Cyclists tend to be more patient than drivers, based on my (biased) observations. As a transportation cyclist I don't really understand the mindset of many drivers. Their apparent need for instant transportation seems to override safety concerns, particularly the safety of others. Often drivers aren't much faster than I am, particularly given the number of stop lights on my commute. Many cyclists have pointed out the irony in how a dangerous driver who nearly runs over a cyclist often sits at the next stop light with the same cyclist stopped right behind them.
My guess is that cyclists are more patient due to both selection effects (more patient people are more likely to become cyclists) and driving actively decreasing patience.
As someone who walks to work, I've had an order of magnitude more issues with cyclists than cars. My favorite, which happens frequently, is the cyclists who cross against the light then complain with one finger about pedestrians, with the light, in a cross walk.
I've been hit in intersections several times. Always by cyclists, always when I (pedestrian) clearly have right of way.
Depends on the infrastructure and education. In the UK, I regularly see cyclists do stupid things. When I go to Holland, everybody respects the red lights, but I guess that's because they have amazing cycling infrastructure and also cycling is part of school curriculum
Yes, there are many factors, unfortunately. "Being in a box" can't explain as much as I'd like. Many drivers seem to freak out if you touch their vehicles, even if there's no damage. They clearly don't want their cars damaged either.
Another major possibility is that they don't think they are driving dangerously at all. Having talked to many drivers over the years, I'm amazed by what people have claimed is perfectly safe to me. (The worst was the guy who passed me too close on an uphill part of the road. I honked at him and he stopped to talk to me. You couldn't see beyond the top of the hill and he was splitting the lanes. Yet he claimed this was perfectly safe.)
When you have to generate your own kinetic energy, that's not due to a lack of patience as much as trying to minimize the amount of exertion you must do.
So breaking the law and endangering pedestrians is ok if it means you don't have to work as hard? As a pedestrian, I HATE cyclists. At least drivers seem to understand what a red light means. I've never been hit by a car, but I've been hit by plenty of bicycles who should have stopped at that pesky red light.
Let's be clear: you should dislike law breaking cyclists, not all cyclists.
As a cyclist who does not run red lights, I dislike that many people seem to think I am responsible for and/or should be punished for the actions of cyclists who do run red lights.
Plus, I suggest paying more attention to cars. The number of times I have seen drivers run red lights is definitely not zero.
You appear to be suggesting that I'm being hit by cars and not noticing because I'm not paying attention. I assure you, this is not the case. I'm sorry my experience doesn't match your prejudices, but in my experience many cyclists don't care about or look for pedestrians.
> You appear to be suggesting that I'm being hit by cars and not noticing because I'm not paying attention.
This is not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that cars also pose a real threat to your life. I haven't been hit by a car either but I still worry.
I don't disagree that "many cyclists don't care about or look for pedestrians". My main point was that you should not paint such a broad brush against cyclists. Many cyclists agree with you! I have spent a fair amount of time talking to problem cyclists, and it seems to me that they would also be problem drivers behind the wheel as well. It's not cycling that makes them bad. It's their lack of concern for others.
> I'm sorry my experience doesn't match your prejudices
This phrasing strikes me as rather hostile. Again, I don't deny that you've had bad experiences with cyclists, so writing of my "prejudices" doesn't really make sense here as I don't believe what you seem to think I do.
In fact, while I won't go into details, I actually stopped talking to problem cyclists because I found them to be both stubborn and violent. I suspect my own experience with problem cyclists may be worse than yours. But again, I focus on problem cyclists, not all cyclists. I am not your enemy!
To be honest, some red lights are just pointless for cyclists. One example are pedestrian crossings with no pedestrian in sight, another are very small crossings (maybe even at night) where you can see anyone coming half a mile away, with nobody in sight.
I also hate the one where you're supposed to wait 2 light cycles instead of 1 for turning left. That is a major road so people usually follow the rule, but it's not good. At the same time the city advocates doing that twice on both sides of the bridge so you can cross at the proper side on the shared sidewalk and not ride against the (often non-existent) flow on the other shared sidewalk. Of course people still do it.
I agree that many red lights don't make sense for cyclists in an ideal world. But given the double standard being applied to cyclists, I don't want to give hateful people any more excuses.
In Austin, TX, they added signs to certain intersections saying that cyclists can use the pedestrian signal. In effect, this means that cyclists can often legally run a red light. Unfortunately I fear that some drivers don't pay attention to the signs and will think basically 100% of cyclists are illegally running the red light at these intersections. So I usually will wait for the green light, even in this case.
I have to agree. While I have a good example from the country with a good cycling culture—I saw a cyclist standing at the crossing and patiently waiting for the green light at 2a.m. on the empty street—in my country cyclist are by far the ones with the least respect for the traffic rules. :(
It's a question of who is worse. The selective view you advocate is misleading.
