See, that's the thing. The idea of saving money at every other road user's expense just doesn't sit well with me. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that foisting extra inconvenience and responsibility on other road users (who get no say or choice in the matter!) just to save some money is the height of selfishness.
Selfish against drivers? Usually they have as much of a choice to go on two wheels as the bicyclists do. And why cars should be so much more important that they can't move a few inches to the left?
Why are bicycles so important that they can't use some common sense with regards to when and where they ride? And yeah, we have a choice to either join or put up with your time-in"efficient" mode of transportation. What I mean is, we don't have a choice to not have to worry about you.
Riding on the side isn't common sense? Ah, right, for some the road is a bloody track. And do I have a choice not to worry about cars?
Depends on whether you have a choice to use one yourself. Now, based on some of your other posts, you specifically don't, but will soon. Kind of a special case (unfortunately). But the thing is, that's not why you defend cycling... it's always just "I love cycling" or "it saves money". See, even when I was stuck riding because I wasn't old enough to drive yet, I always searched for and took advantage of alternate paths that would keep me off the road, because it would never have even occurred to me to put myself on the main roads and call myself the equal of a driver - not even on the 25PSL subdivision roads I tried to keep to as much as possible. This wasn't even because of car culture (which I didn't even realize at the time was under significant threat), but simply because why would I force everyone else on the road to watch out for me when I could choose not to? But see, that's the other thing. Even if there are no alternatives that you can use, you, the guy who hasn't taken their driving test yet (and, given that you're not American, probably haven't been able to yet), are a minority among cyclists. The vast majority can easily afford - frequently already have - a car or multiple cars, but still ride anyway, often specifically and deliberately on the narrowest, blindest roads. That's where the selfishness starts. At that point you're just deliberately making an artificial hazard of yourself and multiplying the danger created by other hazards in the process.
Three things about that. One, how is that a good thing? If you are a car enthusiast then why would you consider that something to celebrate or take advantage of? Two, you can be teeeeeeeeechnically well within your rights and still be a massive pain to everyone around you. Three, I know for a fact that you are no libertarian, so since when do you care about rights on anything resembling a principled basis?
I was made late to work by 10 cyclists riding in the middle of the fucking street yesterday. No passing lane, single lane road. Extremely busy oncoming. Jeep can get out of its own way, but not near fast enough to even attempt passing. I get that roads are for everyone, but that’s just selfish. Then people wonder why I want to go cyclist bowling.
Many cyclists will say they don't pull ridiculous stunts like that and that makes them unselfish. To me there is little difference in the mentalities involved. "Everyone can wait for me" versus plain old "everyone can watch out for me". That's the other thing that frosts me. When I complain about cars becoming heavy, soft, and untuneable, all I get is "The normies should always get what they want and we should happily play along no matter what it costs car culture in the end". When I complain about bicyclists or pedestrians, suddenly the normies don't matter anymore and you can annoy them as much as you like as long as you don't have an engine moving you along when you do it.
Is driving on the side of the road really such an annoyance, at least noticeably bigger than other cars on the road? On the road you have to watch out for various stuff anyway. So how do you plan to convince over 90% of the society to do what you want? What's funny is that developments in walkability, cycling and public transport would actually put many of those "normies" out of cars and make the enthusiasts a bigger share of the market, but would you ever think of that?
