It is true that getting doored is not part of the Dutch vocabulary as it is not something that happens often. But there are more reasons than grabbing the handle with the opposite hand.
A non extensive list: 1) Dutch car drivers all have been bicyclist before they get their driver license, everyday to school more than an hour being nothing being frowned on. 2) Major transit bike routes have separate bike lanes, the tiny narrow ones of the gif in the article barely exist. 3) Bike lanes in cities usually are placed between the footpath and the parked cars, with most of the times a 50cm wide band left of the bike path allowing for car doors being opened without going over the bike paths, usually this is used for planting trees too 4) All politicians drive bike, the Dutch Prime Minister comes to work on his bike 5) There are local associations part of the national http://fietersbond.nl in every town and they passionately lobby every time they see an opportunity. 6) these volunteers are highly respected and their input is valued by the municipalities 7) one of the prime goals of Dutch national ministerie of Traffic is lowering the number of injured and death in traffic, good recording of cause by police is step one, good statistics then determine the ways roads are laid out. 8) On smaller roads without a separate bicycle path, as a bicyclist you're always on the watch if someone might step out of a car and try to keep a distance by bicycling towards the middle of the road which isn't an issue as this is low traffic street, major bike transit always has separated bike paths with distance to the parked cars. 9) during driving lessons, watching bicyclist is a prime part of the lessons and a good driver keeps an eye on the mirrors for back-coming bicyclist and will warn passengers on the back seats before they get out.
And there are probably more reasons that Dutch have few accidents being doored.
When you make a long list like that, the human intuitive norm is to start by assigning a roughly equal responsibility for each of them. However, it is rare to encounter a situation where some effect is obtained by 10 distinct factors all providing an equal contribution. (Think about it from an entropic point of view; that is one very specific configuration of contributions, vs. all the others in which they are not balanced.)
So the relevant question is "Of all the differences, which are the relevant ones?" If the "Dutch reach" is, say, 75% of the contribution, it's worth bringing over. [1] If it's 3%, it not worth worrying about at a governmental scale, as the costs of getting everyone to do it are not zero, and the benefits need to outweigh the costs. (You are free to adopt it; the costs for a person are negligible and the possible benefit of "not dooring a biker" are substantial both to you and the biker in question. But what you should do is a different question than what the government should do.)
In this sort of situation, listing out all the possible reasons and then leaving people to intuitively apply equal responsibilities is a great way to ensure that nothing happens. (I mean, you can actually use that as a technique next time you're in a meeting proposing that something be done that you don't want done; just exhaustively enumerate all the things that would be necessary, watch the idea wither as people intuitively assign incorrectly-large values to every little task if you do it right. You didn't hear this from me though. (I haven't done it, but have been on the receiving end.)) Bringing over one practice at a time in order of effectiveness is something that can happen. Implicitly insisting that we adopt 10 cultural practices all at once, some of which are major changes, just causes fatigue and people to just give up and walk away, and nothing changes.
[1]: Albeit possibly with a different name. It probably would actually be good marketing in the end to leave the name sounding vaguely like a sexual thing as it would get people's attention and generate some good buzz, but I doubt our bureaucracy would go in for that approach.
I upvoted you for the useful perspective, but wanted to point out that smartbit was almost certainly just sharing information that most readers are unlikely to have, rather than implicitly insisting anything. I don't think your tone in the third paragraph is very reasonable or charitable in response to their comment.
I believe evaluating the tone of a comment surely is a highly subjective undertaking; although most people could probably agree when they encounter a very mean or rude comment.
I personally don't think he had any obligation to be charitable in his response, yet he actually has been charitable, in the sense that he provided a different viewpoint; charitable to the group that is.
I know most people try to be sensible in their dialogs with other people, but I think we should strike a balance between accommodating everyone's feelings and actually telling it like it is. Now finding that balance is as much art as it is science.
And because human communication is so contextual, subjective and imprecise, I'm sure multiple individuals will internalize my comment differently. Given these, sometimes I'm surprised we can all get together. (:
You have it backwards. There is not one practice that you can just extract and implant into a new culture. They avoid accidents because they have a culture that has grown and valued riding bikes. This culture has manifested in many practices that are taught and reinforced by the culture. The actual individual things are of little significance individually. It is about the awareness and culture pressure to make efforts to always make bikers safer. Just telling people to do this one neat trick will lead to most people ignoring it or forgetting to do it.
Or maybe both perspectives have some truth to them?
Such as:
1) Yes, the Dutch have a great, deeply embedded culture around biking which promotes high levels of safety.
2) But, it is also possible to learn from and integrate a few of the most impactful & compact aspects of that culture to increase safety in other nations.
Without a doubt both have a degree of truth, but we are back to the original problem I was responding to. When you list off those two things it makes it seem like they are both equally true. The thing that deserves the most credit is the culture. The things that are most impactful are partially impactful because of the culture. If you are picking the one change that does not depend on changing the culture for effectiveness, you could very well be getting less than 1/10 of the safety of dutch.
1) Dutch car drivers all have been bicyclist before they get their driver license
This is very important with regards to understanding and predicting how others behave. It's very hard for people to appreciate how different the POV can be in a different situation. I experienced this once when I herniated a disk in my lower back. Before I had to live with such a condition, I had been annoyed at how oddly and slowly some elderly people moved when boarding the bus. After having to deal with the pain, I understood the motivation behind waiting until the bus was fully stopped before moving, and why some people would methodically move from hand-hold to hand-hold: because to move more quickly would result in Pain!
In the US, I see lots of drivers who seem to struggle with even understanding other car drivers. It's no wonder that bicycle riders feel cars are a-holes to them. It's because cars don't understand what they are doing and what it's like to be on the receiving end of such behavior.
The amount of bicycles in The Netherlands is absolutely surreal. Both in major cities and out in the suburbs, bicycles are everywhere. I also find it interesting the Dutch rarely ever wear helmets.
Large cities in Germany or the UK or anywhere else I've seen cannot compare to the magnitude of people on bicycles in The Netherlands.
If you've tried driving in the Netherlands, you know why so many people prefer to ride a bike instead. Well maintained, but narrow and extremely busy roads, densely packed with tiny vehicles. Wearing a helmet while cycling in the Dutch bike lanes is a bit like wearing a helmet while walking on the side walk. I used to only wear it while racing.
Since I had a bad crash after being hit in the eye by an insect, I wear a helmet and cycling glasses on my commute as well. This has a remarkable effect on how you are treated in traffic. Gone is the usual friendly coexistence between cyclists, pedestrians, drivers and even scooters. Without the helmet, I'm just one of the thousands riding their bike to work, but wearing it, apparently now I'm an asshole bike racer who needs to be taught a lesson, much the way cyclists in general seem to be treated in cycling-hostile countries. A helmet doesn't really make you feel safer if it changes the way you're treated by the rest of traffic.
This comment is important in how it shows biking is totally different in The Netherlands. The first type of bike most non-Dutch think of when they hear 'bicycle', where the rider sits hunched forward poised to race is not even considered a regular bike here. If you go faster than 15mph you are basically considered to be comparable to a moped and doing it without a helmet is frowned upon even here.
When you are not in The Netherlands you should most definitely wear a helmet no matter what kind of bike. The fact that you can ride a bike without a helmet in The Netherlands is a sort of democratic miracle of the 70's where the public convinced the politicians to make bikes a first class mode of transport. The effect of this is that almost every road in The Netherlands has some sort of provision for bicycles, or has at least been considered to have some. And in most cases not just in the form of a line but actual infrastructures, curbs, asphalt, specifically constructed in a way to make bicycling safe.
And even when there would be no infrastructure for bicyclists, every motorist is trained to deal with cyclists. From the driving lessons (usually 40-50 hours are necessary to pass the exam these days) where a considerable amount of time is spent on being aware of cyclists, to the fact that when you're on a Dutch road and you want to turn right you are almost guaranteed to wait for cyclists you have to yield to, so not having a shoulder check habit wouldn't get you 100m out of your driveway without an accident.
Anecdotal evidence - i never wore helmet when growing up, nobody did. once had an accident on small bmx bike when I fell head first on tarmac, but didn't land on head and apart from scratches and being shaken all good (if parents only knew...).
few years ago decided to buy new cross country (ie all-rounder) one, lightweight and blazing fast for what it is. Decided to go for a helmet for the first time. After 2 weeks, had a head-first fall because of my GF stopped on some narrow forest path uphill, behind the corner and I hit brakes full power when I saw her with no place to avoid.
I miss few seconds of memories, just waking up laying in the grass, picking my head from sharp pointy stone sticking out of the ground - helmet hit it in forehead area. Have I not worn it, it's more probable than not I would die there, I was still badly shaken from impact force on my head, and I was driving slowly when it happened (10-15 kmh).
Fiancee works on emergency, the stuff she sees daily makes her wear helmet too. Link all articles you want, we're keeping our helmets where they are, on our heads, thank you.
This focus on helmets is ridiculous, because you only have to types of bikes:
1. Death traps
2. Dutch bikes
You want less people to die in traffic while riding a bike? Don't make a helmet mandatory. Make the dutch bike mandatory. Your bike needs to be heavy. You need to sit up straight. And if you stretch your legs you have to stand.
Whenever i see the images of americans on rice bikes and mountain bikes in NYC, i too think it looks incredibly dangerous.
If i would hit a door with a dutch bike, i wouldn't fall, i would just stand still. And the door will likely be a bit broken.
It's not about the helmets. Its about the bike design.
“If i would hit a door with a dutch bike, i wouldn't fall, i would just stand still. And the door will likely be a bit broken.” I'm sorry but this is nonsense. Even if it weighed five hundred pounds, as long as the handlebars are on a lubricated pivot, forward motion and striking the handlebar will knock the bike over.
p.s. as a NYC cyclist, whenever I see a Dutch bike I think it looks incredibly inefficient. But that’s cool, whatever, all bikes are good as long as they're ridden safely.
Dutch bike are different, more sturdy, built for bad weather, built for being outside in rain and wind and cold all day and night. Most of the time they are parked outdoors because there is no room to park them inside the house, especially in the bigger cities. They are relatively heavy, but simple and can easily survive twenty years outside. They will look horrible, dirty, old, broken, and they are.
Many bikes here have wheels that are not straight anymore. But still they are used daily. Tires are soft, chain is worn out, and still it works. They not only carry the cyclist but also his or her friend on the bagage holder on the back, which is probably wobbly.
OK, what I'm describing here is the typical student bicycle. It may not be efficient, but it is cheap and it works and it gets you there. We don't use these bicycles for long distances, but for short onces, going from home to the supermarket or school.
In Amsterdam and Utrecht at Central Station they have bicycle parking lots for about 20.000 bikes. And many times you have to search and search to find an empty spot. When you park your bike here, anyone can throw his or her bike against it, or pull another bike out of it with force, damaging your bike. Not everyone acts like this, but it happens now and then.
So bikes are efficient in a different way than the bikes I see on pictures in NYC.
>Even if it weighed five hundred pounds, as long as the handlebars are on a lubricated pivot, forward motion and striking the handlebar will knock the bike over.
The weight point is different. You really don't flip 'over'. That direction is as likely as flipping 'under'. Given enough momentum and a very heavy/strong object you ride into, your front wheel will collapse.
Again, on a dutch bike, all this has to happen at at most 15 km/h. You put your feet down and you are standing still.
>p.s. as a NYC cyclist, whenever I see a Dutch bike I think it looks incredibly inefficient. But that’s cool, whatever, all bikes are good as long as they're ridden safely.
They don't just look inefficient. They are. By design. They are faster than walking, and that's enough. Our trips on average are about 10 to 30 minutes at at most 15 km/h (<10 mph). They involve about 10-200 turns, about 3-50 stops.
Why? Because that's how they build the cities. If you ride at that speed, you wait for a green light just once (and then follow the wave though-out town). You can go faster, but then you have to wait at the next intersection. Also: you don't want to get to work/school/friends needing a shower. The amount of energy put into it, needs to be identical to walking for the same amount of time.
People move children, groceries, even furniture by bike. So they pick a bike based on durability, size, stability and how well you can stand still while remaining seated on your bike.
They turn a distance you can safely walk in an hour, into a safe 20 minute ride. And like most cities in the world, the cities are designed around the 30min travel time from any point A in the city to any point B in the city. This is by bike or public transport. By car it generally takes twice that time.
Why? Because cars are more likely to get stuck in traffic. They often have to take detours (many streets are just one direction). They have a problem finding parking space, etc. And then you pay about 1 to 5 euro per hour to park your car.
But if police sees a race bike going 30 km/h (20mph) they would stop it.
A little less "team Holland Bike Police" attitude please - I find those sit up and beg bikes unstable when riding at slow speed I felt much safer on a proper SWB MTB with proper rakes
The drivetrain matters too--I suspect many American bicyclists blow through red lights and generally don't respect road rules because with fixed/single speed bikes, it takes enormous effort to get started from a standstill, and with derailleurs it's impossible to downshift from a standstill (i.e. when you make a quick stop). If hub gears were standard, bicyclists wouldn't have as much reason to ignore signals.
How about until such a time that society can provide a safe means of cycling, we let cyclists decide how they are most capable of staying alive. Riding a slow bicycle and stopping at every intersection is incredibly unsafe in many American cities.
Yeah, a fixed gear can be an encumberence to a poser, but to someone qualified, it can also be a means of greater control.
based solely on my experience, apart from the part about full speed (i really wasn't going fast, maybe 20 kmh but terrain was bad), yes.
If I include what fiancee sees on emergencies, which most people don't even want to know about but it's real life anyway, then wear it everywhere on bike.
you can see people getting quite emotional feeling they know what's best for them. Usually never had an accident, so it cannot happen to them. Whatever, I wouldn't push it, use whatever you want. But 1) you will cover all medical cost caused by lack of helmet in case of accident and 2) I would be cautious what to push on kids, but once people get emotional on the topic any discussion is over, as seen in this thread
Here are two credible reviews / meta-analyses stating the contrary, that is, that bicycle helmet use or legislation does, statistically, reduce head injuries.
That said, despite personally wearing a helmet on my daily commute, I don't support legislation. I unfortunately don't have sources on hand, but I firmly believe that spending public dollars on bike infrastructure and better legislation for bicycle/car interaction would yield better safety improvements for cyclists AND increase cycling uptake.
I always wore a helmet when I cycle commuted, so I think I mostly agree, but I will point out that my major objection to legislation is on the grounds that it would deter cycling, and therefore be a net negative for health overall, and that one of the most important factors for cycle safety is the number of cyclists, so anything that puts people off cycling creates a negative re-inforcement that makes everyone still cycling less safe, and every new cyclist makes everyone safer.
At least one of your studies notes that it doesn't cover that argument:
> None of the included studies measured actual bicycle use so it was not possible to evaluate the claim that fewer individuals were cycling due to the implementation of the helmet laws. Although the results of the review support bicycle helmet legislation for reducing head injuries, the evidence is currently insufficient to either support or negate the claims of bicycle helmet opponents that helmet laws may discourage cycling.
Use or legislation of helmets while driving a car and walking would also almost certainly reduce head injuries. It's far from a sufficient argument for legislation.
Head injuries in car accidents are very uncommon, and the same with pedestrians. Pedestrians aren't likely to hit their heads on concrete at speeds well beyond that which the human body was designed for. Car accident victims don't have hard surfaces to hit their heads on in cars, and instead get other injuries. That's why seat belts are required by law in most jurisdictions, and also why airbags are mandated in all new vehicles.
Are you trying to argue against seat belts and airbags now? Are you going to claim that you're safer being thrown clear?
The studies discuss the rate of accidents, not the sum difference, meaning that even if there were more or less bicyclists on the road, the probability of them being injured with a helmet on is still less.
That is very unclear. Some studies suggest it isn't, but a recent metastudy reached very different conclusions [1]:
> Bicycle helmet use was associated with reduced odds of head injury, serious head injury, facial injury and fatal head injury. The reduction was greater for serious or fatal head injury. Neck injury was rare and not associated with helmet use.
In the majority of cases, risk compensation leads to a decrease in expected benefit of legislation, but does not eliminate the benefit. (At least, that's the message I came away with from reading Foolproof.)
I think those statistics are very very very heavily skewed and should be ignored. If you have a car accident, 99% of the time, it gets recorded. If you have a bike accident, if the police is not involved, where are you going to report it? To whom? Therefore, the only cases that do get reported are collisions with vehicles, or cases severe enough that cyclist gets taken to hospital - and in those cases, the situation is already bad, even if they wore a helmet.
My point is - situations where a helmet has saved a life are rarely recorded, so they don't show up in any sort of statistic(even I had an accident where I flew across the handlebars, hit my head directly on the edge of a curb, helmet split in half, and I was fine - yet this wasn't recorded anywhere. It does not exist in any sort of statistic, despite - very clearly - saving my life).
The helmet splitting is a result of the crush on impact. This is why you should always replace the helmet after it has been "useful" i.e. suffered an impact. Even if it stays in one piece, it has been crushed and lost some of its protection.
I think that the parent comment's statement "situations where a helmet has saved a life are rarely recorded" is a bit of an exaggeration, because quite often, if the helmet saves your head, you still suffer some other injuries. But it is indeed possible that people fall so that they suffer no other injuries, they'd just have cracked their head without the helmet.
That is true for the original statement (that helmets provide safety on a bike) as well.
I mean, you would expect some improvement, but (as a Dutch citizen), i expect it to prevent harm in the same way wearing helmet during sex would prevent harm.
In general: if you taking those kind of risks (as a car, as a bike, etc.) that people on a bike need a helmet, you don't belong in traffic here. The effect on mentality may be as important, if not more important.
Also, interesting to realize, if car and a bike have an accident, by law, it is automatically the fault of the car, no matter what. Even if the person on the bike is drunk, driving in the wrong direction, etc.
So, although bikers are betting their life going out, cars are betting their wealth, money and freedom.
It turns out, instead of focusing on 'who is at fault' and 'who is right', it is much safer to focus on 'lets make sure we don't hit each other' and turn accidents into a mutually-assured-destruction kind of deal. This way, every actor in traffic has a natural tendency to compensates for mistakes of the other actors. And this attitude is the one that prevents most accidents.
> if car and a bike have an accident, by law, it is automatically the fault of the car, no matter what. Even if the person on the bike is drunk, driving in the wrong direction, etc.
Both drivers and cyclists seem to believe this, but it is an exaggeration. The law says a court may decide to hold your (mandatory) liability insurance liable for some of the damage 'without having to prove your guilt'. It does not say you get the blame no matter what the pedestrian or cyclist does. At the same time, you can still sue the cyclist or pedestrian for damage to your car.
Well, it certainly makes for some people saying that bikes should be heavy so as to be better at ramming into cars. I have mixed feelings about your attitude to say the least.
> Also, interesting to realize, if car and a bike have an accident, by law, it is automatically the fault of the car, no matter what. Even if the person on the bike is drunk, driving in the wrong direction, etc.
Isn't this because the motorist has insurance while a bike rider does not? I've never seen cyclist insurance, although maybe the Dutch have it? There's no point trying to get blood from a stone by assigning blame to the uninsured party.
The main takeaway is that nobody in Netherland wants helmets to be mandatory. The positive effects of a helmet are insufficiently proven, and the negative effects of making helmets mandatory seem not worth the risk. Some organizations do recommend helmets for children between 10 and 14, which seems to be the group that's most likely to benefit from them.
So you're going with "a neurosurgeon said", "motorists between Bristol and Salisbury drive closer to people with helmets" and a TedX talk that cites "some research shows". Solid citation.
> The fact that you can ride a bike without a helmet in The Netherlands is a sort of democratic miracle of the 70's where the public convinced the politicians to make bikes a first class mode of transport. The effect of this is that almost every road in The Netherlands has some sort of provision for bicycles, or has at least been considered to have some. And in most cases not just in the form of a line but actual infrastructures, curbs, asphalt
Indeed, Dutch view this two ways to use bicycle very differently. There are even completely different verbs to describe that:
- fietsen i.e. literally "bicycling" would refer to riding an opafiets [1] bicycle, at moderate speed, without helmet or any sort of cycling attire;
- wielrennen, i.e. literally "wheel running" instead describes sort of cycling that you would see in Tour de France race - racing bike, helmet, lycra gear on, considerably faster.
Second is far less common, and doing so on busy city streets during rush hour is frowned upon, of course.
While I get the difference, I can't quite imagine how it works in practice.
Here in Germany, it's all radeln, and when I commute along the ordinary bike lanes, I usually go as fast as I can, which is something like 20-30km/hour. That's nothing like racing, but it not moderate and so I am overtaking more casual cyclists all the time.
As far as I know, people who ride like me or faster are not frowned upon here. We are just expected to do our overtaking safely and politely.
The cycles I've seen in Germany are pretty similar to the same style as the rest of the western world: typically flat bars or drop bars with somewhere between 3 and 15 gears. So a huge variety, everything from commuter to cruisers to speed to hybrids.
In the Netherlands, it's rare to find speed or even higher end street bikes parked in any of the massive bike stands. They're all mostly old-school cruisers (what some people might call scooners). They don't go very fast and it's not uncommon to see a 2nd person just sitting on the back cargo mount.
Also, I find it interesting Germans have the same word for drive and ride. That's one of those common language mistakes you'll hear Germans make when they say, "I drove the bus."
I had no idea the NL cycling culture was like that. The only cycling dutchman I know is a speed deamon -- but he lived in England then.
Also, yes the word fahren is a bit strange to my English-trained years. But if it lumps "drive" and "ride" together, it also make a distinction that isn't available in English: it is to travel on a vehicle (be it just a pair of roller skates), but not on your own power or on the back of an animal.
