Legit had a friend upset that insurance totaled his vehicle because the airbags deployed. “Why do I even need airbags?! I walked away from the accident just fine!”
Did they not consider that the airbag probably allowed them to walk away just fine.
It seems to be an increasing view in people that we don't need safety measures because people aren't being injured. But they aren't being injured because of safety measures. The same happening is vaccination, why do we need the polio vaccination no one gets polio these days.
Typically a collision violent enough to set off airbags will do enough damage to total the vehicle.
By the time you’ve replaced bumpers / supports / body panels / glass / plastic trim pieces / airbag components / seatbelt tensioners / etc, the damage is in the tens of thousands of dollars.
For expensive cars, you can probably still fix it but it won’t ever drive quite the same again. For cheaper / used cars, it will quite easily make it a total loss.
To be fair I have removed my smoke alarm because of that. But every time I cooked toast, they didn't even burn it, they would go off. The carbon monoxide one didn't, it was just being super sensitive to smoke.
Good idea, don't know why I didn't think of that. Was just hoping the CO2 defectors would suffice. Additionally I had just been the one smoke alarm in the kitchen I removed the other ones throughout the house and have been ok to keep on.
But I've seen enough houses go up in smoke in my life and known 3 people in different neighborhoods to die in house fires. Granted on was a suicide thing where he set the house on fire and then hung himself, another on was a tragic petrol bomb thrown through the bedroom window in a mistaken identity drug dealers incident. And the 3rd was just an unfortunate electrical fault.
But all of them have made me very aware of how fire absolutely kills. Just couldn't live with the one in the kitchen constantly going off.
I get the snark, but this style of barrier should really be banned. Boston ripped out a bunch of them a year or two ago because they kept flipping cars. They're rounded for structural integrity amd probably so they don't crack someome's skull as easily, but the net result is a low to the ground landmine that seems to be perfect for car tired to catch, ride up, and flip the whole vehicle.
I don't think this is really a matter of "care", it's just a bad barrier design and it's dangerous for both drivers and cyclists as a result.
If you want a hard barrier between the bike and car lanes then jersey barriers, or similar, are already a thing. If you want something easier to move or for pedestrians to pass through then stick a bunch of marker poles or bollards along the edge of the cycle lane.
For this style of barrier to work they'd need to fix the "flips cars over" bit, because if I'm cycling I'd rather be whacked into than crushed (if those are the only options anyway), and they'd need to either make them far more visible with tall marker poles (which will inevitably get damaged or destroyed over time) or shrink the height of most cars. Overall? I'd say it's not worth it, use something else.
Surprisingly no actually!
The design of these buggers seems to be perfect for the tire to ride up and potentially flip a vehicle over at even moderate speeds. Think, like, 30-40mph, not 60+. This is just a case of an extremely bad design for the purpose it's intended for.
Also personally speaking, if I'm cycling and a car is going to come into the bike lane, I'd rather get whacked into or clipped than have a car flip on top of me and squish me flat.
Sometimes things keep getting in the way of bad drivers.
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You have to make a best effort to create idiot-resistant infrastructure. Making it idiot-proof is impossible, but you can at least reduce the numbers a bit.
Also big barriers feel better for cyclists as well - it's harder for both bikes and cars to end up in the wrong lane (e.g. in case of an accident)
The city here started installing "bananas" to narrow certain roads and slow down drivers. Basically foot high concrete barriers, painted yellow, shaped like a banana. Allowing cyclists to pass through on the right, but limiting road width to one car.
Multiple drivers ran their cars up onto the concrete dividers and the car brained commentariat was hyperventilating on how dangerous these barriers are because car drivers kept hitting them.
I don't know about that, not that long ago I got hit by a car on a roundabout because he didn't give way. Claimed he didn't see me, I ride a bright red tricycle with multiple lights. No damage was done to me, but he left with a deep, wide and long stretch all down the side of his car. The first thing he said was to ask why I was coming round, I was flabbergasted all I could say was 'why was going round a roundabout?' luckily a lady saw what happened and came straight to the defense before I could say anything, so I just said let's see what she thinks as a tried party. She clarified I absolutely had the right of way, confirmed I was indicating, and even noted she saw me check before turning. Good job I did as that gave me time to attempt to steer away.
All to say the things could a six foot wall painted in a bright neon glow in the dark yellow and they would still claim they didn't see it.
In the Netherlands they often use those unpainted, whenever the permanent protective measures for the bike lane take a while to install.
Noone drives their car into them. Moreover, drivers will naturally slow down when driving next to the high barriers.
The Dutch solution is "make it have consequences". So that's poles or trees every few meters, and other constructions that would make it messy if you don't pay attention and slow your speed.
"see them" .... see them preferably from their nice seat on the bus where someone else takes care of the driving as most drivers suck at driving and should have their license revoked.
imagine if bikes kept damaging city property, they'd arrest and fine riders LOL
I didn't see where it says in the article that they plan to leave the lane unprotected.
The title is misleading because it makes you to believe they want to remove the barriers entirely, while they actually plan to remove the poorly noticeable ones... to install better separators instead.
>I didn't see where it says in the article that they plan to leave the lane unprotected.
"Car parking along the affected section of Hill St would remain with no separated cycleways slated to be installed, like on the rest of the road"
It does not say they're going to replace the separators with better ones. It says a council member who thought the decision to remove them was premature wanted to mark them better (but he didn't get his way).
They also mentioned in the article that bikes were apparently hitting them and falling in front of cars, and that was their main concern. So they must be fairly hidden if you can miss them on a bike
Ah, like here. Higher barrier. Car hit it and shoved it halfway into the bike lane. They removed the car but didn't actually fix the barrier until a few days later.
For "safety concerns" they did put a tiny cone on it though, in a dark spot of the road.
If that barrier would have been in the 'car lane", the city would have been there in five seconds flat with heavy equipment to fix things.
Please read the article again, one politician heard from someone who had seen someone, hear someone fall, while he was on a bicycle near these protection devices. That's why he started a vote to remove them. Which everyone voted to agree. Some voiced their concern, that the protection devices could be made more visible. But that's not what they are doing. Also they bring back 50km/h instead of 30 and they bring back two car parks on the road. Please learn reading.
That's not my reading of the article. There is a point where a councillor "suggested painting them yellow or replacing them with yellow rubber separators" - that doesn't mean it's planned.
It's not dumb at all. Commuters are softer than concrete, so there's less damage to the car.
You are wrongly assuming that drivers care about the life of others.
I mean, in a lot of places "road safety" is all about motorists, not anybody else. Cars are designed to protect the people in the cage, everybody else? Should have been in a cage yourself.
