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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13678 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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The Economist has published an article (paywalled, sorry) on the state of cyclists in New York, which dropped the day I was leaving the city. It was the first time I had visited as an adult. I came away with some respect for it (loved the food, service, and how fast everyone walked). The point of the story is supposedly that cyclists are now being treated unfairly:

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has started issuing criminal summonses for bike riders committing a slew of seemingly low-level fouls. Now, if caught running red lights, stopping in the pedestrian crossing or wearing headphones, wayward cyclists must appear before a judge, even if they are not contesting the fine. If they do not, they risk arrest.

I’m a cycling nut, so the issue is close to my heart. In a T2 city, I feel like our role is that of a scapegoat. People fantasize about killing cyclists pretty regularly, and none of them understand the challenges and tradeoffs we have to deal with. At this point, I've just thrown up my hands in despair at this ever being better, so I just get on the road as little as possible.

The people on two wheels in NYC are a different breed. Each of the longtime residents I asked - 100% - are now more scared of cyclists than cars. My 3 day trip felt the same to me. Every car was attentive and respectful of me as a pedestrian. The cyclists were fast, heavy, and disregarded almost every crosswalk signal or red light, despite having their own lanes. What’s the quantitative danger?

Of the 449 pedestrian deaths in the city between 2020 and 2023, electric bikes, scooters and mopeds led to just eight of them.

Notice the sleight of hand here. What’s included are E-Bikes, scooters, and mopeds - each of these truly motorized vehicles. The number of people killed by analog cyclists nationwide has been, for many years, single digits. This is important. E-bikes allow users to achieve speeds and momentum totally beyond their skill, and are often part of poorly maintained machines that are part of sharing programs. My mind is blown that even 8 people have been killed - that's an enormous number even in a place as dense as NYC. It probably means a huge number of serious injuries as collateral damage.

Cyclists kill between 1-9 people in the US per year. Cars kill 7,000+ Pedestrians (Not to mention other drivers). If you compare lethality on a per-capita basis, it's not even close. Cars are 230x more deadly (Including only pedestrians, not the 40,000 total deaths). Per-person-miles-travelled reduces the disparity a lot. It gets down to where cars are "only" 8.5x more deadly than bikes.

Put simply, the fixie riders racing through the city are psychotic but not dangerous to pedestrians.

As you’d expect, the lede is buried, along with the Culture War. The cyclists zipping through the city on E-bikes are exclusively yapping in a foreign language on speakerphone, with DoorDash bags on the back of their cycles. Nothing should get in the way of private taxis for burritos.

E-bike riders are “one of the top, if not the single, highest generator of complaints” from constituents….Mr Hoylman-Sigal (city senator) supports putting licence-plates on commercial e-bikes, so that violators can be held accountable. But such proposals have gone flat due, in part, to a desire to protect the largely immigrant delivery drivers.

To recap how insane this is:

  • The problem is 100% illegal immigrants on E-bikes and mopeds
  • No solution to control this will be put forward out of sympathy for the illegal immigrants
  • Punishment must be metered out, though, since it’s one of the biggest problems facing the city
  • Therefore, the solution is to punish analog cyclists with social security numbers!

It’s so similar to LA, albeit with fewer vehicle fires and bricks on heads. The fix just cannot be the obvious and correct one. Instead, it’s to hop on Reddit to “map police hotspots” or refuse to stop as a way to LARP civil disobedience.

But also: there is an obvious problem with some bicyclists thinking that stop signs, red lights and all other forms of traffic control don't apply to them. I'm glad to hear their terrible behavior is not killing many pedestrians. Which makes sense since I would not expect getting hit with a bike to be commonly lethal. This is unrelated to concern about food delivery scooter people.

This morning I saw a bicyclist veer into the street even though there was a dedicated empty bike lane and an empty sidewalk. He was in one of those bicyclists suits. He was going really fast, but not as fast as cars approaching him from behind. No idea what was going throughout this guy's brain. One of the many bicyclists who seem to think their bike has an integrated forcefield generator. See that kind of baffling behavior with some regularity. I rode my bike to school from 3rd grade to college. I never did stuff like that.

