Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

[Vendetta21]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

FairTax wouldn't work. Unfortunately taxing income is much more effective than taxing goods and services at generating revenue. Income tax may have inequity in it, but it's effective, unfortunately, at accomplishing its goal without screwing over the lower rung of the ladder and making them more destitute while making it so the rich could in fact be taxed the same as everyone else, or in fact less since they have the means to break loopholes, which is something that is more common among rich people than it is among middle class and lower class folk. If sales tax is 30% you can fly out of the country, buy a large amount of expensive goods, and then ship them to yourself as a "gift" from "someone else" and save money compared to taxation. If you're buying expensive software, books, movies, electronic devices, and services, you can pay for a round trip plane ticket and save a ton of money depending on the bulk. If there is one thing I know about taxation schemes, it is that rich people hire JDMBA CPAs to find quasi-legal ways around them. Sales tax only works when it is like 13% or less, I've read.

[Coolgamer]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

This is a definate solution, but the problem with it is that the solution defeats the purpose of our revenue system, which is gasoline based. Furthering my point, if we solve this problem via mass transit, our budget will fall vastly short of being able to sustain roads and infrastructure, which are STILL NECESSARY FOR COMMERCE and not just personal transportation. This means that our tax is inadequate since it is drawing from one thing while being a big factor in others. You might even call it unequal taxation.

And why should it be gasoline based? The more independent we are from this crutch the better. Here's a few ideas...

1. Increase Amtrack funding.
2. Promote mag-lev "bullet" train tech for passengers. This obviously works as can be seen from the Japanese business model, and is cleaner and faster then normal trains.
3. Heck, even a inner-city monorail system could help.
4. Switch to either a higher gasoline tax or a flat tax to be shared among all residents, similar to education taxes.

[devonin]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

It's at least a possibility that if you simply banned bicycles in high pedestrian areas, and forbade them from using the road in such places, that there would become areas of town that I simply couldn't transport myself to without either walking for way longer than I need to, or having to pay for a bus.

In Ontario, bicycles are actually classified as vehicles, and are -required- to stay on the road, and behave much more like a car than a pedestrian. In fact, if I were to make a left turn on a red light on a bike, or run through a stopsign on a bike, and the police caught me, I would actually get demerits on my driver's lisence in addition to a fine.

[Afrobean]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

It's at least a possibility that if you simply banned bicycles in high pedestrian areas, and forbade them from using the road in such places, that there would become areas of town that I simply couldn't transport myself to without either walking for way longer than I need to, or having to pay for a bus.

In Ontario, bicycles are actually classified as vehicles, and are -required- to stay on the road, and behave much more like a car than a pedestrian. In fact, if I were to make a left turn on a red light on a bike, or run through a stopsign on a bike, and the police caught me, I would actually get demerits on my driver's lisence in addition to a fine.

That doesn't address the fact that bicyclists are major safety hazards for everyone on the road, nor does it touch on the fact that a crash involving a walking person and a bicyclist will result in much less injury than a car hitting a bicyclist. And that's also ignoring the fact that cars may hit other things because of the bicyclist's presence, such as other cars, inanimate objects, or even pedestrians (particularly ones who are jaywalking).

Really, if there is a place with no sidewalk that would stop you from being able to ride your bicycle somewhere, that's not a good excuse to endanger everyone on the road by your mere presence. Rather than telling everyone else that they need to deal with you, you should be dealing with the system-- ride public transit, drive yourself, or get involved in local government and work to get sidewalk added where needed. Don't demand the world deals with your choices, make your choices based on what the world has to say on the matter.

[Coolgamer]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

That doesn't address the fact that bicyclists are major safety hazards for everyone on the road, nor does it touch on the fact that a crash involving a walking person and a bicyclist will result in much less injury than a car hitting a bicyclist. And that's also ignoring the fact that cars may hit other things because of the bicyclist's presence, such as other cars, inanimate objects, or even pedestrians (particularly ones who are jaywalking).

Really, if there is a place with no sidewalk that would stop you from being able to ride your bicycle somewhere, that's not a good excuse to endanger everyone on the road by your mere presence. Rather than telling everyone else that they need to deal with you, you should be dealing with the system-- ride public transit, drive yourself, or get involved in local government and work to get sidewalk added where needed. Don't demand the world deals with your choices, make your choices based on what the world has to say on the matter.

I think cars hit things well enough regardless of where they are. Maybe instead of trying to eliminate bicycles you should try thinking of better safety features.

[Vendetta21]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

And why should it be gasoline based? The more independent we are from this crutch the better. Here's a few ideas...

