This kind of doomerism can fuck right off. The more of us there are on the roads the safer we’ll be. Stop making people think cycling is unsafe; that only keeps people from trying it.
The video is about a guy called John Forester, who was a road racing cyclist who vocally opposed all cycling infrastructure, arguing for what he called “vehicular cycling” where you ride on the road among cars following the same rules as cars, which, in his view, was safer than separate bicycle paths, which according to him were very unsafe. He was a vocal critic of cycling infrastructure and apparently quite influential in the US.
He wrote a 800-page book manifesto titled Effective Cycling where he argues that any form of cycling except riding racing bicycles at high speed wearing lycra is a complete waste of time, fit only for children. It’s also full of more questionable traffic safety advice.
The faster you ride, the better you blend in with vehicular traffic. The trouble is, not everyone can ride that fast. Now that I’m old, I appreciate dedicated MUPs and bike lanes because they’re better suited to my current abilities than they were 30 to 40 or even 20 years ago.
But also, the faster you ride, the more tiring it is, the more stressful it is, and the more severe the consequences when anybody - especially nearby drivers - makes a serious error.
Cycling doesn’t have to be that way. No matter what Forester and other ableists say. If you remove most of the motorists, it can be fun! And proper fun, not the ‘I jousted with drivers and survived’ type.
Maybe, but still more tiring than being able to coast through on a more direct, comfortable and convenient cycleway instead of a motorway limited by sucky truck turning radii and visibility.
Sure, but riding among cars will never be the safest option. Good, dedicated separated bike paths ought to be the most comfortable to exercise-oriented riders too, given that they have all the upsides of roads (and then some; no potholes!) with no cars.
I’ll beg to differ… Stanley Park in Vancouver is an example. Stanley Park Drive is an automobile path but running alongside it is the Seawall, a bike and separated pedestrian path. In many sections the path is too narrow to pass, due to a cliff face. They’ve improved it somewhat in the last couple years, but I think very fast riders still prefer going on the car path so that they don’t have to wait to pass people on rented bikes going slowly trying to simply take in the park.
I do think fast cyclists should be able to select their risk level and speed, though speed limits should be no more than 40km/h (25mph) to even begin considering a road to be a safe path for cycling.
I’m still baffled that anyone would argue that separate bike paths are more dangerous than mixing with cars. How did this guy not get laughed out of the room every time ye claimed that?
I’m all for making mixing with cars safer too (lower speeds, more training and awareness for drivers), but separate bike paths are so much better.
Because there are some that are, because they contain dangerous design errors. So Forester fans find a city that made a load of serious mistakes in their bike paths, get the collision data, and bingo: an example where bikeways are more dangerous than roads.
More importantly, Mr. Forester tried to use dedicated bike paths like a freeway, trying to maintain 30mph and only dodging obstacles. Because he almost had a few collisions, and he claims he only almost had a collision once in many years of road cycling, he calls bike paths 1000 times more dangerous.
There’s quite a few other instances of lying with statistics, and using studies to disagree with those same study’s conclusions thinking himself smarter, but I think the one time he tried to collect his own data was the worst.
Yes, Forester was more brazen than many of his fans. His use of anecdata is the sort of argument that gets dismantled on social media and bike forums. It’s amazing he got away with it for so long, with his books being re-printed and updated. Maybe highways designers who didn’t want to bother with cyclists were happy that an ‘avid cyclist’ gave them a reason not to, so ignored the silly footnotes and bad references.
There is exactly one case where separate bike paths can be more dangerous and that’s at right turns at intersections. In my city half the deadly collisions with cyclists are of this type.
I haven’t yet watched it, but it is a Not Just Bikes video and therefore I expect it will be thorough, reasonable, and enlightened — and that you have completely mischaracterized it. Are you just guessing what it’s about from the title?
Of course not. I have visual processing issues and video links without a text synopsis are one of my pet peeves. I’m not going to waste my time, energy, and mobile data watching a video that the submittor couldn’t even be arsed to write a summary for.
This kind of doomerism can fuck right off. The more of us there are on the roads the safer we’ll be. Stop making people think cycling is unsafe; that only keeps people from trying it.
The video is about a guy called John Forester, who was a road racing cyclist who vocally opposed all cycling infrastructure, arguing for what he called “vehicular cycling” where you ride on the road among cars following the same rules as cars, which, in his view, was safer than separate bicycle paths, which according to him were very unsafe. He was a vocal critic of cycling infrastructure and apparently quite influential in the US.