This morning I saw a bicyclist veer into the street even though there was a dedicated empty bike lane and an empty sidewalk

You know most places it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk right? And taking a lane is perfectly legal behavior, often done if the bike lane is not safe (you may not be able to see why from your vantage point in a car).

Just pass him safely at the next opportunity. It's his road too.

You know most places it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk right?

In my city it's legal almost everywhere except the central business district (conveniently the densest pedestrian area). There are specific places devoted in the law and I've seen signs marking them.

I mean *most, local laws do vary.

Even if it isn't illegal, it's usually also not illegal to not ride on the road, despite there being a sidewalk.

Somewhat more commonly laws mandate cycle path use, which in this case apparently there was. Though it could have been obstructed, or otherwise unsafe at his speed (certain paths are designed poorly enough that they're actually worse than no path).

I grant that in some areas, yes the cyclist could have been breaking the law. Still a minor infraction, not particularly dangerous (and what danger would be mostly on the cyclist), the biggest thing being a rather small annoyance to the drivers who had to wait to pass.

I've been told my whole life that riding on the sidewalk is illegal. But when a cop visited my school and a parent prompted him to tell us that, he said he's not aware of any such rule. Years later a cop yelled at me to get on the sidewalk when the bike lane was obstructed by cars. Let's say it is very hypothetically illegal.

If I was in that guy's situation I would ride in the bike lane or get on the sidewalk. Anything other than getting into the lane and hoping the driver behind you gets on the brakes on time. That's of course their legal obligation. I wouldn't bet my spine on it.

It's criminal (as in you could be sent to Rikers Island for it) to ride on the sidewalk in NYC, and (surprising many) both legal and occasionally required (e.g. to get onto the George Washington Bridge bike lane) right across the river. In some places it's legal for children but not for adults. It varies a lot by jurisdiction.

Googling a bit for the West Coast: I see California lacks a bikes on sidewalk law. So it is left up to local governments to regulate. Given how much I see kids on electric bikes on sidewalks: at least in practice they don't much bother regulating them.

While I may have been over confident about the illegality of the sidewalk rule in your area (definitely illegal most places I've lived/cycled, but not always the case) I think my point that at worst that kind of traffic infraction is as bad as going 20km/hr over.

He obviously has a higher risk tolerance than you, that doesn't mean it's a crazy unhinged decision to ride on the road.

I rode my bike to school from 3rd grade to college. I never did stuff like that.

Yes, because you're high conscientiousness and that's all you had. That's why the average kid on a bike tends to be safer than the average adult- the former know what they have to lose, tend to be more aware of the fact they're harder to see (and are more aware of that fact than accompanying adults are, too) and that population simply has a lower proportion of retards in it due to being more representative of the general population (actually, probably slightly better than average, since the parent has to be well off enough to buy their kid a bike in the first place).

Adults on bikes, on the other hand, are there because they either can't afford a car or it's been taken away from them (DUI, etc.). Those things tend to predict bad judgment, so the average adult is more likely to doing things like riding through red lights the wrong way. The raw cost of a car (and the cost of repairing damages thereto), the fact you have an indelible identifying mark mounted to it, and the fact that the infrastructure itself works against stupidity in a way it does not for bikes tends to keep adults in cars acting in ways that aren't so blatantly suicidal.

It's sad that this appears to be common behavior. As I've seen all of which you've mentioned, multiple times, and every time I'm astounded by it.

People try to claim that this experience was just 'one time'. If only.