That might sound like a weird distinction to make, until you realise that fahren is the absolute favourite activity of the German race. That's why
they are so keen on trains and bikes and why they invented motor cars, jet engines, freeways and (I suspect) the parent-powered sleigh.
I'm telling you, it's not the speed, it's the outfit and the bike. I don't suddenly ride faster just because I'm wearing a helmet and goggles, but other people's attitude is sudden;y totally different.
Interesting, I never realized this. I know wielrennen (obviously) but haven't yet needed the word in English so I didn't notice the lack. I guess I'd call it bike racing.
It's not just how you're treated. Research has shown that cyclists wearing helmets tend to put more trust in their helmet, whereas cyclists without helmet tend to be more careful.
There is also a study that shows other traffic participants engage in riskier overtaking when a cyclist wears a helmet. Instead of leaving 1.5 m space when the cyclist is on the side of the car, drivers leave an average of 0.5 m space for cyclists wearing a helmet.
If I remember correctly, drivers see helmets as increased safety for the cyclist and feel they can engage in less safe behavior because it evens out.
Edit: For exact distances, see the paper (doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2006.08.010).
although it seems to make some sense, I am never treating any cyclist differently, be it granny or some racer or anything between, whatever the dress and equipment. It's a moving obstacle to be overtaken asap, with some extra room around them necessary.
the only 2 things that matter - speed of the cyclist and the stability of their ride (ie keeping straight path close to side of the road which I do on bike is ideal, aholes driving 2-3 next to each other taking full lane and sometimes more, chatting together and going left to right is on the other side of the spectrum)
It seems to have been “Drivers overtaking bicyclists: Objective data on the effects of riding position, helmet use, vehicle type and apparent gender”[1] (doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2006.08.010).
This study is cited in every discussion of helmet use, yet it was barely scientific -- the author was his own test subject, and there has been no attempt at replication.
That's really strange. Wearing a helmet while cycling is just good sense: the human body was never designed to move at speeds over 10mph (and frequently over 20) on hard, asphalt roads or near concrete. One mistake can have you landing and hitting your head on these hard surfaces, which can give you a concussion or brain injury, or worse. You don't even have to be moving; you can lose your balance while waiting for a light, and fall over and hit your head. I was once told by someone who got a motorcycle and took a safety course about a video he watched: in the video, it showed numerous accidents with motorcycle riders wearing helmets and other protective gear, and walking away from pretty horrible accidents, or at least not suffering any permanent injuries. Then, at the end, they showed an accident where a guy not wearing a helmet was sitting on his motorcycle in his driveway, with the engine off, lost his balance, fell over, hit his head on the concrete, and died.
The idea that a helmet-wearer is somehow an "asshole bike ricer" because he wants to avoid a brain injury in case he falls off his bike onto a hard surface seems rather asinine to me.
And yes, glasses are a good idea too because of bugs and wind. You don't need anything fancy; just cheapo clear safety glasses will work great.
I find that difference in treatment to be curious. I have very little confidence in a helmet providing sufficient protection in an automobile collision. Other forms of accidents, sure. Then again, cycling culure is very different in my part of the world. Motorists are more likely to respect a cyclist if they behave like a motorist. That often means going fast on the part of the road that is in the worse condition.
Is that strange? Are you confident you'll stay completely composed and in control with a live bug in your eye? I lost control while trying to get the source of pain in my eye to stop.
I'm not sure... I mean, I've had bugs fly in before but nothing big and bad. Thinking about it now (in a logical state of mind) I would say I'd just press my eyes tightly closed instinctively and press both brakes as hard as I can. If it takes more than a second or two to stop, I think I'd realize I can open one eye to see traffic (if I'm in traffic). But in a panic, there is no way to tell whether I'd do that.
It just seems excessive to go through the hassle of both glasses and a helmet every time you use a bike. Then you might as well get the car out.
Experience with what, biking or flying stuff in eyes? In the latter case you might be right, which is one of the reasons nobody wears goggles while biking (it doesn't happen that often). In the former case you're wrong about me.
Pulling brakes hard is a sure way to fly over the bar at least on some bikes. Never actually happened to me but I've seen one guy land on concrete sidewalk this way.
I haven't had bugs in my eyes ever since I got glasses, but as a kid, I do remember the occasional bug in my eye. Never lead to a crash, though.
I think the most important thing is to come to a stop before trying to clear bugs from your eyes. Which remind me of my biggest bike crash: cleaning ice off my glasses on an icy bike path. I knew it was that slippery, but somehow I'd forgotten because everything was going so well. But obviously low speed, so no big deal.
> I also find it interesting the Dutch rarely ever wear helmets.
Good or bad; I am Dutch and I would confidently say that all people I know would never ride a bike again if they have to wear those silly helmets. More likely if it would be mandatory, they just would refuse and not do it, but if largely enforced they would just not use bikes anymore.
Odd that you say this about helmets. It only takes one mistake, one cyclist not paying attention, one mechanical fault, one swerving car or an obstacle in the road - and you'll be landing face first into the tarmac wishing you wore a helmet.
185 cyclists died last year in the Netherlands [1]. I wonder how many of those weren't wearing a helmet.
I also found this interesting article [2] going into a lot more detail on why the Dutch don't seem to want to wear them.
Note that many accidents happen with people going very fast on race bikes, and those people do wear helmets.
Normal Dutch bikes for everyday use go much slower (say 15-20 km/h), and you sit in an upright position. That gives you a much better overview of the road (you look over all the cars) and it also makes it easier to recover from a near fall.
185 bike deaths is a lot less than the roughly 500 car deaths every year. Keep in mind that people bike a lot here. I ride my bike every single day. I rarely use a car. Never had a meaningful accident.
In countries where helmets are mandatory, cyclists tend to run a much bigger risk of serious injury. Whatever Netherland is doing differently is clearly working. Claiming that Netherland should adapt to countries that are doing worse is ridiculous.
Netherland takes bike safety very seriously. Don't just assume that you know better than the country that has the highest bike density in the world. I have seen research about the effect of bike helmets, and while some research showed that helmets offered substantial benefit in very specific, artificial situations, other research showed that those benefit didn't translate to practical real life situations. And research that only tests how much a helmet protects your skill, tends to ignore the impact of the helmet in preventing the accident in the first place. Some research suggests that simply wearing a helmet can make people more reckless, putting more trust in their helmet than in their own carefulness.
Like said; most accidents I have seen with near fatal results (mostly in Amsterdam where that happen(s)(ed) quite a bit), the helmet would've helped nothing at all. It's usually someone falling and then getting driven over/into. But yeah, I have no stats; not sure if anyone has, about if they do any good.
I also said for good or bad; like smoking or drinking or processed meat eating; you collect the info you can and believe, interpret it and make your choice; it's your life. I'm just saying that most people I know wouldn't be caught dead (...) with one of those things on even if it would mean they are less safe.
Wearing a helmet in your car would prevent a lot of injuries as well, and nobody does that. This is just a risk/reward trade off and I (as a Dutch cyclist) feel a few additional deaths on the total population is not worth the effort.
And the things are uncomfortable and impractical: what are you going to do with it when you arrive on your destination? Lug it around all day? Bring a bag everywhere?
Don't you carry a bag around already? If your commute is one hour cycling in guessing you might sweat and need a shower?
I cycle to work (in the UK, similar climate I guess) for about 15 minutes each way with no steep roads and I gotta be very careful with my pace if I don't want to sweat.
> If your commute is one hour cycling in guessing you might sweat and need a shower?
1. The weather is Holland is kind of optimal in maximizing not sweating.
2. We are not going that fast. The effort we put into it is identical to a normal walk. You just go three times as fast.
The difference between walking/running. Which is why you don't need a shower and why you don't need a helmet. So you go about 15 km/h at most. The bike is heavy (giving you much more stability). You sit up straight (giving you a much better view). You stretch your legs and you are standing still with a bike between your legs. You don't fall with a bike a holland, you loose balance and choose to stand.
For all intents and purposes, its just like walking and every non-dutch person keeps coming at it as if we are doing sprints or a marathon.
> If your commute is one hour cycling in guessing you might sweat and need a shower?
Not really. Our cycling is pretty relaxed, it's not like we're trying to race there as fast as possible. And we don't have steep hills to climb either. The only time I really sweat on a bike is when I'm wearing a rain suit. The lack of ventilation causes transpiration.
The country is compact enough that most people have < 30 minute bike commute, and it's flat, so people don't really break a sweat. Getting wet is indeed a bit of a problem. As children we're told "you're not made of sugar", i.e. you deal with it. (Some places provide showers for people who want to come to work jogging or race biking, but that's not standard)
Very few people shower after entering the office. That's only for the fanatical long-distance racing-bike commuters. Most people ride their bike in their work clothes. A helmet would be a tedious and useless bit of extra luggage.
It's much easier to control your pace and avoid sweating on a dutch commuter bike surrounded by your fellow dutch commuters whilst in the pancake flat NL.
I hardly know anybody who commutes by cycle for an hour every day, that is too long. Personally I ride to the train station (8 minutes), take the train to the city I work in (~20 minutes), then ride the other bicycle to work from there (15 minutes).
I've been doing this in Austin for years. And not just a helmet:
* $40 pump attached to the seat tube.
* $20 helmet on the handlebars
* $20 biking gloves in the helmet
* $80 biking jersey on the handlebars
* $20 bike light
* $?? seat pouch, with bike tools.
I've had the bike light stolen twice (both in January this year), and the jersey vanished once, but I think it blew away. No one's ever taken my helmet, which has somewhat surprised me. I've also gotten too lazy to lock my tires these past few years, and they've been let alone.
Admittedly anecdotal and maybe a little lucky, but there don't seem to be people trolling around for bike helmets to steal. They're probably not easy to resell. I'd go for the pumps and lights first, personally.
My girlfriend in college had her bike stolen. This was in a college town (in the US), so bike theft was not uncommon there. She had her helmet attached to the bike, or sitting on it, not sure which. The bike thief took the helmet off and threw it aside before grabbing the bike.
Stolen bikes can be resold. But who wants to buy a stolen bike helmet??
Most people don't really want to buy used items which are personal in nature. While a bike helmet isn't underwear, it's still in contact with your head and your hair, while you're sweating a lot, and probably never gets cleaned. I imagine that for the same reasons, no one would want to steal your jersey or gloves. I'm more surprised that your pump and tools never got stolen, but there again it probably has to do with the black market realities: people will buy stolen bikes, but how many people are looking to save money by buying a stolen tire pump?
You're already locking your bike, you can loop the lock through one of your helmet straps (I do and have never had a helmet stolen, except when the whole bike was).
You can trivially undo helmet straps, because it needs to be adjusted it's not one solid piece of webbing.
It stops someone from just picking your helmet up and walking away with it, but it takes no more than half a minute to undo the strap, so it's not going to stop someone intent on stealing it.
This whole thread including this comment feels like people who haven't ever been to The Netherlands making suggestions that make no sense for the cycling culture here.
So firstly as has been covered in other comments here, cyclists in The Netherlands don't want to wear helmets for their daily commuting, it doesn't solve any sort of safety problem for them when you factor in the inconvenience they cause.
Secondly even if they did most bicycle chains here are over an inch thick, not something you can thread through a bicycle helmet.
Sure you could carry some extra wire just to lock the helmet to the bike, but that gets you even further down the road of making a bunch of special accommodations to solve a problem that doesn't exist in the first place.
>cyclists in The Netherlands don't want to wear helmets for their daily commuting, it doesn't solve any sort of safety problem for them when you factor in the inconvenience they cause.
This sounds very much like "I don't wear my seatbelt for commuting. It doesn't solve any sort of safety problem when you factor in the inconvenience it causes."
Let's say there was a country where 0.5% of the drivers used seat belts[1], and out of those mostly just race car drivers. Yet that country had no notable increase in injuries or fatalities in car crashes as a result compared to countries where seat belts were mandatory.
Add into that that in this parallel universe driving a car daily had big long-term health benefits, and the introduction of seat belt laws in other countries had caused driving to drop by 1/3 [2], causing fewer people to cycle, overall health to decline, and a reduction in car safety due to less car safety in numbers. Since a major cause of accidents was that few people used cars daily, leading to accidents where people weren't expecting them.
Then yeah, I think it would be completely fair to question whether wearing a seat belt in your car was worthwhile. But of course none of this analogy makes sense, which makes your argument rather nonsensical.
Answer me this: if you needed or wanted a bike helmet, would you buy a used one to save money? Especially if it's never been cleaned? (Those foam pads inside don't seem to be conducive to cleaning.) What kind of person would steal a helmet?
Don't know about Netherlands, but here in Finland I've left my helmet hanging from the bars of my bicycle for a few years now and it hasn't been stolen yet. Bikes themselves do get stolen especially in the city center, but helmets don't.
It suprises me that people, in this time of environmental problems, seriously want to deter even more people from riding bikes. Traffic accidents will always happen, and modern countries are only getting safer, but environmental problems are only getting worse.
How would you feel if you had to wear a helmet every time you walk outside? That's a bit like how the Dutch people would feel if they had to wear a helmet on their bikes. Arguably, it would help to avoid some injuries, but it is just not worth it. People in the Netherlands don't just bike to work or school; they bike when they go out (yes, even after drinking), when they visit friends, when they have a doctors appointment. Bringing a helmet every time would both be a major inconvenience and make you seem like a huge dork. People usually bike pretty slowly, and there are not many accidents. I live in one a city where the biker density is one of the highest in the Netherlands, and I have never been in an accident. I would never wear a helmet every time I would ride my bike. I would even argue it would reduce my quality of life.
Typical bicyle helmets don't help much with a face-first landing on the tarmac, your chin takes most of the pounding. I can confidently say that from repeated ... 'experiments'. In contrast, a motorcyle helmet that also wraps around the chin would be of great use in most bicycle accidents.
185 cyclists died
A more interesting statistic would be: how many of those deaths would have been prevented by a bicycle helmet?
That depends entirely on how you fall off your bike, which depends on your speed and numerous other factors. The problem here is that it's pretty hard to tell after the fact whether a death would have been prevented by a helmet. We can guess, speculate but it's hard to measure the exact forces exerted - and also how someone's biological material will react to that (the brain).
In all my reading around this issue, those that don't want to wear helmets don't tend to wear them for fashion reasons, and interpret the stats they read to insinuate that helmets don't save lives. They don't like how it looks, feels, or that they will be teased for wearing one. I'd rather live to see the next day than care about what a helmet looks like.
And one other point to end on, it's not just deaths we're talking about here. Many people have suffered brain injuries from the impact of falling off their bike. Imagine there was something you could put on your head that would prevent that impact.
> I'd rather live to see the next day than care about what a helmet looks like.
Do you wear one while walking? Or hiking? There's also an increased risk of brain injury from these activities.
Most people I know don't wear one, because the combination of the discomfort, hassle, inconvenience and appearance aren't worth the perceived low increased risk of cycling compared to, for example, walking.
I wear one when rock climbing, kayaking, snowboarding, skiing, motorcycle, bicycle, skateboard, football, etc. Pretty much any time I go over 8mph. I even considered one in aussie rules football but they were hard to find in the states.
I found that helmets for winter sports are better than hats. They don't soak up sweat like a hat does so do better in cold and are better vented than a hat as well. They also really help with the trees.
It's also interesting that they used to be "nerdy" on ski slopes in the US, then several major states required everyone under 18 to wear them. Now 80% (feels like) of kids wear them all the time, so you actually look wierd if you don't wear a helmet.
I definitely wear them on bikes and have needed them (and bounced off of them) many times. I tend to tuck when I go off the bike so I bounce the back of my helmet. There's a heart warming sensation of relief when you hear that hollow thunk sound of the helmet taking the blow on the pavement, tree, hardpack, rock, etc, with no bad effects on you.
Also on my commute I tend to hit 45 mph multiple times in the first 2 miles (I drop 500 ft in 2 miles and I feel it's safer to do 35 like the cars on the nicely paved winding suburban road than to sit in the bike lane).
Finally... I made this guy (who hates helmets) put one on after the kite pulled him up into the goal posts on a previous run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PGKG5ZFMQg He thanked me a year later.
That's a completely different situation than the average Dutch cyclist faces. First, there are no hills to be seen, so not that easy to pick up speed. Especially on a city bike which is 99% of the fleet. It's unusual to even reach 20km/h. People carry their shopping, kids, furniture and pets in them. They cycle in whatever they are wearing - suits, skirts, jeans, whatever; the fact you can just hop on a bike without having to gear up makes it much more attractive to everyday life.
There was also this study from a university in Utrecht showing that [in the Netherlands] cyclists wearing helmets are more careless and cause more accidents, nullifying any safety benefit...
> There was also this study from a university in Utrecht showing that [in the Netherlands] cyclists wearing helmets are more careless and cause more accidents, nullifying any safety benefit..
Are there any links in English to that study?
Someone said only people racing (or with racing bikes) trend to wear helmet in Netherlands. Knowing that it feels like that study confuses correlation with causation, but a university probably knows more than I do, hence why I'd like to read the study. Maybe it's just the press getting the wrong conclusion out of the study for agenda purposes.
I don't know. The helmets are not weird nor nerdy. They save lives even though you might not need it ever if you're lucky. I always wear helmet, high viz, reflective vest, lights everywhere... You know, I don't want to be that guy in the statistics.
Nice link, thanks. That seems to be another education issue: Drivers think cyclists with helmets are more experienced, so they don't feel the need to leave as much room as they do with "less experienced" cyclists.
It is an interesting point and I didn't know about it.
Almost unrelated, but I've found this part of the article funny - shows how we have to be careful with grand headlines and look at the article itself:
> Henry Marsh, who works at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, London, said that many of his patients who have been involved in bike accidents have been wearing helmets that were ‘too flimsy’ to be beneficial.
Well, no shit Sherlock. The cases where the helmet helped don't end up in your hands. Guy's a neurosurgeon.
Yeah, I guess you've got a good point there. Also, the infrastructures to cycle are not as good here as in The Netherlands.
I just think, based on people's comments, that there's some silly stigma associated to the helmets like "they're ugly" or "you look silly with it". I've only started cycling again a few years ago, after a childhood of cycling every day without any safety gear; it was hard at first to make myself comfortable with the idea of wearing a helmet. Some time later it just feels natural and I actually get worried when I see people without helmet.
It seems to be something similar to the seat belt. It took time for people to get used to it and nowadays I still see that problem in some countries (usually with old people in small towns).
I wear a helmet for bicycling, in-line skating, snowboarding and whitewater kayaking. In the case of the first three sports, the helmet has saved me from nasty head hits:
- Two over-the-handlebars crashes on my bike at relatively low speed (one when mountain biking).
- A low tree limb and several backwards falls when inline skating.
- Countless backwards falls when learning to snowboard.
For whitewater kayaking, a helmet is effectively mandatory because head strikes against underwater rocks may knock you unconscious in rapids (and because very few groups will paddle with somebody lacking standard safety gear). I once saw a guy paddling in a hockey mask with a cage, which is non-standard for whitewater kayaking. I later learned he had bounced that face cage off an underwater rock once.
As for cars, well, I once hit my head against the door frame in a car accident (no side air bags in that vehicle) and ended up needing to work half time for over 6 months. Even minor concussions can be no fun at all. Happily I made a full recovery.
I like my helmets. I earn my living using my brain, and I intend to strictly minimize the risk of future concussions.
Do you wear a helmet when going for a run? What about going for a walk?
Most Dutch riders are cycling slower than a running pace.
I noticed that you categorized bicycling as a sport. For most Dutch people, bicycling is not a sport but a form of transportation. Commuting by car is a form of transportation, just like Formula 1 is a sport form which uses cars. The safety requirements are quite different between those two, just like they are different between those who mountain bike as a sport and those who use a city bicycle to get groceries.
> Most Dutch riders are cycling slower than a running pace.
Just to confirm, this is absolutely true. When running, I overtake bicyclists all the time. Especially uphill :) (by which I mean traffic overpass, not actual hills of course :p)
Personally I go a bit faster on my bike, but not much. 15 km/h (9.3mph) usually, and if I go much faster than that, I find that it does indeed get a lot more dangerous! Amazing, right? So, I don't do that. Just another clever Dutch workaround, I guess :-P
Wearing a helmet is of course never a bad thing. But studies has also shown (on mobile, can't find now) that people see helmets as really cumbersome, and that many of the potential cyclists chose another mode of transporation if they have to use a helmet. Seems strange to me, I ride with a helmet every day. But each to his/her own.
[…] In contrast, despite increases to at least 75% helmet wearing, the proportion of head injuries in cyclists admitted or treated at hospital declined by an average of only 13%. The percentage of cyclists with head injuries after collisions with motor vehicles in Victoria declined by more, but the proportion of head injured pedestrians also declined; the two followed a very similar trend. These trends may have been caused by major road safety initiatives introduced at the same time as the helmet law and directed at both speeding and drink-driving. The initiatives seem to have been remarkably effective in reducing road trauma for all road users, perhaps affecting the proportions of victims suffering head injuries as well as total injuries. The benefits of cycling, even without a helmet, have been estimated to outweigh the hazards by a factor of 20 to 1 (Hillman 1993; Cycle helmets—the case for and against. Policy Studies Institute, London). Consequently, a helmet law, whose most notable effect was to reduce cycling, may have generated a net loss of health benefits to the nation. Despite the risk of dying from head injury per hour being similar for unhelmeted cyclists and motor vehicle occupants, cyclists alone have been required to wear head protection. Helmets for motor vehicle occupants are now being marketed and a mandatory helmet law for these road users has the potential to save 17 times as many people from death by head injury as a helmet law for cyclists without the adverse effects of discouraging a healthy and pollution free mode of transport.[1]
There are plenty of ways to have an accident that don't involve face-planting. The one time I flew over my handlebars, I landed on my left shoulder (breaking my collarbone), and my helmet probably prevented me from getting a concussion when the side of my head bounced off the road.
