Comment by globular-toast
2 days ago
The problem in the UK is a deep cultural one.
First we have to understand that, all things being equal, cars "win" by default on the roads. They are bigger, heavier, faster and more powerful (thanks to burning fossil fuels), and the operators are more reckless and inconsiderate due to being shielded from the outside world. That means their presence on the roads automatically makes it more dangerous and unpleasant for everyone else.
Second notice that primary routes are always designed for cars first. Every two places has a primary route connecting it. Depending on the importance of the route that route will have some level of protection against things like flooding, subsidence etc. and also be generally higher quality. That primary route is always for cars. Due to the above, that generally makes it undesirable or often practically unavailable for non-motorised traffic. See, for example, dual carriageways. Technically everyone has a right to use them by any means (they have paid for it, after all), but you'd be crazy to walk/cycle down one.
Third notice that cars are basically untouchable. It's considered a perfectly acceptable and normal part of driving to put people's lives in danger by driving too close and too fast etc. But nobody dares touch a car. They have the capability of killing or seriously injuring people, but people don't have the capability of killing them (the cars). The police will laugh at you if you report a car driving too closely. But scratching a car or something? Police will be on your case. Basically, we value metal boxes on wheels more than people's bodies.
Fourth notice that every part of the road network is designed to make it easier for cars at the detriment of pedestrians and cyclists. Why does a pedestrian need to press a button to cross the road? Why, upon pressing the button, must the pedestrian wait to cross? Why doesn't the light cycle start immediately? There is absolutely no sense at all in making the pedestrian wait. But everyone is used to it and doesn't question it; it's just the way it is. But what it does is makes being a pedestrian a third class status. It's these little things, like having to sit at the back of the bus, that chip away at people's ability to feel like an equal member of society. If you walk or cycle you are under no illusion that you come second to cars. It's little wonder people choose the car if they can.
> See, for example, dual carriageways. Technically everyone has a right to use them by any means (they have paid for it, after all), but you'd be crazy to walk/cycle down one.
I regularly cycle along the dual carriageway part of the A370. Whilst I get that it can be unnerving for most cyclists, dual carriageways are well designed for cycling along as they typically have great visibility (drivers can see you from a distance) and there's a whole lane for drivers to overtake safely.
> Fourth notice that every part of the road network is designed to make it easier for cars at the detriment of pedestrians and cyclists. Why does a pedestrian need to press a button to cross the road? Why, upon pressing the button, must the pedestrian wait to cross? Why doesn't the light cycle start immediately? There is absolutely no sense at all in making the pedestrian wait. But everyone is used to it and doesn't question it; it's just the way it is. But what it does is makes being a pedestrian a third class status. It's these little things, like having to sit at the back of the bus, that chip away at people's ability to feel like an equal member of society. If you walk or cycle you are under no illusion that you come second to cars. It's little wonder people choose the car if they can.
I think a big part of the problem is that politicians are heavily influenced by car/oil lobbyists. What we need are brave politicians that are forward looking and have a vision.
By the way, I like to refer to the pedestrian crossing buttons as "beg buttons".
> and there's a whole lane for drivers to overtake safely.
But do they actually use it? Last time I biked on a dual carriageway I had cars and lorries passing at 60+mph with a centimetre gap. I've given up cycling for the most part as I disliked basically every ride feeling like it was almost my last.
Some of them do - it varies.
I run forwards and rear cameras so that I can report dangerous/close passes. Strangely enough, I've had more issues with driver aggression (e.g. horn sounding) along the A370 than I've had with close passes. Of course, I've reported a fair few close passes in other areas (Avon & Somerset Police seem to be one of the few pro-active forces when it comes to dealing with video submissions).
Dual carriageways are ok for cycling when the AADT for a particular road is below about 30k. Above that, cyclists would be an impediment to traffic flow as a following motorist would be waiting a long time for a safe gap in the second lane to overtake, especially when the speed difference is above 100%.