1. Increase Amtrack funding.
2. Promote mag-lev "bullet" train tech for passengers. This obviously works as can be seen from the Japanese business model, and is cleaner and faster then normal trains.
3. Heck, even a inner-city monorail system could help.
4. Switch to either a higher gasoline tax or a flat tax to be shared among all residents, similar to education taxes.

Flat tax doesn't make sense, it just implies a single rate tax. Higher gasoline tax would defeat the purpose of the gasoline tax. If we can't fund our infrastructure with a gasoline tax because of falling tax revenues at the moment, raising the gasoline tax would further decrease demand further decreasing... revenues.

Seriously I talked about all of this back and forth, up and down in my original argument. If you're going to try to argue against me we shouldn't be trying to make the same point.

[Vendetta21]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

That doesn't address the fact that bicyclists are major safety hazards for everyone on the road, nor does it touch on the fact that a crash involving a walking person and a bicyclist will result in much less injury than a car hitting a bicyclist. And that's also ignoring the fact that cars may hit other things because of the bicyclist's presence, such as other cars, inanimate objects, or even pedestrians (particularly ones who are jaywalking).

Really, if there is a place with no sidewalk that would stop you from being able to ride your bicycle somewhere, that's not a good excuse to endanger everyone on the road by your mere presence. Rather than telling everyone else that they need to deal with you, you should be dealing with the system-- ride public transit, drive yourself, or get involved in local government and work to get sidewalk added where needed. Don't demand the world deals with your choices, make your choices based on what the world has to say on the matter.

Bicyclists are far and wide a safety hazard for themselves and pretty much nothing else in the macro view. Sure you can make an isolated case specific-to-general argument why they're unsafe to everyone, but they aren't. Just themselves. It's akin to not wearing a seatbelt. Should we enforce mandatory seatbelt laws? If no, then your answer should be the same as "should we allow bicyclists?" There's other contingents, but it really is personal safety or personal choice, and in that case should the government ban things that are unsafe to our person and isolated to that?

[Afrobean]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

Bicyclists are far and wide a safety hazard for themselves and pretty much nothing else in the macro view. Sure you can make an isolated case specific-to-general argument why they're unsafe to everyone, but they aren't. Just themselves. It's akin to not wearing a seatbelt. Should we enforce mandatory seatbelt laws? If no, then your answer should be the same as "should we allow bicyclists?" There's other contingents, but it really is personal safety or personal choice, and in that case should the government ban things that are unsafe to our person and isolated to that?

Me wearing my seatbelt or not has no effect on anyone else.

A bicyclist doing 20 MPH slower than all others has an effect on any driver that comes across them, whether it be as simple as merely requiring additional alertness, or if the driver has to change lanes to pass them (to say nothing of roads with only one lane going each way). This is especially notable in the case of a careless bicyclist, but then again, I'd say pretty much any bicyclist on a road with motor vehicles is at least a little careless for choosing such a dangerous method.

[Vendetta21]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

Me wearing my seatbelt or not has no effect on anyone else.

A bicyclist doing 20 MPH slower than all others has an effect on any driver that comes across them, whether it be as simple as merely requiring additional alertness, or if the driver has to change lanes to pass them (to say nothing of roads with only one lane going each way). This is especially notable in the case of a careless bicyclist, but then again, I'd say pretty much any bicyclist on a road with motor vehicles is at least a little careless for choosing such a dangerous method.

Going slower is less of a safety hazard because it is less likely for you to get into an accident when you are going slower. Their limited visibility is something that is also true of motorcycles. We aren't talking about bicyclists imposing any safety hazards to you, but rather you imposing to them. A car is a pretty dangerous vehicle to others, a bicycle is not. Trying to argue traffic congestion as a cause for dangerous accidents is counterintuitive, traffic congestion may happen to cause accidents of a smaller nature, but those accidents are LESS dangerous due to lower speeds. We see dangerous accidents in areas where driving systems are poorly designed and roads have poor law enforcement. Having to slow down for a bike means that at max you are going 25 mph, and if you go around them with poor judgment about 27-30, and you have visibility past the biker since they don't have a large amount of horizontal and vertical surface space compared to a car. I'm going to trudge into inductive fallacy land and guess that your argument is entirely theoretical and has no realistic basis.

[Afrobean]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

A car is a pretty dangerous vehicle to others, a bicycle is not.

What do roads exist for: cars or bicycles?

If there was a world without bicycles would roads exist? Would they be the same as they are now? Conversely, if there was a world without cars would roads exist? Would they be the same as they are now?

