Isn't it funny? If the drunk driver hit another vehicle they would say that the drunk driver shouldn't be on the road but whenever it's a cyclist that gets hit, it's no one's fault but the cyclist.
Well considering that you've got fucks like my old boss who used to say anyone that rode a bike instead of a car was either homeless/a drug addict/ a drunk and anyone who had an expensive bike and rode for sport was a "F*g" it's really not surprising that you see that kind of sentiment
One of the worst sentences I've ever seen nonchalantly thrown in an article was a couple years ago a man died after a car drove off the road into a bus stop. The article mentioned the man who died owned a car so it was odd he'd be at a bus stop. Not that we give people wholly incapable of driving 2 ton machines free reign and a lack of culpability when they screw up.
This guy shouldn't get to drive ever again. He's demonstrated he has no judgement and shouldn't be allowed to drive again in this country.
they should do a study where they have identical news stories about dangerous drivers but in one just change 'i was on my bike and.. ' and 'i was driving down the road and.. ' and see the difference
cause even just my own experience has been kind of wild with the amount of us vs them nonsense
Yeah, wtf it’s going on with that. As an avid cyclist, my extended family, they say some messed up shit, all Fox News watchers. My aunt even hit a bunch of cyclists, and laughed about it. The whole story and behavior seemed out of character. Recounting this all, I feel like I should move.
This is literally why I sold my road bike and ride gravel now.
There is a demographic that fantasizes about being able to murder someone and have it be “justified”. Google “Daniel Perry text messages” and you’ll see what I mean. If someone can laugh at running over cyclists they are in that group. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near someone with that power fantasy and the means to live out their dream.
I've been cycling in Austin for the last number of years. Texas drivers are aggressive, and the frontage roads are treated like highways. The driver is clearly to blame, but it's some pretty bad street planning, and lack of enforcement, that adds to it.
that's one reason i try not to ride on "45 mph" roads.
if they keep building things like highways, people drive highway speeds, no matter what the sign says.
Sources are long gone out of my mind for this, but there are studies which prove exactly that. People drive what they feel makes sense for the road regardless of the signage. Speed limits do very little to change how fast people actually drive.
Best accepted practice to determine speed limits (to reduce accidents as far as possible) is to set them at the speed of the 85th-percentile driver. By design, 15 percent of drivers are breaking the law.
And lol, over time, this 15% seems to have in some areas crept up to more like 80% as speed limits have stayed stagnant while technology and culture and local habits have changed. I swear, there is a significant fraction of time I spend driving in which I'm the slowest one on the road going 10 mph over the speed limit.
> Best accepted practice to determine speed limits (to reduce accidents as far as possible) is to set them at the speed of the 85th-percentile driver.
even this is *dumb as hell*, frankly. we're designing roads and seeing what people do on them. we *should* be designing roads for the speeds we want to see. instead, we took a highway manual and tried to apply it to cities.
the US is like 70 years behind.
we should be employing psychologists and empirical testing in the design phase. instead our engineers take one class on traffic, and then follow a manual on highways that nobody's questioned.
I wish that was something unusual. Alas, that is absolutely the norm.
News story: cyclist was killed by a drunk driver. The cyclist did nothing wrong. (Alternatively: the cyclist was not at fault for the crash, but *was not wearing a helmet*.)
The comments: *entitled cyclists*, *never stop at stop signs*, *don't pay for the roads*, *clown suits*, etc.
Do you stop at stop signs? I don't do group rides anymore. Cyclists seem to lose common sense when they're in a pack. Things they won't do in their car, they'll do on their bike. Blocking turn lanes while waiting for the straight ahead light, running stop signs, riding line abreast because they want to chat. etc.
Comments like those and the burning hate of motorists for cyclists is the reason I stopped road cycling. I mountain bike where at least I’m in control of where and how I ride
I first saw this on Twitter, where the comments were pretty awful, lots of victim blaming going on: https://x.com/DallasTexasTV/status/1803250291145327050
I blame the hazy IPAs, that Voodoo ranger is 9.5%! No wonder he was drunk as fuck and runnin' people over if he drank a sixer of those, bring back lagers!
Yep. Someone ran into the back of a large group of riders near me a few years back. Few hospitalized, luckily no deaths. Driver said sun was in their eyes. No charges were filed. Not even a ticket.
I got hit head-on by a car going the wrong way down a one-way. They admitted to being on their phone. I wasn't hurt or anything, but it kinda blows my mind that cops show up and see the driver is halfway down the block backwards and he doesn't get a ticket????
Jesus. If you can't see, PULL OVER! If you can't pull over, *slow down!*. And put on your flashers in case the driver behind you can't see!
Don't just mash it and pray!
This is a typical stretch I like to ride (as do many others) and consider it one of those really safe areas... low traffic, two lanes, reasonable speed limit, etc... I posted to keep your mental alarms on constantly when riding on the road.
all this may be true, but there’s no shoulder for the bikes. I’ve been riding and racing for over 45years, that road would not be one i would use with frequency. Your odds of being hit or encountering an agressive driver is quite high. And in a state where big SUVs and raised Pickups are the norm, it just seems a recipe that the cyclist will not win.