I would take this argument more seriously if there weren't a similar set of traffic laws that most drivers assume don't apply to them. A friend of mine, who is a retired engineer from PennDOT, said of speed limits that "they aren't suggestions; they're requirements". I've since decided I wouldn't exceed the posted limit if I could help it, though I admittedly often can't. This often results in such behavior as tailgating, honking, flashing brights, and passing in a restricted area, all because I have the tenacity to comply with the law. How many vehicles actually come to a full stop at an intersection when they don't expect to be waiting a while? How many people run red lights because they automatically gun the accelerator every time they see a yellow light, even if they can easily stop in time?

I hear a lot of excuses for this behavior, from the practical ("9 you're fine") to the absurd ("speeding is actually safer because a vehicle that isn't keeping up with traffic causes more accidents when people try to pass'). But people keep doing this shit and then complain about a cyclist who doesn't stop and dismount at a lonely intersection. I don't ride in the city regularly, and when I do I'm not going to blow through a red light or switch from the road to the sidewalk depending on what's more convenient. But I'm also going to coast through intersections with stop signs if I'm going slowly enough to see that there isn't any traffic coming and I can easily stop if need be. There's a general social compact that we're willing to tolerate certain rule-bending when it comes to traffic laws, and if you're going to insist on strict enforcement for me then I expect the same of you.

I don’t expect bicyclists to dismount at lonely intersections. And I think rolling stops should be legalized in the absence of cross traffic. Maybe we can't legalize it because people can't be trusted to follow a conditional rule of only rolling through if there is no cross traffic. I wish we could. I'd say legalize it anyway see if accident rates increase.

When I say some bicyclists enjoy blowing through stop signs, I mean in the presence of other traffic. They could do whatever they wanted on lonely roads or empty intersections and I'd never care. Instead they defy traffic controls in ways that make drivers have to move out of their way or hit their brakes. That's my problem. People should drive and ride predictably. That means stopping if there is cross traffic with the right of way. That means not suddenly unexpectedly swerving into the street with much faster cars driving in that lane; like I saw this morning.

the absurd ("speeding is actually safer because a vehicle that isn't keeping up with traffic causes more accidents when people try to pass')

That's just true. If everyone is going 70mph except one person going 55mph, then the 55mph driver is being wildly dangerous by causing people to constantly pass him at 15mph speed difference. Speed differences are dangerous. Driving 60mph in a 60mph zone while everyone else is going 40mph would also be dangerous and I don't recommend it. Speed match the road for safety. Or at least get out of the leftmost lane if you insist on driving slower than everyone else.

And I think rolling stops should be legalized in the absence of cross traffic.

They are in some jurisdictions. The "Idaho stop" rule allows cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs.

to the absurd ("speeding is actually safer because a vehicle that isn't keeping up with traffic causes more accidents when people try to pass').

I have always assumed this is true. The famous graph of it is called the Solomon curve, showing that the lowest rate of accidents occurs slightly over the mean speed of traffic. It's from 1960, so take it with a larger grain of salt than most studies even, but I don't see why it's an "absurd" claim that this is true.

Doing some further research, what I'm seeing is that the rate of accidents is, as per Solomon, lowest at the speed of traffic. But, that the fatality risk and injury severity if you are in an accident increase with speed. This makes it a non-obvious EV-maximization problem to answer what speed to drive at.

It is absolutely plausible that accident rate varies with # of cars passing you (or that you pass). My mental model is that the safe thing is to go the same speed as the cars in your lane. In principle if that were faster than road conditions allow (rainy, curvy, but somehow left lane is still doing 85), it's an unsafe lane - but probably still safer to travel at the speed of those around you.

I'm open to the idea that going at the +10 found in slower lanes is safer than going at the +20 found in the faster lanes. But, I think "going the speed limit is safer, in any lane" is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.

I'm curious, Mottizens: what speed would you drive at in perfect conditions (straight, flat, sunny, minimal traffic), in a 70 mph interstate?

I'm curious, Mottizens: what speed would you drive at in perfect conditions (straight, flat, sunny, minimal traffic), in a 70 mph interstate?

