this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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Fuck Cars

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Some worry that New York City’s crackdown on unsafe cyclists leaves them facing greater consequences than drivers, even though cars cause more fatalities.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago

This is car culture logic. Here in the UK cyclists are regarded with the same vengeful attitude by drivers. Red lights are primarily a traffic control feature and it's dangerous to drive through them as a car driver. This isn't the case with a bicycle, due to the visibility a cyclist has and its light weight. It's also a non issue to ride one way streets because a bike is much smaller and more manoeuvreable. Cyclists should be celebrated for reducing traffic, emissions, particulate and noise pollution but the opposite is true, everywhere people speak English because this is a mental disease afflicting anglophones. They are addicted to cars.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

If they can catch me, nyoom.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The bicycle infrastructure is decades behind the Europeans, especially the Netherlands and the large cities in Germany. For example, there are traffic signals controlling bicycle traffic. The other problem, the lawyers can defend an idiot running red lights on a bicycle.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

especially [...] the large cities in Germany

Laughing and crying in Berlin here after just three near death experiences on my way to work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Surely it'll get better now that modal filters across residential streets were declared illegal.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

I sympathise with the message but cycle infrastructure in German cities is bad to the extent there are parody songs about it

[–] pat277 1 points 4 days ago

Jokes on you I got both on an e-bike

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

You are right. Maybe I did not notice. Or maybe the link changed.

[–] [email protected] 145 points 1 week ago (2 children)

We need to fight back again oppression of bike riders. Electric bikes are genuine revolution in transportation, more so than electric cars even.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Imagine if people started using ebikes to get around their town/hood...

All the lostr profits for the car and oil industry 🤡

[–] yonder 31 points 1 week ago (4 children)

And the Gym industry, and the Healthcare industry, and the Tow Truck industry....

So many losses.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

Harder and moar!

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[–] [email protected] 99 points 1 week ago (22 children)

Unpopular opinion, both sides should stop running fucking red lights.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Next you're going to say #AllLivesMatter

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Indeed all lives matter, but the All Lives Matter is a strawman movement that misses the point

[–] 9488fcea02a9 109 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (12 children)

Cars running red lights = driver slamming on the gas trying to beat the yellow. 3000kg of steel and glass travelling at 60+km/hr in a crowded city

Bikes "running" red lights = riders looking both ways and coasting through when it's clear... 100kg of flesh and aluminium going 10km/hr

These are not even remotely close to the same levels of danger...

So while everyone should follow the rules, enforcement should focus on those with the potential to do the most damage

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Bikes “running” red lights = riders looking both ways and coasting through when it’s clear

FWIW this is not how it works in Philadelphia. Here, a lot of cyclists just sail through red lights and stop intersections without stopping first and without even looking to see if there's any cross-traffic first. As an avid cyclist myself, it absolutely blows my mind how often they do this and somehow avoid dying. There are a lot of bike fatalities here, but it's almost always the result of large trucks turning right across bike lanes and flattening somebody they never saw.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

without stopping first

That's normal. Coasting through at low speed uses much less energy than coming to a stop and good bike infrastructure takes that into account. Cars and pedestrians can stop and start easily, bikes, very much not so, so you design intersections, any conflict point, such that bikes merely slow down. The Dutch are brilliant at this with traffic lights which can actually detect who's coming.

My personal approach to cycling is that I never expect anyone to notice me, a result of decades of practice with semi-sensible German bike infrastructure. Yes I'm going to cross on red but noone will have to change their behaviour, react to me in any way. Be like water.

There are a lot of bike fatalities here, but it’s almost always the result of large trucks turning right across bike lanes and flattening somebody they never saw.

Yep don't be there. Even if they're looking out for pedestrians those are slow, you are fast(er), which means that in the time between them looking and them turning you can make it from invisible to the danger zone.

Side note right turns should not be allowed on red, at least not without a sign specifically allowing it at a particular intersection. In 99.9% of cases it's unsafe.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (12 children)

These are E-bikes we're talking about. They can be quite fast. Some can do 50-60 even. Killing people is certainly possible. Requiring both to obey traffic signals, isn't unreasonable.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Pretty sure in the EU they are supposed to be limited to 25kmh, which is the upper speed limit for bike lanes too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

They don't so much have a speed limit but they're required to stop giving you a boost at 25 km/h. Anything that uses a motor to go faster needs a license plate and everything.

At least in Germany bike lanes don't have a speed limit, you can drive as fast as you want as long as it's safe, you're in control, etc. Especially relevant when going downhill.

Sunday or leisurely drivers will go 10 to 25km/h, when you're fit, the road surface is good and the bike built for it sustaining 35km/h isn't much of an issue, fastest I ever went on my mountain bike with semi-slicks (so no racing transmission but no unnecessary friction losses either), on flat ground, was 38km/h. But that's pushing it for the sake of pushing it, my average top speed is just over 30. No lycra, no race bike.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Speed-pedelecs are allowed to go 45kmh and are allowed both on bike lanes and car lanes in the Netherlands. They have a license plate as well, looks like a regular ebike.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

spoileraskldjfals;jflsad;

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Then lights should turn green for my bike, instead of me having to wait for a car to active the sensor on order to cross.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Some sensors in my city detect my bike, some only detect it if I tilt it almost right against the ground, and some don't detect it at all.

You bet I'll gladly run a red light if it won't ever turn green for me.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Commenters here are missing the reason police are issuing court summons:

Some advocates for delivery workers say that the increased scrutiny of cyclists weighs especially heavily on an already vulnerable group. Many people who ride electric bikes in New York are undocumented migrants working for restaurants and food delivery apps, said Ligia Guallpa, the executive director of Los Deliveristas Unidos, which represents delivery workers. The crackdown on electric bikes and scooters comes in the midst of the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement of immigration law.

Sal Cohen is among the immigrants who received a pink court summons connected to the increased enforcement effort. Originally from Turkey, and in the United States on a conditional green card, Mr. Cohen had not heard about the push when he rolled through a red light at the intersection of Grand Street and Union Avenue in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood on his way home from the gym this month.

A squad car pulled up alongside him and he was issued a summons.

A week and a half later, Mr. Cohen, 28, stood in line outside Courtroom No. 3, on the 16th floor of the municipal building, worried that ICE agents might appear.

“I’m here legally, but you never know,” he said. “I’m nervous.”

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Running them, or using the Idaho Stop? Huge difference.

But even still, if the consequences for cyclists are greater than those for drivers, then something is seriously messed up.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

Right-turn on red is enough to get a ticket, even if both streets have bike lanes. Don't ask me how I know....

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