You don’t seem to under stand that the same applies for auto use too!

My message was impatience leads to accidents. I’m talking about urban surface streets where slowing to 15 for a short distance isn’t the end of the world. I’m talking about the fact that even if you slowed to 15 for a distance of two miles, you’re only losing four minutes. FOUR minutes. BFD.

Yes. Slower speeds in denser city areas actually moves traffic more efficiently. Less stop-start and fewer accidents. Which is why street designs are changing.

DS

My message was impatience leads to accidents. I’m talking about urban surface streets where slowing to 15 for a short distance isn’t the end of the world. I’m talking about the fact that even if you slowed to 15 for a distance of two miles, you’re only losing four minutes. FOUR minutes. BFD.

Speaking of SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT, that’s one of my pet peeves, that and drivers in Portland and Seattle not knowing how to merge, causing them to bolt out of the transition lane across five lanes of traffic to park in the far left passing lane.

I follow the rules of the road and am a very safe and cautious driver, wanting to avoid another accident, which wasn’t my fault; someone turned left in front of me. I drive the speed limit in the transition lane, and move left only to pass. I don’t text or talk and drive. Etc.

(Speaking of left turns, they’re a major cause of accidents. UPS uses software that drastically reduces drivers having to make left turns, which improves safety and shaves nearly 30 million delivery miles, thereby reducing fuel consumption.)

Where I live in the Seabrook/Clear lake area of Houston, we have many miles of separated eight foot wide bike lanes. Many of them are alonside arterials which flow at forty to fifty miles per hour(NASA road, Kirby Road, Old Galveston Road). On such arterials, I don’t execute my left from the left lane of three or four lanes. I stop at the corner and cross at the crosswalk on the green light. Then I wait at that corner and cross again on that green. It takes only slightly longer and is way safer than making a left from the middle on the green light.

I think you’re speaking for yourself.

I certainly don’t see it that way.

Cars are too large for narrow urban roads. They also take up too much space on express ways. Cars increase the dependency of a country on other counties, many of which are not strategic partners. Cars pollute. Are any of these things not true?

Car journeys can be split into sections where everyone moves together (express ways) and sections where people have a wide variety of route choices (urban roads).

Buses are the most efficient way of moving people together, but the problem is connecting people to their origins and destinations in sensible way – very few people end up with bus stops at their origins and destinations.

Contrarily, bicycles go directly door-to-door, but they are slow, and vulnerable in high speed traffic.

A possible solution is to merge buses and bicycles. The buses cover the arterial traffic sections and the bicycles are deployed to deal with the shorter & lower speed sections. The buses carry folding bicycles internally, fixed frame bicycles on an external trailer, and bicycles can be hired at bus stations. Unfortunately, Antiplanner’s electronic solution does not include any speed reductions, and is of very little use for this application.

“On a more serious note, the solution to the bike/car problem is to separate bike paths from roads.”

For militant car drivers it may be some kind of a solution – it gets the cyclists out of the way, so that the car drivers can get to work 60 seconds earlier – although I can guarantee that when cyclists don’t use these lanes, so patronisingly provided for them, the car drivers will whine like crazy. For the cyclists, it is much harder to see the attraction. Things like turning left are much harder, since the cyclist has to turn from the left most lane, but your bicycle lane is on the right.

It has probably never occurred to you that people drive because it is a convenient and fast way to travel in our modern, decentralized world. You’d rather spin fantastic conspiracies in which we are all slaves to our automobiles and they are slowly sucking away our very souls.

On a more serious note, the solution to the bike/car problem is to separate bike paths from roads. Very simple, and not that expensive. There’s no reason bikes and cars should be sharing the same asphalt, and in cases where there is no other choice, like city centers, the solution is safety training for cyclists. How many bike accidents are caused by arrogant cyclists who ignore signs, zip around thru traffic, a foot from a 3000lb car, and then complain when something bad happens?

Wearing big hats and boots?

I guess you mean ‘texting’.

Fatalities are up in the UK, but fatalities per cyclist are down, as the number of cyclists is way up.

Fatalities go as (number of cyclists)^0.4. So fatality rate goes as (number of cyclists) ^ -0.6.

http://transportpolicy.org.uk/TwoWheels/BicycleSafety/BicycleSafety.htm

For longer journeys, for example between towns and cities, speed is important. For local journeys, the ability to get to the front door is important.

Bicycles are good for local journeys. Buses can move people efficiently at high speed. Cars do not do well in town, causing congestion and blight. But cars work well as battering rams, forcing cyclists off the road. “Why don’t you cycle to work?” – “I don’t like the traffic.”

“There is a proven technology for preventing these accidents, its called a separated, eight foot wide bike lane. Most cities can pour eight foot bike lanes for a couple dollars a linear foot. Crushed granite, even more cheaply.”

In most urban streets, there isn’t space for an 8 ft bicycle lane. And it doesn’t help the cyclists to turn left (in the USA), which every car driver can do as a matter of course.