Minimal traffic, with lane discipline (and no legal speed limit)? 100-115mph. I had to do a big stretch of interstate on a Sunday morning in 2021 and that speed range isn't crazy, conditions allowing. But kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity, so I wouldn't want to regularly drive that much faster than the car was designed to be crashed at.

In realistic conditions? Flow of traffic, up to 85mph. Partly because 90mph irrationally feels wrong, even though 85mph doesn't; partly because the handful of times I've seen the flow of traffic be 90mph, the drivers going that fast were bad (perhaps these things are related?).

Partly because 90mph irrationally feels wrong, even though 85mph doesn't

89 vs. 90mph: The casual speeding enjoyer’s 5’11” vs. 6’0”.

Straw-Poll: Does anyone here ever set cruise-control to a non-multiple of 5?

Yes, almost every time I use it.

75-80. I want to be a bit slower than the faster traffic, so that they will draw the attention of speed enforcement. Also, much beyond that and the engine is noisier, and I'm consciously aware of the fact that thanks to the square power law I'm wasting a lot of fuel on creating wind without saving much time.

I lived in Montana when the speed limits were reasonable and prudent during daylight hours. Most people did about 85 in those conditions.

70-80. The cars I've driven weren't made to consistently go faster than ~65 meaning the engine has to run at higher than normal revs and they get increasingly noisy and uncomfortable at higher speeds for relatively little time saved.

I'm curious, Mottizens: what speed would you drive at in perfect conditions (straight, flat, sunny, minimal traffic), in a 70 mph interstate?

I don't know what an interstate is, and 70 mph only makes sense to me after conversion to 112 km/h. So let's just call it 120 km/h, which is a common Autobahn speed limit.

If this is the legal speed limit, then let's be real, I'm a civilized contrarian who obviously spends every second at the wheel trying to bend the rules without needing to pay a fine, so I drive 130 km/h (around 80 mph).

If it's only a suggestion and there's no fine for speeding, only an elevated risk of fiery death, then I'll go faster under ideal conditions. I'm comfortable driving around 150 km/h (93 mph), but might briefly go faster only to see what my (very boring) car is capable of.

For reference, the fastest I've ever driven was around 200 km/h (124 mph) downhill, once.

I'm curious, Mottizens: what speed would you drive at in perfect conditions (straight, flat, sunny, minimal traffic), in a 70 mph interstate?

70 mph.

Probably 90-95 mph. I don't have a great car though.

With my current pickup with its all-terrain tires? About 70 mph.

I'm curious, Mottizens: what speed would you drive at in perfect conditions (straight, flat, sunny, minimal traffic), in a 70 mph interstate?

Assuming that I'm confident that there are no cops, and I'm driving a good sports car, and I'm in the mood? I'd probably touch 130mph, carry 95-100mph.

Summer of Covid, when I was driving back and forth on an empty PA turnpike in a drop top twin turbo A4 quattro, I would consistently take it up to a daily triple, and just zip through the handful of cars on the road like they were standing still. When you're going 120 and they're going 80, it's like dodging obstacles at 40, it's fun.

On the other hand, if I'm in a more quotidian car and I'm just trying to get somewhere, probably in the 80-85mph range? That's normally a pretty comfortable speed, and I'm not too worried about getting pulled over, and really you have to hold 100 for an hour or more to see much benefit on travel time on the highway, and at that point it's kinda stressful.

I find cyclists annoying, but the behavior you describe ctually makes me angry. You either have no idea of the panic response this can generate in slower drivers or you don't care. In either case, it's reckless and obnoxious.

I mean obviously I've been passed on the highway by someone else going 120 when I was going the speed limit so I know how it feels... Panic response? Lol. Lmao.

I think they're imagining it as if they were standing still, and you zip past at 120. People aren't good at imagining speeds compared to anything other than stopped.

Charitably I think I should have precisely specified traffic conditions. There are indeed times when it is inappropriate and antisocial to drive 120mph, I happen to think I choose appropriate ones. My interlocutors are picturing others.