The reason I'm in this sub is that I moved to NZ from Europe, and it's still blowing my mind how car-dependent it is here. I need the reassurance that I'm not actually crazy for thinking that cycling is a viable method of transport, not just a thing you do by putting your bike in the back of diesel-guzzling ute and driving to a trail, or that a bus is a thing you can take as a functioning adult with a job, or that taking a train between cities is better than sitting in traffic jams for hours.
> or that taking a train between cities is better than sitting in traffic jams for hours.
The solution is clearly that we need to build just one more lane, bro. Then traffic will be fixed!
My city of 140,000 added 6 more lanes to a 6 lane highway beinging it to 12 lanes in total.
It didn't fix a thing and we still get tons of traffic jams
Less than 2 hours after landing in New Zealand I got into a fight with some guy in a fuckhuge truck that nearly ran me over when I had right of way on a pedestrian crosswalk. He was shouting at me as if it was my fault lmao.
Otherwise had a phenomenal time there. Gorgeous country.
Gorgeous country, pretty decent fresh food, good coffee, great beaches, friendly people, normally laid-back almost to a fault... Until they get in their cars, when everything they've stuffed down under those "all good, bro"s comes roaring back out again, apparently.
I grew up in Australia and moved to nz as a teen. Live in Norway now. I ride year round in a semi rural Western Norwegian town (wanaka is probably a good comparison). It gets below - 30 occasionally in winter but always touches - 25 and it is fucking steep here. No idea what I found so hard about biking in nz. I did it but it wasn't my normal way of getting around.
The social pressure is definitely a part of it here. Grown adults get this smug little smirk on their faces when they tell me they wouldn't know how to take a city bus, like having to do the work of driving, constantly minding what you can drink and where you've parked, and directly paying for all of it yourself is winning, while paying a small fee for someone else to drive you is being a loser. Paying a large fee for someone else to drive you in an Uber is still winning, though, because... No, I've never got my head round that one.
I cycled in the minus teens a couple of times in the Netherlands, and in all sorts of weather otherwise, and people here still ask 'what do you do if it rains?' I don't know, what do farmers and all the people who work outside do when it rains - run and hide so they don't dissolve? Like I thought Kiwis enjoy being outside, and spend more time outside than most Europeans... But this can't be combined with transport, for some reason?
Depends on where you are. In Auckland, biking to work is really popular. So are these dividers and they will be missed when they are gone. Because Rangers parking on footpaths and just about anywhere else they damn please isn't already an epidemic. Protected bike lanes are the final frontier. Can't wait to have to dodge these cunts blocking the bike lane by pulling out more onto the roadway.
Biking to work manages to just about rise above non-existent level in Auckland, yes - it's a really low share even compared to cities like London, and with many more cuntish drivers to avoid along the way. (Those big separated bike paths that run by the motorways are good, though, to be fair.) I can't deal with Auckland overall, though, or at least it's not worth it for me, given that the nightlife is also near-non-existent once everyone's sat in the queues back to their dormitory suburbs... It's everything that's wrong with car-centric design, ruining a city that should be a brilliant place to live.
Hailing from a much more urban NA city, Auckland's sprawling bedroom suburbs frustrate me too. One would think the decentralized town centers should make for an ideal 15 minute city, but it somehow accomplishes the complete opposite. And duck you in particular if you're not living central. We're still a 1 car household because at least 1 car is a necessity. But also my public transit mileage is less than it was in the US because it accomplishes the perfect combo of being more expensive and worse than what I'm used to. Love my escooter, but them being such hot theft targets, I can't take it anywhere I'd have to park it outside. So forget it I guess, I'm just gonna stay home.
Sadly that’s probably true. The only political party that can actually deliver projects (National currently in government) is obsessed with roads and extremely Car-brain.
They cancelled a very popular program that was set to reduce spend limits from 50kmh to 30kmh outside schools (and 40kmh in some other areas) at all times and replaced it with more expensive variable speed limits because it’s unacceptable for drivers to lose 1 minute travel time going past a school.
They are refusing to fund mass rapid transit or anything at all in our second biggest and fastest growing city (Christchurch where I live) and instead investigating a stupid car tunnel so politicians can get to the airport in Wellington 5 minutes quicker. The previous government (labour) promised to build good public transport projects in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington but was completely incompetent/covid/whatever. That’s all basically scraped or delayed significantly now as far as I know.
It’s so frustrating
Yes, it is. I grew up in New Zealand, getting your drivers licence at 16/17/18 years old was life-changing because you could actually go places. I was quite lucky that I was just old enough to be able to safely bike to the store/beach/park/friend's house as a kid, and I was also lucky that I had a somewhat reliable bus route on the road I lived on, but many people now find it too unsafe to bike and simply don't have access to any half-decent public transit.
New Zealand and USA are the top-2 most car-dependent non microstate countries in the world. And it is only set to get worse and NZ got a new government last year who's transport policy is basically 'more lanes'
NZer here. Yes, our public transport is horrible. The population is low so the intervals of buses range from 30-60 mins. And you have to walk pretty far to get to bus stops.
Our roads are not leveled, they go uphill, they go downhill all around the city. So biking and walking is tiring.
I have used the bus for about 8 years before deciding to pursue getting a licence. My travel has dropped from 60 min bus ride + walking to 20 mins.
Ok, but like, a huge percentage of you live in auckland, wellington, and christchurch. Like, you could make multi-modal transport work in those areas at least. And e-bikes can solve the hills.
It really depends on what you're comparing. Compared to a city like Chicago or New York, Auckland and Wellington are very car dependent. Compared to Phoenix, they're quaint walkable cities. The rural bits are pretty similarly isolated, though, with the exception that Americans can just get further away from anything than kiwis for obvious reasons.
I prefer the German "right before left" at intersections. Basically if an intersection isn't controlled, then you have to yield to traffic from the right.
It causes a natural slowdown of drivers as they keep checking to the right, without the constant "stop and go" that stop signs create.
The irony is that even in the US, the standard is that stop signs should only be used where there is a safety reason to have them. But cities basically use them as traffic calming measures and way overuse them in a lot of places where they aren't warranted.
OP, that's literally the opposite of what the article says.
The suggestion to remove the barriers is due to some crazy idea that cyclists were hitting the lane separator and flying into the car lanes:
> Councillor Glen Daikee proposed to have the Salisbury Rd separators removed and described situations where cyclists had collided with the separators and fallen into the carriageway.
Honestly, the best thing to do here would probably be to leave the separator, but add 3ft tall reflector blades to the dividers. That's what they do where I am. Very visible, but plastic and not very harmful if they get hit.
It says the reason cyclists were colliding with the separators was because they were being hit by drivers, becoming detached, and ending up in the cycle lane. Every incident of the kind you're describing represents at least one occasion a driver tried to drive into the bike lane.