(71/129)×185×(100-65)% = 35 of these people would have not have been killed.
Of course, the figures are probably not quite right for Netherlands. For instance, in Canada a majority of bicycle fatalities involve another vehicle, whereas where I live (Finland), this is not true because we have separate bike/pedestrian paths in many places. Like the Netherlands. This actually increases the effectiveness of helmets, because fewer of the accidents are about being crushed by a big vehicle, and more of them are falls.
And the physics of falling off your bike are not that different and the ground is about as hard in Canada as in Netherlands.
>And the physics of falling off your bike are not that different and the ground is about as hard in Canada as in Netherlands.
You would think that would be true, but no.
1. The ground in Holland is flat.
2. The bike is heavy.
3. The bike is the type where you are sitting up (not leaning forward like a race bike).
So, when a dutch person bikes they are going no faster than 15 km/h. When they stretch their legs they are standing still. When they fall to the side they generally fall into grass or sidewalks (which are thin stones on top of moisty earth), that can actually absorb quite a lot of energy/momentum.
A guy I saw a few days ago got one of those heavy chain-type locks in his frontwheel while riding his bike a few days ago. Of course, his bike stopped instantly. He was carrying a painting, so driving with one hand. Amazingly, he didn't even fall to the ground. It really takes a lot of effort to land on the top of your head; I imagine that being hit or run over by a car causes way, way more serious accidents.
It helps that our bikes are heavy and you sit up straight.
The rest of the world keeps talking about helmets, even though they ride complete death traps. Their mountain bikes and race bikes. Off course you are going to die riding one of those in NYC.
I would advise them to just outlaw those bikes, instead of making/keeping helmets mandatory.
You are partly wrong. Encouraging (or even worse, enforcing) cycle helmets is known to reduce the number of people cycling. Since they presumably still need to get around, they're going to use other forms of transport, some of which add pollution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet_laws#Effects_on...
Well, no. I'm not wrong: Using helmets does not increase pollution.
Forcing helmets onto people seems to increase pollution (by the reduced use of cycling), so the problem in fact should be: A lack of proper health and safety education leads (indirectly?) to more pollution.
That's why I think that statistic is very good for a different discussion - I don't think it should belong into "Should people wear helmets while cycling?", it belongs into "Should we force people to wear helmets while cycling?". The answer to those two questions could be YES and NO without being contradictory really.
At least in [0], the reduced use of cycling was only an issue for teenagers. Children and adults cycled more after mandatory helmet law; people who most fiercely oppose putting protective gear on their head seem to be 12-17 years old.
I'm not really saying that helmets should be mandatory, but the attitudes and arguments remind me a lot about the time when mandatory seatbelt laws were coming to force. People will be trapped in burning cars and sink in vehicles and can't get out, and it will mess up the cothes, etc.
I think the more interesting stats would be in the are of non-fatal injuries.
If you die, the hit was probably pretty hard, but there are loads more people getting injured but not life-threatening.
Breaking boths legs and a concussion would not be part of that stat.
In Denmark. The percentage of people here wearing helmets seems to be dropping again after having been on the rise for the past few years (based on my anecdotal evidence of biking around copenhagen), but it's still relatively rare. I know at least 3 people who had simple accidents while not wearing helmets and while they did not die they suffered severe concussions that take years to fully recover from (if ever). One guy was unable to work for close to a year, and still 3 years later suffer frequent intense headaches. You don't have to die in an accident in order for it to be something you really should try to avoid.
Yes, I think that is one of their main purposes. It basically takes the impact energy and distributes it over a larger area and over longer time, reducing the risk of permanent brain damage. This website has some charts of a lab experiment showing the difference in the energy spike felt by the brain. http://www.bhsi.org/general.htm
I fell onto my bike helmet, on pavement, splitting it in half. I can tell you from personal experience that helmets definitely protect against concussion.
People seem to ignore the elephant in the room with this one. By making helmet use pro-choice, what health benefits does a nation gain? How does this impact obesity? The cost of health to the nation? Productivity? Mental health? Pollution related problems?
The bicycle is a very simple solution to a lot of problems.
Also, of those 185, 48 were 70-80 years old, and 51 were 80 years and older, so in total over half were over 70 (compared to only 17 who were under 20 years old)
It's a fairly safe bet most of those over 70's weren't going so fast that hitting a car or the ground hit much harder than a hit or a fall while walking would.
E-bikes may be changing that; that is being studied and may lead to changes in helmet laws. I think it is more likely it will lead to changes in road design and to recommendations to certain groups to wear a helmet.
I'm strongly against mandatory helmets for the reason that you suggest. But I'm one of the people (Im in the UK) who now wears helmets for both skiing and cycling. My cycle helmet almost certainly saved my life when a car gave me a knock and my head went onto the kerb.
This was a slow collision in London traffic - probably doing about 10-12 MPh.
Right. There's no doubt that wearing a helmet makes you safer. Helmet use should be encouraged. However, the outcomes for society are considerably worse if helmets are made mandatory.
This has been demonstrated by the experience of New Zealand where helmet use was made compulsory in the 1990s. Not only did cycling rates decline by more than 50%, the rates of serious cycling injuries and deaths actually increased. It turns out that when there are less cyclists on the road, remaining cyclists are more vulnerable - helmet or not.
The transition on attitude towards skiing helmets (at least in European resorts) has been really interesting to watch.
It has gone from being something that only children and the seriously hardcore off piste snowboarders.
I never used to wear one, and neither did most of the people I ski with, but over the last 5 years its changed until we now seriously judge people for being reckless if they won't wear a helmet.
The death of Natasha Richardson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natasha_Richardson#Injury_and_...) was fairly well publicised in the UK and I think that had a bit of a catalytic effect for us, but it was pushing at an open door of a change that was already happening.
Yup. The people who don't stand out - and they're almost universally the older generation of serious skiers (>= retirement age) who are too stuck in their ways.
To quote my Dad (who admittedly hasn't skied in years) "You wear a helmet? Why? I never needed one".
Yeah. For me, it's pretty much: I don't ski much these days. I don't ski particularly aggressively. I've never worn a helmet and I'm not about to start now.
It's not that I think they're stupid or anything. And I do wear helmets for various other sports. I just never have for skiing and don't feel compelled to change.
But that's what the Natasha Richardson accident proved - it's not about your skiing, it's about other people's skiing. In much the same way as you wear a seatbelt even if you're a perfect driver - someone else can still crash into you.
Also, the fact that I've never had a potentially fatal car accident doesn't mean that I don't see the need to wear a seatbelt. The safety numbers made a risk obvious and the behavioural pattern changed to manage the risk.
I'm certainly not going to argue that people shouldn't wear helmets or that you can control all the factors that could lead to being glad you had a helmet on.
But there's risk in everything and, for me, I'm not going to worry about the incremental risk of downhill skiing without a helmet a couple days a year.
It's true in (at least some areas of) the US as well. I went downhill skiing in California for the first time in a few years last winter and, for the first time, I was very aware that I was definitely in the minority not wearing a helmet. (I do wear a hat with some impact resistant padding.)
There's been a big shift. I suspect at least part of it has been that helmets have been the norm for kids for a while--especially after snowboarding became common. I assume many parents felt they had to start wearing helmets if they were telling their kids they had to.
In France it has taken time, and there are still some holdouts (most notably the national ski school, ESF).
I believe it's mandatory already in several Swiss resorts, I know it is in Zermatt.
I really hope the ESF will mandate helmets for all instructors, this would go a long way to normalising them.
I don't think wearing a helmet when skiing is comparable to commute cycling. I think motorcycling would be closer. In both cases you're going at relatively high speeds with quite long breaking distances.
Although there are separated roads for bikes and cars we do still share roadspace.
The major difference I think is that in the Netherlands there is a law which gives vulnerable road participants (pedestrians, bicycler) the benefit of the doubt whenever there is an accident. Even if the guilt is proven to be with the bicycler, the car driver should have paid more attention.
One way this is good for bicyclers because they are protected but on the other side they do tend to be more aggressive and reckless in their driving.
The major difference I think is that in the Netherlands there is a law which gives vulnerable road participants (pedestrians, bicycler) the benefit of the doubt whenever there is an accident. Even if the guilt is proven to be with the bicycler, the car driver should have paid more attention.
As far as I know, this is also true in Germany and many people wear helmets. I never wore a helmet in The Netherlands, but I do now that I live in Germany. Why?
- German car drivers are less used to cyclers. They are either extremely careful (like driving behind you for five minutes or passing you with a distance of 2 meters). Or they are extremely reckless (e.g. cutting you off on the very few bicycle lanes). So, in general I feel less safe than in The Netherlands.
- Altitude differences. The Netherlands are mostly flat. Here (southern Germany) it's quite hilly. That often makes it more difficult to brake abruptly.
Pretty much the same for me here in the US. I grew up in the Netherlands and always felt safe bicycling there. The first time I went bicycling around San Jose, I felt like I was going to die.
When I was in primary school and maybe high school I remember not wanting to wear a helmet because it looked silly. As a adult I think it would be a lot more silly to loose my life, health, ability to focus or to walk just because I didn't want to look silly. I'm not saying you are wrong, but that all people you know are. Besides the helmets these days really do look better, the producers have moved on from a purely utilitarian focus to actually having someone think about the visual aspect as well.
Yes, I have and it's great. Similar to Denmark where I live, but it's even safer if you wear a helmet. There is a clear benefit to wearing one and not much of cost so it's an easy choice IMO.
I haven't been to Denmark (yet, will be in CPH in Nov!) but I understand ytour cycle infrastructure is comparable to that of the Netherlands. Do you find more people wear helmets there than in NL?
> I am Dutch and I would confidently say that all people I know would never ride a bike again if they have to wear those silly helmets. More likely if it would be mandatory, they just would refuse and not do it, but if largely enforced they would just not use bikes anymore.
Weeelll ... not use a bike any more?? How are you going to get around then? :) :)
Indeed most would refuse and not do it, and if largely enforced, many would still refuse and not do it. ... but give up our bikes? Never! :)
They'll never enforce it though. Too many bikes. Take mandatory working front and back lights. I don't know about all cities of course, but where I live, they only enforce that a few weeks per year, at only a few same spots every year. Any other time, anywhere else, you can drive past a police car with no lights and they won't stop you (because they are there with something better to do). And this is for a bike law that pretty much everyone agrees is useful and important for safety (it's just that those damn lights break so quickly).
Your use of the pejorative "silly" is indeed indicative of why Dutch people wouldn't use them. They might be silly for low speed commute cycling, but labeling the helmets silly in and of themselves is, uh, silly. Perhaps you should have said Dutch people would view wearing the helmets for bike commuting to be silly.
But, to make up for it, we also consider driving a racing bike in city traffic at speeds over 15 km/h silly (although the outfit doesn't help either). And we look before we open the car door, because there's bikes everywhere. I guess that evens it out a little :)
Interestingly, in Germany there are some bicycle "hub" cities the prototypical example would be the city of Münster. My very unscientific feeling is that it's mostly mid sized cities with a university campus (especially if it's a multilocation campus spread across the entire city like in Münster).
Apart from the cities, there's also some pretty nice longer distance bike tracks. I belive Germany has one of the best bike route network/infrastructure. There's the so called D-Route (12 sections): http://www.radnetz-deutschland.de/en/d-routen.html
But the Dutch are #1 when it comes to bikes (imo).
Fun sidenote: The German term for what is typically known as a roadster bike is even "Hollandrad". In the Netherlands it's known as "Omafiets" which roughly translates to grandma-bike :)
its the same in karsruhe, Germany. Medium sized and a university campus (though not that many bicycles, it think 28% of all movement in the city is done by bicycle), but we are improving :D
In Münster it's 40% (number of trips). About two bicycles per citizen. 7% don't own a bicycle, 45% own two or more. Also highest rate of bicycle theft (10 per day). There's a longer abstract in German discussion the reasons why the ratio is so high https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radverkehr_in_M%C3%BCnster. Basically university town, no hills and historically lots of road infrastructure that favors cyclists.
As a dutch biker I would only wear a helmet when mountain-biking. The rest of the roads are very flat, we don't have much inclines. And our bikes are mostly in good condition, good brakes etc. In the cities people tend to have worse bikes because of theft but speed is lower there, so less danger.
And last but not least, we have bike lanes, so you just wont come across cars regularly, a car has to ignore red lights to come in contact with bikes, so accidents are not that common.
People cycling as fast as they can wear helmets, this is usually seen at the weekends when a few people swap their city bike for a racing bike and ride round the countryside.
Motorists who enjoy racing also wear helmets when speeding round the race track, but don't wear them on the commute.
No doubt deaths around be prevented if car occupants wore helmets, but it's not considered risky, just like routing cycling.
One note I'd like to make is that in NL, motorcyclists and mopeds (capable of speeds >25 kph) are required by law to wear a helmet, which has to meet certain standards.
Because in general we tend to be OK with wearing helmets for sports when doing so seems a reasonable tradeoff but not for day to day activities. Clearly helmets would be beneficial for certain types of injuries but it's hard to imagine many people willing to make the tradeoff. (I would also wonder if they'd actually be a net benefit given potential reductions in visibility, etc.)
Cycling (in the US) sort of falls between those two categories but, at least for adults, many who use bicycles as transportation also use them as a sport.
So would 5-point harnesses, but almost no one has those installed in their car.
Safety is usually about going after the lowest-hanging fruit: making improvements that have the biggest net benefit. In cycling, head injuries are common because of how the rider is exposed and how they frequently fall and what kind of surfaces they're likely to impact. In car driving, not so much; the biggest benefit in car driving is to keep the body anchored to the seat so that it doesn't fly into the dashboard or steering wheel or anything else, so that's why we wear seat belts. There's still problems with body parts hitting parts of the car, so then we added airbags. There's still problems with getting whiplash, so now we have seats and headrests designed to minimize whiplash injuries. It just isn't often that you hear about someone getting a head injury in a car wreck in a modern car; I can't think of ever hearing of such a thing in fact.
Also, the speeds people reach on city streets aren't as high as what race cars reach, and in most auto racing, helmets are indeed required. However, the helmets used in auto racing (full head-covering types) also negatively affect visibility, which is very important in city driving, and not that important in racing where the conditions are far more controlled and you don't have to worry about random pedestrians or bad drivers all around you.
It's not like we don't have safety devices in cars; we do, and in fact we have many of them and they tend to be rather expensive and highly-engineered. 3-point seat belts with pre-tensioners, multiple airbags (front, canopy, A-pillar, seat side), anti-whiplash head restraints and seat mountings, etc. They also tend to be passive in nature: only seat belts require you to do anything to make use of them, the others are just waiting there until they're needed. As a society we've put a lot of money and effort into reducing deaths and injuries in cars, and it's paid off well. We could go further with helmets and 5-point harnesses, but how much benefit would there be, and how many people would refuse to use them? (BTW, there's an argument against 5-point harnesses, that they shouldn't be used unless a car has a roll cage otherwise your head can get crushed in a rollover, whereas with a 3-point harness your torso just moves to the side towards the center if the roof caves in.) Oh yeah, don't forget what we do with kids these days: they have fairly elaborate child seats they're required to sit in, which they really are anchored into.
> The amount of bicycles in The Netherlands is absolutely surreal. [...] I also find it interesting the Dutch rarely ever wear helmets.
Perspective, perspective. The amount of bicycles in Germany (which is next-door) is surreal to me (so few) and I find it interesting that people wear helmets. They're such a bother and don't help your scraped arm or broken teeth if you land wrong. The odds of hitting your head on a curb seem about as slim to me as when you're walking.
In New York City, sometimes the only way to bike safely is to attempt to match the speed of the traffic, which despite road congestion will still be well over 10 MPH.
At that speed, if you hit a pothole or get doored, or get hit by a car, you are going to go down very hard. I've crashed exactly 3 times on my bike in New York City, and every time I would've cracked my head open if I didn't have a helmet.
> sometimes the only way to bike safely is to attempt to match the speed of the traffic
Can someone cite a study on this claim? I ride my bike every day and never ever see the need to match traffic, unless it happens to be going slower than me. If it's going faster ... I pick another route. I just don't think biking is safe in the city at say >17mph.
Going slow (and carefully selecting routes that allow you to do so -- the avenues in manhattan are a deathtrap btw) is the single most important factor in bike safety IMO.
That's 16km/h if I got the conversion rate right. That's a good run but I think most Dutch people bike even faster than that.
I'm pretty sure the difference is not the speed but the traffic. It sounds like the odds of crashing in the first place are a lot higher in NYC than in the Netherlands.
Yeah. I was lowballing though. It's actually scarier when cars are flying by at 25-30 MPH, and you're trying to dodge potholes in the road (if there's no bike lane) or various obstacles (if there's a bike lane) like construction equipment, work vans, and police cars.
One time I went wiped out in a bike lane because some trash bag had leaked some kind of garbage sludge all over the sidewalk (garbage day in NYC means 5-foot-tall piles of stinking trash bags on the sidewalk). The street was slightly banked, so when I hit the slick stuff my wheel just slid right out from under me and I had no time to even bail off the bike. My helmet probably saved my life that day.
Surreal? Hardly. There's room for plenty more. Most UK (hell, most countries') cities have extremely crappy bicycle infrastructure. Which is stupid, considering the many benefits of having a population of cyclists. Fewer road deaths, less obesity, less air pollution etc.
Dutch (and Danish) infrastructure is pretty decent.
Most people in China don't wear helmets either. Helmets prevent brain injury, but generally you'd have to be going pretty fast, or get hit by a car really fast to land on your head to require one (and then you probably have other injuries to contend with).
Also, we have bike light laws in California, but there are plenty of cyclists that don't use them. Personally, if I had to choose between riding without a helmet, or riding without lights; I'll take the lights. Lights prevent accidents whereas a helmet is only needed after an accident has occurred.
(It's getting dark sooner; if you don't have lights on your bikes, please buy some. Planet Bike has a nice two light set. Get some, and get some for your friends. Stay seen, stay safe.)
>Helmets prevent brain injury, but generally you'd have to be going pretty fast, or get hit by a car really fast to land on your head to require one (and then you probably have other injuries to contend with).
This is wrong. There's some research done on that over here (Finland).
First of all, about two thirds of severe bicycle injuries happen without any third parties involved, cars or not. Head injuries are the worst also in this group.
Second, a large part of the injuries happen at low speeds, and landing on your head doesn't require fast speeds at all. In fact many of the injuries to head happen at low speeds.
And then my personal anecdotes: I've hurt myself three times on bike so much that I needed hospital to check me up.
First time, I was 6 years old, fell on my own, broke a clavicle bone.
Second time, I was 27 years old on my way to work, a child sprang in front of me, I went OTB and broke a radix bone. My head just chipped the ground a little bit. I started to wear helmet after that.
Third time, I was 48 years old on my way from work to home, I fell on my own when I was surprised by some ice. Fairly low speed. No bones broken, but I definitely would have cracked my skull if I had not been wearing the helmet, the bang inside the helmet is something I remember. Just had to skip riding for 6 weeks due to bruises but I still have my skull.
I'll probably skip riding the year I'm 69.
And you need to believe that you may crack your head even in low speeds and you really should wear that helmet, it may save your life, or it may save your family from having to visit a vegetable.
I did live in China some years back, and the beliefs that people had e.g. about safety belts were astonishing. Particularly the reluctance to use them for your own safety. People would even buckle up when they see the police and then take it off right away. There's probably still some way to go there:
Finally, I totally agree with what you say about lights. In the dark, they are more important than helmet. But that's not a choice you have to make. Have both.
I've seen research in the past that suggested wearing helmets on average was neutral or negative (something to do with adding weight to the head?) but can never find it when this topic comes up. Do you have a reference for the Finnish research?
Around the time I read about this research I also read that Switzerland and UK had been reluctant to regulate it in part due to conflicting research. Are you sure it's as clear as you make out?
I suppose there are 2 things here, if you are actually in an accident does wearing a helmet improve outcomes, and how motorists treat cyclists wearing a helmet. For the latter I've heard studies mentioned in other comments that motorists drive closer to cyclists if they are wearing a helmet, and even that wearing a wig (and perceived gender of the cyclist) could affect driver behaviour.
Nothing in English that I could find now without spending more time.
One thing about bicycle helmets is that they really need to have that shiny surface. Without it, i.e. with just a polystyrene surface, the friction of helmet vs. road surface will be so high as to cause a risk of neck injury when the head stops faster than the rest of the body, even if the helmet protects the head per se.
Without the helmet, the head will just crack, of course.
Mostly the negative impacts of bike helmets involve human stupidity, i.e. that if helmet is required, people will ride less.
I'm not sure what a smooth helmet surface will do the coefficient of friction between helmet and road if the road itself is still very rough. The benefits will probably hit diminishing returns long before the helmet is actually shiny.
I didn't mean the surface actually has to shine. But there's a reason for that hard smooth-surfaced plastic outside the EPS or whatever softer material.
That is mostly due to a lack of understanding of the added safety benefits (students and such just not caring enough) and a lack of enforcement though. Most people do agree with the necessity of bicycle lights in the dark, but take their chances when they are caught outside after dusk with a broken light or empty battery for the clip-on types.
> Finally, I totally agree with what you say about lights. In the dark, they are more important than helmet. But that's not a choice you have to make. Have both.
Yup, didn't mean to make them mutually exclusive, but I wanted to emphasize the fact that helmets are like safety belts, as you and eridius alluded to. They're great, they can prevent further brain injury, but as riders, we should take further preventative steps such as being visible and assuming drivers can't see us.