Less charitably, I don't think they're used to driving like that and imagine it as more hazardous and less fun than it is.

Uncharitably, I think being this angry at people for speeding is a deeply effeminate behavior.

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When you're going 120 and they're going 80, it's like dodging obstacles at 40, it's fun.

are you aware that you are causing more danger than all cyclists being complained about in this thread taken together?

  1. when did I complain about cyclists?

  2. minimal traffic was specified, so we're looking at fairly minor danger, swerving around three other cars.

minimal traffic was specified, so we're looking at fairly minor danger, swerving around three other cars.

If you were swerving around other cars, I think your idea of "minimal traffic" is different than others'. Minimal traffic, to me, would be too few cars to accidentally get in each others' way.

by "cyclists being complained about in this thread taken together" I meant entire comment tree, not only specifically comments you authored

But that metric is meaningless. I didn't complain about bicycles because I respect bicycles on the road, I'm in more rural areas normally but when I see a bicycle I take care to slow down well behind him and wait for a LARGE open space in traffic to pass him in the opposing lane. Sometimes if I'm going to be behind him a while I put my flashers on to make sure people behind me know I'm going slower for a reason. I don't think bicycles are significantly inconvenient or dangerous.

Nor do I think responsible speeding at an appropriate time in an appropriate vehicle is significantly dangerous.

It's like @SecureSignals telling me "You went to law school? You're worse than all the Jews in this thread!"

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Weaving at 130MPH on the interstate when there's cars on the road is antisocial behavior and I sincerely hope you age out of this before you kill someone.

Right! Why do people rage at cyclists and just casually drop stuff like this and hardly anyone bats an eye.

(I also think speed limits should be higher, but there are safe ways to do that - see Germany)

If you're driving merely to get from point A to point B, taking less time is a win. If you're driving for pleasure, faster is more pleasurable. (And the same goes for cycling)

I'm curious, Mottizens: what speed would you drive at in perfect conditions (straight, flat, sunny, minimal traffic), in a 70 mph interstate?

No cops? Somewhere around 120mph probably. Maybe more, I've never had my current car to the top speed.

Depends on the car’s stability and handling characteristics. 100 mph does not feel that fast in something like a BMW or a Lexus, generally I’d be worried more about getting pulled over than road safety in the conditions you describe

what speed would you drive at in perfect conditions (straight, flat, sunny, minimal traffic), in a 70 mph interstate?

75 mi/h (120 km/h)

Given the other answers, I just want you to know that you're not alone.

A friend of mine, who is a retired engineer from PennDOT, said of speed limits that "they aren't suggestions; they're requirements".

As a civil engineer: LOL.

  • If a road has a posted speed of X mi/h (Y km/h), its actual design speed on which the civil engineers base all their designs is (X + 5) mi/h ((Y + 10) km/h).

  • When a civil engineer designs a curve, he can't make the curve too tight, because the "side friction factor" between the pavement and a car's tires will be too small to provide the required centripetal force, resulting in skidding and loss of control. But the side friction factor that's used in design is based on poor weather conditions—ice, rain, et cetera. I don't have the AASHTO Policy on Design in front of me at the moment for the exact numbers, but friction obviously is a lot higher on a dry road than on a wet road, and therefore you can go a lot faster quite safely.

  • A hill, or a roadside forest on a curve, may block your view of an upcoming intersection or crosswalk. You probably learned in your high-school driving class that your "stopping sight distance" increases with the square of speed, so you do want to slow down at these locations. But these claustrophobia-inducing segments don't really have anything to do with your speed on segments of the road that have good visibility.

  • Obviously, at high speeds it's harder to keep your car going where you want it to go. I personally don't feel comfortable driving faster than 75 mi/h (120 km/h), or 80 mi/h (130 km/h) if I'm in the left lane of a three-lane freeway and there's somebody right behind me. But I don't bear much ill will toward people who flash past me at 90 mi/h (145 km/h) in the left lane when I'm in the middle lane (of three).