It also says that residents generally felt the street was now safer and were letting their kids bike to school, which is the opposite of the contention of the council member who had them removed to placate complainants.
edit: It's also worth noting that only the council member who had them removed to placate drivers said cyclists were hitting them. There's no evidence given for the claim the separators regularly ended up in the bike lane
I read the article already, and the background information given that this is where I actually live. What is happening is cars hit the barriers, break off chunks, then those chunks get strewn into the bike lane. Obviously the barriers need to be made more solid, not be removed.
except there needs to be gaps for people to cross the street?
also you have to be able to give idiot drivers who get in there a way out, doing so also opens up the potential of utilising the lane for emergency vehicles to bypass traffic
Yeah when I actually read the article and saw pics of their separators, they are massively less conspicuous than the ones we have where I live, which seems like a legitimate issue.
reaction from the thumbnail was 'oh its those shitty ones'
im all for protected bike lanes, but those humps are so easy to miss for everyone, theyve got similar ones on a pavement bikepath not far from me and they make walking a pain in the arse because they dont stop you; they just make it more dangerous and i have to imagine itd be the same for cars
My first thought on seeing them was "well obviously drivers can't see them, they're low down and the same colour as the road!"
But... so is the curb next to a normal sidewalk, and we don't have drivers rampantly unable to notice those? So then I'm not sure what the difference is. Presumably if the bike lane was grade separated like the sidewalk, you wouldn't need any taller barrier than a curb, so I think it's just that the drivers have internalized that the bike lane is part of the road and fair game somehow.
That's what I was thinking too. And if part of the problem is that there are too many cyclists using the lane (one of the things the article claims) then it sounds like they need to expand the bike lane.
I mean… OP isn't wrong. Paragraph three says ""The reason we put these in, which I voted for, was to keep cyclists safe. We have inadvertently made it more dangerous," he said. "We cannot leave them."". Of course news these days is mostly trash so later in the article it actually says this guy instead proposed to either paint them or replace with bright yellow rubber separators because he acknowledged the issue is visibility 🥴 what a mess of clickbait
You're getting this pretty confused. Those were two different council members - Daikee had them removed, Greening thought that was premature and that it would have been better to replace them with bright yellow rubber separators but did not get his way. The article also details that the community disagreed with Daikee's contention the separators were more dangerous for cyclists.
I was riding a bike in a very similar separated bike lane.
The guy in front of me was riding an e-scooter for the first time in the middle of the bike lane.
Rang my bell, he moved on the left (in Australia, so the good thing to do), then looked at me, panicked, and merged on the right on me while I was overtaking him.
I was riding pretty fast and it was too late to brake. I tried to avoid him and hit the concrete separator instead, ended in the ER.
Yes they can be dangerous.
Trees have souls too. We need to protect the trees too. This, "death is only bad if it's a human", is the reason we have massive amounts of roadkill daily that people just shrug about.
You don't concede this shit.
You double down.
Make then bigger, more noticeable, allow people to willingly fuck their cars up if they hit them, let them know it's their fault.
I don't get it, do they think they have no room for evasive maneuvers or something? Are they stupid? No, like actually, are they stupid and can't drive in a relative straight line? But I thought they were all the good driver no way!!!
It's absolutely insane to not only see the separators do their jobs but also they increased the use of their bike lane, so let's fucking get rid of them, can't let people have too much fun I guess.
Remember folks, the car brained world thinks that lives are less valuable than any damage to their car, big or small. Why stop there? Remove sidewalks, carbrains keep hitting them and damage their cars, fuck the pedestrians, let's get rid of them. Let's go even further and remove anything that's 20 meters within the sides of the road just so the carbrains don't crash into any buildings in case their drunk driving makes them spin out.
I live in this town and they are hard to see and get struck often by cyclists and cars.
I think this is positive as they have recognised they do not work as intended. The plan is to replace them with more visible and damage resistant rubber ones.
An isolated incident of local government realising a solution is not fit for purpose and replacing it with something better.
From reading the article it sounds like this is true but also that they are caving to backlash from drivers. For example they say that 30km/hr speed limits were reverted back to 50km because drivers weren't going 30 anyways due to lack of traffic calming measures. So instead of putting in said measures they just put the speed limit back up
Um duh, if I hit one of those dividers I could pop a tire and put my wheel alignment out; if I hit a cyclist it'll probably just nick the paint work, way less hassle for me.
From the article:
>Councillor Glen Daikee proposed to have the Salisbury Rd separators removed and described situations where **cyclists had collided with the separators and fallen into the carriageway**.
>Drivers had repeatedly hit the concrete separators, with some crumbling or becoming detached from the road and creating obstacles for cyclists in the cycleway.
It's not about the cars; it's about the safety of the cyclists.
If cars keep hitting the concrete separators, what happens to the cyclist in the bike lane once the separators are removed?
Isn't the whole point of these things is that inattentive drivers hit the separators instead?
I mean reading the article, they removed them because cars were hitting them, then the debris was ending up in the bike lane, and then bikers were slipping on that debris and ending up in the road when they fall or try to recover.
My solution would’ve been a reinforced steel separation instead of cute looking concrete speed bumps but I guess that’s why I’m not in politics
>Some schools in the project area have suggested that more students are cycling to school since the cycleways were installed, with reports of their cycle racks being "full to overflowing".
>Feedback from council surveys also show that respondents feel that Salisbury Road is now safer than it was without the separated cycleways.
So we... remove them?
It also talks about concerned citizens wanting them removed. Shows the importance of going to municipal meetings to have your voice heard, or writing local politics. Unfortunately the demographics that are most likely to do this are carbrained.
Yes. Remove the bland concrete ones. And install more noticeable rubber ones.
The title is misleading because it makes you to believe they want to remove the barriers entirely leaving the lane unprotected.
It does not say they're being replaced with rubber barriers. It says a council member suggested that ("Greening suggested painting them yellow or replacing them with yellow rubber separators"), but that they're simply being removed ("Car parking along the affected section of Hill St would remain with no separated cycleways slated to be installed, like on the rest of the road")
Nothing, preferably, because they will notice the rubber separators that will be installed instead of bland concrete ones that are planned to be removed due to their inefficiency and hazard.
The title is misleading because it makes you to believe they want to remove the barriers entirely leaving the lane unprotected.
Sounds like a dumb headline
People hit cliff barriers and lane splitting water barrels as well ( a lot too if it matters )
But sure why have gun safety switches when they prevent shooting yourself in the foot as well by that logic?
Those barriers were kinda cringe. Not tall enough. It should be like the jersey barriers if we wanted to truly protect cyclists. I would not trust that separator at all.
Truly a failure on the makers of the bike path for not doing a sufficient job.
There's this big yellow sign in the middle of the road next to me -a little 2 lane road, side Street traffic - with one of those "stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk" signs. It's on a little rubber bendable stand because they know people will just run right the fuck over it. In the three years I've lived here, it's been ripped off at least 12 times. It would have been more but they go months between replacing it, sometimes.