Many cyclists run red lights in the US. But not all. Many cyclists like myself are 100% opposed to running red lights.
In contrast, the vast majority of drivers I have asked admit to regularly speeding. And I see drivers run red lights regularly as well; every time I have seen a driver run a red light that I can think of was more dangerous than any time I can recall a cyclist running a red light. Add on top of that the distracted and drunk driving, neither of which are seen much at all from cyclists. Add to all that all the unsafe passes drivers make. Add road rage. All of these are done in part if not largely out of impatience. Drivers seem much worse on average to me.
Apparently some cyclists running red lights is something which is unforgivable for all cyclists, but some drivers speeding can easily be brushed off. The double standard is clear.
I feel that since I started commuting to work by bike about 10yrs ago, I became a much better driver. I'm more patient/tolerant of others on the road, and I pay more attention to what I'm doing and what's happening around me.
I often wonder that if all drivers had to to spend one month per year commuting on a bike, how much the average standard of driving would improve.
In the U.S. nearly all cyclists are (at least occasional) drivers, too, but the reverse obviously isn't true. I think you're right to notice that this has a pretty big impact on what kinds of arguments get through to each group.
Ah, cyclists. I probably only notice the bad ones. I've seen too many who feel they are above all the petty traffic law automobiles must follow. Like stop signs and red lights. I wouldn't call them patient.
I used to be a cyclist. And while I was a cyclist, I used to think the same. Then I found out how some states have laws that allow cyclists to treat stop lights and stop signs as stop signs and yields respectively, and how helps a little bit to separate car traffic from cycling traffic.
EDIT: but no, this thing about patience rings a bit false to me. Patient in the sense that I'm not in as much of a hurry to get where I'm going, yes. But stopping after having built up a nice head of speed, knowing that I'm going to have to expend more energy to get back up to speed...
I'm surprised those laws exist. Running through red lights and stop signs looks like an excellent way to get killed. I certainly didn't expect it the last time I was going to turn right on red, with my signal on, and a cyclist ran the light going past me.
Many's a time I sat waiting at an intersection with no cross traffic waiting for the light to change, those laws would just have enabled me to go on my way. The incident you describe has the cyclist in the wrong both legally (still need to actually stop at a light) and pragmatically -- when you're squishy and unarmored, being predictable is a very good thing.
> Many cyclists have pointed out the irony in how a dangerous driver who nearly runs over a cyclist often sits at the next stop light with the same cyclist stopped right behind them.
This happens to me when I walk to the subway, but I overtake the cars in the sidewalk.
in dense urban areas it's so common.. between buses and traffic light you waste so much time, then add the time to find a parking spot .. nowadays I tend not to care about that, I avoid 'fast' segments, and go diagonal in small streets, then park in cozy areas 1 mile before my destination. I get mind free trip, free parking, a little walk and no time wasted.
I meet so many people who drive all the way downtown instead of saving themselves time, aggravation and money by stopping further out and taking the subway in. It's very strange.
I am honestly impressed by Chicago cyclists that will be going down their designated bright green lane. and very quickly stop and calmly tell the random tourist they nearly got run over. Drivers in Chicago basically are the worst I've ever seen. Cars should have a device that charges you 50 dollars every time you use the horn.
- disgust for changing driving states (stopping/redlight)
- some social relativism (I'm paying attention and optimizing my driving for me and others, you MUST do too)
- bubble effect: being in closed space makes me believe it's a bit like internet comments, people just boil up freely
- maybe the bliss of speed
More generally something that gets done for you makes you irrascible faster when it doesn't happen.
My slow transporation point was larger though, as said beside, it's our relationship with space and time. We're maximizing some forms of 'pleasure' when in fact, it's all around us, you just have to walk out and pay attention.
I've recently read Ivan Illich's "Deschooling Society" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deschooling_Society) and somewhere towards the end of the book/essay he mentions that we don't really need vehicles driving faster than 15 kph and that we should build roads so that that speed won't be exceeded.
> we don't really need vehicles driving faster than 15 kph
Tangent: if you've read Left Hand of Darkness, this reminds of the Gethenians - despite being a reasonably advanced people, they never invented a means of transport that goes faster than about 25mph. There's a brief discussion in the book about this that I thought was kind of fun to read:
"Traffic is controlled, each vehicle or caravan being required to keep in constant radio touch with checkpoints along the way. It all moves along, however crowded, quite steadily at the rate of 25 miles per hour (Terran). Gethenians could make their vehicles go faster, but they do not. If asked why not, they answer "Why?" Like asking Terrans why all our vehicles must go so fast; we answer
"Why not?" No disputing tastes. Terrans tend to feel they've got to get ahead, make progress. The people of Winter, who always live in the Year One, feel that progress is less important than presence."