And if you can tell me where exactly in the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code it says that the posted limits are only suggestions and motorists are free to drive whatever speed they want provided it lies within the engineering design speed then I'd say you have a point. But you seem to have missed mine. I'm not arguing that we should ticket everyone who takes five or ten miles per hour, just that those people can't turn around and complain when a cyclist does something that's technically illegal but otherwise makes sense and isn't particularly unsafe.

I mean it's worth considering that there are times and places where going the speed limit is just unsafe. In much of the NE (so Philly more than Pittsburgh) you see highway speeds that are set at 50 or 55 but are "safe" at 70+. This means the average person (traffic permitting) is going 65-75. If you try and go the speed limit you are at high risk of causing an accident by causing too much delta.

Most people will choose safety and convenience (especially when they go together) over abstractly following the law.

I'm arguing not that we should ticket everyone who takes five or ten miles per hour, but just that those people can't turn around and complain when a cyclist does something that's technically illegal but otherwise makes sense and isn't particularly unsafe.

I think the commenters in this thread generally are complaining about cyclist behavior that doesn't make sense and is particularly unsafe. Most pertinently, the comment to which you replied stated:

There is an obvious problem with some bicyclists thinking that stop signs, red lights, and all other forms of traffic control don't apply to them [presumably even when the street is carrying non-negligible motorized traffic].

This morning I [presumably a motorist on a street with non-negligible motorized traffic] saw a bicyclist veer into the street even though there was a dedicated empty bike lane and an empty sidewalk.

(I personally do 95 percent of my driving on the freeway, so I almost never encounter bicyclists, and I don't have an opinion on whether the other commenters' observations are valid.)

For the red lights and stop signs the argument is that these are not unsafe behaviors for the most part, on par with going 20km/hr over. It's explicitly legal in some jurisdictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

And a cyclist taking the lane isn't even illegal! (In most places) He probably did that because it was safer at the time.

And a cyclist taking the lane isn't even illegal! (In most places)

In most cases, the law requires the cyclist ride as far to the right as practicable. I realize that there's a twisted cyclist-advocate logic that claims this allows taking the lane in pretty much any circumstance (e.g. if the cyclist feels it would be unsafe to pass them), but I don't buy it. I ride somewhat to the left of any debris and only take the lane in rare circumstance. Most often when traffic has slowed to the point that I'm keeping up, to avoid a car riding alongside. And I move back over when traffic speeds up again.

I think my caveat of "most places" was probably not strong enough. I'm many places you're correct, especially in bike-unfriendly areas.

But where I am at least the combination of "where practicable", minimum 1m passing distance, and lane widths means that it's virtually always legal to take the lane, as it's too narrow for a car to safely pass within it.

Drivers... Hate this, and tend to show little respect to cyclists asserting their right to the space, completely legally in the right.

I also try to avoid routes that require it, but unashamedly do so on sections where when the risk of a car clipping me in a narrow lane is too great.

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As I understand it, AASHTO rules set design speeds based on worn-out 1950s bias ply tires in the rain, and assumes your sight distance is limited by pretty much the lowest driver position in the lowest sedan ever made (which means design speeds have been going DOWN as cars have been getting more capable). It's crazy conservative, which is why I once saw a curve speed I used to joke was appropriate for a dump truck in a blizzard greatly exceeded without any drama by a literal dump truck in a blizzard.

To be fair, a large part of stopping sight distance is the built-in full second of driver reaction time, which is independent of car technology.

Not anymore, emergency auto braking is becoming pretty common.

Yeah, if that was at all real the roads I've traveled on doing 65mph or more with sub-second following distances would have been demolition derbies instead of merely ridiculously stressful. (As you would expect, traffic goes from that unstable state to zero with not much warning). Designing based on my father's Oldsmobile with his late father driving doesn't result in reasonable speeds.

Well, as long as you can see multiple cars ahead it's a little safer.

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