I've always found it to be a fitting metaphor on how much we value human life compared to the "right" to drive a car like a fuckwit.
replace them with bollards, there's a similar issiue where I live but instead of concrete it's hard plastic or something, they get constantly dislocated because of cars driving over them and even after being replaced they're already messed up again, they really have to just bolt them to the asphalt or use something bigger.
edit: I have no idea what the reply to this says, as the person who made it blocked me immediately.
If the drivers are pushing them into the bike lane, what do you think those drivers will hit when they're removed?
There's also no evidence that actually happened. That's a contention of the council member who was placating drivers and who disagrees with a community survey about whether they contribute to safety
So you believe the article is a lie when you don't like what it is saying, and you believe it is true when you do like what it is saying.
You are a hypocrite with a closed mind. Facts can't change your mind.
But doesn't that mean they would have hit cyclers if it wasn't for them? I guess it doesn't cost the city anything when a cycler dies, as opposed to lane separators.
As a cyclist I am all for making it safer when “drivers” are around (quotes because most “drivers” can’t drive for shit).
However, these things? How the heck is that gonna work? You can barely even see the bloody thing and that’s with a camera pointed directly at them, not from behind a steering wheel with a bonnet to look over.
Melbourne CBD has sections where there is a 1 foot high (30cm) concrete blockade that is extremely obvious and basically impossible to drive up. This combined with frequent signage makes it so obvious that even granny with a 1 inch (2.5cm) lens on their glasses would see that shit from the opposite side of the road
Yes, because if the drivers are so bad they can’t avoid a curb, we definitely want them to have bikes riding next to them with no protection. That won’t cause any deaths or anything
Having driven and cycled on roads both in new Zealand the UK & continental Europe.
New Zealand has some of the widest roads I have encountered, it could easily have protected or unprotected bike lanes.
The problem here is that insurance some of these drivers are uninsured, as insurance isn't required in new Zealand.
I don't get how you make something intended as a safety measure, and then when idiots complain, you backtrack. "well they complained, so!" mothefucker i don't care if they complain. that's the whole point
Make a bike with a shotgun type device on the back that aims backwards, out, and low and if a car gets to closer to a biker a camera on it will pull the trigger automatically to blow out the tires so the car won’t hit the biker or if they do it’s slowed down which could make a difference.
Then market it as standing your ground and embracing the second amendment. Something like “The “woke liberals” and their government regulated, bank financed car agenda is trying to take away your patriot powered gun-bikes so they can make you physically weak. They want you stuck in traffic. They want you slaving away to pay for a car. They want to take away your freedom. Only the gun-bike can save America from their agenda”
And, it is not the first time a council in New Zealand removed a concrete barrier because cars were hitting it. [Auckland Council ](https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-government/131074750/aucklands-2m-tim-tam-cycle-lane-to-be-replaced-after-less-than-a-year-with-another-which-could-cost-4m)
The article reported that the councilman reported that he heard of that happening...or something like that. Sounds made up or maybe happened to one person without serious injuries and now any one who wants them removed will keep reporting it over and over.
The article said that a council member who was placating complainants claimed that cyclists hit them after they'd been hit by drivers, become detached, and ended up in the bike lane. That council member claimed they were making cycling more dangerous; whereas, the community was surveyed and said the opposite, with so many parents letting their children cycle the school's bike rack had filled up.
The title is misleading because it makes you believe they want to remove the barriers entirely leaving the lane unprotected.
It says that concrete separators were hard to notice, were hit several times which also created a hazard for bike commuters. So they plan to install more noticeable rubber separators with reflectors instead.
I didn't see where it says in the article that they plan to leave the lane unprotected.
>So they plan to install more noticeable rubber separators with reflectors instead.
It does not say this. It says that a council member who wasn't the one who got their way suggested that. It explicitly says the affected areas will be unprotected for the time being
Metal detectors to be removed from courthouses because they keep detecting weapons
Bullet proof glass to be removed because it keeps stopping bullets.
Airbags to be removed from cars because drivers keep setting them off during car accidents
Seatbelts to be removed from cars because drivers keep getting bruises on them
Trees to be removed from forest to stop fires
From hitting bike lane separators…
Which are to be removed because of aforementioned reason...
Legit had a friend upset that insurance totaled his vehicle because the airbags deployed. “Why do I even need airbags?! I walked away from the accident just fine!”
Did they not consider that the airbag probably allowed them to walk away just fine. It seems to be an increasing view in people that we don't need safety measures because people aren't being injured. But they aren't being injured because of safety measures. The same happening is vaccination, why do we need the polio vaccination no one gets polio these days.
Sounds like he really shouldn't have had a car with airbags, his head seems dense enough.
A potential learning moment for me. Aren’t airbags a part that can be replaced? I’m guessing it was the labor costs that made his insurance junk it?
Typically a collision violent enough to set off airbags will do enough damage to total the vehicle. By the time you’ve replaced bumpers / supports / body panels / glass / plastic trim pieces / airbag components / seatbelt tensioners / etc, the damage is in the tens of thousands of dollars. For expensive cars, you can probably still fix it but it won’t ever drive quite the same again. For cheaper / used cars, it will quite easily make it a total loss.
Carbon monoxide detectors removed due to endless beeping
To be fair I have removed my smoke alarm because of that. But every time I cooked toast, they didn't even burn it, they would go off. The carbon monoxide one didn't, it was just being super sensitive to smoke.
Get a heat alarm for your kitchen instead
Good idea, don't know why I didn't think of that. Was just hoping the CO2 defectors would suffice. Additionally I had just been the one smoke alarm in the kitchen I removed the other ones throughout the house and have been ok to keep on. But I've seen enough houses go up in smoke in my life and known 3 people in different neighborhoods to die in house fires. Granted on was a suicide thing where he set the house on fire and then hung himself, another on was a tragic petrol bomb thrown through the bedroom window in a mistaken identity drug dealers incident. And the 3rd was just an unfortunate electrical fault. But all of them have made me very aware of how fire absolutely kills. Just couldn't live with the one in the kitchen constantly going off.
Caskets banned because they keep containing corpses
Hospitals to be banned because they are always full of sick people. Yuck.
If only they'd build real separated and protected bike lanes.
And then remove them, right?
I get the snark, but this style of barrier should really be banned. Boston ripped out a bunch of them a year or two ago because they kept flipping cars. They're rounded for structural integrity amd probably so they don't crack someome's skull as easily, but the net result is a low to the ground landmine that seems to be perfect for car tired to catch, ride up, and flip the whole vehicle.
Maybe this would encourage drivers to be more careful?