Being faster in transporting people and things makes you better at wars and more prosperous in peacetimes (you can actually get fruit to the market before they spoil!). I don't think it's a simple matter of taste.
As with so many other things, average isn't really a good measure here. And unfortunately I don't think mode or median are really relevant either. It's the instantaneous speed that causes problems. Zooming up the block in a minute at 40 mph and then sitting at a red light for 3, your average was 10, but if you'd hit something, the damage you'd have done would be a lot worse.
I live in a rural area in Japan. The 4 lane national highway has a speed limit of 80 km/h and has a fairly high toll. The free "highway" has a speed limit of 50 km/h. Bus fare is based on distance and so for me to go to the nearest big city (of about 700k people) costs about $25 for a round trip -- a grand total of 50 km (round trip). The train is a bit cheaper, but I don't live on the train line.
With those constraints, the impact on culture is amazing. Because it's so difficult to get from one place to another, each town has it's own character. Japan has kind of a difficult geography and the towns are forced into the valleys between the mountains -- usually the towns are all connected, because there is limited space. But, there are 4 towns in the 25 km between my town and the nearest big city and each one is completely different. Each town has their own grocery stores, restaurants, bars, clothing stores, etc, etc. Not only that, but each town has it's own specialties -- for example fish if it has a port, fruit because it is on the south side of the mountain, tea because it is on top of a flat plain with plenty of sun, etc.
When I lived in Canada, each big city was this 60km diameter disc of monoculture. Just suburban sprawl, designed to enable each person to have a 2 car garage and a swimming pool in the back yard (which you can only use 2 months of the year). It's only when you get into the older parts of the city that you start to get cultural variation and interest.
Although it seems counter productive, I'm a big fan of making it difficult (or at least expensive) to travel quickly from place to place. I like self contained communities where there is a reason to stay in the community, to meet people, to encourage small businesses, etc.
It's a foreign concept to many people, though. There is a kind of attitude of, "If I can have it all, why is that worse?" If there is a great restaurant 60km, why would you want to stop yourself from being able to get there? The more range you have, the easier and cheaper it is to get places, shouldn't that mean you have more options? But I think the reality is that such mobility only serves to consolidate resources and rob you of diversity. The great restaurant that might have sprouted in your neighbourhood will never get off the ground, because people will simply never give it a chance -- they would rather drive the 60 km for a known quantity.
(I have to say that 15 kph would bother me, though, as an avid cyclist -- hard to get a good work out at that speed ;-) ).
I'm reading a book by named Scale, and he thinks that a lot of complex systems are all about efficient energy distribution network. That would go in your direction.
That said, I despise economi-sm because I value peace of mind, cultural groups above high powered society
It definitely may be and the government has been building a faster (100 km/h) large highway for the last few years. But I think it's far more likely to be due to labour shortages. I'm not very knowledgeable about economic policy, but I'm personally not unhappy about the flatline anyway. I'm slightly worried that I can get a 25 year mortgage practically for free at some banks, but otherwise I have to say things aren't bad here. I suppose we'll find out in 20 years.
Another thing, traffic causes incredibly high waste, you spend your time trying to go 50kph then slowing, again, and again.
When you have a string of green lights, some long avenues have predictable patterns, you usually go at 40kph predictably, and it's damning how fast you when you're not interrupted. Also how enjoyable the thing is.
15kph is a bit low. You jog around 12. So it would barely be faster. Maybe 30 kph, but with different topologies.
These days I also wonder if traffic light could broadcast their timings nearby. With a bit of computation a vehicle could know in advance to slow or not in order to keep the ride as continuous as possible.
I lived in a smaller town that insisted you stop at every light. When you see the local police punching the accelerater through the intersection when it goes yellow, you know something is not set up right.
We don't really need much — humans can at least survive with very little. But what's the point of that? Rapid transportation has been a tremendous boon and without it we'd have average living standards similar to the Roman Empire.
That would be great for local
travel within a community, and the effect on community design. I’d still like to go to other states and cities in reasonable times, though so perhaps there could be another mode of speedier transport available, such as trains.
I’m fascinated by entitlement of commenters in this thread. Hey, people, try to pack a day supply of food, nappies and clothes changes for couple babies and then go ahead and travel 50k on a bus with mentioned babies and your partner. Or better couple buses because in reality you need couple or more changes to get to the destination. Then we can discuss the need for speed and personal vehicles.
There are millions and millions of Americans who do not own their own car and could not afford to do that. They also cannot travel between cities often due to lack of realistic public transportation.
The bus system is horrible, and I would never suggest that anyone use that. I also feel that it’s within the capability of society to create a comfortable mode of public transportation for longer distances. For some reason, people have no problem grabbing their baby and hopping on a plane. Personally, I prefer to drive.
