[philamonster]

Former bike messenger in large eastern US cities in late 90's/early 2000's here, just started commuting by bike this summer again after having not done so since probably late 2000's. I have mostly MTB'd the last decade or so.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/29/upshot/traffi...

https://archive.ph/M2yod

It is a totally different world on US roads these days. There is so much dumb shit I've done on a bike in my 20's that I refuse to tell my kids about and that makes me cringe thinking how lucky I have been and after about 2 weeks of commuting this summer I have abandoned that dream and instead choose to ride where the cars can't go. I am fortunate to have access to a massive trail system outside my front door but will avoid as much vehicle interaction as I can here on out. Aside from the crazy, impatient drivers there are so many other ways you can get destroyed by a massively oversized car or truck that the distracted driver can barely see out of. Not to mention the erosion of trust that people are going to actually behave on the roads, as illustrated in the above article. Riding on city streets was always something that put my faith in other humans to the test and since I already know the answer, the safest thing one could do is to simply remove yourself from the equation.

[ToucanLoucan]

For real. Biking for a commute in the United States should come with hazard pay. So many drivers just absolutely, from the word go, hate cyclists with a burning passion. And the best you can hope for outside of that, is benign neglect, and since you don't pose the same threat a 3-ton suburban does to their suburban, they just don't look for you and don't give a shit where you are. I've been nearly hit so many times, and not in the way you think: it's low-speed stuff where someone is trying to make a turn out of a driveway, or backing out of their own, or waiting to go left across busy traffic, and they're so focused on looking for cars that pedestrians and bikes just fade into the background.

And I know I'll probably get some dickhead typing an angry reply about how one time a cyclist didn't obey a stop sign or something and therefore we're the scum of the road fit only to coat the tread of his tires, but just like, this is not the same goddamn situation. I'm moving about a hundred pounds of light metal and rubber, and you're moving between 2 and 4 tons of machinery. Fuck off with this ridiculous equivalence.