It's not hard to be going fast inadvertently. The worst bike accident I was in involved me coming down a hill, stopping at the bottom on what turned out to be an invisible bump, and flying over my handlebars. I broke my collarbone upon landing, but if I hadn't been wearing a helmet it would have been a lot worse. It just seems foolhardy to me to ride a bike without a helmet, like driving a car without a seatbelt.
Agreed, but when people fall, they usually try not to land head first. Also, I was assuming that many commuters in other parts of the world ride more upright bikes (e.g. "Dutch" bikes) that are easier to bail off of. If I get doored while riding at 12mph on an upright bicycle, I'd be more worried about my genitals smashing into the stem of the bike than falling on my head.
Again, I'm not saying helmets are useless, but we should view them as seat belts, or even lap belts as best.
That is simply not true, the helmet will be the first part of you head that touch the ground in almost any fall. Especially if you are using one of the more covering "skate" helmets. If you get hit by a car head on the helmet will also most likely be the first part of you head to hit the car. I would reverse your statement and say the helmet will only not protect your head if you fall at a horisontal, actually upwards pointing, direction.
> That is simply not true, the helmet will be the first part of you head that touch the ground in almost any fall.
Citation needed.
From both personal experience and research I've seen about this, the head is rarely the first part to hit the ground.
My brother did have a rare accident as a kid where his head hit the ground first and he had a concussion, but that's an exception.
And it's generally not hitting the ground that is the dangerous part in traffic accidents. Helmets don't do anything useful is the vast majority of accidents.
What I'm trying to say is that: If your head hits the ground (or anything hard) in an accident Then the helmet is likely to help. But I agree that most small accidents will not include your head hitting anything. Humans are pretty good at protecting their head per reflex. However I disagree that it is not dangerous when it happens. Just imagine even from standing completely still if you would jump into the air and then hit the ground head first. You would be pretty wrecked, doing it a 10 or 20 km/h wouldn't help.
>It's generally not hitting the ground that is the dangerous part in traffic accidents. Helmets don't do anything useful is the vast majority of accidents.
Citation needed. Just like in the original comment. It would be great if there was a comprehensive study, but it seems for now people will have to make their own estimates of the risks and benefits. I always wear a helmet, and encourage others to do the same. Others don't and that's their own choice.
Yes, but in normal bike use, it's pretty hard to hit the ground head first. When you fall, it's your legs and hands. When a car hits you, it hits your legs. The most dangerous thing for a cyclist is when a big truck turns right without noticing cyclists next to him, which can lead to cyclists being run over by the rear wheels of the truck. Helmets don't do anything for you in any of those cases.
Hitting the ground head first is something that happens when you hit a deep pothole at high speed (which happened to my brother as a kid, but is generally rare, and I've never heard of it killing anyone), or you drive downhill on a steep slope and lose control, or something like that (which is why mountain bikers do tend to wear helmets, but it's not something that happens in city traffic).
I tend to trust Dutch bike and traffic safety-related organizations, and they say that a helmet's effect is unproven in real life situations. Some recommend helmets for kids between 10 and 14. I know parents who give their younger kids helmets. I don't, because I want my son to pay attention and not trust the helmet to keep him safe.
Statistically that is unlikely to be true. I have seen many people with injuries from falling of a bike and none of them were on anyone's head where a helmet would make a difference.
So on most accidents a helmet is not going to make a difference.
If you ride a motorcycle even following the speed limit and you fall, even if you don't hit any vehicle you are risking:
- hitting the ground (front or back) so having a concussion or smashing all your teeth
- hitting sidewalks or guard rails
Moreover the helmet lowers the noise given by air flowing, helps you see better at sunrise/sunset, protects you from insects.
I think there's no good reason to avoid wearing an helmet while riding a motorcycle.
In France as well. Yet, if you go to the police station after a bike accident they will most likely refuse to take your claim unless you look seriously injured, and as long as the car did stop the police will just tell you to contact your insurance (which will do little more than reimbursing half the used value of your bike if you still have the invoice, after asking for a deductible amount several times that).
I'm sure it's better in the Netherlands, but just making cars liable isn't a solution itself.
Same in the Netherlands, but that is because you are liable for the (civil) damages, which are handled by the insurance companies of both parties. The police nowadays only get involved if one of the parties is criminally negligent, or drives off without decently handling the aftermath. Insurance claims do reimburse you for the damage though, and will claim them (successfully) with the other party's insurer.
>It is a myth that is really only believed outside the Netherlands: “Because there is strict liability in the Netherlands, drivers are more cautious around cyclists, and that leads to more cycling”
>There are a number of (false) assumptions that lead to such an assertion. The first being that drivers are always at fault when they are in a collision with a cyclist, regardless of how the cyclist behaved.
Hmm...not always, but assumed to be at fault unless they can prove otherwise. From the article you linked to:
When art. 185 WVW is applicable, it means the motor vehicle user is liable for financial damage, unless that driver can prove the incident was caused by circumstances beyond his/her control.
and
Besides ‘circumstances beyond control’ the driver can also argue the non-motorised road user was at fault. This is only possible for road users from the age of 14. If that road user was indeed at fault, the driver is still liable for 50% of the damage. Dutch law makers considered this to be reasonable, because the non-motorised road user usually suffers more and more severe damage.
Yes, you can legally split hairs about it. But the practical upshot is that if you're involved in an accident with a cyclist as a motorist it is extremely likely that you will be held responsible.
That the actual law is more complex is obvious from the 'more or less' bit in the sentence above, it's not black and white but in the vast majority of accidents between cars and cyclists the driver of the car will be held responsible and this is one of the bigger items in keeping the number of such accidents down, Dutch motorists are quite aware of this reality.
And it makes good sense too: assuming a 'minor' accident between say a cyclist that forgot to indicate left and a motorist coming up from behind the motorist will likely do what he or she can do to avoid an accident even if technically the cyclist is at fault because the cyclist will likely suffer extensive damage to themselves and their property whereas the car will probably not suffer any damage at all and the occupant of the car is perfectly safe.
which gives a much less hard to interpret view of the legal situation in nl.
"Aanrijding met voetganger of fietser
Wie is er aansprakelijk bij een aanrijding met een voetganger of fietser
Fietsers of voetgangers worden gezien als zwakkere verkeersdeelnemers. Omdat zij kwetsbaar zijn in het verkeer, kent de wet een speciale regeling bij een aanrijding met een motorvoertuig. De automobilist is aansprakelijk voor de schade van de fietser zonder dat zijn schuld bewezen hoeft te worden. Andersom kan de automobilist de schade die hij oploopt door een fout van een fietser of voetganger, claimen bij de fietser of voetganger (of diens AVP-verzekering). Dan gelden de normale wettelijke regels.
Bescherming door de wet (artikel 185 Wegenverkeerswet)
Normaal gesproken moet je na een ongeluk bewijzen dat de tegenpartij aansprakelijk is. Dit geldt niet wanneer je als fietser of voetganger wordt aangereden door een motorvoertuig (auto, motor, bromfiets, snorfiets etc.). De wet bepaalt dat de bestuurder van het motorvoertuig aansprakelijk is, tenzij hij overmacht kan bewijzen. Dit is een vorm van 'risicoaansprakelijkheid'. Daarbij hoeft men geen schuld te hebben aan het ongeluk, maar is men wel aansprakelijk. Dit lijkt onrechtvaardig maar de fietser of voetganger loopt meer risico op zwaarder letsel vanwege de massa van het motorvoertuig."
"Accident with pedestrian or cyclist
Who is responsible for an accident with a pedestrian or cyclist?
Cyclists or pedestrians are seen as 'weaker' traffic participants. Because they are vulnerable in traffic, the law has a special arrangement when there is an accident with motorized traffic. The driver is responsible for the damage of the cyclist without having to prove they were in the wrong. If the cyclist or pedestrian is at fault the driver can claim his damage with them (or their insurance). In that case the normal rules and laws apply.
Protection in law (article 185 of the relevant law book)
Normally after an accident you have to prove that the other party is liable. This is not the case when as a cyclist or pedestrian you are hit by motorized traffic (car, motorbike, moped, etc). The law dictates that the driver of the motorized vehicle is liable unless he can prove 'overmacht' (a situation exceeding his/her control). This is a case of 'risk liability'. The driver does not have to be at fault for the accident but still is liable. This may seem unjust but a cyclist or pedestrian runs more risk of serious injury because of the mass of the motorvehicle"
That page has a whole pile of example situations and outcomes illustrating what the effect is on the liability of the driver for those cases.
The ANWB website (where I took these paragraphs from) is the Dutch official provider of traffic signs and many other traffic related services, they're a powerful lobby entity as well and deal with all kinds of road traffic related affairs. Originally started as a cyclist movement they included cars and are now the main go-to point for information about traffic and traffic related issues outside of the government.
Makes sense, no? You're driving around in a 1000kg death-machine with an engine powerful enough to be countend in the order of a hundred horses. Don't you think that being extremely cautious is the least any driver should be doing?
Yes, it makes sense, and yes, I agree that being extremely cautious is the least any driver should be doing. If I gave you the impression that that is not the case then I apologize.
I'm both an avid cyclist and I drive a lot so I'm pretty aware as a driver of what my responsibilities towards more vulnerable traffic are. The same goes for interactions between cars and motorcyclists.
There is another benefit to the "Dutch reach" not mentioned in the article: if a sudden gust of wind catches your door it will be easier to hold with your right arm. (They taught me this when I got my license)
The biggest reason is, I think, that it's the car driver's responsibility to pay attention when then open their door on the side of traffic. There's no excuse if you hit a bike, or anything, it's the car driver's fault and most onlookers would consider them huge assholes for creating such a dangerous traffic situation.
Bicyclists are considered at least equal participants in traffic. And culturally, depending on the particular spot and the "what are you doing trying to get around here by car in the first place"-factor, bikes nearly almost but not quite have a de facto right of way, because they're way more numerous and more agile, cars need to be on their toes anyway.
Oh and don't forget that most cars in the US are about 1.5x the size of cars here? I'm having a bit of a chuckle imagining if you'd scale up bikes by the same factor haha :-) But maybe it'd help with getting doored? :) Oh, oh! and don't forget to scale up yr bikehelmets too :) :)
There are other risks though - I always found it odd that motorised scooters are allowed on the bike paths. My Dutch neighbour had a very bad accident when one hit him on his bike and was off work for quite some time.
Here in Rotterdam they've added signs to the entrances to _all_ the bike lanes in the centre mentioning that scooters/motorbikes should be in the street.
Isn't that the "yellow plate/red plate" thing? I've heard that many get the governor installed, get the plate, remove the governor. I saw lots of scooters going too fast, passing folks in bike lanes in Amsterdam.
True. Often though these are serious road cyclicsts who do tend to wear helmets, or they're those new fast electric bikes that like to sneak up beside you going really quick.
While these are certainly the ideal, there are still many places in Netherland, particularly in major cities where there just isn't enough space for a thorough redesign, where bike lanes run right next to parked cars.
Ultimately, it's a matter of awareness of other traffic, both for cyclists and for motorists. And pedestrians. You always need to watch what you're doing in traffic, and what others are doing.
Another reason we don't have 'dooring' in The Netherlands is that we don't try to invent a funny new word for every tiny event or thing everywhere ever all the time ;-) Oh, and we don't open our doors unless we are parked.
Bullshit. I'm Dutch, never heard of or exercised this "Dutch Reach" behaviour and I was not tested for it when getting my driver's license. Instead, you just look around and in your mirrors to see if other traffic is coming before blindly and like an asshole opening your door, it doesn't matter how you open the door after you became aware of what is going on around you. I call this behaviour the "Dutch Common Sense".
The article mentions that: in NL we have no separate term for it, exactly because it is considered common sense.
As for being taught: it was taught by both my driving instructors, in the sense that I was consistently told off for opening my door using the wrong hand, even if I was very careful to check my mirrors and side. I wasn't asked to perform this feat on my driving test, but they don't need to be explicit: it's fairly challenging to exit the vehicle without opening the door.
I (also Dutch) also have never heard about this practice of using your right hand to open the left door. It's an interesting idea, but certainly not common practice. I have never in my entire life seen anyone open their door like that. People just know that you must start looking backwards first and then open the door slowly.
I learned a variation of the Dutch Reach in my driver's license test (tested in Haarlem, school teaching it Max120). He didn't give it a name or anything and seems like common sense and I think it's a better way than the Dutch Reach described in the article.
When you open the door you grab the door handle -- the thing that opens the door -- with your right and plastic black handle -- the thing that gives you more 'grip' -- with your left. By doing this you have a lot more control on closing the door as well if you still happen to accidentally open it when you shouldn't have.
I had to retract once, because it appeared I had a blindspot where I couldn't see a cyclist.
Not bullshit: i also am dutch and my driving instructor taught me this right hand and look over shoulder technique.
But i agree with parent comment otherwise: our solution to being "Doored" is more about common sense using the mirror (its there for a reason) and looking around, and not what hand we use. Its a helpful aid maybe. After reading this on HN i noticed i do tend to use BOTH hands.. left on the big grip and right on the handle-button. I think using both hands here is important as this is what allows you to retract the door, as other comments pointed out.
Second this. I learned to use mirrors and look over your shoulder as you open the door. Like you would if you were to take a left turn. Basic situational awareness.. This whole "Dutch reach" thing sounds more like something written for the internet points.
As for the whole helmet thing, they do not make you more safe. Proper infrastructure makes you more safe. Unless you're riding downhill, racing or performing stunts. You don't wear kneepads when you walk down the street do you?
Even if we just ignore the Netherlands, bike riders aren't being doored left and right in Denmark either. Sure "The Dutch Reach" is a clever trick to get people to look out for bike traffic, but really it's just common sense.
Like in the Netherlands, bike lanes in Denmark are mostly placed between the road and the side walk, so by not looking out for trafic you risk getting your door torn of by an SUV, rather than hitting a bike.
Yeh, as an American driver I don't know how people open their doors in the city WITHOUT looking first.
In rural areas where bikers ride on the sidewalk and are not super common, sure, but I can't remember a time driving in a city where I was NOT super paranoid about hitting a car or a cyclist or a pedestrian with my door.
I think with the influx of people moving into urban zones, you get a lot of the suburban "biking is for hippies, so who cares?" mentality. I moved into a city five years ago, and while I quickly learned about dooring both as a driver and cyclist, I can't help but wonder how many people just don't realize that it's "a thing". Couple that with the hatred I often see towards cyclists, and I can pretty easily see how people either don't know or don't care to look before opening a car door.
Well I wasn't taught the 'Dutch Reach' either when I got my driving lessons. I also have never heard the term before and it certainly is not standard practice.
No apparently people teach that you open the door, stick your face out in front of the oncoming bike instead. Or try squint past the door pillar and the headrest?
I really like my door not to have dents, scratches and blood all over it (especially mine) so I look in the already-optimally-positioned mirror on the outside of the door where my hand goes to check if there is some other vehicle coming first before I open the door.
I passed my driving exam in NL a couple of years ago, and I was taught to open my door this way. There was nothing about it being to protect cyclists in particular, though.
As a Dutch person, this is probably the cause of our parents always telling us to carefully open the door by looking first. And if you are not sure, open it a bit to see more. Also, in our license test, you'll have to learn the following rule: Getting out of the car, is just like turning the car, a special operation and you need to give everyone else priority so that your action will not cause problems. So take your time, be patient and be cautious.
This is far more believable than the claim that using the far hand will force you to turn 90 degrees inside the car and scan fully before getting out. It might serve as a good habit/reminder, but it's neither necessary nor sufficient to create this behavior.
I think much of the US is unaware of how seriously some other countries take driver's training. Our standards are appallingly low.
Letting 16 year olds drive is probably part of the problem. In more bicycle-friendly countries, kids start drinking before they start driving. Cycling to and from parties until they're at least 18. Hell, want to go anywhere at all? Cycle.
Also getting taught by amateurs, that just isn't a thing in the Netherlands. You learn to drive in a modified car (extra set of brakes, extra mirrors) with a qualified instructor next to you.
When I was taking mandatory driver's ed at 16 in the US (Boston area), the school's fleet was indeed equipped with foot brakes in the passenger seat. I'd wager a guess that all of the cars that you see with a "beginner driver" sign on the roof are like that. However, for the license test the only requirement was to have a hand brake between the front seats.
I have come to believe that we give out driver's licenses way too easily in the US. One easy, but sadly no longer practical, solution would be to require that the road test is taken on a manual. Driving stick from the beginning gave me so much more awareness and reflexes that have saved me from accidents more than once.
One easy [..] solution would be to require that the road test is taken on a manual.
Here in NL, we do distinguish between them: if you learn to drive (and do the exam) in a car with automatic shift, you get an annotation on your driver's license saying you're not allowed to drive a manual-shift car.
It varies by state, but often you can get some license without professional instruction. Many states have a learner's permit (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learner%27s_permit#United_St...) that allows any over 25 (or even 21) year old with a driver's license to teach you to drive in an unmodified car.
A step up is a provisional license that may (depending on state) allow you to drive certain routes (typically to school or work and back, but also sometimes to do essential shopping) unaccompanied.
That makes some sense in areas where traffic is light and distances large.
I think that, in some states, you even can get a
provisional license without ever having driven a car (you may have had a learner's permit for a certain period, but they don't check whether you actually used it), but of course, that's extremely unlikely to happen.
I applied for a permit (purely knowledge/eyesight test), and that allows you to drive any normal vehicle (class-A) as long as there is someone in the passenger seat over 25/at least 5 years possessing a driver's license (or something like that).
I went home and took the family car out on public streets with my Dad.
6 months later, I applied for my license. Simple 15 minute public roads driving test in the same family car.
Driving for the first time was scary -- one of the first streets I went down was one lane with cars parked on each side. Doing that without being used to the car's physical space (it was a large Suburban) is a little crazy.
That's quite a bit different from the Dutch situation. I've paid thousands of euros for lessons, with a professional instructor, teaching me from working the pedals and the clutch all the way through navigating complex double merges on the motorway, sending me from the motorway straight into a low-speed zone, and through every imaginable traffic situation. Before you get lessons in the car, you first need to get your theory exam (which was easy for me, but can apparently be very hard for less academically inclined people), and I think I failed the practical exam about 5 times (which is excessive; some do manage to pass the first time, though it's not unusual to fail).
I felt fairly well prepared for Amsterdam traffic, but still managed to send my car into a spin on a slippery onramp that I underestimated.
My experience as a teenager and parent is similar to the GP - and my US license is valid in the Netherlands.
Note that we have the added complication that we live in areas with snow, and thus are driving on icy/snowpacked roads for a good portion of the year.
I wondered if it would be cheaper (or more fun!) for dutch residents to take a trip to the US, get a valid drivers license, and bring that back to Europe rather than pay directly for a license there.
I'm not sure if it's still true, but a few decades ago, the easiest way to get a Dutch license was on Saba, one of the Dutch Antilles. Apparently, if you managed to drive around the central square on the island without any major accidents, you got your license, and it was perfectly valid as a Dutch driver's license.
I knew one guy who got his license there, and he didn't dare to drive in continental Netherland. He did have a Dutch motor bike license, but he didn't feel qualified to drive a car in real traffic.
It is not mandatory in every state, I believe. However, even when not required, it is very common to use professional driving instructors with modified cars.
This is very uncommon in the United States. Probably 99% of driver training in the US is driving a family car with mom or dad in the passenger seat. Most people get very little and often no professional instruction.
Certainly, when receiving professional instruction, the modified car with at least an extra brake is typical. It's just that most people never get much of this instruction.
If you are under eighteen, states requiring driver's education from a professional driving school (with behind-the-wheel instruction): CA, DL, HI, ID, IA, KS, LA, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MT, NH, NJ, NM (waiver available), NY, NC, OH, PA, SC, TX, UT, VT, WA, WI,
Require the course, but not professional, behind-the-wheel instruction: CT, GA, FL, IL, KY, ME, MO, ND, RI, VA,
Professional instruction not required: AL, AK, AR, CO, IN, NE, NV, OK, OR, SD, TN, WV, WY, DC
So, about half of the country is required to have professional, in-car instruction. Quite common.
Still a huge number of people get no training and even in states that require training, it seems pretty minimal. 6 hours of driving instruction in my current state (WA) doesn't seem like a lot.
The downside of that is that getting a license costs a lot more - think in the range of €1500 - €2500. But that too helps with having people take it seriously, and losing your license due to e.g. excessive speeding to hurt more.
And it's not as crucial to have one here, I only got my license at 35 (and now that I have kids, I'm really happy with it). That's not completely normal of course, but it'd be much harder to do in the US.
Plenty of city dwellers don't get their license until they have kids. I did that too. My brother doesn't have kids but only got his license when he was about 40.
Agreed. I was definitely taught to always shoulder check before turning right, and I can't remember whether I was explicitly taught or not, but it just seems like common sense to check if anything is coming before swinging your door open. That said, clearly it's not, so that really needs to be taught better as well. (And of course the third one that they do far better than us in Holland, and in Europe in general, is lane use.)
Each of these is clearly a matter of poor education. I still remember my driving test having three increasingly ridiculous questions about how it's never ok to go even 1kph over the speed limit, but no emphasis whatsoever on these issues. I hope it's changed since then, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
Is it that hard to believe? The human brain is not a perfect system. We operate on autopilot when performing menial tasks. Exiting a car is absolutely a zero-effort task that is habitually performed without any thought involved. Reaching with the opposite hand naturally turns your head far enough that you're looking at your blind spot - or at least 80% of the head turn required. The point is you can consciously forget to check, but by opening your door this way you will hopefully - and quite likely - trigger your brain into remembering that you need to check.
