Maybe I’m just thinking outside of the box here, but how exactly do 3,000 lbs pieces of metal and glass become safer for people crossing the street in an addressable way by auto makers, when it’s the buyers demanding larger and larger vehicles?
On segregated bike lanes, I’m afraid to tell you, cyclists don’t use them anyway, so why on earth should anyone focus on putting them in?
Cyclists very much use segregated bike lanes. The problem with most cities, mine included, is that the “segregated” bikes lines are segregated by a strip of paint on the ground. And have cars darting in and out all the time. Or people park in them, or put out their trash, or have major potholes.
Or, if they are actually separated, they don’t go everywhere people would need to go.
The safest 3000lb piece of metal and glass is the one that doesn’t exist. Car companies need to stop advertising fairy tales to buyers to get them to buy bigger and bigger cars, and need to start advertising (lobby) to cities to have them start banning cars out of. Ore and more of the city.
As long as our cities stay designed with the primacy of cars in mind, we’ll at best be duct tapping solutions for everyone else.
And finally, “in an addressable way by auto makers, when it’s the buyers demanding larger and larger vehicles”.
A) this is not inevitable, it is North America that’s dominated by a want of giant cars. And why? Because the roads and culture are designed specifically to accommodate them.
B) the car manufacturers are still responsible for making them, and it’s not like they’re sitting around saying “darn, well it looks like people want big cars, guess we will have to make some bigger cars”. No, they are actively pushing and advertising bigger cars.
Oh cyclists do use segregated lanes, they just have to be done properly. Primarily they need to be safer than sharing the road with heavy vehicles, something that most bike lines spectacularly fail at.
My dash cam filled with video of cyclists riding in a car lane beside a protected bike lane, and otherwise ignoring signage (stop and yield signs, signs stating road exceptions where bikes must use and share the sidewalk with pedestrians instead of the road) is definitely not ridiculous.
Also hilariously “why do cyclists not use the bike lanes” is a top alternative question result when searching bike lanes. Clearly this is not some random anecdote. Cyclists frequently do not use the bike lanes, and I am absolutely not anywhere near the only person to observe this frequently.
Never mind that:
-Protected bike lane implementations often congest and slow traffic, which increases idling and carbon emissions no matter how many people say they’ll bike if it was safer. They won’t get their fat ass off out of bed 40 minutes earlier. You’re kidding yourself.
-in colder climates, they’re useless for 50% of the year and exceptionally increase carbon footprints
-some cities don’t actually observe reduced injuries from protected bike lanes (often because cyclists are extremely prone to ignoring the rules of the road), and cyclists disregard their own safety and get slapped by a turning vehicle, for example. We often see the excuse that “cars should pay more attention” and they should, but also, motorcyclists have built a sentiment that you have to “ride like you’re invisible”, whereas cyclists tend to “ride like you’re the king of the road”. This is not just a car problem, but an arrogant community with a lack of self preservation problem.
Okay, are you talking about protected (physical separation) or unprotected (paint on the road) bike lanes? The latter are unsafe [1][2][3][4][5] and therefore unused. It's usually safer for a cyclist to ride in the middle of the lane (primary position) than to use the unsafe unprotected bike lane.
> Protected bike lane implementations often congest and slow traffic, which increases idling and carbon emissions no matter how many people say they’ll bike if it was safer. They won’t get their fat ass off out of bed 40 minutes earlier. You’re kidding yourself.
As this goes against everything I've ever seen and read, I'm gonna have to request some citations. Induced demand has been well understood for decades, and yes, the more (safe!) biking infrastructure gets built, the more people bike and the fewer cars end up on the road.
> -in colder climates, they’re useless for 50% of the year and exceptionally increase carbon footprints
> -some cities don’t actually observe reduced injuries from protected bike lanes (often because cyclists are extremely prone to ignoring the rules of the road), and cyclists disregard their own safety and get slapped by a turning vehicle, for example. We often see the excuse that “cars should pay more attention” and they should, but also, motorcyclists have built a sentiment that you have to “ride like you’re invisible”, whereas cyclists tend to “ride like you’re the king of the road”. This is not just a car problem, but an arrogant community with a lack of self preservation problem.
No, it's an infrastructure problem. Safety must be built into the transportation system by design. Cyclists ignoring the rules of the road are irrelevant when they barely have to interact with cars in the first place (rules of the road only exist because of cars).
Buyers buy what's available and automakers comply with regulations. It's the regulations that need changing.
Apparently in the US, it's easier for automakers to meet the efficiency requirements by increasing the weight of their vehicles instead of actually making them more efficient.
Moreover, crash testing does not include crashes with pedestrians.
The results are predictable - the rise of big, heavy, wall-like-bumper, limited visibility pedestrian killing machines.
Speeding laws do little for the bikers in unsegregated bike lanes, mere inches away from an inattentive driver.