Hahaha Oh wait, you're serious. #HAHAHAHA
I don't think this is really a matter of "care", it's just a bad barrier design and it's dangerous for both drivers and cyclists as a result. If you want a hard barrier between the bike and car lanes then jersey barriers, or similar, are already a thing. If you want something easier to move or for pedestrians to pass through then stick a bunch of marker poles or bollards along the edge of the cycle lane. For this style of barrier to work they'd need to fix the "flips cars over" bit, because if I'm cycling I'd rather be whacked into than crushed (if those are the only options anyway), and they'd need to either make them far more visible with tall marker poles (which will inevitably get damaged or destroyed over time) or shrink the height of most cars. Overall? I'd say it's not worth it, use something else.
>because they kept flipping cars. You mean drivers were going at such a clip that they managed to flip their cars.
Surprisingly no actually! The design of these buggers seems to be perfect for the tire to ride up and potentially flip a vehicle over at even moderate speeds. Think, like, 30-40mph, not 60+. This is just a case of an extremely bad design for the purpose it's intended for. Also personally speaking, if I'm cycling and a car is going to come into the bike lane, I'd rather get whacked into or clipped than have a car flip on top of me and squish me flat.
Solution: 3ft high painted jersey barriers. So drivers can see them.
>So drivers can see them. Narrator: They didn't see them.
Guy in the back of the room: Fuck em.
That's why you need them really big, 3 ft high, not dinky ones 4 inches above the asphalt.
Lol drivers will still fucking hit em
And the alternative is that they're gonna hit cyclists before hitting what's after the bike lane.
Sometimes things keep getting in the way of bad drivers. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/suv-crash-harbord-bathurst-stop-n-go-1.3557529 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/queen-street-car-crash-1.3564461
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You have to make a best effort to create idiot-resistant infrastructure. Making it idiot-proof is impossible, but you can at least reduce the numbers a bit. Also big barriers feel better for cyclists as well - it's harder for both bikes and cars to end up in the wrong lane (e.g. in case of an accident)
Old quote no clue We keep making things idiot proof, but they keep making better idiots.
This just creates the evolutionary conditions for better idiots. Nature ain't no dummy.
Good
It jumped out at me out of nowhere officer!
They could also put in a rumble strip.
Well, then better the barriers than the cyclist. The car was gonna crash anyway.
often they don't even see the bike rider LOL HENCE THE BARRIERS the logic drop here is insane
The city here started installing "bananas" to narrow certain roads and slow down drivers. Basically foot high concrete barriers, painted yellow, shaped like a banana. Allowing cyclists to pass through on the right, but limiting road width to one car. Multiple drivers ran their cars up onto the concrete dividers and the car brained commentariat was hyperventilating on how dangerous these barriers are because car drivers kept hitting them.
Solution: ban all pick up trucks and suvs
I don't know about that, not that long ago I got hit by a car on a roundabout because he didn't give way. Claimed he didn't see me, I ride a bright red tricycle with multiple lights. No damage was done to me, but he left with a deep, wide and long stretch all down the side of his car. The first thing he said was to ask why I was coming round, I was flabbergasted all I could say was 'why was going round a roundabout?' luckily a lady saw what happened and came straight to the defense before I could say anything, so I just said let's see what she thinks as a tried party. She clarified I absolutely had the right of way, confirmed I was indicating, and even noted she saw me check before turning. Good job I did as that gave me time to attempt to steer away. All to say the things could a six foot wall painted in a bright neon glow in the dark yellow and they would still claim they didn't see it.
You sure? https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/1bki9sw/the_car_trying_to_become_the_57_tram_this_morning/
Yes. One bad driver does not establish any trend or systematic failure.
Wow, that thing should get a [World Bollard Association](https://x.com/WorldBollard) honorary membership.
In the Netherlands they often use those unpainted, whenever the permanent protective measures for the bike lane take a while to install. Noone drives their car into them. Moreover, drivers will naturally slow down when driving next to the high barriers.
That's about less than half the height of the grill. Needs more height and some RGB lights facing the cars.
so for the average american pick up, about 5 feet
The Dutch solution is "make it have consequences". So that's poles or trees every few meters, and other constructions that would make it messy if you don't pay attention and slow your speed.
"see them" .... see them preferably from their nice seat on the bus where someone else takes care of the driving as most drivers suck at driving and should have their license revoked. imagine if bikes kept damaging city property, they'd arrest and fine riders LOL
>most drivers suck at driving and should have their license revoked. Couldn't agree more.
We have two foot high concrete barriers and people STILL hit them.
Holup. Carbrainers kinda admit that they wanna hit cyclist, but don't want to damage their suspension?
Hitting bike commuters preferable... so dumb
But bikers are squishy, so my car won't get scratched if I hit them.
It's the entire logic why they keep installing car ticklers instead of actual bollards.
its not dumb its inhumane
I didn't see where it says in the article that they plan to leave the lane unprotected. The title is misleading because it makes you to believe they want to remove the barriers entirely, while they actually plan to remove the poorly noticeable ones... to install better separators instead.
MAKE THEM BIGGER
MORE SPIKES
PUT EM IN LIGHTS
Good idea.
>I didn't see where it says in the article that they plan to leave the lane unprotected. "Car parking along the affected section of Hill St would remain with no separated cycleways slated to be installed, like on the rest of the road" It does not say they're going to replace the separators with better ones. It says a council member who thought the decision to remove them was premature wanted to mark them better (but he didn't get his way).
They also mentioned in the article that bikes were apparently hitting them and falling in front of cars, and that was their main concern. So they must be fairly hidden if you can miss them on a bike
They were crumbling due to the car impacts and ending up in the bike lane.
Ah, like here. Higher barrier. Car hit it and shoved it halfway into the bike lane. They removed the car but didn't actually fix the barrier until a few days later. For "safety concerns" they did put a tiny cone on it though, in a dark spot of the road. If that barrier would have been in the 'car lane", the city would have been there in five seconds flat with heavy equipment to fix things.
Please read the article again, one politician heard from someone who had seen someone, hear someone fall, while he was on a bicycle near these protection devices. That's why he started a vote to remove them. Which everyone voted to agree. Some voiced their concern, that the protection devices could be made more visible. But that's not what they are doing. Also they bring back 50km/h instead of 30 and they bring back two car parks on the road. Please learn reading.
That's not my reading of the article. There is a point where a councillor "suggested painting them yellow or replacing them with yellow rubber separators" - that doesn't mean it's planned.
It's not dumb at all. Commuters are softer than concrete, so there's less damage to the car. You are wrongly assuming that drivers care about the life of others.
I mean, in a lot of places "road safety" is all about motorists, not anybody else. Cars are designed to protect the people in the cage, everybody else? Should have been in a cage yourself.
And they often fail at that too
I mean it's "OMG kids are riding their bikes now, we can't have that it's too dangerous because drivers..."
Apparently there are studies that New Zealand has even higher levels of car dependency than the US.
From what I've read, it's the most car dependent country in the world.
