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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • The problem with some of these “safety” features is they malfunction at such a high rate they seem more likely to kill me than save my life. They also don’t anticipate future consequence in any way.

    The collision detection malfunctions regularly giving a loud beep or applying breaks when nothing is ahead.

    The lane departure does not understand situations where you had someone wander into your lane and you may drive onto the shoulder quickly before signalling. I don’t need my car fighting me while im making the correct call. I also think having the car take over, even gently, is so startling that it could cause the accident it was meant to prevent. If I’m startled I might over correct and lose control. While that has never happened, with everything considered, it seems safer to leave some of these features off.

    I don’t need to be an early adopter on flawed technology that could get me killed.






  • Possibly I got distracted by your sentence implying there is no reason to run a red, because it shows you really don’t understand. I have multiple intersections on my morning commute where the safest time to cross the intersection is when I have a red light. Sometimes it’s legal for me to run them, sometimes it isn’t. That happens when intersections are designed for cars and not bicycles. If they were designed just as much for bikes, there would be a leading bike indicator at every intersection in America that has some type of bike infrastructure. You acted like that Anatole France quote wasn’t relevant when it unequivocally is. If the safest thing for me to do is break the law, then the law is wrong.


  • It is perfectly legal in many places in the world to run a red light on a motorcycle or bicycle, provided you wait a reasonable amount of time. So your example is complicated. Simply because the magnetic strips that detects cars don’t detect them. But if run a red light after waiting, I guarantee the average person will think I’m the same as the person that flys through the intersection without slowing down. In my experience the average car driver has no idea why bicycles make the decisions they make.

    And it is perfectly reasonable to break rules, if breaking them is what is keeping me alive. I really could give a shit what the law is. I care about getting to work alive. And I will make decisions to that end first and the law second.


  • The lights often automatically changes to cyclists priority in many places in the Netherlands, and often provide underpasses to avoid conflict points in the first place. It is not a comparable situation. Traffic laws and infrastructure in the USA, for instance, are incredibly biased in favor of cars, so their comment is absolutely relevant.

    When I bike in the USA often the safest time for me to cross an intersection is unrelated to whether I have a green light, but more related to if anyone else at the intersection does. The safest time for me to go is when no one else at the light has a green light, not when I do.