing from green to yellow will not be detected, when that light is outside the field of vision. Traffic lights are supposed to be placed at least 40 feet beyond the stop line. This places the point where the traffic light leaves one's field of vision at 16 feet before the stop line. The minimum duration for the combined yellow and red guard intervals is 3.5 seconds. A car moving at 40 mph will travel 210 feet or 194 feet beyond the stop line in those 3.5 seconds. This is usually enough for the car to clear the intersection. However, a bike moving at 10 mph will travel only 52.5 feet or 36.5 feet beyond the stop line. This usually leaves the bike about 2 lanes into the intersection. Stephen Bauman I see, you are having problems seeing stop signals that other have no problem seeing.... perhaps you should stop driving if you can't see the traffic signs. -- Cheers, John B. |
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#42
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NY Times article - Cycling will kill you!
On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 10:48:19 -0600, Stephen Bauman
wrote: On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 07:52:53 -0800, Frank Krygowski wrote: On Sunday, November 10, 2013 8:29:17 AM UTC-5, Stephen Bauman wrote: snip Traffic lights are supposed to be placed at least 40 feet beyond the stop line. Do you have a source for that? I had previously mentioned it: The Federal Highway Administration's Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (FHWA MUTCD). Here's a link to the current MUTCD: http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2/pdf_index.htm The specific confirmation you seek is in Part 4 - Highway Traffic Signals http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2/part4.pdf In particular, check out section 4D-14 on page 464: Longitudinal Positioning of Signal Faces. Figure 4D-4 on page 463 is worth a thousand words regarding this topic. Stephen Bauman I see, ten million drivers don't have a problem but you do therefore the problem lies with the placement of the traffic signs... -- Cheers, John B. |
#43
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NY Times article - Cycling will kill you!
On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 13:37:49 -0800, Dan
wrote: Stephen Bauman writes: On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 07:52:53 -0800, Frank Krygowski wrote: On Sunday, November 10, 2013 8:29:17 AM UTC-5, Stephen Bauman wrote: snip Traffic lights are supposed to be placed at least 40 feet beyond the stop line. Do you have a source for that? I had previously mentioned it: The Federal Highway Administration's Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (FHWA MUTCD). Here's a link to the current MUTCD: http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2/pdf_index.htm The specific confirmation you seek is in Part 4 - Highway Traffic Signals http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2/part4.pdf In particular, check out section 4D-14 on page 464: Longitudinal Positioning of Signal Faces. Figure 4D-4 on page 463 is worth a thousand words regarding this topic. It blows me away that anyone familiar with USA roads would not agree that the rules are geared for automobiles. It seems equally surprising that one should be surprised that rules are geared to the requirements of the majority of the users :-) -- Cheers, John B. |
#44
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NY Times article - Cycling will kill you!
On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 07:39:41 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote: On Sunday, November 10, 2013 6:14:33 AM UTC-5, John B. wrote: But the rant sounds a lot like the truck driver that turned right and killed the lady cyclist... "I didn't see her". What you've described - a lady killed by a truck turning right turn (or left turn in "drive on the left" countries) is a well-known cause of cyclist death, especially in crowded cities. London is an example. And our city had a sidewalk-riding kid killed that way a few years ago. IIRC, in London it _is_ far most often a lady, which has led to some speculation about the reason for the gender disparity. Some have said that perhaps women are less confident, and feel a self-imposed requirement to stay as close as possible to the curb, whereas men might be more willing to be at the safer lane center. Drivers of big trucks really can't see along the trucks' sides very well. Bike lanes are certainly no guarantee of safety in this situation. (Heck, I'm even leery of passing stopped motorcycles at their curb side.) - Frank Krygowski That is something that I've always wondered about. Here's a big truck planning on turning into a side road, here comes a bicycle cruising down the shoulder. The truck, who was doing say 35 MPH slows to make the turn. Doesn't the bicycle notice? "Heh, Wow! I'm catching that big guy?" -- Cheers, John B. |
#45
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NY Times article - Cycling will kill you!
John B. writes:
On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 13:37:49 -0800, Dan wrote: Stephen Bauman writes: On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 07:52:53 -0800, Frank Krygowski wrote: On Sunday, November 10, 2013 8:29:17 AM UTC-5, Stephen Bauman wrote: snip Traffic lights are supposed to be placed at least 40 feet beyond the stop line. Do you have a source for that? I had previously mentioned it: The Federal Highway Administration's Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (FHWA MUTCD). Here's a link to the current MUTCD: http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2/pdf_index.htm The specific confirmation you seek is in Part 4 - Highway Traffic Signals http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2/part4.pdf In particular, check out section 4D-14 on page 464: Longitudinal Positioning of Signal Faces. Figure 4D-4 on page 463 is worth a thousand words regarding this topic. It blows me away that anyone familiar with USA roads would not agree that the rules are geared for automobiles. It seems equally surprising that one should be surprised that rules are geared to the requirements of the majority of the users :-) I'm not surprised. In fact it's completely understandable. What I'm expressing is the basic reason they are less applicable to the very different needs of bicyclists, and thus it is often *reasonable* to deviate from them in some situations. |
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NY Times article - Cycling will kill you!