Time and time again on Hacker News, intelligent people can't seem to understand that the average citizen is not a Hacker News visitor. You can try to rationalize that every driver must be capable of being consciously aware of what they are doing every single time they open their car door. You can believe that this behaviour should be testable and that we should revoke licenses from the 20-70% of drivers who would fail such a test. This is simply not the reality. Introducing a - ugh I can't think of a word related to "mnemonic", aka. a brain training exercise - that will hopefully result in more people opening their car doors safely, can only be a benefit to all.
> Reaching with the opposite hand naturally turns your head far enough that you're looking at your blind spot - or at least 80% of the head turn required.
Only if you have so little shoulder mobility that you're unable to move your arm across your body while retaining your upper body position. I can reach across my body to open the door with no upper body movement. If I reach casually and let my body move loosely, I maybe move 10 or 15 degrees.
You might be thinking, "Oh, you're just saying that because it's a motion you're not used to and as a result you're overthinking it and holding yourself unnaturally still." But it's not an uncommon or unnatural motion for me. I already do this literally every time I open the car door. I always open the door with my right (far) hand because I don't have a left hand. And I don't automatically turn 90 degrees when I open the door, or 80 degrees, or even 45 degrees.
I'm not opposed to some "mnemonics" like this. I am opposed to treating them like they fix the core issues. It's really appealing to pick some tiny factor like this and say "here's the thing we're missing", but the thing we're missing is the careful culture that the Dutch have around driving. Opening the door with your right hand won't end dooring in the US any more than drinking red wine like the French will cure heart disease. We diminish the conversation when we push easy changes as silver bullets.
> Time and time again on Hacker News, intelligent people can't seem to understand that the average citizen is not a Hacker News visitor.
This is out of place and pointless.
> You can try to rationalize that every driver must be capable of being consciously aware of what they are doing every single time they open their car door. You can believe that this behaviour should be testable and that we should revoke licenses from the 20-70% of drivers who would fail such a test.
I definitely didn't say anything remotely like that.
>> Time and time again on Hacker News, intelligent people can't seem to understand that the average citizen is not a Hacker News visitor.
> This is out of place and pointless.
The typical HN visitor is going to have, on average, a brain that operates differently than the average citizen. Not necessarily "better", just different. It's not supposed to be an ego boost for us, or an insult to the general population; it's just fact. It is unrealistic to expect that every person is going to be hyper-aware of their surroundings and behaviour at all times.
Ten years ago I thought that "average people" were missing basic common sense, that made them incompetent in their decision processes. With every year that goes by, I've come to realize that these people are completely normal. They are neither unintelligent nor stupid, or careless, or any other derogatory term. If anything I now resent my analytical thought process, and wish I could adopt a different set of mental priorities. Where's the off switch? ;)
I'm not quite sure I understand. Do Americans not look at what's coming from behind them before opening a slab of metal and glass a meter out the side of their cars?
Kind of reminds me of when I first moved to Thailand. My (now) mother-in-law asked her daughter why I kept looking over my shoulder when driving her car, and why/if I couldn't use the side mirrors. She had literally never heard of nor understood the concept of a blind spot.
> She had literally never heard of nor understood the concept of a blind spot.
I've done a good amount of driving in the undeveloped and developing world (40k miles AK->Argentina, now 10k miles in West Africa, going to do about 80k)
Blindspots are not considered here. Driving is much more fluid, and you really only need to watch what is happening in front of you. After all, the car behind/beside you can see you much better than you can he, so just move over and he'll get out of the way.
If you're going to do something really strange (stop in the middle of the road, turn where you shouldn't, back out into flowing traffic) you just tap your horn and go ahead and do it. Everyone else is paying attention and will flow around you.
It really is a different way of thinking, and it's immensely impressive that everyone is paying enough attention to make it work really well (Traffic accidents are not common, and the driving conditions are so, so much more hectic than the developed world.)
> It really is a different way of thinking, and it's immensely impressive that everyone is paying enough attention to make it work really well (Traffic accidents are not common, and the driving conditions are so, so much more hectic than the developed world.)
Thailand has all that you mentioned, as well as novel things like vehicles driving the wrong way on the hard shoulder on divided highways.
Thailand is #2 behind Libya when ranked by traffic accident deaths / inhabitant: 36 per 100K. On the same list USA has just under 11 per 100K. To put that another way. USA had 34K road deaths from ~324M residents. Thailand had 24K road deaths from 67M residents.
So, you'll understand if I don't quite agree with the concept that doing what the fuck you want so long as you pay attention to every other fucker "works really well".
I should have clarified and said traffic accidents in towns and cities are not common.
I'd be willing to bet if you removed all the accidents and deaths on the highways (where people drive like demented so-and-sos) it's not more dangerous than the good ol usa
Wow, that's a really accurate description of what it was like in China as well, specifically in Beijing. The large intersections were some kind of organically flowing chaos of differing modes of transportation. And the honk was used as more of a "I'm coming through". Which makes a lot more sense than a "hey I don't like what you did".
Don't know about the American thing but what I do know is that while in Europe they teach us to turn our heads and bodies when driving, the modern world caught up with blindspotless mirrors and teach you to use them. It's much safer as people tended to turn their hands together with their bodies, effectively steering a car to the left when looking out the left window.
> the modern world caught up with blind spotless mirrors
How modern are you talking? I've seen some very new cars (I think in a trip to California once, driving an SUV thing that almost needed two lanes to itself) with slightly odd mirrors - perhaps slightly concave or convex? I don't remember, but it had more view, and I vaguely remember the 'image' being distorted slightly though?
Besides that, no car I've driven has had that feature, and I've owned cars from VW, Honda and Toyota all built from 2005 onwards.
I don't lean left when looking back, but I just can't look back confidently because I lose track of what's happening in front of us. My first and only accident occured because I was so anxious to check the blindspot I didn't see the traffic stopping and I rear-ended someone. Blindspotless mirrors are a no brainer (they should be mandatory tbh). There are even inner car blindspot checking mirror, so you avoid the confusing view of two mirrors with different field of view close to each other. Either this or a proximity sensor with a large red light so I can sense I should break no matter where I look, military style.
Highway traffic jam. Long period of slow (3mph) drive, then full stop. I was near an exit so I decided to branch of on the right lane that was free of cars, thus still fast (50mph) to take the ramp. Our lane started to move again very slowly, I took the chance to switch lane, but was anxious about the high speed cars, so I checked, double checked, without realizing my lane stopped again while I was taking up speed (hoping not to cause people to slow too much in emergency) and switching lane.
Hit the right light of the car in front with my left one. Now causing real slow down and even more traffic jam.
eh, depending on the car, often times a blind spot is just due to someone failing to adjust their mirrors properly. if you actually do it right, you should not have a blind spot. if you can see your own car in your side view mirrors, you've adjusted them wrong. if they are adjusted correctly, cars approaching on either side of your vehicle will pass from the rear view, to the side mirror, into your peripheral vision with no gap of visibility.
I've read about this supposed "solution" and the greatest thing I took away was that it trades side-of-car blind spots (which I can resolve by turning my head) for rear-of-car blind spots, which I can do nothing about, as my head doesn't rotate 180º.
You can't see behind your car using your wing mirrors, you need to use the rear-view mirror. Even if you have the wing mirrors pointing behind your car, the sides of the car obscure your view.
I like to adjust the wing mirrors so that a tiny sliver of the car is visible in the mirror, that way I can be sure I'm not missing anything.
What you do is "normal". The suggestion from the comment I replied to is referring to the "new" way referenced on the linked page, where the mirrors are set wider.
How so? The only possible issue I can see about that solution is that you can't see your own car in the side mirrors and thus judging relative position is slightly more difficult.
Of course, the best solution is aspherical mirrors, but for some reason they're not allowed in the USA.
The diagram in that article underestimates the viewing angle of the various mirrors in the car--my rear view mirror has far more than 90 degrees FOV, and when my side view mirrors are adjusted the "new" way I am just barely unable to see the side of my car.
if they are adjusted correctly, cars approaching on either side of your vehicle will pass from the rear view, to the side mirror, into your peripheral vision with no gap of visibility.
That's incorrect. Unless you have an extremely wide (curved) side mirror, there always is a gap between the edge of the mirror and your peripheral vision. That gap is usually not large enough for a car to completely disappear (the nose of the car enters your peripheral vision before the rear end leaves the mirror), but smaller items may still disappear.
I like to be able to see a tiny sliver of my car. This way I always know how they're adjusted. Without being able to see that piece of the car, they might be adjusted too far out and I have no easy way to tell.
well, if you see a sliver of your car, you know how they're adjusted: wrong :)
seriously though, it's really easy to tell, just watch a car that is about to pass you transition across your mirrors into your peripheral vision. if there are any blind spots or periods where the car is highly visible in more than one visual source (mirror or peripheral vision) then you are seeing less than you are able to. i'm pretty sure there is no free lunch here -- if you are still able to see your car, then there is likely overlap between your rear view and your side mirror's view frustum, not to mention there is unused visual field in the side mirror anyway, so you're sacrificing visibility in your side mirror.
(you should still check for the presence of a car by looking behind you if possible, or cross checking your peripheral vision with your mirrors, but it's nice to know that you don't have any blind spots if you fail to do so.)
You keep repeating this theory that the 'new' way for adjusting mirrors solves all problems, and simply ignore that it introduces different blind spots that small vehicles (such as motorbikes or bicycles) can disappear into.
Given that the article is about cyclist safety, and how it's improved by training drivers to look behind them in their blind spot, I find the irony of you suggesting this 'new' method to be amazing.
Don't know about America, but lots of Australians don't look when they open up that big slab of metal.
I've also had to explain the concept of 'blind spots' in car mirrors to a lot of people - and this is something I was personally tested on for my licence.
No, some Americans don't. Some of my fellow countrymen are so self-absorbed it doesn't even cross their mind their actions might impact someone else. You'll also see people opening their doors into traffic on very narrow streets.
It's also such an easy and appealing gesture. It's a bit like drawing your gun out, you like it when you do it swift. Just reading the article I was thinking "aww noo, I can't tickle the handle and swerve out like a cat anymore. ... but they're so right I can't win"
American bike and car commuter here. Americans are not the greatest and checking mirrors before opening their doors. I wouldn't say all don't check but I'd estimate a slight majority do check.
American here, remember being drilled pretty hard in Driver's Ed about "hey, if you're opening a door onto an active street, look first", and I follow it pretty religiously (or did when I drove on a regular basis). I'm guessing some people get careless and it shows up in the stats. Not sure what the Dutch reach adds -- if you can't remember to look, you probably can't remember to use your right hand either.
Getting doored is honestly terrifying (I don't say that lightly). I bike and longboard frequently, and I'll avoid bike lanes if they are alongside parked cars. And this is in Boulder, one of the most bike friendly cities in the US:
Local governments have been kind enough to paint warning marks for cyclists, advising them of the safe distance from parked cars and kerbs. Non-cyclists call these warning marks "bike lanes".
Cyclists need at least a metre of space on the nearside at all times. It's your escape route if cars pass too closely. It's your protective buffer against being doored or against pedestrians stepping out into your path. Hugging the kerb gives you nowhere to go in an emergency.
Be brave and take the lane. If you delay other road users, let them honk and shout - that metre of space is literally a matter of life and death.
> Be brave and take the lane. If you delay other road users, let them honk and shout - that metre of space is literally a matter of life and death.
In a country that already respects cyclists this may work. In a country that does not it will likely get you to wake up in the infirmary (assuming you wake up at all) after being hit by someone in a hurry that assumed you were going to give their 2 ton vehicle the room it needs to pass you.
Taking a militant stance as a cyclist by using your fragile body as an obstacle for large steel objects moving at two to three times your speed is not a winning strategy.
If all they did is 'honk and shout' you'd be fine but some percentage will try to pass you anyway.
In my experience taking the lane stops people from assuming that they have space to pass except by changing lanes. Car drivers mostly take their cues from the cyclist. If you're cycling in the gutter it signals for car drivers to try to overtake you in the same lane. Why would you be in the gutter, except to yield the rest of your lane to cars?
There's not space for a car and a bicycle in the same lane. A car will always have to at least partially change lanes to overtake safely. You're better off being 2/3 of a lane over, so your head is in the same position as every other driver, and car drivers change lanes completely to pass as they would for any other vehicle.
Sure, that's the theory. But in practice some drivers will see it as an aggressive move to take 'their' lane. They are wrong, no doubt, but it doesn't pay off to go head-to-head with a bunch of bricks when you're an egg. Better to play it safe. Keep in mind that you're entirely unprotected.
The best way to stay safe in traffic with vehicles is to assume that (1) you're invisible (2) made of eggshells and (3) everybody behind you is out to get you.
If you're a young burly male you might get away with this but keep in mind that advocating this strategy for all cyclists (little old ladies, kids, etc) would definitely not work.
In a car centric society the last thing you want to do is to occupy a full lane sized for vehicles but going 1/3rd their speed. It is an open invitation for aggression against your person, plenty of people see you riding a bike already as such an invitation it certainly isn't going to get better by occupying 'their' lane.
> Sure, that's the theory. But in practice some drivers will see it as an aggressive move to take 'their' lane.
Having commuted by bicycle for almost a decade, this is the theory.
In practice, if you take the lane, virtually every driver will simply move over one lane to pass. Some consideration needs to be taken, of course — if doing this is causing traffic behind you, you should move over and let cars pass (or bike faster, or find an alternate route).
But doing this causes an immediate and unmistakable difference in the behavior of drivers. If you're driving in the gutter, you will get buzzed multiple times in a day as drivers attempt to squeeze by you in the lane. If you're claiming the lane, you might get buzzed once a month. No joke.
You are likely young and able to keep up with traffic. But not everybody is young and able to keep up with traffic. Older people will cycle slower (and are far more vulnerable if they should fall or get into an accident), and kids are going to get clobbered if they should occupy whole lanes.
Keep in mind that any advice that you give for a class of traffic should apply equally to all members of that class, not just to you.
And once a situation develops (such as causing traffic behind you) it is a little late to 'bike faster' (which may simply not be possible depending on age / wind / other conditions) or 'find an alternate route'.
Your comments suggest someone who doesn't do a lot of cycling in traffic. Correct me if I'm wrong. You say that young or old cyclists will get 'clobbered' - what do you mean by this? That a car approaching from the rear will see them riding assertively and simply plow in to them? If not that then what? That the cars will pass them closely as they are forced to move further in to the other lane? If that's your assertion then as others have stated, an assertive lane position is exactly what will save you in this situation - as you have the room on the inside to avoid the passing car.
> Your comments suggest someone who doesn't do a lot of cycling in traffic.
If that's what you got out of it then you're entirely wrong. I cycle a few thousand Km / year.
> Correct me if I'm wrong. You say that young or old cyclists will get 'clobbered' - what do you mean by this?
That the only way in which you can keep cyclists - of all ages - safe is by separating the various traffic streams. By forcible mixing them you are simply asking for trouble.
I'm trying hard to imagine Amsterdam cycling traffic without the separation of low speed and high speed traffic into different lanes and with people cycling like suggested above. The carnage would be terrible.
> That a car approaching from the rear will see them riding assertively and simply plow in to them?
Accidents are called accidents for a reason. That car approaching them from behind may not see them at all due to some momentary distraction. You can attempt to make yourself 'large' and 'visible' but you may still be missed and given the relative difference in strength and weight the outcome is predictable. The best way to stay safe as a cyclist is to stay out of the way of faster and heavy traffic.
> That the cars will pass them closely as they are forced to move further in to the other lane?
There may not even be another lane. And a fairly large number of motorists will not see that as a huge obstacle in trying to pass a cyclist that occupies a whole lane.
> If that's your assertion then as others have stated, an assertive lane position is exactly what will save you in this situation - as you have the room on the inside to avoid the passing car.
Well, in that case you didn't need to take up more room than you needed in the first place...
It's kind of weird how all this seems to center around having a 'safe' place to go to in case the assertive driving ('brave' was the word, why is it considered 'brave' if all it is is safe?) policy fails.
Better to recognize your fragility and play it safe from the get go.
The point is that the non-assertive position isn't 'playing it safe'. You're no more out of the flow of traffic unless the lane is extra wide, you're signalling to following cars that they are welcome to overtake, and you have robbed yourself of any margin for error when a car misjudges their pass and squeezes you in to a parked car or railing.
You're right that the assertive approach is no substitute for segregated infrastructure, but in an imperfect world of mixed-use roads, it's the best way to stay safe, and is the method taught and recommended by many bodies here in the UK.
Interesting. Here in NL we're taught to stay to the right hand side of the lane with about .5 meters of margin to the right relative to where the road surface ends. That way cars can overtake without possibly hitting a cyclist going the other way. Also it is strongly discouraged to cycle side-by side (but kids on the way to and from school routinely ignore that as do couples of all ages).
Is a nice example of what the map of a road with mixed cycle/car traffic would look like, absent any markings you'd still try to re-create that situation.
Cars can - and do - occupy the bike lane if they're moving, will slow down behind a bicyclist if there is oncoming traffic and will move around them when the road is clear from oncoming motorized traffic.
Everybody takes the amount of space they need, but no more than they need. To occupy a whole lane and to ignore the 'honking and shouting' (mentioned upthread) would be considered extremely rude and could easily get you in trouble because you're hindering faster traffic.
> Interesting. Here in NL we're taught to stay to the right hand side of the lane with about .5 meters of margin to the right relative to where the road surface ends.
Here in the US, we're taught to claim the lane. As I said earlier in the thread, I have tried both. The difference between the two is utterly unmistakable.
That said, you're right (again earlier in the thread) that I'm young and healthy and able to more or less keep up with city traffic. However, I did caveat my statement with the assertion that if you are causing a backup (due to traffic, no extra lane, or whatever), you should exercise courtesy and allow traffic to pass.
I'm not arguing at all that a cyclist going a leisurely 10mph on a two-lane, 45mph road should claim the lane and sit there oblivious to their surroundings. But even if they do, this cyclist is going to be (in my experience) far safer than if they were on the side of the road getting buzzed with a 35+mph difference between then and car traffic.
Your road design, markings, and customs are completely different.
In the US, a "bike lane" is a completely separate lane that cars are not supposed to drive in. Unfortunately they're usually retrofitted onto a road, making all the other lanes narrower. This exacerbates the standard situation:
Most roads have a double yellow line down the middle, and drivers are taught to never cross this. The general width of the standard lane is around enough for a larger vehicle and a bike to stand side-by-side, but not enough for comfortable passing. The lowest US traffic speed (outside of neighborhoods) is usually 35 mph (56kph), with the basic non-highway speed being around 40-45 mph (64-72 kph).
Most drivers, especially outside cities, expect that they will always be able to pass a bike regardless of any oncoming traffic. Drivers usually pass bikes by moving over a little and continuing at speed - the "good" ones will put their left tires a foot or two over the double yellow line, or possibly slow down to 70% of their speed if oncoming traffic. If the cyclist is in a bike lane or shoulder, the expectation is that a car does not have to account for them at all, since it's the bike's responsibility to continue out of the car's lane.
In the US context, I agree with the "take the lane" advice wholeheartedly. It makes cars have to account for you, and leaves your clear-lane buffer to your right where you can rely on it (as opposed to thinking its on your left, and suddenly swerving left due to damage, debris, or door). A driver yelling at you because they had to slow down and plan to deliberately pass you is much better than that same driver passing a foot away at full speed. And if a driver does plow into you from behind, they would have done the same thing had you been a few feet more to the right (unless you are actually riding on the shoulder, which is the general approach in rural areas where speeds are even higher and longer distances mean people space out more).
It was actually difficult finding a representative picture, since there are so many distinct types of area in the US. As you go into more planned areas, the neighborhoods become nicer (meant for mixed use), but the arteries become even worse and using them is necessary to go anywhere.
> > If that's your assertion then as others have stated, an assertive lane position is exactly what will save you in this situation - as you have the room on the inside to avoid the passing car.
> Well, in that case you didn't need to take up more room than you needed in the first place...
Are you seriously suggesting that rather than have a few-foot safety margin to their right, a cyclist should simply ride entirely in that space because they don't "need" it most of the time?
> But in practice some drivers will see it as an aggressive move to take 'their' lane. [...] In a car centric society the last thing you want to do is to occupy a full lane sized for vehicles but going 1/3rd their speed.
I think this overestimates the antagonism car drivers feel towards cyclists and underestimates the danger of simply not being noticed. When I cycled, I usually found that cars would give me as much space when overtaking as the space I left to the kerb. Cycling a meter from the kerb felt much safer than cycling a foot from the kerb. It forced drivers to make a positive decision to pass me.
I've had (full) beercans thrown at me in traffic in the USA just for cycling, I'd rather avoid playing dodgem with SUVs and pick-up trucks driven by people that feel that roads are not for sharing with vehicles other than cars. To boldly occupy a whole lane is something that might work in a few cities that have considerable bike traffic but I don't think that is a universal rule to live by as a cyclist.
I would still encourage everyone to stop, note the license plate number of the vehicle, and call police dispatch if anyone throws beer can at you. This is wrong at multiple levels and those people don't belong behind the wheel.
I am not fond of enforcement. I'd rather everyone just do the right thing because it is the right thing to do but some people clearly don't get it. Please report incidents like this.
Even in the parts of the US that have said in their laws that cyclists should occupy the whole lane when it's unsafe for them to do otherwise you'll find police giving them tickets because those police don't understand the law and don't understand the safety of it.
I commuted by bike for 10 years following these rules and never had an accident involving moving cars. I feel I always had good situational awareness and control of the situation even in complicated intersections. But I've been doored 3 times in that period, the last time being a very close call where a passenger in a car standing at a red light decided to get out, and so I decided to give up the bike. It feels ironic that out of all the cycling scenarios I could be in, I feel I have the least control/awareness with doors opening.
In retrospect I should have applied your 3 rules to car doors as well, and move at a leisurely walking speed when in door range.