What makes the Netherlands special is not the bike paths. Its the law.
When there is an accident between a car and a bike it is always the fault of the car. Its the driver who gets the insurance claim no questions asked.
Cyclists get special protection. This is not something other countries can adapt because it requires a deep moral shift.
Thats absoluyely not true. There is the so called principle of dual causality. If you hit a car you might have to pay 50% depending on situation. If its clearly the biker its still 0% for the car.
If its clearly the biker its still 0% for the car.
It's a bit more complicated than that. The car is only 0% responsible in the case of 'force majeur'. Which means that it was impossible for the driver of the motorized vehicle to avoid the accident.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41625337
Quoting it here:
I briefly studied law in the Netherlands and it was used as an example. Our lecturer told us that if "A person on a bike would jump out of an airplane on a bike, land with a parachute on a highway and get hit by a car, just maybe would the car have a case." The reasons for this are varied. Cars are insured, bikes are not. But most importantly, in basically all traffic situations with cars and bikes the car introduces the danger and should thus bear the responsibility of any accidents.
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> They are bigger, heavier, faster and more powerful (thanks to burning fossil fuels)
Or perhaps thanks to a DC motor and a battery? Not sure exactly why you’re singling out ICEs in this point you’re making. Would be curious to know if there is some particular reason? I’d argue EVs are more powerful on average, if not the staggering majority of cases.
EVs are much safer - they both accelerate and decelerate faster and most EVs have regen braking by default - this means a) they get up to speed quickly b) drivers aren't worried about slowing because they can get back up to speed much faster c) as soon as the foot comes off the pedal the car start decelerating immediately.
This makes for a more chill ride - I'm much more aware in EVs than I am in my remaining ICE vehicle (a minivan).
That said, poorly laid out bike lanes are systemically dangerous.
EVs most definitely do not decelerate faster. Their increased weight leads to decreased braking capabilities, which, combined with their faster acceleration, makes them potentially harder to control and more deadly in collisions due to the greater force of impact.
The regenerative braking force is generally much stronger than engine braking in ICE vehicles, as long as the battery isn't full.
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Probably something about the worldwide climate catastrophe caused by humanity continuing to burn fossil fuels at an ever increasing rate.
I understand that and I don't reject this sentiment outright, but one makes enemies when engaged in a good faith argument but feels the need to shoehorn their moral stance when nobody asked about it. It is, in fact, not at all relevant to the conversation.
The easiest thing is to stay on topic, wouldn't you agree?
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The electricity mostly comes from fossil fuels too.
The reason I mention it is because it's unfair from the start. That we ever allowed such unsustainable transport to become the norm is a huge part of the problem.
I think the problem is numerical. There are way more voters riding bikes in the Netherlands than in the UK.
But once upon a time the UK had higher cycling rates than the Netherlands.
How did the Netherlands manage to overcome this back in the 70s and the UK has not?
The roads are paid for in a large part by road taxes and fuel taxes. Cyclists pay zero towards it in direct taxation, apart from general taxation that everyone pays anyway. Why should cyclists be able to free load off of infrastructure paid for by tax-paying vehicles, and dictate that they are built to favour cyclists when they are not contributing a single penny?
Also your point about being "near" is kinda ridiculous. The police would take an interest if someone cut your skin deliberately, but would equally not take any interest if you just walked near a car. You're comparing apples to oranges.
I agree on your point about waiting to cross as a pedestrian though. It is often quite unreasonable for multiple people to be standing there - often in rain or other inclement weather - waiting for a single person in their nice dry car to drive past.
Life is too short to care about these trifling matters really though isn't it? Sure, die on this hill if you want but for most people it is easier to just buy an electric car, pay the taxes, and move on with the important things in life. Life isn't fair - if you want to dedicate your ire to something unjust then there are IMO better causes to champion than the first world problem of not having nice cycle lanes in an otherwise safe and secure developed first world democratic country with low infant mortality, high quality water, universal free healthcare, and high adult literacy levels. You have already won the life lottery, but many tens/hundreds of millions around the world are not so lucky. Or you can just moan about the white lines on your cycle lane being a bit crappy. Up to you.