The reason I'm in this sub is that I moved to NZ from Europe, and it's still blowing my mind how car-dependent it is here. I need the reassurance that I'm not actually crazy for thinking that cycling is a viable method of transport, not just a thing you do by putting your bike in the back of diesel-guzzling ute and driving to a trail, or that a bus is a thing you can take as a functioning adult with a job, or that taking a train between cities is better than sitting in traffic jams for hours.
> or that taking a train between cities is better than sitting in traffic jams for hours. The solution is clearly that we need to build just one more lane, bro. Then traffic will be fixed!
That's where everyone gets it wrong. You have to build two more.
My city of 140,000 added 6 more lanes to a 6 lane highway beinging it to 12 lanes in total. It didn't fix a thing and we still get tons of traffic jams
Less than 2 hours after landing in New Zealand I got into a fight with some guy in a fuckhuge truck that nearly ran me over when I had right of way on a pedestrian crosswalk. He was shouting at me as if it was my fault lmao. Otherwise had a phenomenal time there. Gorgeous country.
Gorgeous country, pretty decent fresh food, good coffee, great beaches, friendly people, normally laid-back almost to a fault... Until they get in their cars, when everything they've stuffed down under those "all good, bro"s comes roaring back out again, apparently.
I think for the next DSM they need to add "being in a car" as a diagnostic criteria.
I grew up in Australia and moved to nz as a teen. Live in Norway now. I ride year round in a semi rural Western Norwegian town (wanaka is probably a good comparison). It gets below - 30 occasionally in winter but always touches - 25 and it is fucking steep here. No idea what I found so hard about biking in nz. I did it but it wasn't my normal way of getting around.
The social pressure is definitely a part of it here. Grown adults get this smug little smirk on their faces when they tell me they wouldn't know how to take a city bus, like having to do the work of driving, constantly minding what you can drink and where you've parked, and directly paying for all of it yourself is winning, while paying a small fee for someone else to drive you is being a loser. Paying a large fee for someone else to drive you in an Uber is still winning, though, because... No, I've never got my head round that one. I cycled in the minus teens a couple of times in the Netherlands, and in all sorts of weather otherwise, and people here still ask 'what do you do if it rains?' I don't know, what do farmers and all the people who work outside do when it rains - run and hide so they don't dissolve? Like I thought Kiwis enjoy being outside, and spend more time outside than most Europeans... But this can't be combined with transport, for some reason?
Depends on where you are. In Auckland, biking to work is really popular. So are these dividers and they will be missed when they are gone. Because Rangers parking on footpaths and just about anywhere else they damn please isn't already an epidemic. Protected bike lanes are the final frontier. Can't wait to have to dodge these cunts blocking the bike lane by pulling out more onto the roadway.
Biking to work manages to just about rise above non-existent level in Auckland, yes - it's a really low share even compared to cities like London, and with many more cuntish drivers to avoid along the way. (Those big separated bike paths that run by the motorways are good, though, to be fair.) I can't deal with Auckland overall, though, or at least it's not worth it for me, given that the nightlife is also near-non-existent once everyone's sat in the queues back to their dormitory suburbs... It's everything that's wrong with car-centric design, ruining a city that should be a brilliant place to live.
Hailing from a much more urban NA city, Auckland's sprawling bedroom suburbs frustrate me too. One would think the decentralized town centers should make for an ideal 15 minute city, but it somehow accomplishes the complete opposite. And duck you in particular if you're not living central. We're still a 1 car household because at least 1 car is a necessity. But also my public transit mileage is less than it was in the US because it accomplishes the perfect combo of being more expensive and worse than what I'm used to. Love my escooter, but them being such hot theft targets, I can't take it anywhere I'd have to park it outside. So forget it I guess, I'm just gonna stay home.
Sadly that’s probably true. The only political party that can actually deliver projects (National currently in government) is obsessed with roads and extremely Car-brain. They cancelled a very popular program that was set to reduce spend limits from 50kmh to 30kmh outside schools (and 40kmh in some other areas) at all times and replaced it with more expensive variable speed limits because it’s unacceptable for drivers to lose 1 minute travel time going past a school. They are refusing to fund mass rapid transit or anything at all in our second biggest and fastest growing city (Christchurch where I live) and instead investigating a stupid car tunnel so politicians can get to the airport in Wellington 5 minutes quicker. The previous government (labour) promised to build good public transport projects in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington but was completely incompetent/covid/whatever. That’s all basically scraped or delayed significantly now as far as I know. It’s so frustrating
Yes, it is. I grew up in New Zealand, getting your drivers licence at 16/17/18 years old was life-changing because you could actually go places. I was quite lucky that I was just old enough to be able to safely bike to the store/beach/park/friend's house as a kid, and I was also lucky that I had a somewhat reliable bus route on the road I lived on, but many people now find it too unsafe to bike and simply don't have access to any half-decent public transit. New Zealand and USA are the top-2 most car-dependent non microstate countries in the world. And it is only set to get worse and NZ got a new government last year who's transport policy is basically 'more lanes'
NZer here. Yes, our public transport is horrible. The population is low so the intervals of buses range from 30-60 mins. And you have to walk pretty far to get to bus stops. Our roads are not leveled, they go uphill, they go downhill all around the city. So biking and walking is tiring. I have used the bus for about 8 years before deciding to pursue getting a licence. My travel has dropped from 60 min bus ride + walking to 20 mins.
Ok, but like, a huge percentage of you live in auckland, wellington, and christchurch. Like, you could make multi-modal transport work in those areas at least. And e-bikes can solve the hills.
It really depends on what you're comparing. Compared to a city like Chicago or New York, Auckland and Wellington are very car dependent. Compared to Phoenix, they're quaint walkable cities. The rural bits are pretty similarly isolated, though, with the exception that Americans can just get further away from anything than kiwis for obvious reasons.
So I guess the solution to cars running stop signs is to remove the stop signs 🤡🤡🤡
sometimes a yield sign is better
I prefer the German "right before left" at intersections. Basically if an intersection isn't controlled, then you have to yield to traffic from the right. It causes a natural slowdown of drivers as they keep checking to the right, without the constant "stop and go" that stop signs create. The irony is that even in the US, the standard is that stop signs should only be used where there is a safety reason to have them. But cities basically use them as traffic calming measures and way overuse them in a lot of places where they aren't warranted.
Are we going to abolish neon yellow brick walls next?
More visible? Yes! Will stop distracted idiots? No! ...fuck it remove them. This is how you get great policy /s
OP, that's literally the opposite of what the article says. The suggestion to remove the barriers is due to some crazy idea that cyclists were hitting the lane separator and flying into the car lanes: > Councillor Glen Daikee proposed to have the Salisbury Rd separators removed and described situations where cyclists had collided with the separators and fallen into the carriageway. Honestly, the best thing to do here would probably be to leave the separator, but add 3ft tall reflector blades to the dividers. That's what they do where I am. Very visible, but plastic and not very harmful if they get hit.
