Canada's most dangerous city for cyclists

On Thursday, May 2, 2013 11:55:52 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:
On May 2, 8:15*pm, wrote:

On Thursday, May 2, 2013 9:29:30 PM UTC-4, James wrote:

On 03/05/13 11:02, Sir Ridesalot wrote:



Whilst the article is interesting it's the comments below it that



really get me thinking. It's amazing how many people think that



bicyclists do NOT belong on the roads. Also interesting how many



bicyclists delight in flaunting the Rules of the Road whenever it



pleases tthem.



http://ca.autos.yahoo.com/news/canad...city-for-cycli...



Yup. *We get that a lot.



I recently admonished one of our bicycling advocacy groups



http://www.bicyclenetwork.com.au/because although their goal is



admirable, their methods are highly questionable.



They reject all notions that any sort of vehicular cycling (which is



really what I would call defensive riding) has any usefulness, and say



it has "failed", though it was never taught to or practiced by many here.



It's been said: *"It's not that vehicular cycling has been tried and found to be difficult. *It's that it's been assumed difficult, and not tried."





It's been said: "krygowski you're a ****ing idiot!"

And you're still behaving like a drunken teenager, in your riding style, your garbage language, your anti-societal attitudes, your mini-minded posts, and probably in other ways we haven't heard about.

Too bad you're not really 15 years old. There would at least be hope of good sense arriving with maturity.

- Frank Krygowski

Per Sir Ridesalot:
Also interesting how many bicyclists delight in flaunting the Rules of the Road whenever it pleases tthem.

I'd say that "pleases them" is the wrong phrase for some cyclists in
some situations. "survival demands" is closer in certain situations.
Note "certain" situations NOT "all" or even "most" situations.

Where I ride (southeastern Pennsylvania, USA) you can get seriously
killed following to the letter traffic laws that were essentially
written for motor vehicles on roads that where engineered/built with no
thought at all for cyclists or pedestrians.

Not that I'm not saying "all cases"... Not following traffic laws in a
city, for instance is probably a bad idea most of the time.

OTOH riding the wrong way at walking/jogging speed down a one-way alley
that is virtually unused can be perceived as safer than mixing it up
with 45 mph traffic on a parallel street that has no shoulder/fog lines.

Riding on sidewalks is another case in point. Cities? Riding on
pedestrian-populated sidewalks seems just plain dumb to me. Crime
against nature. Case closed.

But out, say, in West Conshocken I ride a route where one section looks
like a class B post-apocalypse movie as the route passes under a series
of superhighway overpasses. But there is a nice wide sidewalk (albeit
littered with trash and the occasional automobile part), but I'll lay
money that it hasn't seen more than one pedestrian per week for years.
In that case the choice is between riding that sidewalk and hoping that
closing traffic at 60+ with no shoulder doesn't ruin you whole day.
--
Pete Cresswell

On Friday, May 3, 2013 5:06:45 PM UTC+1, wrote:
On Thursday, May 2, 2013 11:55:52 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:

On May 2, 8:15*pm, wrote:



On Thursday, May 2, 2013 9:29:30 PM UTC-4, James wrote:



On 03/05/13 11:02, Sir Ridesalot wrote:







Whilst the article is interesting it's the comments below it that







really get me thinking. It's amazing how many people think that







bicyclists do NOT belong on the roads. Also interesting how many







bicyclists delight in flaunting the Rules of the Road whenever it







pleases tthem.







http://ca.autos.yahoo.com/news/canad...city-for-cycli...







Yup. *We get that a lot.







I recently admonished one of our bicycling advocacy groups







http://www.bicyclenetwork.com.au/because although their goal is







admirable, their methods are highly questionable.







They reject all notions that any sort of vehicular cycling (which is







really what I would call defensive riding) has any usefulness, and say







it has "failed", though it was never taught to or practiced by many here.







It's been said: *"It's not that vehicular cycling has been tried and found to be difficult. *It's that it's been assumed difficult, and not tried."











It's been said: "krygowski you're a ****ing idiot!"



And you're still behaving like a drunken teenager, in your riding style, your garbage language, your anti-societal attitudes, your mini-minded posts, and probably in other ways we haven't heard about.



Too bad you're not really 15 years old. There would at least be hope of good sense arriving with maturity.



- Frank Krygowski

Aw, Franki-boy, I was just getting ready to feel sorry for you and say something calming to Dan, when you get on your high horse and stick your snot-nozzle in the air. You're your own worst enemy, man.

Andre Jute
"Andre is only as brutal as he has to be." -- Nelson Mandela

On Friday, May 3, 2013 12:21:48 PM UTC-4, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Sir Ridesalot:

Also interesting how many bicyclists delight in flaunting the Rules of the Road whenever it pleases tthem.



I'd say that "pleases them" is the wrong phrase for some cyclists in

some situations. "survival demands" is closer in certain situations.

Note "certain" situations NOT "all" or even "most" situations.



Where I ride (southeastern Pennsylvania, USA) you can get seriously

killed following to the letter traffic laws that were essentially

written for motor vehicles ...