He wrote a 800-page
bookmanifesto titled Effective Cycling where he argues that any form of cycling except riding racing bicycles at high speed wearing lycra is a complete waste of time, fit only for children. It’s also full of more questionable traffic safety advice.The faster you ride, the better you blend in with vehicular traffic. The trouble is, not everyone can ride that fast. Now that I’m old, I appreciate dedicated MUPs and bike lanes because they’re better suited to my current abilities than they were 30 to 40 or even 20 years ago.
But also, the faster you ride, the more tiring it is, the more stressful it is, and the more severe the consequences when anybody - especially nearby drivers - makes a serious error.
Cycling doesn’t have to be that way. No matter what Forester and other ableists say. If you remove most of the motorists, it can be fun! And proper fun, not the ‘I jousted with drivers and survived’ type.
Well, 40 years ago it wasn’t all that tiring because I was a very fit young bike racer, but I get what you mean.
Maybe, but still more tiring than being able to coast through on a more direct, comfortable and convenient cycleway instead of a motorway limited by sucky truck turning radii and visibility.
Sure, but riding among cars will never be the safest option. Good, dedicated separated bike paths ought to be the most comfortable to exercise-oriented riders too, given that they have all the upsides of roads (and then some; no potholes!) with no cars.
No potholes?
*Laughs in Saskatoonish
Yeah, those saplings are tenacious aren’t they!
I guess there are a few places with 30+ year old pavement “sidewalks” that are cratered out too.
I’ll beg to differ… Stanley Park in Vancouver is an example. Stanley Park Drive is an automobile path but running alongside it is the Seawall, a bike and separated pedestrian path. In many sections the path is too narrow to pass, due to a cliff face. They’ve improved it somewhat in the last couple years, but I think very fast riders still prefer going on the car path so that they don’t have to wait to pass people on rented bikes going slowly trying to simply take in the park.
I do think fast cyclists should be able to select their risk level and speed, though speed limits should be no more than 40km/h (25mph) to even begin considering a road to be a safe path for cycling.
I’m still baffled that anyone would argue that separate bike paths are more dangerous than mixing with cars. How did this guy not get laughed out of the room every time ye claimed that?
I’m all for making mixing with cars safer too (lower speeds, more training and awareness for drivers), but separate bike paths are so much better.
Because there are some that are, because they contain dangerous design errors. So Forester fans find a city that made a load of serious mistakes in their bike paths, get the collision data, and bingo: an example where bikeways are more dangerous than roads.
More importantly, Mr. Forester tried to use dedicated bike paths like a freeway, trying to maintain 30mph and only dodging obstacles. Because he almost had a few collisions, and he claims he only almost had a collision once in many years of road cycling, he calls bike paths 1000 times more dangerous.
There’s quite a few other instances of lying with statistics, and using studies to disagree with those same study’s conclusions thinking himself smarter, but I think the one time he tried to collect his own data was the worst.
Yes, Forester was more brazen than many of his fans. His use of anecdata is the sort of argument that gets dismantled on social media and bike forums. It’s amazing he got away with it for so long, with his books being re-printed and updated. Maybe highways designers who didn’t want to bother with cyclists were happy that an ‘avid cyclist’ gave them a reason not to, so ignored the silly footnotes and bad references.
There is exactly one case where separate bike paths can be more dangerous and that’s at right turns at intersections. In my city half the deadly collisions with cyclists are of this type.
I haven’t yet watched it, but it is a Not Just Bikes video and therefore I expect it will be thorough, reasonable, and enlightened — and that you have completely mischaracterized it. Are you just guessing what it’s about from the title?
I am, because OP couldn’t be bothered to provide a text summary that would tell me more and/or let me know if the video was worth watching.
And why are you commenting on things you didn’t even watch? What’s the point of the comment if you don’t even know what you’re talking about
You probably need to actually watch the video, it sounds like you didn’t
Of course not. I have visual processing issues and video links without a text synopsis are one of my pet peeves. I’m not going to waste my time, energy, and mobile data watching a video that the submittor couldn’t even be arsed to write a summary for.
Yet somehow you determined that it was a good idea to waste your time and energy to write a wholly inaccurate comment.
It’s a terrible headline and I continue to have no tolerance for it.
It’s mostly talk anyway so you can just listen to it. That’s what I did.
See, that’s helpful information.
So you have visual processing issues but like text which is all visual?
Text is textual. Don’t be an ass.