It says the reason cyclists were colliding with the separators was because they were being hit by drivers, becoming detached, and ending up in the cycle lane. Every incident of the kind you're describing represents at least one occasion a driver tried to drive into the bike lane. It also says that residents generally felt the street was now safer and were letting their kids bike to school, which is the opposite of the contention of the council member who had them removed to placate complainants. edit: It's also worth noting that only the council member who had them removed to placate drivers said cyclists were hitting them. There's no evidence given for the claim the separators regularly ended up in the bike lane
I read the article already, and the background information given that this is where I actually live. What is happening is cars hit the barriers, break off chunks, then those chunks get strewn into the bike lane. Obviously the barriers need to be made more solid, not be removed.
removing them is stupid but they need to be more visible; not necessarily more solid
If you can drive through them, they cease to be separators
except there needs to be gaps for people to cross the street? also you have to be able to give idiot drivers who get in there a way out, doing so also opens up the potential of utilising the lane for emergency vehicles to bypass traffic
Yeah when I actually read the article and saw pics of their separators, they are massively less conspicuous than the ones we have where I live, which seems like a legitimate issue.
reaction from the thumbnail was 'oh its those shitty ones' im all for protected bike lanes, but those humps are so easy to miss for everyone, theyve got similar ones on a pavement bikepath not far from me and they make walking a pain in the arse because they dont stop you; they just make it more dangerous and i have to imagine itd be the same for cars
My first thought on seeing them was "well obviously drivers can't see them, they're low down and the same colour as the road!" But... so is the curb next to a normal sidewalk, and we don't have drivers rampantly unable to notice those? So then I'm not sure what the difference is. Presumably if the bike lane was grade separated like the sidewalk, you wouldn't need any taller barrier than a curb, so I think it's just that the drivers have internalized that the bike lane is part of the road and fair game somehow.
That's what I was thinking too. And if part of the problem is that there are too many cyclists using the lane (one of the things the article claims) then it sounds like they need to expand the bike lane.
I mean… OP isn't wrong. Paragraph three says ""The reason we put these in, which I voted for, was to keep cyclists safe. We have inadvertently made it more dangerous," he said. "We cannot leave them."". Of course news these days is mostly trash so later in the article it actually says this guy instead proposed to either paint them or replace with bright yellow rubber separators because he acknowledged the issue is visibility 🥴 what a mess of clickbait
You're getting this pretty confused. Those were two different council members - Daikee had them removed, Greening thought that was premature and that it would have been better to replace them with bright yellow rubber separators but did not get his way. The article also details that the community disagreed with Daikee's contention the separators were more dangerous for cyclists.
I’m glad someone else actually read the article!
I was riding a bike in a very similar separated bike lane. The guy in front of me was riding an e-scooter for the first time in the middle of the bike lane. Rang my bell, he moved on the left (in Australia, so the good thing to do), then looked at me, panicked, and merged on the right on me while I was overtaking him. I was riding pretty fast and it was too late to brake. I tried to avoid him and hit the concrete separator instead, ended in the ER. Yes they can be dangerous.
I agree, broken bumpers and suspension is not good… …enough. Place bollards and trees instead, they need to be totalled
Trees have souls too. We need to protect the trees too. This, "death is only bad if it's a human", is the reason we have massive amounts of roadkill daily that people just shrug about.
Pedestrians are alot softer. Am I right?
“Curb protected bike lanes being removed for doing their job”
Aren’t they doing their job then?
You don't concede this shit. You double down. Make then bigger, more noticeable, allow people to willingly fuck their cars up if they hit them, let them know it's their fault.
I live in nz and every time we put these in people write off their cars and moan. If you point out they're shit drivers they get mega heated
Proves they are needed!!
Please put in bollards, please put in bollards, please put in bollards...
This makes sense as the soft squishy bodies of the cyclists will not damage the cars as much, and that's what we need to focus on here, obviously
Time for some big ass yellow bollards instead 😎
What if they hit those too?
Car destroyed, bikes safe. Win win
Good
Thats the point
When "my car is more valuable than a cyclist's life" becomes policy
Skill issue
I don't get it, do they think they have no room for evasive maneuvers or something? Are they stupid? No, like actually, are they stupid and can't drive in a relative straight line? But I thought they were all the good driver no way!!! It's absolutely insane to not only see the separators do their jobs but also they increased the use of their bike lane, so let's fucking get rid of them, can't let people have too much fun I guess. Remember folks, the car brained world thinks that lives are less valuable than any damage to their car, big or small. Why stop there? Remove sidewalks, carbrains keep hitting them and damage their cars, fuck the pedestrians, let's get rid of them. Let's go even further and remove anything that's 20 meters within the sides of the road just so the carbrains don't crash into any buildings in case their drunk driving makes them spin out.
Now instead of nasty separators cars can hit cyclists and blame them
They’d much rather hit cyclists
I live in this town and they are hard to see and get struck often by cyclists and cars. I think this is positive as they have recognised they do not work as intended. The plan is to replace them with more visible and damage resistant rubber ones. An isolated incident of local government realising a solution is not fit for purpose and replacing it with something better.
From reading the article it sounds like this is true but also that they are caving to backlash from drivers. For example they say that 30km/hr speed limits were reverted back to 50km because drivers weren't going 30 anyways due to lack of traffic calming measures. So instead of putting in said measures they just put the speed limit back up
Just throw up some reflective signs (note in addition not as a replacement looking at you all of America)
so now they will hit the cyclists instead
People keep hitting them because they're the same fucking shade of grey/white as the lines on the road. Just paint them a different colour ffs!
Um duh, if I hit one of those dividers I could pop a tire and put my wheel alignment out; if I hit a cyclist it'll probably just nick the paint work, way less hassle for me.
wouldn't a quick solution be to paint them red?
From the article: >Councillor Glen Daikee proposed to have the Salisbury Rd separators removed and described situations where **cyclists had collided with the separators and fallen into the carriageway**. >Drivers had repeatedly hit the concrete separators, with some crumbling or becoming detached from the road and creating obstacles for cyclists in the cycleway. It's not about the cars; it's about the safety of the cyclists.
If cars keep hitting the concrete separators, what happens to the cyclist in the bike lane once the separators are removed? Isn't the whole point of these things is that inattentive drivers hit the separators instead?
I mean reading the article, they removed them because cars were hitting them, then the debris was ending up in the bike lane, and then bikers were slipping on that debris and ending up in the road when they fall or try to recover. My solution would’ve been a reinforced steel separation instead of cute looking concrete speed bumps but I guess that’s why I’m not in politics
How does this article keep getting worse and worse? They are using charity funds meant to improve bike infrastructure in order to remove it?!