The problem with the doors is that unlike all the other traffic scenarios you could be involved in they contain some surprise elements. For one it is stopped traffic (something that is normally safe) that suddenly becomes dangerous, also it can happen very suddenly. One moment a car is an immobile object, the next it throws a 3' obstacle directly into your path, and if you're close enough there simply isn't time to react. It's next to impossible to safely avoid a door if you are less than your stopping distance away from the door when it is thrown.
After all, taking into account that hitting a door is bad it is arguably less bad than trying to avoid it by swerving around it and getting clipped by a car behind you that doesn't respond in time (assuming it even has room and time enough to respond). Ironically, electric vehicles are more dangerous in this sense than combustion powered ones because they are extremely quiet.
Every time someone in my car is about to open any doors I automatically say 'careful for bikes and pedestrians'. Some people are annoyed by this but I still do it and it has already saved the situation more than once.
I'm currently recovering from a one-sided cycling accident so you can take that as proof that cycling is a dangerous activity, no matter what (right leg broken in 6 places, 2 chunks of steel and 13 screws later and I can re-learn how to walk, the accident happened Aug 7th, I'm already back on the bike and driving but it was a tough battle to get to this point this quick).
Taking the lane is precisely what allows you to make room for motorists. If a motorist makes a close pass when you've taken the lane, you just steer away from them and create some space. If a motorist makes a close pass when you're already hugging the kerb, you have nowhere to go. The best case scenario is that you'll crash into something without too many sharp edges.
Taking the lane doesn't mean acting as an immovable roadblock, it means using the full width of the lane to your advantage. You take the primary position in the centre of the lane by default. When you need to make space, you retreat to a secondary position closer to the kerb. As soon as it is safe to do so, you return to the primary position.
Unless you create the space you need, your safety is in the lap of the gods. A pothole, a piece of debris, a stray dog, an inattentive driver - if you're wedged in between the kerb and passing traffic, all you can do is slam on the brakes and pray. If you've created your own space, you have options.
There are more cyclists than young agile males. And your advice only applies to those. I'm trying to imagine a 60 year old lady on a bike applying this advice and fail to see any happy endings. And where I live old ladies on bikes are extremely common. Cycling advice should apply to all cyclists, not just to those giving the advice.
What do you mean? A 60 year old lady would be safer in the main traffic lanes than in the gutter, for exactly the same reasons as anyone else - more visible from behind, more control over when cars pass them, no risk of hitting a car door etc.
Well, where I live a few million of those elderly lady cyclists (including my mom, 73, makes 100 Km trips on her bike) have reached that age simply because they know not to mix themselves with traffic faster than theirs. Living in a country where traffic has been educated to give cyclists room most definitely helps but I'd hate to see our older generation decimated because they decided to seek 'the middle of the road' all of a sudden.
Cyclists stick to the right of the road exactly so cars can pass them safely.
Anyway, I'm out of this discussion, I find it very interesting that commenters from countries where cycling is decidedly unsafe are going to lecture those from countries where the predominant mode of transportation is the bicycle on safe cycling practices. If the US would adopt half the measures of what we consider normal here when it comes to roads and other facilities for cyclists and cyclists there would adopt half the practices of what we here consider safe cycling then you might have a chance at making cycling a viable means of transportation.
In the meantime, good luck with 'assertive cycling', occupy that lane, it's yours after all and make sure you wear that helmet, you'll need it.
> I find it very interesting that commenters from countries where cycling is decidedly unsafe are going to lecture those from countries where the predominant mode of transportation is the bicycle on safe cycling practices.
We are lecturing you on the optimal way to cycle in /our country/, not yours. Sure, your country might have a thing or five to teach us about infrastructure, laws, and cultural norms regarding bike traffic, but when it comes to what an /individual bicyclist/ should do given the situation here, we absolutely have a better idea than you do. It's like comparing driving in a easygoing city and driving in an aggressive city--sure, the driving in the former is on the whole safer than in the latter, but driving in an easygoing manner in an aggressive city is much more likely to get you into trouble than driving aggressively will.
> I find it very interesting that commenters from countries where cycling is decidedly unsafe are going to lecture those from countries where the predominant mode of transportation is the bicycle on safe cycling practices
This is exactly the point though. The guidelines that apply in the Netherlands are different to the guidelines in, say, the UK, precisely because the two countries have very different attitudes towards cycling. In the Netherlands you have an environment where cycling is extremely common, motorists are very used to sharing the roads and in fact most motorists are also cyclists themselves. This dramatically reduces the sort of us vs them conflicts between cyclists and motorists that seem so common in other countries. Different types of road user are seen more or less equally and show each other a level of respect that is just about unheard of elsewhere. In such an environment, hogging the lane seems unnecessarily aggressive because you simply don't need to do it.
In the UK, USA and just about everywhere else motorists are simply not used to driving close to cyclists. They don't know how much space to leave, they don't know how to pass them safely, it's actually socially acceptable to be aggressive towards cyclists but most of all, motorists are not on the lookout for cyclists, they are not expecting them. In this kind of environment the cyclist's number one priority is to make themselves seen and that's why being assertive is so important.
If you're in the middle of the lane by default the car behind you might be annoyed but at least they are likely to see you, and when you've been seen you can then move closer to the kerb to allow them to pass you safely. This puts the cyclist in control in a situation where they'd normally be at the mercy of motorists.
Whatever dude. You (evidently) know nothing about me or my country. Maybe your country has great numbers for safety of cyclists; good for you if so, but that doesn't mean everything you're doing is right, much less that it's so obviously right as to not even bear discussion.
Why are only agile young males capable of steering to the left and right while cycling? Surely other categories of cyclist are capable of doing this. If any cyclist, regardless of age or gender, is unable to plot a safe path and follow it avoiding obstacles then they are endangering themselves through their choice to cycle on a road.
Because 'slamming on the brakes' is not an option for older cyclists, slamming on the brakes (especially on a wet road) is a small step away from falling for an older cyclist. They can however coast to a stop while braking. They can't swerve either and they can be forgetful (forget to indicate, forget to look around them). And still they are perfectly valid cyclists and should not have to worry about arriving in one piece (or at all) because they are a little bit older.
Cyclists are perfectly safe on their own, it's up to the rest of the traffic to keep them safe and treat them as if they're made of glass.
Nobody should be travelling at a speed that is beyond their own ability to stop. Cycling at a speed beyond any individual's threshold for safely braking is putting themselves in danger. This applies equally across all levels of training, ability, age and gender.
People who cycle on roads expecting cars to take full responsibility for their safety are unlikely to last very long. A cyclist needs to operate within their own safety tolerances, rather than expect others to provide safety to them.
That's total nonsense. If someone throws a door in your way you're going to get hurt, no matter what, which was what started this whole discussion in the first place. See, 'safe braking' makes some assumptions about what other people will do and when they don't all bets are off. That's why we call them accidents to begin with. Cars turning without signaling, doors, swerving into the space occupied by a cyclist and so on. There is absolutely no way to protect against any or all of that.
If everybody would be traveling at their 'individual threshold for safe braking' there wouldn't be any cyclists at all.
> People who cycle on roads expecting cars to take full responsibility for their safety are unlikely to last very long.
> A cyclist needs to operate within their own safety tolerances, rather than expect others to provide safety to them.
And that attitude is the heart of the problem right there. Cyclists can expect other traffic, especially armored guided projectiles to take their fragility into account.
I sincerely hope you're not a driver. And if you are that you stay away from my country, it took a few decades to get rid of that attitude here and the number of accidents dropped in spite of more people in traffic, including kids and the elderly.
Cyclists absent other traffic have a very good safety record, as soon as you mix traffic at different speeds the situation gets dangerous especially if the stronger of the two parties expects cyclists to provide their own safety, by nature of being unprotected humans they need cooperation from other traffic.
Your argument was that poor old dears were hurtling along unable to stop in a reasonable length, only able to "gently coast to a stop". You are now arguing against your own point.
I do drive, and when I do so I rely on the experience of cycling 2500km last year on public roads. You seem to be relying on experience of arguing pointlessly for the sake of noise on the internet.
All cyclists should travelling at a speed where they are capable of breaking before potential hazards. If this includes unexpected cardoors then they should be travelling slowly enough to respond to the danger.
Why do you think they travel above a speed where they have adequate breaking time? Why do you think they should deserve this special treatment that is not afforded to other vehicles?
It's not about youth or agility, it's about skills and confidence. Young men innately have the confidence to ride assertively, but all cyclists should feel empowered to protect themselves.
The obvious example is fatal accidents involving large goods vehicles and cyclists in London. Women are vastly disproportionately likely to be involved in this class of accident, despite being under-represented in overall accident statistics. The leading theory is that women ride less assertively, putting them in dangerous situations at junctions. They're more likely to undertake and less likely to take the lane, jump red lights or bang on a window to make their presence known. They vanish into the large blind spots that surround large goods vehicles. In all likelihood, these cyclists are dying of politeness.
Essentially all those cases are cases where the other traffic is clearly at fault for not being situationally aware. It's akin to victim blaming to suggest that one would need to ride 'assertively' in order to survive in traffic.
All you should have to do to survive in traffic is to obey the traffic rules and the onus is on the rest of the traffic to give you the space you require in order to be safe. Anything less simply won't do.
If so I'd expect something a little bit more substantial to be presented as 'the leading theory', it's just a news paper article repeating a claim by a sports cyclist.
Lorries should be equipped with mirrors overseeing the area to the immediate side of the vehicle. And contrary to the statement in the article the safest place to be is not in front of a lorry but behind it, as a cyclist you should never ever go beside a lorry unless it is stopped and unlikely to move in the next minute.
After all, in order to get out in front of the truck you're going to have to be beside it anyway for a while (and how long will depend greatly on how fast you are moving, something a professional racing cyclist might over-estimate for the general population of cyclists.
Some of the most assertive cycling lane-takers I have witnessed were elderly ladies. Might be because they are old enough to have first hand experience with traffic not yet completely dominated by cars. Even after nominal mass motorization (median household has a car), it took a few decades to displace other modes of road usage to the point were drivers routinely assume that there can be no other vehicles on a regular road, effectively declaring public roads to limited access motorways by negligent threat.
Try Denver. Downtown has several main routes of terrifying bike lanes on the left side. No one looks left/back when they are taking a left turn, even when theres a full car sized lane with reflective dividers (they also frequently forego blinkers, but thats another issue). The worst is the people pulling into parking garages mid block.
Reminds me of the opening narration to the French movie La Haine. Approximately translated:
"This is the story of a man who fell from a 50-story building. The man, as he fell he kept repeating to reassure himself: 'So far so good, so far so good, so far so good.' But the important part is not the fall... it's the landing."
Also in Boulder, also a time I have to be hyper aware. I find the bike infrastructure in this city slightly... uneven. Sometimes, it's great, sometimes it's not very well planned out. I live off of 36 in N Boulder. It can be downright dangerous using the bike lane.
The real answer is to get rid of street parking when you have a bike lane. They're incompatible. In fact, just get rid of street parking altogether. As a bicyclist, I've been doored. As a pedestrian, I find it difficult to see around parked cars to know if it's safe to cross the street in some locations. As a driver, I find it difficult to to see around parked cars to know if it's safe to enter the street AND I have a massively increased cognitive load of paying attention, not just to the traffic on the street, but to everything that may be emerging from a car or from between cars.
Holland didn't get rid of street parking. They just became more careful about about how they placed it relative to bike lanes, sidewalks, and traffic lanes.
The issue of lines-of-sight around parked cars is a big deal, and as you said, it's critical for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists alike. Part of the solution is to make sure that the no-parking regions near intersections are appropriately sized for the speed of the street—they need to be long enough that drivers can actually see that there are no cars that will collide during the time it takes them to pull out. (I'm disturbed by how often this isn't the case in residential neighborhoods in the south bay.) Another part of the solution could be curb extensions, to physically prevent cars from parking near the intersection and allow pedestrians to see more clearly. (And ease the ability of drivers and cyclists to see pedestrians.) There are probably other tools that would help, but those seem like they would yield a big improvement.
Uh huh. 100% agree. Street parking is especially dangerous because it is not sufficient to look for the presence of a car; I must look for the presence of a car, and continue looking until I ascertain whether it's one of the dozens of parked vehicles.
But...street parking is also very convenient. Streets are very close to where people want to get to; no need to walk from a parking garage a half mile away. And practically speaking, it would be hard to imagine how to change existing cities.
I have never found street parking convenient. It will depend on where you live but I tend to find that it's never available so you wind through the streets and inevitably end up far from where you wanted to be.
Thinking specifically of CBD type locations, removing street parking and having more mobility on foot or bicycle works better for me because I can drive straight to a big parking building, then move swiftly to where I need to be.
You don't have to get rid of street parking entirely. Another option is to put a separated bike lane between the parked cars and the sidewalk. This way cyclists are protected from traffic and parked cars (ensure a bit of room for the passenger door).
Also the increased cognitive load of having to pay attention to many things occurring on the road is not necessarily a bad thing. There is evidence that having to pay attention to many things forces drivers to slow down, which is safer and results in less injuries and deaths. In contrast wide lanes allow drivers to feel comfortable which increases their speed and results in more dangerous roads for pedestrians.
On my commute to work, the "bike lane" is shared between bicycles, cars, parked cars (between the bikers and sidewalk), and busses. Basically, they painted bike logos on the asphalt in an already jam packed lane and told everyone to share!
Sounds like a typical "Sharrow" bike lane, which is supposed to be a portmanteau of "share" and "arrow" but is often described as a "shitty arrow" because of how dangerous and ineffective these bike lanes are.
A lot of Vancouver's bike lanes are setup in this manner (road --> parking --> bike lane --> sidewalk).
I have seen the occasional bike get doored by passengers not checking before opening their door. But I imagine this occurrence is much less than if the bike lane were on the driver's side.
So where should the cars park then? Parking is a real issue in large cities and we won't solve it by removing even more spots. Other solutions (which are potentially more expensive) should be looked into before we consider removing street parking.
In big cities these days most parking is off street anyway. A trend to remove on street parking in favor of better pedestrian safety and improved traffic flow can only be a positive.
I live in a big city that is having a similar debate of bike lanes sacrificing space for on-street parking.
And it's a frustrating debate.
Look, I drive. I love parking spaces because I hate looking for parking.
But I also know that as more people move into the city, we need alternative modes of transportation. It's simply unsustainable to add more parking spaces in the hopes of alleviating the lack of supply. We're better off increasing usage of alternative forms of transportation by installing bike lanes (which when properly designed, unequivocally encourages bike usage) and increasing funding for mass transit.
And on-street parking can be so frustrating on major streets as people have to brake and reverse into a spot, stopping traffic. Or they crawl at a much slower pace as they try finding an open spot. Or they force awkward lane changes as there is inconsistencies as to whether or not the lane is drivable/parkable.
The other day somebody posted something saying how more lanes in a road will just cause more people to drive, so won't do anything to reduce traffic. I'd imagine it works the same for parking and even in reverse.
They obviously preferred to do so (since they chose it), and maybe the new lane let some more people afford the house/commute-time pair they wanted.
It's true that induced demand means aggregate travel times don't go down, but more people getting where they need to go in the same amount of time is a victory too.
- astronomical housing costs in the small radius of convenient non-driving commutes to the downtown business district
- exposure to high crime and dysfunctional public schools (possibly requiring the purchase of private K12) in said radius
- travel times to common destinations by public transit 2-3x driving, meaning less engagement with the rest of the world or less free time
- One of
a) standing on a lurching vehicle with an arm raised over your head, rather than sitting in a vehicle as comfortable and smooth as you care to make it
b) cardio, outdoors in whatever the weather happens to be, with no shower at the not-home end of the trip
c) the cost of another person's time to drive you, in addition to the usual fuel + wear and tear
required to get anywhere
are all issues of parking, in that they can all be avoided with more parking and are all exacerbated/forced to the forefront of more people's lives with less parking.
If you are in a US city and truly exposed to none of these, please let me know which one so I can move there.
I don't know about you, but if 2 hour commutes by car are acceptable for people, I don't know why 2 hour walks (~8 miles) or 2 hour bike rides (~20 miles) are not.
b) hasn't ever been a problem for me regardless of the weather--a wipe down with bath wipes and a change of clothes (plus a cold drink) was always sufficient.
To be fair, a lot of these problems are induced by having such car-focused cities in the first place. That extreme focus on making cities car-compatible makes them less livable for every other user of the infrastructure (cyclists, pedestrians, public transport users).
In my opinion the right way to go would be to drastically improve public transport (so it actually IS a competitive option) and in an overlapping process reduce car infrastructure and replace it with pedestrian/cycling/public transport infrastructure.
Remove street parking, narrow the streets (the space that used to be parking spaces doesn't need to be part of the street). Use some of the reclaimed space to build space-efficient parking (i.e. a high-rise parking garage), sell some of what's left to cover the cost, use the remainder for things of civic value (whatever we consider those to be - parks, museums, low-income housing, cafes...)
That is unrealistic and has very bad consequences on the neighborhood. I've heard urban planners (in lectures) say that when there is not a row of parked cars between a street and the sidewalk, people are much less likely to walk and spend time there. So, for example, businesses close along a street when parking is suddenly prohibited. And, as others pointed out, in most cities it is unrealistic due to how little parking there is available.
If America had a real public transport/rail system in all its major cities, this would be way less of an issue. It did at one point. America had an amazing tram network in many cities. Every city I lived in use to have trams.
Instead of upgrading trams like St. Petersburg, Melbourne and most of Europe did, America scraped trams due to lobbying efforts of car companies to switch to shitty buses.
The Netherlands have amazing train and tram networks throughout their cities. It's not uncommon to see bicycles piled up and belted to the wall in the bike section of each train.
This makes sense if the road is wide and fast, like in suburban cores: the point is to separate pedestrians from noisy, dangerous cars going upwards of 30 mph.
This makes no sense for local city traffic.
> in most cities it is unrealistic due to how little parking there is available
This is a problem with how American cities are designed. Ideally, one shouldn't need to own a car at all in a major city. In Manhattan, for example, it's ridiculous that the government (and therefore residents) subsidize cars by providing free street parking all over the island. Very, very few people who live there own a car. But I digress.
> I've heard urban planners (in lectures) say that when there is not a row of parked cars between a street and the sidewalk, people are much less likely to walk and spend time there.
Have they considered replacing the parking lane with a bike lane instead of regular traffic?
> And, as others pointed out, in most cities it is unrealistic due to how little parking there is available.
That's purely a supply and demand issue--because of how cheap street parking is, the price of parking is very low and thus elevated parking garages are uneconomical. If only elevated parking is available, that changes.
In San Francisco, especially in the southern neighborhoods, they simply park in the bike lanes: pick up trucks, cleaning services vans, even ice cream carts! Park for 15, 30, 45 minutes.
Some people would get extremely upset at blocking the bike lane and forcing cyclists into traffic or over the sidewalk. A passing scooter might not make it in time and is likely to clip your mirrors in the process depending on how much room they have to maneuver (likely not a lot or you wouldn't be parking in the bike lane to begin with). As for the wipers, that would likely be vandalism, but it's still cheaper to fix than the parking ticket that would follow immediately if your car would not be towed to the municipal holding facility from where you can 'buy it back' for a sum that will remind you not to park your car like that for the rest of your life (419 Euros) for being an impediment to traffic safety.
Seriously, if you're in Amsterdam and you feel like parking in a bike lane is acceptable please do not do it, it will not end well.
No, it's not common at all. Nobody in their right mind would do this, those that do will get the message quickly, it's totally anti-social to block a bike path and dangerous to boot.
Getting rid of street parking hurts people with handicapped permits. In Israel, if you are eligible for a handicapped permit then you can get a street parking space in front of your apartment building reserved for your car (with signage saying that if the car parked there doesn't specifically have license plate number X then it will be towed). Telling these people to go a few blocks to an underground parking garage, even if that garage is accessible, directly hampers their mobility and independence.
Yeah I would love to see that.
At least on main-ish streets, particularly those with streetcars.
So then, streetcar would be in the righmost lane, not blocking other lanes like it does now.
And the streetcar passengers would not have to step on the street, which is obviously dangerous.
And, I would equip streetcars with plows, to deal with people that still park in the right lane, especially in rush hour.
+ Permit the streetcar drivers to crash the plow into the car blocking the lane, long as the streetcar driver says, "Oops, sorry about that"
That would be most satisfying to watch. The right-lane-blocking assholes would now have a natural predator, and they will either be crushed, or forced to a different habitat.
I think that's pretty unrealistic, until we get car sharing and autonomous taxis and the like to a point where there just isn't a need for street parking.
Autonomous cars will still need to pull over to let off passengers, where they could come into conflict with bike lanes (taxis already dangerously pull into bike lanes to drop off passengers). There is still a need for explicitly separated bike lanes and parking spots for cars.
I'm excited for the advent of autonomous cars, but their introduction is not really going to solve any of the current problems with our road network.
Then why are people still using cars? My guess: public transportation is too slow (e.g. having to stop every couple blocks) and not granular enough (have to walk to stop, have to wait). Also it is often unpleasant, being crammed in with so many.
Where the interests of cyclists and drivers conflict, we should prioritize cycling, because it has no negative externalities, requires much cheaper infrastructure, is good for health, etc.
If it causes the drivers to do something extremely inefficient (e.g. drive around the block for a half hour looking for parking), then it's a negative externality. Cyclists do not exist in a vacuum.
What you're describing is not an externality at all. It's an explicit cost to the driver that will hopefully make them alter their behavior.
It makes the parking (end goal) more expensive to them via both time (additional time to park) and money (gas wasted during finding the parking spot), so it is reflected in the cost of the good. Thus it is not an externality.