Well, the fundamental traffic laws were written before motor vehicles existed. Things like "everybody on the same side of the road" came about when it was almost all horses and carriages.

... on roads that where engineered/built with no

thought at all for cyclists or pedestrians.



Not that I'm not saying "all cases"... Not following traffic laws in a

city, for instance is probably a bad idea most of the time.



OTOH riding the wrong way at walking/jogging speed down a one-way alley

that is virtually unused can be perceived as safer than mixing it up

with 45 mph traffic on a parallel street that has no shoulder/fog lines.



Riding on sidewalks is another case in point. Cities? Riding on

pedestrian-populated sidewalks seems just plain dumb to me. Crime

against nature. Case closed.



But out, say, in West Conshocken I ride a route where one section looks

like a class B post-apocalypse movie as the route passes under a series

of superhighway overpasses. But there is a nice wide sidewalk (albeit

littered with trash and the occasional automobile part), but I'll lay

money that it hasn't seen more than one pedestrian per week for years.

In that case the choice is between riding that sidewalk and hoping that

closing traffic at 60+ with no shoulder doesn't ruin you whole day.

I think there are misconceptions - or in some cases, purposeful distortions - of the views and behaviors of knowledgeable (and even prominent) vehicular cyclists. I've met many of the most influential VCs, I've ridden with a few of them, and I've discussed their riding styles with other people who have ridden with them. I've taken classes from a few of them.

They don't say "You must NEVER ride on a sidewalk." They don't say "You must never ride anywhere that a car can't also drive." They don't say "Absolutely all bike facilities are bad," or "You must slavishly obey every detail of traffic law."

And in that community, there is continuing discussion and debate over fundamentals, like about when it's appropriate to control the lane vs. share the lane; about whether "Idaho stops" should be legal or not; about the relative value of various infrastructure designs, etc. These are smart people, not automatons.

In general, they do object to the idea that "any bike facility is a good bike facility." (They tend to analyze them according to real-world actions and reactions of road users, taking into account things like predictability, visibility, hazard avoidance, and actual crash data.) They object to door zone bike lanes, to segregated facilities that hide a cyclist until he suddenly pops into the path of a car, to bike lanes that put a cyclist to the right (in the U.S.) of right-turning vehicles, etc.

They don't pretend (as one poster here used to claim) that it's not necessary to be alert, or to watch for road hazards. In fact, the opposite is true, and those factors are specifically taught in cycling classes.

They do share the belief that with just a little learning, almost all people can ride safely on almost all roads; and that the most important thing is for all road users to follow logical and consistent road rules.

Bending rules? Again, they're smart people, not automatons. I doubt you'd ever find a State Highway Patrolman who always executes a perfect stop sign stop in his family car. Likewise, I doubt you'd ever find _any_ cyclist who hits zero velocity for over one second at every stop sign. And if carefully riding a one-way alley would save half a mile of out-of-the-way travel, I imagine almost all cyclists would find a way to do that.

However, that's not the same as absolving or arguing in favor of riding salmon-style head-on at other cyclists; or riding drunk at night without lights; or blowing through traffic lights at whim. Competent "vehicular cyclists" don't, AFAIK, approve of riding like that. And of course, the dolts who ride like that don't approve of vehicular cycling.

- Frank Krygowski

On Friday, May 3, 2013 2:02:09 AM UTC+1, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Also interesting how many bicyclists delight in flaunting the Rules of the Road whenever it pleases tthem.

There is one case where I live and ride where breaking the rules of the road is productive. I ride on some very narrow lanes. Legally a car should not pass because there isn't space to give a cyclist a metre of space. But I try not to hold up motorist until they become impatient and do something stupid. If I go to the side of the road I should be on, and the driver is clumsy, I end in the ditch. So I go to the "wrong", the driver side, where the driver, especially of wide vans or trucks, can see precisely how much space there is. You let the driver pass, and the cyclist is relatively safe. I've let the police pass in their truck a few times in this manner, and none of them ever said a word about it.

But I think nothing of riding on the pavement to keep safe in places where the traffic is too heavy and traveling too fast. Even without malice most people here don't know how wide/long their cars and especially vans are. Yesterday, returning in the rush hour from the parking lot of a hardware store which is conveniently laid out on a hill to ride intervals, I found joggers on the narrow pavement I normally use, so I went on the road. I was traveling downhill at a fraction over 40kph and two drivers still managed to touch my pannier basket with their cars as they tried to squeeze between me and oncoming traffic, and several others passed me into a blind corner where their accident might have involved me too; they simply have no experience of riding around bicycles, and no idea of spatial considerations of width/length/speed. So in a ride of less than 3km, my life was closely endangered twice, and several other potentially harmful events happened.

It's ironic that I'm safer on the narrow country lanes than on the suburban road that passes the front of my town house.

There are certain roads, including some that twenty years ago I often cycled after dark, on which it now simply isn't safe to go even early on a Sunday morning. They include every major road out of town.

Several people who used to ride with me no longer cycle because the traffic makes the ride too stressful. The superintendent of police for the whole region, who surely knew which were the dangerous roads, was killed on a road on which I refused to go with him a couple of years before that.