On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 13:58:57 -0800 (PST), yirgster
wrote: It's amazing to me that this thread immediately devolved into details concerning the context of what the roads are like an similar. Which have been fought over time and again in this group with virtually no resolve. Even the occasional lurker here could spout them from memory while solving differential equations. The main thrust of the article--which appears to have been totally ignored--is that drivers who kill cyclists get away with it, even when they have committed violations, and get away with it with the outright complicity, to put it mildly, of the police. The actions of the SFPD are beyond the pale, totally reprehensible. It's these that should be the focus. I don't see that it is a matter of "motorists that kill cyclists" it is more a matter of "motorists that kill people" as the same rules and regulation seem to apply if they run over a pedestrian or crush another car. I've always wondered, particularly in the U.S., why there weren't civil suits brought against a motorist who runs over someone's husband and father? After all if you are in an accident down at work that rips your arm off you may well collect a compensation equal to the potential earnings that you have been deprived of due to the loss of your arm. why not the loss of income due to the death of the Lord and Master of the household. -- Cheers, John B. |
#47
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NY Times article - Cycling will kill you!
On Sunday, November 10, 2013 1:22:25 PM UTC-5, Wes Groleau wrote:
Well, maybe it's bad memory due to being sixty; maybe it's never having lost my teenager's lack of any sense of caution; maybe it's the same thing that makes it nearly impossible for me to hold a grudge. Whatever it is, I never find myself nervous about traffic. Used to freak out my former boss--I no longer work for her and she STILL worries. I do intellectually recognize there are some hazards and try to remember to act accordingly. It's pretty much the same for me, although I'm definitely past 60! - Frank Krygowski |
#48
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NY Times article - Cycling will kill you!
On Sunday, November 10, 2013 11:48:19 AM UTC-5, Stephen Bauman wrote:
On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 07:52:53 -0800, Frank Krygowski wrote: On Sunday, November 10, 2013 8:29:17 AM UTC-5, Stephen Bauman wrote: Traffic lights are supposed to be placed at least 40 feet beyond the stop line. Do you have a source for that? .... The specific confirmation you seek is in Part 4 - Highway Traffic Signals http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2/part4.pdf In particular, check out section 4D-14 on page 464: Longitudinal Positioning of Signal Faces. Figure 4D-4 on page 463 is worth a thousand words regarding this topic. OK, thanks. - Frank Krygowski |
#49
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NY Times article - Cycling will kill you!
On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:04:21 -0800, Dan
wrote: yirgster writes: It's amazing to me that this thread immediately devolved into details concerning the context of what the roads are like an similar. Which have been fought over time and again in this group with virtually no resolve. Even the occasional lurker here could spout them from memory while solving differential equations. The main thrust of the article--which appears to have been totally ignored--is that drivers who kill cyclists get away with it, even when they have committed violations, and get away with it with the outright complicity, to put it mildly, of the police. The actions of the SFPD are beyond the pale, totally reprehensible. It's the culture - the collective attitudes. It's assumed that if a bicyclist was involved it must have been their fault. The author of this article and many others (in the collective mindset) propose the solution is for bicyclists to behave _like good motorists_. But bicyclists are not motorists. The Rules of the Road are geared for motorists. It doesn't make sense for bicyclists to dogmatically adhere to them - except to reinforce the sense that automobiles rule. Bicyclists can violate these rules and _still not create any sort of practical traffic problems_. Certainly. cyclists are soft and comparatively light so even if you hit one it doesn't cause much damage to the car, hardly a scratch in some cases. So even if they do violate the rules of the road it is little or no skin off the motorists nose. Thus, one would suppose, the superior ( this is right out of Chinese philosophy) person should conduct him/her-self (politically correctness too) in such a manner as to not impose on the space occupied by a large, heavy, hard, quickly, moving object. It's these that should be the focus. The culture and attitudes must change. The solution is butts on bikes (that and human decency in social interaction ala Monderman) which will be the writing on the wall that automobiles do not rule. The rules will change, too - *more* than the current token patches grafted and shoehorned. Or perhaps the Butts on Bikes should concern themselves with not coming in contact with large, heavy, hard, fast, moving objects. -- Cheers, John B. |
#50
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NY Times article - Cycling will kill you!
Well written word package,
Effective communication at a high level of theater and impact. Gold star The highway safety norms are directed to the low median of perception and understanding. That was my direction and the writer’s. Our direction is to pierce that layer with information communicating our presence direction and rights for survival. |
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