No, if they don't care it's not entirely reflected in the good. This happens quite frequently with emissions. If you do something that causes a bunch more people to produce emissions (e.g. Lower the cost of gasoline by 90%), you are partially responsible for those externalities.
I think you're missing the point. In Amsterdam cars are guests on many roads. The transport infrastructure very much supports walking, cycling, and use of public transport. The car is a very very inefficient use of road space.
Most people don't value their time that highly. Most middle class Americans for example would rather waste the half hour rather than spend $40 or whatever to take a cab from the suburb into the city.
This disconnect is the reason a lot of silicon valley startups flounder outside of silicon valley. Most of the US population can't afford to throw away $10 to save 20 mins.
Making driving worse has the pretty significant negative externality of decreasing the n minutes to downtown land area, forcing people to spend more money on housing or more time in transit.
At least in the context of Amsterdam, it's already a terrible city for driving. The housing market in Amsterdam is (and will continue to get more) ridiculous, but certainly not due to lack of parking or cycling-prioritized city planning.
Amsterdam resident here. Such a good infrastructure and laws for the bycyclists make them not giving a single shit about the way they are actually driving their bycicles. And their behaviour and driving style is often very offensive to both pedestrians and car users. So it's not that straight and black and white.
In Amsterdam at least, it is certainly not tourists who create most of the problems. Tourists are just a nuisance, usually clueless and going very slow and massively in the minority despite the overall popularity of the city.
Dutch cyclists are substantially more likely to be running red lights without looking, at speed. They are more likely to be using their phone - meandering all over the path - or at night without lights. Stopping or turning without signalling - without checking over their shoulder - or pulling onto a cycle path without looking. There's also just as much nuisance cycling from groups of students two or three bikes wide having a social event during rush hour as there is from tourists wobbling around trying to figure out where they are going.
This is a familiar pattern: exactly the same as car drivers, people think being experienced means you can get away with being lazy and/or selfish. Then just blame "those other people" for the problems.
Amsterdam cyclists certainly have a tendency to consider traffic rules more as suggestions than hard rules, but there's still a huge difference between the kind that runs a red light because there's clearly no crossing traffic, and the kind that runs a red light on a dangerous intersection without watching while on the phone.
It's a minority, but I regularly encounter cyclists who clearly want to die. The most blatant example was a mother who was trying to direct her children to ride against the direction of traffic between a bike lane and two car lanes that just came from the A10 (presumably because she had to take the next road left and didn't want to cross the busy street twice).
Cycling without lights and texting while driving is only really dangerous to the cyclist in question though, not really for other cyclists.
Turning without signalling is a bit of an annoyance though, I run into that fairly often.
Kids cycling two by two is also frustrating because you can't overtake, but it isn't directly dangerous.
The fact that cyclists here in NL can break the rules with impunity and still stay pretty safe is probably a consequence of how good our infrastructure is, imo
Nah. Guy with bunch of very small kids on his bicycle crossing on red without throwing even a quick look is not a tourist - I'm living in Amsterdam for five years now and that's enough to understand that :)
Using your blinker is a requirement in the driver's license test, too. So is driving with your hands 10-2, coming to a complete stop at all stop signs, and driving the speed limit.
I don't think adding something to a driver's test is going to change much.
Coming from Germany to the US, I'm very regularly confused and annoyed how few drivers here use signals in a meaningful way. If used at all, it's halfway through the turn.
In the US being able to drive is culturally considered a human right. I think that's part of why standards for driving exams or so risibly low compared to Europe.
You would think it would be the opposite though--if driving were such an essential portion of our live, we would put much more practice and attention to it, not less.
It would take decades for new drivers learning this technique to fully replace the current driving population. And I suspect most people wouldn't keep up the habit anyway.
I hate that argument; effectively it boils down to "it is hard, so why try anything at all?"
Even if it took thirty years and even if it was only ten percent effective, what is the negatives to this plan? One more minor skill to driving? One more bullet in the driving code?
Because by the time this plan actually works, humans won't even be driving cars anymore. And as I said I would be very surprised if it actually did work, given how quickly people lose the habits they are taught in driver's ed (how many people keep 4 seconds of distance, wear their seatbelt, never speed, adjust their mirrors correctly, look both ways for trains, etc.)
> Because by the time this plan actually works, humans won't even be driving cars anymore.
They'll still be opening doors and riding bikes however.
> how many people keep 4 seconds of distance, wear their seatbelt, never speed, adjust their mirrors correctly, look both ways for trains, etc.
Most people? Well except for the speed one. But the vast majority of people wear their seatbelts, give a safe travelling distance (although people are terrible at judging it), and are careful at railroad crossings.
> They'll still be opening doors and riding bikes however.
Will they? I'd expect an autonomous car's doors to be under its control unless the passenger declares an emergency (which would be a Big Deal, call the police, etc.). Also, once autonomous cars are plentiful and transportation is dirt cheap, how many people will still be riding bikes in congested areas?
Because the main cost of an uber is the driver's wage, so I think it could be much less than half. Then if you share the car with multiple riders per trip, that could lower the cost much further (at the expense of slightly longer trips.)
I expect that cities will heavily subsidize it, to bring it down to about the level of public transport (but far more convenient). I'll admit it's just guessing at a very nebulous future, though.
Perhaps we could add radars that block the door if there is a risk of dooring, either by a bike, or another car.
The car manufacturers have just agreed to put collision mitigation systems in all cars (by 2020 or something), and that requires radars and cameras.
Even better, some cars have radars in the back, too, to identify cross traffic & c. So, identifying potential dooring event as well, might be quite doable using those same radars.
Edit: I forgot that my car also has this 'Blind Spot Indicator', that is, some radars that look to the side and back, to figure out if the other car is in your blind spot. I guess that could be used to prevent dooring, too.
While this could prevent some of the accidents, I'm not sure if the sum effect would be better. Allow me to explain:
According to Google, the average cycling speed is 15.5km/h and the average car length is 4.5m. Surely these will differ a lot from area to area, but they're good for a ballpark measure. This means it takes a cyclist about one second (4.5m / 15.5kmh = 1.05s) to pass a parked car.
Even if you have a car with sensors, if the cyclist is out of your sensors' reach (behind the corner of the previous car), once you open your door, that one second will not be enough for the cyclist to either stop or change course.
What might happen, however, is having sensors could lead to more reckless behavior along the lines of "why do I need to look, I have sensors?".
>According to Google, the average cycling speed is 15.5km/h
That sounds like a speed averaged over a whole trip - including the phases of deceleration and acceleration before/after traffic lights. From my experience, most people are closer to 17-20km/h when traveling, with plenty of fit people going at 24+.
I don't quite see why you're downvoted. The proximity sensors that already exist in many new cars (for parking assistance etc) could do this. Yes, they're not "radars" but for some purposes they work the same.
By blocking the door if you detect an oncoming cyclist, you've created a new problem. What if it false-positives? What if it false-positives and your car is on fire? What if hackers find some way to fool the sensor?
In my mind, this is kind of similar to seat belts.
In case of fire, you can get trapped IF you cannot undo the belt, which does happen, but not always.
What I would do is, provide initial resistance to opening the door; but if you keep pushing, it opens, just slower.
As for the hackers, they can also control your brakes etc, so hacking thing needs to be solved anyways. Note that by 2020 that needs to be solved for every car sold in States, due to the CMBS systems being mandatory by that date.
Right, Large scale change of driver habits is a simple solution... a more enforcable suggestion is that the car owner is by default liable for any damages that happen from dooring, and that dooring is a fineable offence. Give car owners a real motivacion to check for bikes
It already is the law and a fine-able offense in most states. Unless you have doored someone or had it done to you, most people are just not thinking about it.
Why do you think that the penalties you propose will drive a better change in behavior than this simple and effective habit they're suggesting to drivers? What behavioral change do you expect to result from your proposal and how is it better than getting people to start a habit that will cause them to automatically check behind them? By what mechanism do you believe that punishing unintentional behavior will drive positive changes?
I am curious about how may incidents are caused from people that consistently are a bit lazy, and how many are caused by people that make a one off mistake. It is a genuine question. The reason it comes to my mind is recently I was doing a three point turn (actually a 20 point turn) to get out of my drive way, as other cars had left me with almost no space to get out, part of this manouver involved me having to pump up onto the kerb when reversing, and just after doing it, I saw a little girl appear from behind my car on her scooter, she then stopped and looked at me. I didn't find out from her (she disappear shortly after) whether I had almost hit her, or not, but either way it shook me up a little, as I appreciate I could have so easily caused an accident, and I would say I am a very careful, cautious driver. In this particular scenario other road users had left the cars parked in a way that bumping up the kerb was my only option, but I simply didn't see this small girl, I think she came from behind a parked car, so I couldn't see her. Luckily no harm was done, but it shook me up a little. Hopefully it'll reduce my chances of having a similar incident in future as it'll make more more vigilent to my surroundings.
The problem is, dooring only affects the doorer after it happens. Most other traffic violations, like speeding, blowing stop signs, failure to yield, etc, can get you a ticket regardless of their outcome. Opening a car door into traffic, in Chicago at least, puts you at fault but there's no getting a ticket for not looking. There's only a ticket after your action causes an injury.
Obviously, we can't have police ticketing everyone parallel parking for not looking in their mirror, so we think we need to attack this from an education perspective alone.
I propose instead, we stop trying to segregate bikes into lanes that they don't fit into! Good bike lanes have a buffer between cars that makes dooring almost impossible.
Bad:
|B|C
Good:
|B|\|C
Where B = Bike and C = car and slashes and pipes = paint on the roads.
Preferably on the right hand side, that removes the drivers from the equation (most cars only have a single occupant), and it stops cars from having to cross the bike lane.
The bike lane is behind the parked cars next to the pedestrian area (and a little bit lower), you can see a cyclist on the left hand side of the picture.
I'm slightly surprised by the "best place to drive in the world" claim.
Urban driving in the Netherlands is pretty stressful, you have to check regularly for cyclists (in both directions) when turning, and also avoid trams/tram lanes.
Although, since the bike infra is so good, you rarely find yourself needing a car here.
Great, a solution that boils down to "bikers can be safe from just one of many mortal dangers, if and only if every single driver learns this new habit and does it right every time".
I want solutions in which safety doesn't depend on perfect behaviour from people at minimal risk (drivers), like physical separation of lanes.
The only real thing then is to ban bicycles. or cars. Both parties need to learn to co-operate, because while separated lanes will help improve safety, the fact remains that the two will always need to share roads, just like pedestrians do in many ways (think crossings)
Here in Austin, some streets have done away with parallel parking in favor of back-in angle parking. This approach has some benefits, one of which is eliminating the possibility of dooring bicyclists.
Honestly, given how many broken driver's side mirrors you see around, likely received the same way, it seems like a smart move in general. Good for peds, good for bikes, good for cars, and good for the people getting out of their cars.
In Belgium we don't have a word for doored either. But we don't use our right hand, we are just learned to look and make sure we are not going to smack someone of their bike.
Also often the lane next to you is a car-lane. As such you also learn not to swing open your door wildly, as you might loose your door ;)
Yeah, this isn't just a thing to protect bicyclists, this is also about how to safely exit your vehicle with a lane of traffic next to you. Can't count the number of people over here (USA) that just blindly throw open their door and hope for the best.
I always check, and if I have to open my door with a line of traffic going by (there's some streets around here where traffic going by is literally endless) I open it a crack first, then open it only as much as I need to exit, and do the whole process slowly, and watch the approaching cars the whole time. I can't remember the last time I've ever seen someone else do that though.
1) this is not a clever workaround, this is common sense. if you don't do this already, you're a terrible motorist and shouldn't be allowed to drive.
2) do high end cars have proximity sensors for this sort of thing yet? comparable to the way that large vehicles alert you if you're about to back into something.
Cycling here in Boulder is definitely much more dangerous compared to The Netherlands. A lot of cars turn right without checking for bikes. What's up with that?
On the other hand the bike sharing program here in Boulder is the best I've ever seen.
> A lot of cars turn right without checking for bikes. What's up with that?
Why are you to the right of the turning lane? If you are a vehicle, act like a (slow-moving, natch) vehicle: get in the right-most through lane, and hold it.
Because that forces you into car traffic, a place where a cyclist would rather not be. Straight through traffic on bicycles should not have to cross right turning cars, but should stay in the rightmost lane because that separates cycling traffic from car traffic the most.
I see this all the time in SF: the car is turning right without being in the correct lane; the driver should be in bike lane (and partially still in the rightmost traffic lane) and should be signalling right, to indicate a turn. Inevitably, the driver isn't.
As a biker, if I see a vehicle properly executing a right turn, I will of course either not pass the vehicle, or pass on the vehicle left in the space left in the traffic lane by the fact that the vehicle has moved in the bike lane, thereby not conflicting with the driver's right turn. But I have to know the driver is about to turn, and so many drivers just give no signal.
That obviously depends on the infrastructure. If the bike lane is an actual bike lane, then cars turning right should wait until cyclist are done crossing the road. Please don't assume your system is universal: it's broken and it's not.
I think a system which relies on drivers to check blindspots for small, light vehicles while turning (when their attention is focussed on the large, heavy vehicles on the other side which can kill them) is broken.
Bikes are vehicles: they belong on the road, just like cars. They are slow vehicles, so they should take the rightmost lane. Cars should pass them on the left (switch the sides if you're in a certain countries), just as they would pass tractors or slow cars.
Putting cyclists where drivers are liable to miss them and doors are liable to strike them is madness.
So am i the only one who uses a different technique? I always look in the side mirror (the one on the driver side=left side) before i open the door, where i can perfectly see incoming bikes/etc passing my car.
When i got my drivers license i was taught to do this and it became a habit, so i've been doing it ever since. Works very well.
fyi i'm Dutch and i've never heard of the "Dutch reach" before.
I was doing something similar to this over the summer when I sprained some ligaments in my left hand so it was painful to open the door using the "usual" left hand motion. The video seems to imply that reaching over your body to open the door with your right hand will naturally force your body to turn to see behind you (or to the side). This never happened in my experience, I can reach over and open the door with my right hand while still looking forward. Actually having to turn your torso has to be an additional learned behavior. I suspect that folks might make the turn at first if taught to do so, then eventually do the lazier thing and stop turning.
As a cyclist who has been nearly doored on multiple occasions, I emphasize but the cultural change might be a bit too much to expect. TBH, I prefer jawbone3's suggestion of making the driver/car owner liable by default for "dooming" and applying a fine and/or surcharge.
They're already liable. That doesn't fix it, in the same way that speed limit laws don't stop speeding, and parking laws don't prevent illegal parking.
And just to be clear, this is not just in the U.S. The clause is in practically all traffic laws in all countries, because it is mandated by the Article 24 in Vienna Convention on Road Traffic.
I'm not saying that he's at fault, obviously the fault is 100% on the side of whoever opened the door, but if I was driving 60mph next to a lane of standing traffic, that would be completely irresponsible, because if someone pulled out into my lane the accident would be severe. Driving in cities requires caution, but I notice that cyclists cycle as if they are alone on the road, zooming at 30mph past standing traffic.
I'm not guilt-free, I used to cycle ~2000 miles a year in a large city and a I did my share of stupid irresponsible stuff on a bike, but I think both sides need a bit of education on how to be safe on the road.
Well, I was thinking more about some studies that show it's the difference in speeds on the road that creates dangerous situations, and not the speed itself. So if the traffic is moving at 30mph, there is no problem with a cyclist cycling at 30mph. But if they are cycling at 30mph next to standing traffic, that's really dangerous. If you watch the gif it looks like the cyclist is travelling too fast for the conditions of the road - a pedestrian has to literally jump out of their way, and there's no time to react to something like an opening door - in fact, there's a pedestrian crossing after that taxi, if there was anyone crossing the road there's 0 chance that cyclist would stop in time.
I would feel exactly same way if it was a car driving this fast next to standing traffic - the same sort of danger.
I Germany this is taught as 'Schulterblick' ('over the shoulder look') in driving school (which is mandatory in this country).
In general, you are taught to always use Schulterblick when:
1. Changing lanes.
2. Entering/exiting from/to a ramp.
3. Turning.
4. Getting out of a parking spot.
5. Opening a door to exit the car.
Modern rear mirrors are curved at the outer vertical edge to avoid any dead spot.
This means just checking the mirror before you do any of the above should -- in theory --, be enough (except for some cases of 3).
But better safe than sorry.
An exception are trucks. They have a dead spot at the right which the driver can't check. Mercedes introduced a an electronic solution for this in 2014.
Wow, that's the first time I've seen 500+ comments on an HN thread about cycling!
As to the "Dutch" grip: when I did driving school in Germany some years back, my teacher took great pains to impress on me to always look back before opening a door. In fact, not doing so can cause you to fail your driving test. As having to retake your driving test here can easily set you back several hundred euros, I learnt quickly...
How do existing self-driving cars handle this case? Perhaps regulation could cover this if the manufacturers aren't. The cars should have sensors to know it's not safe to open the door.
Getting rid of parked cars will be a good start.
EDIT: obviously the car can sound a warning or even briefly prevent the door from opening. Similar case, what if a car or truck is passing by very closely at that moment.
Given the sensors required to be self-driving, a self-driving car should be able to detect a bicycle in the "dooring zone", and prevent the door from opening and/or alert the car occupant.
Yes, proximity sensors are capable of dramatically improving safety for pedestrians and cyclists, even in non-self-driving vehicles.
Many categories of collisions caused by carelessness and blind spots could be prevented by automatically applying breaks, preventing doors opening, etc.
Actually, even current normal cars could easily give drivers and passengers that warning.
At least a rental Golf I was driving recently made all sorts of warning sounds about others coming to the proximity, not just driving close to something. For instance, a scooter passing closely (this was Paris) would make the dashboard whine.
For example, a lit rear indicator light (not blinking) would be a signal that I could check for without much cognitive effort, and it wouldn't be too confusing for the rest of the traffic. Just having it turn on when car was turned off but the doors haven't been opened should cover most situation.
To be honest, I never use my right arm to open the left door, and I never heard of this practise. But I will always look in the mirror or behind me to check if a bike or scooter comes up from behind.
In big cities like Utrecht and Amsterdam, in certain neighbourhoods with lots of migrants, it is - as a cyclist - not safe to assume that someone will check for cyclists from behind. You - as cyclist - have to take care of yourself, which means driving more on the road instead of the cycle path. As an experience big-city-cyclist this is no problem for me. I merge with car traffic without thinking.
But I see it happen all too often that cars take a left or right turn without looking back. Same with people crossing roads without looking left or right. They just assume that the other people will stop. These are mostly migrants not used to our way of doing this, but more and more people using their smartphone in traffic do exactly the same.
"In big cities like Utrecht and Amsterdam, in certain neighbourhoods with lots of migrants, it is - as a cyclist - not safe to assume that someone will check for cyclists from behind."
Do you think migrants in Amsterdam and Utrecht are worse at checking for cyclists coming from behind than other people? If so, how do you know this? Have you experienced it yourself and did you assume the driver was a migrant, or do you have more trustworthy data?
I guess this is not a bad idea, but just looking in the side mirror before opening the door is easier to do, and probably easier to teach people to do.
As a cyclist, I give parked cars as much room as possible. I've never been doored... though I've never ridden in NYC either.
This is what I always do, and it seems to work fine. I can't recall whether I was ever explicitly taught this or not, but I find it amazing that some people apparently just fling their door blindly open into.. whatever might be there, without checking somehow.
> the rear roof support 'C style') can be quite wide and obscure a lot of your vision
It's getting worse and worse. Older cars (like 10-15 years old) still had bigger windows and thinner roof support. Sure, the cars looked maybe a bit less stylish, but the overview for the driver was a lot better (in all directions). Also new cars are wider and longer. Nowadays it's often hard to fit your car in a parking lot, and the doors open outside of the marked space. Some regulation would help to force manufacturers to think about designing cars a bit more.
I'm honestly surprised this is such a common problem in the US. Most of the parallel parking spaces here are next to the road, so if you open your door without looking, some other car will crash into you. We have been trained since we were children to always look when exiting a car parked on a street. We were not even allowed to exit from the road side of the car most of the time. As a driver, you have to be super careful, because when you are parked, there is usually a steady traffic less then 50cm next to your left. You basically always have too look and double-check before opening your door on a street. I live in Slovakia, but I think my experience matches most of the countries in this part of Europe.
Yeah, American here, I can't fathom opening my door when parked along the street without watching my side mirror as I do so.
Sure, there's "enough room" on most streets to not have my door ripped off, but it seems a little silly to trust it so fully. That's sorta like saying you should just pin the throttle when the light turns green, as the other cars have a red light anyway, so it's unlikely that you will collide with anyone.
Most roads I've encountered have some space between the travel and parking lanes, big enough for a door and person, but this is also the space bikes use. Only on the narrowest streets do you have to watch out for cars.
Bullshit article: the rule that everyone learns is to check your mirror and double check by looking over your shoulder. I have never heard of the right hand rule.
It gets a habit because the chances are pretty high because of narrow roads and a lot of other traffic behind you.
This is great, because it's simple, easy to explain and highly actionable. It's incentive-compatible because implementing this yourself greatly reduces the chance you'll door someone, and few people actually want to cause an accident.
It's weird to see this described as a workaround, or a deliberate method, when to me as a swede living in Malmö it's the most natural thing ever.
It's up to drivers, and cab drivers, to warn their passengers to be careful when opening the door. Of course this is an imperfect system but from my perspective it has worked for as long as I've lived.
Swedish traffic law dictates that the one opening the door is responsible for any damages caused, so to protect themselves, their insurance premium and their cars drivers obviously become careful when opening doors.
It messes up your whole daily routine if your door is broken because of a bicycle.