Absolutely it is. Slow drivers are annoying, even infuriating when you're under a time crunch - but even they are usually going much faster than the average cyclist (let alone pedestrian), especially up hills. Crucially, they are also less likely to just materialize out of the darkness in front of you with no warning - so for the most part, same-direction traffic is only a potential annoyance when it's actually there. Oh yes, the classic bicyclist excuse which fails to recognize that their presence, in and of itself, makes "various stuff" worse. See, bicyclists love to imply that they require no more consideration than any other same-direction vehicle, and are thus "normal traffic" or at least compatible with it. But in actuality - and your own belief that drivers should stick to the exact center of their lane all time proves it - non-drivers demand nearly the same consideration as oncoming vehicles. Now, with an oncoming-level threat from both sides, there is no longer any "safe side" to ditch towards if trouble appears ahead - nowhere for drivers to go if there's an animal in front of them or a wide load or a veering drunkard/texter coming the other way, let alone any way to give an oncoming car more room on a narrow curve (especially when factoring in the blinding effect of oncoming headlights). Most people, if their lane and the oncoming are both obstructed, will instinctively swerve toward the ditch regardless, not that anyone where I live even cares about the shoulder lines in normal A-to-B driving anyway. And all that is if the non-driver in this equation is doing what they're "supposed" to do rather than riding in the middle of the lane or walking multiple-abreast down the oncoming lane - both have been known to happen. To put it simply, to walk or ride on the vast majority of non-urban roads is to make an artificial hazard of yourself while simultaneously multiplying the danger caused by other hazards. Why would you want to do this to people in a situation where you don't have to? It's kind of hard to tell right now because there is no real choice between different types of cars anymore. You're not allowed to buy a car with less than 7 air bags anymore (the growth of this number to include mandatory side curtain airbags is what killed the Dodge Viper, by the way). You're not allowed to buy a car without a screen in it, now that reverse cameras are mandatory. You're not allowed to buy a car with visibility-enhancing thin roof pillars, because your permanent parents in the government don't think that's safe enough in a rollover anymore. I don't think there's any specific law requiring drive-by-wire - yet - but it's extremely difficult to meet the ever-more-insane fuel economy & emissions standards foisted by non-technical career activists/bureaucrats without it, and it probably also gives engineers more latitude when setting up the mandatory stability control. Same with the revolting one-lozenge "overfed Prius" bodywork that makes 1990s family sedans look like heartthrobs by comparison - it's not technically mandatory, but in practice the regulations no longer allow a truly stylish car to be built and sold on a mass-market basis. Even the SUV fad started as a rule-dodge after fuel economy regulations made it difficult to produce and sell station wagons at a competitive price within the "Passenger Car" regulatory class. If it were still "allowable" to build cars the old way, there are probably a lot of people that wouldn't need convincing. But in the end, none of this was even my point. My point is that, when "a vast majority" of people seem to want over-bloated, over-insulated Transportation Modules, their apparent desire is law and we should all desire to think in lock-step with them. But when "a vast majority" of people have taken to driving for business and pleasure, and see bicyclists as out-of-place annoyances (which they often do in real life, away from the Enlightened Internet Car Enthusiast echo chamber), then suddenly their opinion doesn't matter anymore and you can do whatever you want no matter how many people it annoys, inconveniences, or even endangers. You'd think a car enthusiast would want to side with the latter majority, certainly more than they would with the former! Within urban centers? I would, and have... enough to know that doing it properly, whatever that turns out to mean, would be a massive and expensive pain. Outside of those urban centers? Only if it can be done with zero alteration to existing roads, including shoulder width. The problem is, sometimes those developments do exist outside of urban centers... and are frequently ignored when they do. The installation of a ped/bike path parallel to one of the 55-posted, narrow-shouldered, poorly-lit main roads I frequently drive did not completely stop people from walking and riding on the shoulder at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes this is because they are trying to hitchhike (which is, itself, a stupid thing to do, especially at night), but sometimes they just genuinely don't seem to notice the NMT path, or the multiple unofficial dirt trails also running parallel, or the residential frontage roads... Improving walkability/bikeability in rural areas could be a good thing, if you could keep these improvements separate from the roads as opposed to just widening shoulders, and if you could get everyone to use the improvements instead of completely ignoring them and continuing to make 2AM surprises of themselves. Both are big ifs, especially considering that many cyclists are obsessed with using the same slab of asphalt as the drivers do. And if you let bicyclists and pedestrians use the same improvements, you're going to still end up with cyclists on the road anyway, because many cyclists will spurn any place where dog walkers/stroller pushers/families/whatever can get in their way. But of course, if a driver thinks the same about either one, then they're "selfish" somehow.
A bicycle doesn't take the whole lane up. And why should non-drivers have less rights than drivers? Because of financial and health reason? Cycling would probably help a lot in solving the Amercian obesity crisis. If people did care about it, there would be more public outcry about the laws than the real Where are these people? Because I strongly suspect they're just other forum warriors you know, not the crossover-buying, CAFE-supporting, driving-from-A-to-B public.
Cycling do have benefits. More and more modern cars have over-computerized systems, fake ESC-OFF button, electrically-limited speed(even on racetracks), untuneable ECU, throttle lag. And more and more people believe the "robocars are good" propaganda, if those technocrats succeed in making robocars dominate the road and banned human driving. Cycling is a good way, to be in control. Drive when you still have the chance, then cycle when the last chance of driving is gone. Nothing lasts forever.