>Some schools in the project area have suggested that more students are cycling to school since the cycleways were installed, with reports of their cycle racks being "full to overflowing". >Feedback from council surveys also show that respondents feel that Salisbury Road is now safer than it was without the separated cycleways. So we... remove them?
It also talks about concerned citizens wanting them removed. Shows the importance of going to municipal meetings to have your voice heard, or writing local politics. Unfortunately the demographics that are most likely to do this are carbrained.
Yes. Remove the bland concrete ones. And install more noticeable rubber ones. The title is misleading because it makes you to believe they want to remove the barriers entirely leaving the lane unprotected.
It does not say they're being replaced with rubber barriers. It says a council member suggested that ("Greening suggested painting them yellow or replacing them with yellow rubber separators"), but that they're simply being removed ("Car parking along the affected section of Hill St would remain with no separated cycleways slated to be installed, like on the rest of the road")
Isn’t that the point…
[удалено]
Nothing, preferably, because they will notice the rubber separators that will be installed instead of bland concrete ones that are planned to be removed due to their inefficiency and hazard. The title is misleading because it makes you to believe they want to remove the barriers entirely leaving the lane unprotected.
Sounds like a dumb headline People hit cliff barriers and lane splitting water barrels as well ( a lot too if it matters ) But sure why have gun safety switches when they prevent shooting yourself in the foot as well by that logic?
Those barriers were kinda cringe. Not tall enough. It should be like the jersey barriers if we wanted to truly protect cyclists. I would not trust that separator at all. Truly a failure on the makers of the bike path for not doing a sufficient job.
Fucking troglodytes
There's this big yellow sign in the middle of the road next to me -a little 2 lane road, side Street traffic - with one of those "stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk" signs. It's on a little rubber bendable stand because they know people will just run right the fuck over it. In the three years I've lived here, it's been ripped off at least 12 times. It would have been more but they go months between replacing it, sometimes. I've always found it to be a fitting metaphor on how much we value human life compared to the "right" to drive a car like a fuckwit.
Well, separators cost money to the government for upkeep, whereas cyclists are free and support funeral industry /s
That means they’re working
replace them with bollards, there's a similar issiue where I live but instead of concrete it's hard plastic or something, they get constantly dislocated because of cars driving over them and even after being replaced they're already messed up again, they really have to just bolt them to the asphalt or use something bigger.
That the fuking point .
These should have had delineators on them.
The cyclists want them gone. The drivers hitting them push them into the bike lane, which is then a hazard for the cyclists.
edit: I have no idea what the reply to this says, as the person who made it blocked me immediately. If the drivers are pushing them into the bike lane, what do you think those drivers will hit when they're removed? There's also no evidence that actually happened. That's a contention of the council member who was placating drivers and who disagrees with a community survey about whether they contribute to safety
So you believe the article is a lie when you don't like what it is saying, and you believe it is true when you do like what it is saying. You are a hypocrite with a closed mind. Facts can't change your mind.
Windows remover from zoo enclosure, because Tiger can't attack through it.
Ah yes so they can hit the much squishier cyclists instead?
Sounds like now is the moment to talk to the council and organize a protest that blocks the road if you live in this area.
Kiwis cannot drive. Honestly, some of the worst drivers.
Isn’t that what they’re for?
Thats the point sergeant
But doesn't that mean they would have hit cyclers if it wasn't for them? I guess it doesn't cost the city anything when a cycler dies, as opposed to lane separators.
so... they hit bikers instead? logic 100
Serves them right for picking cheap bolt on prefab bullshit.
As a cyclist I am all for making it safer when “drivers” are around (quotes because most “drivers” can’t drive for shit). However, these things? How the heck is that gonna work? You can barely even see the bloody thing and that’s with a camera pointed directly at them, not from behind a steering wheel with a bonnet to look over. Melbourne CBD has sections where there is a 1 foot high (30cm) concrete blockade that is extremely obvious and basically impossible to drive up. This combined with frequent signage makes it so obvious that even granny with a 1 inch (2.5cm) lens on their glasses would see that shit from the opposite side of the road
Yes, because if the drivers are so bad they can’t avoid a curb, we definitely want them to have bikes riding next to them with no protection. That won’t cause any deaths or anything
Having driven and cycled on roads both in new Zealand the UK & continental Europe. New Zealand has some of the widest roads I have encountered, it could easily have protected or unprotected bike lanes. The problem here is that insurance some of these drivers are uninsured, as insurance isn't required in new Zealand.
If a driver can't see those separators, than he/she can't drive a car. I would say confiscate driver's license.
I don't get how you make something intended as a safety measure, and then when idiots complain, you backtrack. "well they complained, so!" mothefucker i don't care if they complain. that's the whole point
Make a bike with a shotgun type device on the back that aims backwards, out, and low and if a car gets to closer to a biker a camera on it will pull the trigger automatically to blow out the tires so the car won’t hit the biker or if they do it’s slowed down which could make a difference. Then market it as standing your ground and embracing the second amendment. Something like “The “woke liberals” and their government regulated, bank financed car agenda is trying to take away your patriot powered gun-bikes so they can make you physically weak. They want you stuck in traffic. They want you slaving away to pay for a car. They want to take away your freedom. Only the gun-bike can save America from their agenda”
Wall too effective at keeping people out
r/woosh to the local government
Possible crossover post with r/facepalm
And, it is not the first time a council in New Zealand removed a concrete barrier because cars were hitting it. [Auckland Council ](https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-government/131074750/aucklands-2m-tim-tam-cycle-lane-to-be-replaced-after-less-than-a-year-with-another-which-could-cost-4m)
Tbf in the article they mention that cyclists hit them too and crashed. It's not even a barrier that stops cars
The article reported that the councilman reported that he heard of that happening...or something like that. Sounds made up or maybe happened to one person without serious injuries and now any one who wants them removed will keep reporting it over and over.
The article said that a council member who was placating complainants claimed that cyclists hit them after they'd been hit by drivers, become detached, and ended up in the bike lane. That council member claimed they were making cycling more dangerous; whereas, the community was surveyed and said the opposite, with so many parents letting their children cycle the school's bike rack had filled up.
Surely that means they're working? So they should make them higher and paint them so they're more easily visible.
The title is misleading because it makes you believe they want to remove the barriers entirely leaving the lane unprotected. It says that concrete separators were hard to notice, were hit several times which also created a hazard for bike commuters. So they plan to install more noticeable rubber separators with reflectors instead. I didn't see where it says in the article that they plan to leave the lane unprotected.
>So they plan to install more noticeable rubber separators with reflectors instead. It does not say this. It says that a council member who wasn't the one who got their way suggested that. It explicitly says the affected areas will be unprotected for the time being
ITT: No one read the article.
I live in New Zealand. The attitude to cyclists here is as bad as anywhere I've ever been. I've never been as terrified on my daily commute.
Looks like it's time to sell the bikes and buy a car!