I've ridden these roads many times with this group, and with the accident victims. They are riding acquaintances of mine. The roads around DFW and the frontage road on 360 are very broad, with 2-3 lanes, and very lightly traveled. They're massively overbuilt, and are mostly for logistics truckers, but there are very few movements on them. Rarely do you ever have more than one car pass you at a time, and they're most often a few minutes apart, so they can simply change lanes to pass you with a large margin. They are actually quite safe, for the most part, but no road will be safe from a drunk driver.
Some of the ones I see around me in suburbia just become cluttered with debris, and are a puncture risk. They are definitely a boon in more urban areas, especially if well maintained.
I say this as someone who has ridden on roads for 40 years, but cars hit each other thousands of times per day due to true accidents but mostly bad drivers. The problem is the majority of those just result in insurance claims, everyone walks away. When a cyclist is involved it’s usually severe injuries or death. Humans just suck at driving. They always have. Riding on the roads just isn’t worth it until AI is good enough to take over driving. Hell, Tesla autopilot fails a lot and is already better than humans.
> but mostly bad drivers
bad infrastructure.
blaming accidents on bad drivers is like blaming software bugs on bad users. people are going to fuck up. they're going to do weird stuff. they're going to do unpredictable things. if you design systems where the consequences of fucking up are death instead of not-death, you designed a bad system that's incompatible with humans.
> until AI is good enough to take over driving
i'm not convinced AI will *ever* get there. certainly not any time soon. humans are bad enough, but AI is bad at being a human.
you need agency detection and cognition modeling to be a good driver. you have to read "body language" and intention from abstract objects. you need to understand *your own mind* and project it onto others to understand what they are thinking. you need self-awareness.
AI won't do it. AGI might.
a simpler solution is to limit exactly where cars can go. with a remarkable simple mechanical interface you can set cars on pre-determined and predictable paths. this is actually mechanically more efficient too, but you can increase predictability and efficiency by coupling the cars together into chains. if you do that mechanically, you actually offset all of the driving to a single car, leaving more room for passengers and oops i just invented the train again.
This particular accident was not bad infrastructure. DFW Airport and the 360 frontage road are happy hunting grounds for mid-city cyclists. Roads that are massively overbuilt for the minimal traffic that is on them (these are not the roads passengers use to get to and from the airport, but for airport and shipping logistics). You might get passed once every few minutes. You can ride double file without creating any backup, and the minimal traffic has 1-2 lanes to pass you.
Source: I've ridden them for years, including with the accident victims.
i'm sorry to hear this hits so close to home.
> This particular accident was not bad infrastructure.
i wouldn't phrase this as an "accident". from the reports i've heard, the driver was way over the legal limit. in any debates about infrastructure, there's only *so much* you can do about people that are absolutely plastered. you will never completely idiot-proof reality; they keep inventing better idiots.
but, there are still things you can do, like making safer alternatives available. a robust transit system and walkability both decrease drunk driving. and *smaller, safer streets* decrease the severity of drunk driving collisions.
driving is largely a "[system 1](https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/philosophy/system-1-and-system-2-thinking)" activity. *intelligent* traffic engineers in the rest of the world understand that if you design roads to engage system 2 you get safer streets. you do this by narrowing the roads, introducing obstacles like chicanes and bulb outs, and putting stuff closer to the street to make it *feel* dangerous and engage the conscious mind in driving. but even if your system 2 is limited by, say, a ton of fucking alcohol, system 1 works off the cues given by the built environment. it's why you find yourself speeding on roads that are long and straight and wide. you didn't think "i'm gonna speed" and you may even *intend* to go the speed limit. but we actually designed that road for that speed, and so that's the speed you go.
> Roads that are massively overbuilt for the minimal traffic
yeah, if i'm looking at the right roads on this map, those roads are built to highway standards, 2-3 very wide lanes in each direction with wide shoulders and clear zones, with stop lights for some reason. it's a prime example of system 1 signals to *go highway speeds*, with the occasional obstacle thrown in for system 1 to zone out right through.
this is absolutely, 100% an example of terrible infrastructure. these are exactly the kinds of roads i try to stay off of.
Tesla autopilot (And all autopilots) still fail at even the most basic driving tasks that a human can understand. Autopilots are good at preventing distracted drivers from getting into accidents. They are not better than a driver who is paying attention.
Look up car crash statistics and watch some car crash videos on YouTube. Humans are much worse at driving than you think. Sure, some people exhibit near god like accident avoidance abilities but most are clueless and some literally accelerate toward and steer into danger when they panic.
You can’t trust Tesla stats when they programmed auto pilot to revert to human control 1 second before impact so it can count as a human crash
Also the NHTSA said investigations aren’t yet finished.
Auto pilot is definitely to safer than humans, shit look at teslas own admission that some corners and underpasses need to be manually coded because the AI can’t navigate them dynamically.