> The roads are paid for in a large part by road taxes and fuel taxes. Cyclists pay zero towards it in direct taxation, apart from general taxation that everyone pays anyway. Why should cyclists be able to free load off of infrastructure paid for by tax-paying vehicles, and dictate that they are built to favour cyclists when they are not contributing a single penny?
The bulk of road funding is from general taxation in most places (including the UK, I think?). To put a bit of a spin on your argument, most tax is paid by urban areas, with rural areas generally being a funds sink. So, should rural areas really get roads at all?
See how silly that is?
I always find this argument really funny because I wholeheartedly agree that taxes should be relative to the usage/damage of roads. But when you actually look at the numbers pretty much anywhere in the world it's always the cars and trucks being subsidised by the rest of the population.
YES, PLEASE let me pay for only bicycle infrastructure, I hate having to pay for your car.
Wouldn't know about 'pretty much anywhere', but assuming you're from the Netherlands you might want to reconsider: https://www.kimnet.nl/binaries/kimnet/documenten/rapporten/2...
Here in the UK, roads are paid for by general taxation. The fuel duty has been frozen for a long time (15 years?) so the general public are in fact subsidising motorists. "Road Tax" was abolished in 1937 due to the ridiculous attitude that some motorists get about "owning" the roads - this seems to be exactly your kind of attitude.
I wonder if you've thought about the logical conclusion of your "ideas" when applied to electric vehicles? They don't pay VED (emmissions tax, which is often referred to as "road tax" by idiots) and they don't pay fuel tax, so what are they doing on "your" public roads?
In my locale, in the US, local roads are paid for by property taxes. The higher traffic state and Federal roads are paid for through a combination of fuel and income taxes. Cyclists tend to avoid those roads due to safety and distance. Cycles are prohibited on our equivalent of the motorways.
Most cyclists in the US also have cars, and are paying for license, registration, and insurance. Higher insurance rates are necessary because cars get in more crashes.
Meanwhile, bikes take up less space and do negligible damage to roads, and to other things like vehicles and stationary objects.
A more useful model is that we all pay to subsidize heavy trucking.
But also, each person paying for goodies that they don't use but someone else does, is kind of how a modern society works. It would be vastly more expensive to administer a society in which each person is charged a fee in precise proportion to the facilities and services that they use. Maybe in the future with AI.
I am a (UK) cyclist, and I pay both road taxes and fuel taxes.
(For the car that I also own, to be clear)
Just to reply to myself instead of each post calling me dumb individually:
I said we all pay via general taxation, so yes you me everyone pays for roads if we use them or not. Vehicle users also pay in addition to general taxes the direct taxes for their usage in terms of road tax and fuel duties (N.b. that road usage fees per mile are on the cards for EVs). Cyclists pay none of these (unless they also own a car)
If there is a huge government subsidy for something, you'd be a fool to ignore it
I couldn't agree more, we should make sure cyclists and motorists pay their fair share.
1. The damage caused to a road surface is governed by the fourth power law [1]:
"This means that after 160,000 crossings, the bicycle causes as much damage as the car does when driving on the road only once. From this it can be deduced that a large part of the damage in the streets is caused by heavy motor vehicles compared to the damage caused by lighter vehicles."
2. Dedicated cycling infrastructure has the lowest cost of all vehicle infrastructure [2]:
"The annual infrastructure costs per traveller kilometre are 0.03 euros for bicycles, 0.10 euros for cars, 0.14 euros for buses, and 0.18 euros for trains."
3. The implication that whatever extra taxes motorists pay cover all externalities of driving, like death and injuries (40 000 deaths per year in the US alone) and health complications from brake dust and tire rubber seems laughably naive to me but perhaps there are some hard numbers that say otherwise?
