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this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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In several US states, the Amish are required to have lights on their buggies because asking drivers to maintain a speed where they can avoid collision with an object the size of a shed is just too burdensome.
So do bikes. It's just common sense safety for all when on the roads at dusk or night.
Here in California, bike lights are optional. A good thing since motorists are more dangerous to us when they are aware of us.
Lights and reflectors are required at night. During the day, they are optional, but highly recommended.
The second part of your statement is patently false; a visible, predictable bicyclist is safest.
The second part of your statement is patently false; a visible, predictable bicyclist is safest.
That has been entirely contrary to my personal experience of twenty years of bicycling. I can't help but wonder if you're trying to get bicyclists killed.
Oh knock off the drama. Like I've never ridden or own bikes. Advocating lights and safety equipment isn't "trying to get bicyclists killed". What backwards bizarro logic.
News flash, cars aren't responsible for your safety; you are. Being proactive is the best advice.
But go ahead, you do you; wear that camo vest. Lmao.
I'm not saying I'm not responsible for my safety. I'm saying motorists can't be trusted with responding safely to a visible bicycle, and are consistently more predictable when they're not confused by a brightly lit obstacle.
At least this is the case in the Bay Area. Maybe it's different in Paris or Amsterdam. It's better where bicycles have their own paths or a reserved lanes that don't conflict with street parking.
It sounds like you trust motorists to share the road with you and yet argue they aren't responsible for the safety of bicyclists. Regarding that, I agree with you. They are not responsible for my safety. I am.
I'm looking for the patent falseness of my statement which you asserted without references, and not finding it. Perhaps you can elaborate?
How many times have you fallen without a helmet lmao
The recklessness of my youth (which I will admit) is incidental to the antagonism between motorists and bicyclists in the US.
Yeah you're right, having a large black object with no reflectors or lights going down a highway at 10 miles per hour sounds like a great idea. I hate cars too but let's not act like the poor Amish are being horribly treated. They have no seat belts, no air bags, no protection at all. The smallest accidents lead to horrible, debilitating injuries at best. Frankly I think it's insane we let those metal and wood death boxes on the same roads as us. Their wheels also corrode the roads incredibly quickly.
Maybe cosplaying as settlers from 200 years ago in a giant black box 3 feet from the main lanes at night is dangerous?
Only because Ford, Chrysler and General Motors bought legisation to prioritize motor vehicle traffic over all other things.
The Amish are required to have lights during the daytime also.
So is every other trailer and wagon on the road. Sometimes it rains, and occasionally the sun goes down. Someone shouldn't be exempt from laws impacting public safety because of their religion.
LOL, next you'll be in here saying we need to hang lights on all the deer that might run out into the road, because drivers are special snowflakes who cannot possibly be expected to actually pay even the slightest fucking attention to where they're going or slow down enough not to overdrive their headlights.
We can't hang lights on deer. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be safe elsewhere.
Also, people talking about driving slow enough to avoid deer are delusional.
A 65mph rural highway may have a 60 ft ROW, making it 23'9" from the trees to the middle of the near lane (30 feet to the center minus 6'3" for a standard 12'6"lane).
A white-tail deer can sprint 35mph, which comes out to just over 50 feet per second. So you have half a second between the trees.
A professional driver on a closed course with new tires and a dry road can control a car braking car at about 32 fpsps (1g). Clearly everyone who says deer can be avoided easily ate perfect drivers, so let's go with that. Let's also assume they have an absolutely perfect reaction time of zero.
Assuming you have impossible reaction times, the skills of a professional, and all other perfect conditions... you can certainly avoid hitting any deer - so long as you're driving under 9 mph at all times.
In defense of most drivers, it isn’t their fault. Most drivers, myself included, often don’t know how to use headlights safely and in fact, smart headlights are not accounted for in the US. Meaning that on highways you can either have brights on and see things, but piss people off, or you can go without them and be in constant danger between those
What’s worse is that US law, afaik, does not let you drive with your brights on when incoming traffic is present. The result is that you’re forced to outrun your headlights on most highways in the US AND a lack of headlight regulation has led to LED headlights blinding drivers constantly. US driving visibility is awful and it makes our cars death traps.
Yes it is their fault! The solution is incredibly simple and taught right at the beginning of driver's ed: it's called SLOW THE FUCK DOWN.
Absolutely fucking not. Nobody is "forcing" you to do 55 fucking miles per hour in the middle of the goddamn night just because that's what the speed limit sign says when your headlights only have enough throw for you to safely do 40 (or whatever). You do the fucking 40!
IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND, COMPREHEND, AND FOLLOW THIS RULE, YOU ARE A NEGLIGENT DRIVER. END FUCKING OF!
And while I'm at it, I'm gonna go ahead and reiterate: it's not about other vehicles, and what lights they may or may not have has absolutely fuck-all to do with it! Maybe there's a disabled car with a dead battery (lights not working) in the middle of the road. Maybe there's an animal -- or a human! -- lying in the lane. Maybe there's a big-ass fucking boulder in the way, either because of a landslide or because it fell off a landscaping truck. Maybe there's a flood or a sinkhole and the road itself is gone!
Overdriving your headlights -- under ANY FUCKING CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOVER
is as absolutely catastrophically irresponsible as high-off-his-gourd Tony Shaloub in Galaxy Quest: "It's pitch black out there! Is there road?! You don't know!"
If there are other cars going in the same direction on a 55 mph highway, the other lights do "combine" and allow you to see much farther then your own lights alone.
Okay and that’s cool and all but what you’re saying won’t change anything. What needs to be changed is speed limit signs, headlight technology, signage, and drivers ed. Most people are not taught how to check visibility in drivers ed at all. Most I was given is the 3 second rule but that’s about it.
I’m not saying this takes the blame off of drivers entirely but as an engineer that’s what I want to do when searching for solutions. Reason for that is that changing people is by far more costly and less effective than anything else we can do. That’s why things like trains and buses and planes will always be superior to a highway. You don’t need the people inside to know or do anything at all.
Idk, any car that hit a stationary/slow-moving object have serious skill issue. It's like hitting a broken down car and then blame the car you hit for...breaking down.