"For some reason, people have no problem grabbing their baby and hopping on a plane"
Well, this is quite different. Most probably those people drive to the airport or use taxi/uber. Then, upon arrival to the airport they get rid of their luggage - they put the luggage into neat windows and then other people take care of it for them. What they keep around is just most necessary stuff for several hours.
I can't imagine how anything like that would makes sense to be implemented for suburban travel. With suburban travel you can't also have direct roots, it simply not possible to link every destination with every destination so you will have to do multiple changes.
For example, I live in Australia in Sydney suburb - Cronulla. Should I want to travel to Blue Mountains for weekend with my family (110k) using public transit I would need to do something like that:
- Hope on bus, get to the train station.
- Hope on train get to the city central railway station.
- Change trains to the one that goest to the Blue Mountains
- Get off the train
- Get on a bus that would bring you close enough to the hotel.
Now all this happens while I manually handle luggage for my wife, myself and all the stuff that is necessary for couple toddlers for 2 days.
It will take about 6 hours in total, one way. Then repeat it backwards.
You do such a trip once and you say - no more.
I can drive there on my Getz under 2 hours with all the stuff neatly packed in the trunk.
I tell what would fix the whole mess. A fleet of electric easy to rent cars of 4 seaters and 7 seaters (large and small families). Something that would come to you house (autopilot FTW), drive you (or you drive it) to the destination and then return to the pool. You might say - Uber but it's not the same, the driver required is the most expensive part. In Australia you can have GoGet but it is not the same again - it doesn't return to the pool when you don't need it anymore and it will sit there for the whole weekend with no use.
Illich's work is interesting. On schooling, medicine, and transportation, I think he gets at a fundamental problem, highlights a great partial solution for part of the population.
But Illich also generalizes too much and has a weird reactionary twist. (It makes perfect sense to me that he was the sort of person who would devote his life to the church but subsequently run into political issues with the church.)
Schooling:
Learning Webs are basically the internet with some tokens for video-conferencing a teacher once in a while. (Proposed in the 70's, no less!)
And it's a great solution for some people in some subjects.
But many students don't have the discipline or need extra hand-holding, and so on in at least one vital subject.
For every student in some subject who learns on their own and whose frustration with the system holds them back, there's at least one student in some subject who just won't learn the material without something resembling a traditional school environment.
And the weird reactionary twist: he sort of harkens back to the good old days while ignoring the fact that we used to just not bother educating most people, and also dismisses anything that's not explicit deschooling.
I remember hearing a recording of him basically telling a teacher that the only way they can truly educate well is by totally giving up on schooling.
I lost a lot of respect for Illich's prescriptions after hearing that, even if I still think he has a great eye for some problems and potential partial solutions. Because I lived in the age of the learning web and could see in my own life that excellent teachers could overcome a lot of the barriers in the system, and there were a lot of things I couldn't learn just from books/websites and friendly folks on IRC and forums.
Also, that poetic tangent at the end of Deschooling always made me cringe.
Medicine:
You could say Illich predicted the opioid epidemic and prescribed lifestyle changes decades before modern medicine caught up, but at the same time if every doctor and medical researcher followed his prescriptions oncology would be stuck in the 70's. And a lot of his work would fit right in among anti-vaccination folks.
I mean, 90% of healthfulness is about lifestyle issues, and medicine in recent history has done a really poor job of stressing that component of treatment. But Illich kind of hard lines about the other 10% in a way that's totally unreasonable.
Transportation: Another great example of a 90% solution that goes off the rails when Illich demands that extra 10%. I'm 100% on board with biking everywhere (and I even do so in the summer, although even then often exceept 15kph). But also, it's nice to travel to different states without going on a months-long pilgrimage...
Illich was very much a brilliant reaction to the more damaging trends that started in the 1950's to 1970's, but he fell in that "extreme ideology" pit that a lot of politics from that era also suffered from.
I think faster transport could be better for this. If we had high speed trains, people could live out in the countryside, yet they could easily get to the big city in an hour or so. It would be the best of both worlds — peace and quiet (and low cost of living!) in the countryside and easy access to what cities have to offer.
I see FOMO as the need for instantaneous satisfaction (abstract notion). Fast transport, as an obvious technological advance in the past, to guarantee time and space, removes us from surprise, unknown.
When going to a town not far away was an adventure in itself, today going across the globe is nearly yawn inducing.
> When going to a town not far away was an adventure in itself, today going across the globe is nearly yawn inducing.
Indeed there was novelty to even somewhat local travel, now it's routine and ingrained. And flying across the world is done in a day. Perhaps why so many are looking up at space, it's the next great adventure.