It is the same in the Netherlands. By the time people are old enough to get a drivers license they already knows this. Everyone gets taught this by their parents, and everyone cycles themselves so people know that this is necessary.
The other day I was at a four-way intersection, waiting at traffic lights with my bike, next to a car on my right. Red light was showing. There was no oncoming traffic. Then, on a whim, instead of waiting before I could move forward, I turned right 45 degrees and in an attempt to cross the road, walked my bike in front of the car and as I was passing the car, an aggressive motorcyclist who was behind the car moved out of the line very quickly with an intention to jump the red light and in doing so ended up T-boning my bike. I could get away safely but not without minor damage to my bike.
This is very old, for as long as I can remember (decades) you will fail to pass your driving test in Greece if you try to open the car's door with your hand closest to it and without checking the side mirror first.
And this is what most Dutch people will take away from this article:
looks at the taxi-GIF and images -- wait, who does that? did they do that on purpose?? the bike was like this close before they opened the door, how could they not see it?
reads on -- so hold up, in the US people open their car doors without looking. Yes, no wonder bikes are getting "doored" left and right .. mostly right, I guess.
I'm a bit at a loss for words, actually. It's like backing into a parking spot without looking.
This isn't rocket surgery, I don't think you need a "clever workaround" :)
When riding my bicycle I treat it as if I were on my motorcycle, all cars are threats and if I can see someone in a car I am passing they will open the door so I plan for it
"Fred Young, a Landscape Architect based in Seattle, led us through a visual tour of Dutch cycling infrastructure, share insights of the transportation experts he met and show how cycling is a part of daily life in the Netherlands."
I know this would be a lot harder, but I think the best solution would be some city redesign where we separated bike and automobile routes, or at least minimized the places where they are together.
The Dutch reach _is_ clever, but it takes a lot of retraining of existing motorists, so it will take concerted awareness raising and probably a fairly long time-frame to take effect here.
Interestingly, the bike lane shown in the first picture of the article rather marks the region that by German law cyclists are required to avoid. Cyclists are required to keep about a meter distance from parked cars to prevent dooming. That of course does not stop local authorities from creating bike lines exactly as shown in the article :(.
It is not an explicit number in the law, but deducting from the requirements of driving safely, the bicyclists have to keep a distance from the right side of the road, especially from parked cars. There have been court rulings which require this to be 1m or more. You can find a bit about it here: http://pdeleuw.de/fahrrad/stvo.html
A couple of months ago I watched a short video about how we got our cycling lanes. I think it provides some interesting context on why we built our cycling infrastructure. If you like this topic, you'll like the video...
A honest question for people who say getting rid of street parking is an economically viable idea - would it be economically viable if there was an underground road system purely for bikes, where there would be no way for cars and larger vehicles to share the ride? You also don't need to worry about the weather.
It would not be economically viable because underground tunnels are enormously expensive to build. The reason they can work for subways is because you don't need to excavate that much space for a subway train to move a whole ton of people. While bikes take up an order of magnitude less space than cars per person, subways take up another order of magnitude less space than bikes.
I've always opened the door this way. I want to know what's happening and it makes sense to open it that way. Kind of looking both ways before crossing, it'd be strange to give it a name like "The British Method" since you don't imagine anyone mentally undiminished not doing it.
I don't wear a helmet in my home town Amsterdam. I do wear a helmet here in San Francisco. Why? Car drivers are just not used to bicyclists in SF. Yes open their door without looking, turn without using their signals. And in general, don't pay attention and are on their phones all the time
Great idea but I think more of us cyclists could be riding and anticipating 'if that car door opens can I stop in time?'. We can't rely on people in cars doing the right thing. Many of us cycle too fast to be able to react in time.
It's impossible to dodge a door open by an uncareful driver. It happened to me, I was cycling really slow, I was watching that door because I suspected the driver was still inside: When the driver slammed her door open, it just hit my shoulder, there was nothing I could do, it happened too fast. Since that day, I just constantly ring my bell when bike by car doors, which must be very annoying for the neighbours. But ey, safety first.
One more reason it's difficult to dodge an opening door is, swaying out of the cycle lane may lead us to hit a car we haven't seen.
Resident of San Francisco here, a global leader in amazing bike theft stories.
I look my steel cable through my bike helmet straps or I insert my u lock through the helmet. The only way to steal the helmet would be to saw it in half.
Interesting. I'd just mandate drivers had to spend 10,000m on a motorbike, or time on bicycle and motorbike, before being let near a car. Car driving standards would improve dramatically.
It's not that everyone does it all the time. It only has to happen, say 1% of the time. Combine that with the number of cyclists on the road, and the thousands upon thousands of car doors opened each day, and odds are it will happen. As the article states, it happens on average once per day in Chicago. It's not a lot, but it is a problem.
Or, as a bike rider one can simply look into a cars cabin and see if a person is inside. I assume everyone is a terrible driver, have no idea I'm on the road.
I am a regular bike commuter on traffic heavy Los Angeles. I'll never understand the mentality of bicyclists who are more concerned with asserting their rights as opposed to exercising caution and restraint. Graveyards are full of people who had the right of way.
Cyclists are already second class citizens on the roads. People who ride bikes are upset about this and would prefer not to become third or fourth class. It's also very frustrating to have to assume everyone is so ignorant that they wouldn't mind accidentally killing you for the sake of saving a second or two.
I completely agree that being aggressively paranoid is the way to stay alive. But agreeing that it is the smart thing to do and believing that it's acceptable are different things.
"Women are underrepresented in tech and they should just have to suck it up and deal with casual sexism & etc because tech bros can't learn to not be sexist"
That's roughly the same attitude applied to women as cyclists. Seems a lot worse that way, doesn't it?
> Cyclists are already second class citizens on the roads. People who ride bikes are upset about this and would prefer not to become third or fourth class.
True. But it's worth pointing out that cyclists aren't always the angels they often make themselves out to be. I sometimes refer to them as "the motorists of the walkway".
This came after having quite a few spandex-clad baby-boomers zip by me on their sleek fixies yelling "get out of the way" when I'm walking on a shared path. Gosh, it's almost as if this behavior was identical to the berating these same people complain about from motorists.
It's a fact that we have to live in the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. Tips for surviving as a cyclist are not incompatible with trying to change things, but one may make the world a better place in twenty years while the other keeps you alive today. The trouble is when people behave as though that world already existed. It may be frustrating, but people absolutely are ignorant and lazy and that absolutely can kill you. Asserting your rights is great, but better to do it politically than on the road in a way that can get you killed.
The problem is that a lot people bring the same level of self-centeredness to biking as they do to driving. Same bad habits and assuming the fault is on someone else.
Yes, operating a 2-ton vehicle is a giant responsibility. But as a biker, to expect that 2-ton vehicle to magically disobey the laws of physics and stop for you is just as careless. Give cars space, and maybe don't be in a car's blind spot at an intersection. Have you seen the number of people trying to squeeze by a bus on Market Street? Why?
(I say this as someone who's biked in SF for 7 years and stayed alive because I understand that it's dangerous to bike in this city. It would be lovely to live in a Dutch wonderland, but we live in the U.S. of fucking A., where everyone's got to be somewhere before someone else, so one needs to bike defensively here.)
Cyclists _are_ second class citizens on the roads.
In 2009, the latest year I can find data for, cars were responsible for 3,298 billion person miles, 88.4% of person miles travelled. Bikes were responsible for a little under 9 billion, or .2%.
I, for one, am shocked that a mode of transportation that is treated either as a toy or with contempt is rarely used. Who could have ever predicted such a thing?
Now look at a country where bikes are treated with roughly equal seriousness as cars, like the Netherlands, and tell me how many trips and how far bikes went.
Even if the laws change, even if self-driving cars became the norm tomorrow, you should assume you're cycling through a real-life GTA. You probably weigh about 200lbs including the bike and are travelling at ~20mph. The car weighs 10x as much as you and the slowest it's going is 25mph.
It is very frustrating to have to assume everyone is out to kill you, but that goes with the territory when you're riding on the same streets as 1 ton rolling missiles. It would not be smart to relax one bit since even if the law changed, cars blow their tires, brakes give out, old people still drive, etc.
> Cyclists are already second class citizens on the roads. People who ride bikes are upset about this and would prefer not to become third or fourth class. It's also very frustrating to have to assume everyone is so ignorant that they wouldn't mind accidentally killing you for the sake of saving a second or two.
I'll bite. Any cyclist who rides on the sidewalk, runs a red light, or flaunts traffic convention in general absolutely deserves to be treated as a second class citizen. Your wheels don't belong on the sidewalk. I'm sorry if I sound rude.
> Any cyclist who rides on the sidewalk, runs a red light, or flaunts traffic convention in general absolutely deserves to be treated as a second class citizen.
As does any motorist who drives above the speed limit? Or any pedestrian that crosses with a red signal?
Different modes of transport place different importance on different rules, out of both safety and inconvenience. It's not cyclists breaking the rules - it's everyone, but you think of it as "traffic convention" when it's the rules that you/cars like to break.
Riding on the sidewalk, for short distances and with a good reason, can be done safely and courteously, though it may require slowing to walking speed.
How many car drivers never exceed the speed limit and always come to a complete stop at stop signs? Your absolutism should apply in both directions, no?
I wouldn't have to be rude if cyclists rode at walking speed safely and courteously. Some cyclists are incredibly self-entitled.
Of course, I think we need stiff penalties for cars hitting cyclists. However, cyclists need to know they are second class citizens on the side walk.
Yes, cars not coming to a full stop is a problem. But saying something else us wrong doesn't make me right.
I'm glad you guys have a hug box going on here but if you can't ride safely on a bike lane, don't ride a bicycle. I shouldn't have to give way to cyclists speeding on the sidewalk. If you're at walking speed, you can ride behind me. No need to pass.
>>> I'll bite. Any cyclist who rides on the sidewalk, runs a red light, or flaunts traffic convention in general absolutely deserves to be treated as a second class citizen. Your wheels don't belong on the sidewalk. I'm sorry if I sound rude.
> But saying something else us wrong doesn't make me right.
So are you saying that because cyclists do wrong stuff, cars can also do wrong stuff?
Or are you contradicting yourself when convenient so that you can attempt to win an argument?
> However, cyclists need to know they are second class citizens on the side walk.
As a cyclist I agree. However, at the same time, very few parts of the US have any safe infrastructure for bikes; it's completely understandable that your average joe cyclist wants to be in a place that's physically separated from cars, because he values his life.
>Some cyclists are incredibly self-entitled
...
>you can ride behind me. No need to pass
The bicycle stops balancing itself as you slow down to 2 mph due to reduced gyroscopic effects. The probability of bicycle accident might be lower at 5 mph, slightly faster than walking speed.
You sound more ignorant than rude. Yes, there are jerk cyclists who blatantly ignore the law. There are also jerk drivers who go over the speed limit, roll through stop signs, park in the bike lane, don't signal before changing lanes, enter the intersection after the yellow has turned to red, etc. This doesn't mean we should just treat car drivers in general with contempt.
Most cyclists wouldn't be riding on the sidewalk if they had proper infrastructure.
If you look at both DC and NYC they reduced the incidence of cyclists on sidewalks by implementing dedicated bike lanes.
When I drive in the 'burbs, it's hardly surprising to see cyclists who prefer to ride on sidewalks lacking pedestrians over riding on a two laned road with cars going 70km/hr.
It's clearly a design problem, not a problem of cyclists with a bad mentality or behavior. At least where I live, drivers who kill cyclists get extremely light sentences (if any), so is it any surprise that in certain situations, cyclists will opt for self preservation?
I say this as a person who predominantly drives. Even as a driver I think any cyclist who cycles on a major road without a bike lane has some major guts.
People who think that its rude for cyclists to be on sidewalks have never been to Japan. Many people there, especially the elderly, ride bikes on the side walk. And I dare you to show me a more polite demographic than elderly Japanese folk!
The sidewalks those Japanese cyclists are on are usually wider than American sidewalks though (because the Japanese walk a whole lot more than Americans). When sidewalks are sufficiently wide, ped/bike conflicts are less of an issue, they basically become like a multi-use path.
I have little confidence in my ability as a biker to recognize which of the dozens of cars I bike past might h person in them. The car could appear empty because the driver is bent over picking something off the floor. Or their head might be blocked by the headrest. Or I might just not notice them.
More to the point, what am I supposed to do if I see a car with someone in it? Slam on my brakes, assuming they will door me, and get hit by the cyclist behind me instead? Turn my 30 minute ride into an hour because I'm constantly stopping randomly?
I totally agree that simply assuming that because you have the right of way that you will get it is a terrible idea. But I don't think pushing the burden onto the cyclist is the fix either. We should be reducing the requirement for constant human vigilance because humans suck at being vigilant.
You can control how vigilant the other person is, but you can control how vigilant you are.
In a bike lane, right as far away (to the left) of parked cars as possible. That already gives you a safety buffer. And if you happen to be in tight valley of parked cars, then slow down and be extra cautious, or ride fast and take the lane. And wave to a driver every now and then to say thanks. They're people with places to go, too.
> But I don't think pushing the burden onto the cyclist is the fix either. We should be reducing the requirement for constant human vigilance because humans suck at being vigilant.
I don't see it as a burden. I see it as a duty to keep myself safe. Even if a law is passed, people make mistakes, people are drunk or high, people are old and have slow reaction times, and some people are just klutzes.
Most importantly, they are always going to be more vigilant because there is no omnipresent danger guiding their behavior. The threat of any ticket is not severe enough to equate with possible brain damage.
It would be great if everyone were more conscientious. Even then, I would still be as vigilant. At the end of the day, you're still a 200lb vehicle moving probably around 20 mph with weak brakes (when compared to a car) and no real evasive ability riding amongst a herd of 2-ton armored vehicles.
In California at least, bikes don't have to stay in the bike lane. They can use regular lanes as they see fit. If the car lane is empty as I'm riding past parked cars, I will simply change to that lane. If not, I slow down. And I accept that that isn't likely to change because I live in Los Angeles
Checking all the cars as you ride is rather distracting, and a lot of cars have tinted windows. Practically speaking, you can't reliably look into all the cars and pay attention to everything else going on. Personally, I try to stay as far to the outside of the door zone as traffic allows.
> Practically speaking, you can't reliably look into all the cars and pay attention to everything else going on
I can and I do. Keep your head on a swivel. Get used to looking directly behind you while keeping your bike straight. Pay attention at least a block ahead and to the patterns of traffic. And if you find it difficult to pay attention/there is too much stimulus, slow down or ride on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, there aren't many places in America like the Netherlands where you can bike while being somewhat carefree.
As you cyclist, I've picked up on certain patterns. Here's a few things I picked up, but they may be local:
-Minivan drivers are the worst, so give them a wide berth.
-If you are passing driveways/alleys, slow down. Drivers can't see until their windows are unobstructed, yet the front of their car may stick out 6ft or so.
-If you see someone swerving slightly, leaving one or more car lengths ahead of them at a stop light, or constant accelerating and braking, the person is on their phone.
-Getting into a yelling match with someone in a car is always a bad idea, even if they are assholes and disregarding the law. They have a 2-ton death machine. Even if you rammed a car at full speed, the damage you would do is likely to be less than the deductible. It's always a bad idea even if you are in a car. Road rage incidents have no winners, only losers. Plus, you never know what the enraged person is going through. They may have been fired, left by their spouse, etc. People get really nasty behind the wheel because it's easy to dehumanize others.
-If someone is driving a Buick, Oldsmobile, Mercury, Lincoln, etc. you can almost be certain they are old. Give them a wide berth.
-If you can, ride alongside a bus. They will shield you from any danger and bus drivers generally are very conscientious drivers since they are responsible for the safety of so many people..
-If you see tinted windows, assume there is someone in the vehicle who will open the door right in your face.
Then again, every once in a while, I like to skitch a ride from cars (when at a stop, hold on to a car's door handle and let them accelerate you to 30mph or so). Never do that :) I'm an adrenaline addict.
This is a reasonable approach when the world is full of hostile cars, but it doesn't have to be that way if drivers are more careful.
Some parts of town here riding a bike seems like attempting a trench run on the Death Star, there's innumerable hazards and if you're not hyper-aware of everything you will get smacked hard by one of them.
This is completely unacceptable. Nobody should have to maintain absolute situation awareness when cycling. You should be aware of your surroundings, but like walking it should be a fairly effortless process provided you keep your eyes open and scan your surroundings for possible problems.
Imagine if the road was littered with large, random spikes that would pop up out of nowhere without notice. Driving would require every scrap of your attention and would be exhausting even for short trips.
I disagree. You're sharing the road with vehicles 10x heavier than you. People have heart attacks, go into diabetic shock, blow their tires, etc. Sure, those things don't happen often. But if they do and you're in the way, you'll have brain damage at best. There's not only other drivers to be wary of, simple road hazards that are nothing to a car can cause great harm. Sewer grates, random debris, pot holes, pot holes hidden by puddles, oil slicks after a rainfall, people pulling over to the side of the road without looking because of a siren etc. At times, even the wind becomes a dangerous element.
You mention walking should be fairly effortless. However, I've seen so many near misses because people walking are so buried in their phones that they almost get hit. Also I find that people put too much trust in traffic lights instead of simply looking both ways before crossing a street.
Cycling in large American cities built for automotive traffic is, unfortunately, not for everyone, not yet.
You have to reach the point where vigilance doesn't cause anxiety.
I agree with your points, but the reality is that we live in a town where everyone else is distracted, so the onus is on us (bikers) to be aware. That's it.
Things are improving, and maybe one day biking in an American city may be as relaxing as a European bike path, but until that day, I think it's extremely important for cyclists to realise the dangers that are out there, and how to minimise that risk. And for some reason, this is a discussion that I rarely hear about.
The ultimate responsibility for your safety falls on you, but the risk you're exposed to can be minimized by encouraging people to do things that don't expose others to high levels of risk.
Asking drivers to open their doors a new way to minimize hazards is good for both drivers and cyclists. Nobody wants to be hit with the insurance tab for dooring someone.
Agreed. I'm all for broadcasting this PSA, but as others have pointed out, blinker usage is a good predictor of how widely the "Dutch reach" would be adopted.
This got discussed in motorbike school. Even if you rode slowly enough to peer into every car you passed, children in the back seat are too short to see. Just don't ride anything in the door zone under any circumstances, it's crazy.
I just ride way out in the middle of the lane, at least five feet from the cars. If that doesn't leave enough room for cars to pass me, too bad for them. Maybe some day they will realize how much of the road is being wasted on parking.
I agree. Use the center of the lane. If they want to pass, they need to go in another lane. Too many people have low spatial intelligence when it comes to cars and can't gauge the exact dimensions. There's so many people who have problems parallel parking, and that's at 2mph!
We don't let people do drugs, so why do we let them ride bikes on roads? It's the exact same kind of self-harm, brought on by poor life choices. All the problems in the article can be solved simply by having everyone be in a large sturdy steel frame, i.e. a car. Cars are cheap safe convenient and easy to use, so why is everyone getting on these two wheeled death traps?
Can't tell if serious or not. Assuming you are serious:
Bikes are actually wonderful transportation devices that fill a useful personal transportation middle ground between walking and driving. They're much faster than walking, but still quite cheap and healthy. By comparison, cars are extremely expensive and make you fat when you rely on them too much.
Walking would be quite dangerous too if we didn't have protected walk lanes (we also call them 'sidewalks') and dedicated walk signals at intersections all over the place.
Funny how I have had almost the exact same thought for a long time.
We do not let people carry guns, so why do we let people drive cars?
Both are fatal weapons.
Gosh, your username really instills confidence that you'll think about this reasonably.
In the 70s the people of Amsterdam decided exactly that: cars were too dangerous and cycling infrastructure should be prioritized. It's worked out exceptionally well.
I've posted this elsewhere on this thread, but it needs repeating. The Netherlands is considered the best place in the world to drive. With 85% of journeys under 10km, most people choose to cycle rather than drive. http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/best-place-in-the-world-to-be...
Your point is valid and one that is driven by the concept of sustainable safety and a Pedestrian First approach to urban design ( www.knightfoundation.org/features/livable-cities ). Walking, Cycling, and Driving should be mostly segregated from each other given the different speed profiles each has.
This does mean that the priority in road design must be to provide space for each mode of transport, then consider the ability to park your private vehicle on the street. It is a political decision to prioritise parking on public streets over good space for each form of transport.
This lack of "modal equality" in highways engineering is a really big issue.
A non extensive list: 1) Dutch car drivers all have been bicyclist before they get their driver license, everyday to school more than an hour being nothing being frowned on. 2) Major transit bike routes have separate bike lanes, the tiny narrow ones of the gif in the article barely exist. 3) Bike lanes in cities usually are placed between the footpath and the parked cars, with most of the times a 50cm wide band left of the bike path allowing for car doors being opened without going over the bike paths, usually this is used for planting trees too 4) All politicians drive bike, the Dutch Prime Minister comes to work on his bike 5) There are local associations part of the national http://fietersbond.nl in every town and they passionately lobby every time they see an opportunity. 6) these volunteers are highly respected and their input is valued by the municipalities 7) one of the prime goals of Dutch national ministerie of Traffic is lowering the number of injured and death in traffic, good recording of cause by police is step one, good statistics then determine the ways roads are laid out. 8) On smaller roads without a separate bicycle path, as a bicyclist you're always on the watch if someone might step out of a car and try to keep a distance by bicycling towards the middle of the road which isn't an issue as this is low traffic street, major bike transit always has separated bike paths with distance to the parked cars. 9) during driving lessons, watching bicyclist is a prime part of the lessons and a good driver keeps an eye on the mirrors for back-coming bicyclist and will warn passengers on the back seats before they get out.
And there are probably more reasons that Dutch have few accidents being doored.