I don't care what Vehicular Cycling idiots like Krygo say, I'm safer on the pavement. I don't care what the law says either; my life is far more important than the law; anyone who wants me to observe the law should enforce the metro separation rule before they even speak to me. I don't fancy a memorial inscribed "Here lies Andre Jute/who stood on his right/to receive a metro of clear space/from every driver".

Andre Jute

Per :

However, that's not the same as absolving or arguing in favor of riding salmon-style head-on at other cyclists; or riding drunk at night without lights; or blowing through traffic lights at whim. Competent "vehicular cyclists" don't, AFAIK, approve of riding like that. And of course, the dolts who ride like that don't approve of vehicular cycling.

Nice post.

The post gave me a much-improved understanding of "Vehicular Cycling" -
which I had previously take to be soon-to-be-short-lived people trying
to act just like motor vehicles.
--
Pete Cresswell

On 5/3/2013 3:25 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per :

However, that's not the same as absolving or arguing in favor of riding salmon-style head-on at other cyclists; or riding drunk at night without lights; or blowing through traffic lights at whim. Competent "vehicular cyclists" don't, AFAIK, approve of riding like that. And of course, the dolts who ride like that don't approve of vehicular cycling.

Nice post.

The post gave me a much-improved understanding of "Vehicular Cycling" -
which I had previously take to be soon-to-be-short-lived people trying
to act just like motor vehicles.


That comment would have been just as valid by replacing Vehicular
Cyclists with "competent cyclists" and Vehicular Cycling with "competent
cycling."

You don't have to join the cult to be a competent cyclist.

Per Andre Jute:

But I think nothing of riding on the pavement to keep safe in places where the traffic is too heavy and traveling too fast. Even without malice most people here don't know how wide/long their cars and especially vans are.

A close-family-member-who-shall-remain-unnamed has no idea whatsoever -
zero, zilch, bupkis, nada... - where their left wheels are when driving
an automobile. Potholes that are way beyond the ghost line, curbs...
you name it. The right-side tires on that car really catch hell. Woe
be undo the poor cyclist....

That plus knowing that cell phone use, texting while driving, and doing
email while driving have become significantly-common informs my riding
today.

My suspicion is that the rules for safe riding are still evolving and
were not formulated in the context of, for instance, the study by
somebody somewhere that indicated 30 percent of people under 30 years of
age admitting to texting while driving within the last 30 days.

Couple years back, a guy I windsurfed with got his while riding the
shoulder of a flat, dead-straight stretch of road. Seemed like the
only plausible explanation was the driver of the pickup truck texting,
dialing, or emailing.
--
Pete Cresswell

On Fri, 03 May 2013 15:36:11 -0400, Duane wrote:

On 5/3/2013 3:25 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per :

However, that's not the same as absolving or arguing in favor of
riding salmon-style head-on at other cyclists; or riding drunk at
night without lights; or blowing through traffic lights at whim.
Competent "vehicular cyclists" don't, AFAIK, approve of riding like
that. And of course, the dolts who ride like that don't approve of
vehicular cycling.

Nice post.

The post gave me a much-improved understanding of "Vehicular Cycling" -
which I had previously take to be soon-to-be-short-lived people trying
to act just like motor vehicles.


That comment would have been just as valid by replacing Vehicular
Cyclists with "competent cyclists" and Vehicular Cycling with "competent
cycling."

You don't have to join the cult to be a competent cyclist.

Too true. I always thought the vehicular cycling thing was just rebranded
road sense with some marketing whizzo stuff thrown in for U.S. book sales
by what's 'is name the tree care dude. (I don't see why I should increase
his internet prescence.)

The only problems I have where I live are;

right hooks, (They just don't care.)

turning left (sheer weight of traffic prevents it being an easy affair)

roundabouts (there are traffic lights at each quarter. The idea of how
they work has not been fully grasped and traffic backs up to hell and
back before the lights change.)

red light jumpers (are a matter of course not just for special occasions)
You can see a few here on the roads I ride on. Along with other idiocy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzV8KJ3oQYQ

However once you know what's going on it's not too difficult to cope
with.
--
davethedave

Per davethedave:
red light jumpers (are a matter of course not just for special occasions)
You can see a few here on the roads I ride on. Along with other idiocy.

Couple years back, they went to ridiculously-long red/green light times
around here - along with that moronic pause where all lights are red.

I'd guess there was a brief reduction in accidents that looked good on
somebody's stats somewhere.

But now that the honeymoon is over the pause is being discounted by a
*lot* of drivers.

Where I used to see people occasionally slipping through red (not
yellow... red) lights, now I'm seeing every day people coming into the
red pedal-to-the-metal: both knowing the traffic on the other side won't
have green for some ridiculous time and also in order to avoid the very
long red light.... and they don't always judge the delay right.

On one major road near our house, you wouldn't last a week if you just
looked at the green light and stepped off the curb. You literally have
to wait a few seconds for the inevitable 2-3 vehicles running the red to
pass.
--
Pete Cresswell