Think about it. The world is for motorists, bicyclists are just living in it. And the minority with special requirements shouldn't be allowed to force unreasonable rules on others. But then again, I suppose that's my own stance on the matter and not necessarily the stance of all; just look at all the wacky laws that exist for handicap folks... some of them are fine and dandy but others aren't as reasonable.

And an accident involving a car is potentially fatal even at relatively low speeds. The folks in the car have higher survivability at these lower speeds, but pedestrians and such getting hit by these "low speed" collisions... they're still getting pounded by forces far outstretching anything they could impart on themselves, even if the car is doing "only" 25 MPH. Are you really suggesting that a bicyclist hitting a pedestrian isn't a better choice than a motorist hitting a bicyclist?

[Cavernio]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

I like the taxation idea mentioned, at least in its fairness towards how it would tax. I don't currently feel like I'm being taxed unfairly though, and I'm not really one to care greatly about that.

My only motorized accident on a bicycle was when I was, guess what, on a sidewalk. I did not like driving on that particular road I was on because it was too busy for my liking, without a large enough shoulder. Someone was coming out of a parking lot for the mall and didn't see me on the sidewalk. They hit me and I rolled on the front of the car because I couldn't stop in time. I've almost hit cyclists on the sidewalk, in the exact same way that I was hit, while driving a car because I had to drive over the sidewalk in order to see the traffic. When I'm on a bike, I feel safer on the road than on the sidewalk, because drivers pay attention to what's on the road, but not what's on the sidewalk.
As an aside, I don't bike anywhere these days because every single one of my bikes, no matter how ****ty they are, have been stolen. I feel like parking a bike anywhere on the street is basically like asking someone else to take it. And these aren't high crime cities I'm talking about either.

[Cavernio]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

Sry about the double post.

What do roads exist for: cars or bicycles?
Think about it. The world is for motorists, bicyclists are just living in it. And the minority with special requirements shouldn't be allowed to force unreasonable rules on others.

There are cities in the world where cyclists have more control than motorists. If the number of cyclists in a major city increases enough, then all this minority stuff is meaningless. I know I know, this is an 'if' case, but we're currently preventing people from having a safe place to cycle. This is just not right, especially seeing how important being environmentally friendly is right now. Your argument is basically "don't change the status quo because it's a nuisance to do so." North America's dependency on cars is pretty sad, and anything to help us not have to pump toxins into the air and not have to pave over the world as traffic increases, should be supported.

Are you really suggesting that a bicyclist hitting a pedestrian isn't a better choice than a motorist hitting a bicyclist?

The cyclist on the road puts themselves in danger, that's the difference. There is, IMO, very little weight to arguments which say that they put others in danger too, like that they might cause 2 other cars to collide trying to avoid the cyclist.

[iceefudgesickle]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

I absolutely despise urban cyclists.

They act like they own the road although they are dealing with powerful electrical moving vehicles that are capable of killing human beings in a moment. But they do dumbass things all the time that are just asking for them to get run over.

Although unrelated to the whole driving with cars thing, one time I was walking with my friend and a biker ran into his leg. It was more of just a scrape, but my friend was bleeding and it was a pretty long wound. It wasn't deep, but the guy didn't even stop and come back.

I'm sorry if this offends anyone here, and I'm sure there are bicyclers who are smart (though I've never seen one), but I wish they would get off the road, and if I hear on the news that one dies in an accident from a car, I'll just assume it's the cycler's fault.

[Afrobean]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

North America's dependency on cars is pretty sad, and anything to help us not have to pump toxins into the air and not have to pave over the world as traffic increases, should be supported.

Even without environmentally damaging methods, the basic concept of large personal transport is a requirement of modern life. I can't ride a bicycle 10 miles to work every night, and 10 miles home every morning. Even if I was willing to commit the extra time it would take, I'd be physically incapable of riding home due to exhaustion. And let's say I want to go up to Best Buy and buy a 42 inch TV. Should I take that on the bus with me or try strapping it onto my bike?

So yes, getting rid of things that hurt the environment is a good idea, but the method of doing so isn't "stop driving cars and ride bikes instead". The solution is "make cars not spew terrible **** into the atmosphere". And they're working on that. They're transitioning into cars that use less gasoline, and with time, cars will be able to fully powered by electricity or potentially even hydrogen. They get an effective hydrogen solution and even freight transport can be running on a clean fuel, even across distances that electricity can't feasibly carry.

[Magewout]

Re: Urban cyclists, and what to do about them.

You people should come to Europe lol. In nearly every big city in the Low Countries, bikes are the best way for transportation. Riding to various places is superior to using a car in nearly every way possible.

It's your fault that initially you didn't give enough attention to bikes in the first place. If you had you wouldn't be complaining about infrastructure problems now. (by 'your' I mean America )