That's only part of the problem. The problem is the likelihood of running up on one with little to no warning. The result is, of course, having to "pre-avoid" non-drivers just like oncoming cars... with the difference being that space demanded by non-drivers is highly variable and usually unmarked. So regardless of how much space you do or don't take up, you are still foisting the legal and moral responsibility for your safety onto other road users, to a much higher degree than any driver. I never said that bicyclists don't "have a right", only that their having a right isn't something for a car enthusiast to celebrate, take advantage of, or try to perpetuate. Because the gulf between the capabilities of a motor vehicle and the capabilities of a bicycle (or, worse, pedestrian) is so great that the two cannot share the same slab of asphalt without putting restrictions on each other... but mostly on drivers since a bicycle can't go fast enough to hurt anyone anyway. Try as I might I cannot put myself inside the mind of a car enthusiast who would desire to put this restriction on other drivers (enthusiasts or otherwise), or enjoy putting up with this restriction themselves. Even beyond the car-enthusiast angle, I just don't think it's right to impose extra, onerous restrictions on the 95+% - in many areas 99+% - of people who get around by driving "just because you can". I know popularity doesn't decide rights, but it can decide what is polite and considerate, and non-urban road bicycling is way, way, way past the point where that starts to happen. In a lot of places (especially in the US) it has been past that point for several decades. This isn't 1910 with a fair chunk of the general public being menaced by those ridiculous newfangled automobiles, this is a tiny minority of people who have made up their minds to be eternal obstacles because they think the "other 90% of" road users should automatically "do what they want"! If it's exercise you're after, there are ways to get it that don't involve getting in everyone's way. If you're trying to save money, you're saving it at every other road user's expense. Sadly I suspect a lot of people don't even know what the laws are or what their effects are. There are many who just sort of take the current boilerplate on climate, safety, efficiency, etc. "on faith" without thinking too hard about it, and also without seeing the connection between those regulations and the current direction of car design. The only thing that will be apparent to most "normies" is that new cars are more expensive than they used to be and require longer loans as a result, and also that problems are much more expensive to fix once the warranty runs out. But even then I doubt they'd make the connection. Government does most of its damage by concealing or disguising the true costs and effects of regulation so that they not discovered until later, by which point they hope most people will be used to it - "rules now, unintended consequences later". If, however, it were possible to get a car cheaper by cutting out, say, all but 2 airbags, the touchscreen navitainment, the downsized turbocharged DBW engine, and the 8/9/10-speed automatic transmission, I suspect there are a lot of people who would bite if for no other reason than the ability to get a new-car warranty with a shorter loan or none at all. Either way that should be their choice to make, not the government's. Oddly enough, it's usually the bicyclists who are the forum warriors. I don't often bring this subject up in real life, but on the rare occasions I do, the only person who ever had a favorable overall opinion of them was the guy running a bicycle-repair-station booth at a transportation fair (who I hadn't originally intended to engage with). Most people don't think about them at all, as evidenced by how quickly the shoulder lines tend to get worn faint or scrubbed off entirely around here. It's just like the Cavalier. The people who hate it are all forum warriors who think compact cars should be judged exclusively by how closely they resemble the EK or EP Honda Civic. People in real life, and even in other areas of the internet that have not yet been corrupted by the Internet Car Intelligentsia, tend to have, at the very least, a neutral opinion of it. People who have actually had a V6 Cavalier tend to think they're pretty cool, especially straight piped, and would have another if given the chance. Even when the A-to-B masses are herded into robocars, bicycles are still likely to be a pain for them because the lawyerized computer brain won't be able to figure out how to pass them.
It's not variable. Just don't drive too far on the right if there's a bicycle in the way - you can see what's in front, and mirrors are in cars for a reason. Us and them, and after all, we're all ordinary men... Well, they aren't big restrictions. You are trying to wage a war over two feet of road. It's a small enough thing that the 90+% percent can adapt. I prefer democracy, not tyranny of the majority. If bicycles were 51% of the traffic and cars 49%, would it mean cars would have to GTFO? And if you're driving a car, it comes out of taxpayers' expense for the roads. Especially that cars do much more damage to roads (the formula for road damage involves weight to the fourth power). And people buy these cars, like the Dacia Sandero. Still, it's just a segment of the market, not its mainstream, and most people buy ordinary cars like Golfs with their TSIs and DCTs. It's much better where I live. I guess Alaska has asshole drivers. I take it that it's in comparison to all the Civics you owned?
Why are there no crossplane I4's in cars? It shouldn't be too hard to rephase an Iron Duke or some shit, but as far as I can tell, nobody's tried it...