I too yearn for the day motorists pay for the damage they cause.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
[2]: https://www.government.nl/binaries/government/documenten/rep...
In what way do cyclists require unique and expensive infrastructure that both isn't the consequence of interactions with cars and that wouldn't be covered by general taxation unless general taxation literally didn't pay for any infrastructure?
Maybe isolated recreational paved bike paths, needlessly expensive public lockup places, and smaller scale urban infrastructure to avoid accomodate only pedestrians and bikes in forward thinking places? If cars weren't so common, would cyclists require 8+ lane highways, or even relatively wide roads? Seems like we pay into a pool of infrastructure funding that is often already very expensive and that has little to do with cars, if they didn't exist we'd broadly be saving public money, both on direct and indirect costs such as pollution, deaths, traffic control devices, public policy, or accommodating the demands of everything but personal cars as necessary. They should be treated as an expensive luxury, which they should be, but in some cases they're a necessary burden that the poor should be releaved of.
If cars weren't default, EV or not, we'd all be like "who's going to pay for that!?"
Likewise with trains, we all pay for them with taxes, but the people who use them often pay directly for the continued operation in terms of what is not their personal obligation (maintenance, construction, staffing), usually a relatively marginal source of revenue, but it keeps it going. You pay for trains through general taxation, and you pay somehow for the continued operation of your personal vehicle, and so do bikes, but cars demand much more from external sources like trains do, and like trains, there's no free ride, unless you bike, which has relatively minimal external demands. You pay for the continuance of the operation of a uniquely burdensome private luxury, and it's not subsidizing anything.
Roads also open up some amount of significant economic commercial and personal opportunity, which should also be factored in, but also paid for like others. If it's a problematic amount, then you make different choices, and if that didn't balance out at a system level, we'd make different infrastructure choices.
Out of interest, where do you pay direct road taxes? (I've heard that some countries do this, but I don't know which ones).
this argument against common sense bike infrastructure is one of the most common, most wrong, and most dumb
bicyclists, pedestrians and transit users in fact subsidize motorists, in all countries, everywhere. this isn't up for debate. so under your own logic, motorists should have no right to the roads, because they're "freeloading" and "not paying their fair share". sigh.
ironically, even the most ardent bike infra advocates don't actually think that. they just think the money they're paying shouldn't be expropriated exclusively for motorists, while they themselves get close to nothing, especially when bika infra is so comparatively cheap and efficient (it actually SAVES the government and the public money)
the benefits of bike infra are obvious and self evident. less pollution, less noise, more mobility for children and the disabled. it benefits motorists too, because it takes traffic off the roads, and saves parents time and money having to ferry their kids around all the time etc etc.
tbh people like you seem just like hateful selfish misanthropes.
> Life is too short to care about these trifling matters really though isn't it?
I wouldn't call people's ability to be mobile a "trifling matter". In fact, I'd say it's fundamental to a free and equitable society. People should be able to move around safely and freely and the car is failing to be the solution to that.
Life is too short to spend it in a car. People hate driving. But they do it because there's no other choice. The infrastructure is car first and their bodies have atrophied to the point they can't get around without assistance.
I've seen people literally lose their minds as they sit in their car stuck in congestion day in, day out. Driving has become an adversarial pursuit that leads to anger and frustration. This is your life, and it's happening one traffic jam at a time.
A good life is not one where you utter "you absolute bellend" at least once every single day as you make your way to work.
You can really tell when somebody just repeats motorist propaganda and has never actually looked at the finical structure behind infrastructure.
Your attitude is also deeply sad and cyclical. People wanting to improve the communities they live in is a bad thing. How about the 1000s of people dying every year is not an important topic.
Imagine if there were 1 major commuter trains going into london crashing and killing everybody in the train, and this happened multiple times a year? Would you consider that an important problem?
> there are IMO better causes to champion
Like what?
Transportation, and cycling as part of that has a major influence on climate change, energy consumption, public health, accessibility, retail shopping, community building and much more.
Have ever engaged with that research?