This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
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:
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?
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.
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.
To recap how insane this is:
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.
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.
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.
More options
Context Copy link
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:
(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.
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.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
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.
More options
Context Copy link
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.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link