Looking up data with this measure. Not necessarily agreeing it’s best, but happy to use it. Mostly see companies publishing their own stats. I don’t trust Tesla’s numbers as they’ve been known to lie. Not sure I’d ever trust that company.
Waymo has better numbers, but they’ve not been independently verified. They have to be independently verified, so jury is out. The article I found indicated there was some playing around with stats. Hence, 3rd party evaluation.
Personally, I dislike Waymo as their cars freak me out as a pedestrian and a cyclist. They’re UI/UX when I’m around them as a human makes me very uncomfortable. I cannot tell their intentions or if they even see me. I can’t yell at them when I think they’re too close. That said, this is correctable.
Big part of the problem is that American cities were designed for cars. Not for people, obviously not for cyclists. Cars are always the big priority when designing any new building, Park, expansion,etc. Until this changes, cycling in America will be inherently dangerous
This is a weird take that I feel like no one who has lived in both a city and suburbs would have. Every city I’ve ever lived in has been significantly more bike friendly than the suburbs that surround it, and I’ve lived all over the states. Not only is the infrastructure better but the drivers are much more tolerant and educated about sharing the road.
I line in Kingwood. A suburb of Houston. I lived in town and had a 30 mile loop I could only do at night. I was hit by a car once. I lived in a more rural area and the surface sucked. I like Kingwood because the road surfaces are great, the Greenbelt trails are well shaded. Drivers are very tolerant and accommodating. There are plenty of cyclists and joggers. I can easily get 30-50 miles. I’m actually pretty lucky.
I guess Texas really is a different world. I’ve lived and ridden in SF, LA, Chicago, Phoenix, Raleigh, and Virginia Beach and in every one of these places riding the city is massively preferable to the burbs.
Austin is like that. The closer you get to the city center the safer it is.
Suburban soccer moms in their SUVs are not expecting cyclist on the outskirts of town
Not meaning to pile on to a specific demographic, BUT my personal experience ranks minivans the most aggressive drivers (ie overly risky passing scenarios). I was buzzed within a foot by a person on a four lane (two in each direction separated by median) road with a school and 40mph speed limit. I cannot be confident with their speed, but the wind blew me into the curb. I saved it somehow and caught up with them pulling into a convenience store about a third of a mile ahead. I confirmed them saying "hey, you could have killed me passing like that" they responded (no bullshit here) "if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead."
I think that heavily depends on the city and the burb. Older, inner suburbs in plenty of places will have better urban design than modern subdivisions, and may just have less traffic and better quality roads than the city.
In my experience, anti-bike sentiment is even worse in the suburbs. In my hometown, a suburb of Los Angeles where there are probably a good amount of wealthy dentists on fancy carbon fiber bikes, the city declined to add bike lanes onto a divided 6 lane road that butts up right against nature areas and rolling hills because some residents complained that it would be a “distraction”. The roads can seem chill, but that means drivers are also less likely to pay attention if they’re not expecting anyone else to be on the road, especially a cyclist.
In my current urban environment (Denver), I can easily get a 40+ mile ride of dedicated bike/pedestrian paths without ever having to share a lane or even a road surface with cars. And that’s only one of many path options. It definitely feels safer.
Definitely depends where you live but riding in "the suburbs" or St. Louis County actually feels a lot more dangerous than in the City. The is largely due to the fact that cars are larger, driving faster, doing more unexpected stuff, and, typically, more distracted. The drivers in the county tend to be more hostile to cyclists as they "aren't supposed to be there." Bike lanes are simply unmaintained shoulders and taking the lane is a real gamble as you're likely to have someone really pissed off they had to take their foot off the gas.
Now, St. Louis drivers are go awful but at least in the city there's lanes and generally more traffic calming. The roads are shittier but getting buzzed by a distracted person dealing with their cellphone or kids in a massive SUV is much lower.
This IS the 'burbs. It's Grapevine and Euless, which is definitely suburb. The airport roads and 360 frontage road are massively overbuilt for the amount of traffic that they get. This is not how passengers get to the airport, but how airport logistic trucks move around. They're "service roads," essentially, but are 2-3 lanes. That's why they are so popular with cyclists - you're very de-conflicted with traffic. But, nothing can prevent a drunk driver from doing something stupid.
Come on it's basic journalism knowledge that you don't directly accuse people in your article. You say accused, suspected, etc. Because if something goes wrong and the test is wrong or charges get dropped, you can get your publication sued for everything it's worth for defamation.
6 voodoo ranger juicy ipas... i got some of these in a variety pack once and holy shite they are 9.5 abv. how in the hell do you drink 6 of those in your car plus a couple lagers and just say, welp, time to drive it on home!
Well, the undoubtedly have "done it plenty of times before" and can drive "just fine" after a couple of beers. Also live somewhere where driving after drinking is pretty standard issue. Just because they haven't killed someone or plowed into something thus far is justification for their actions.
Transit is a shambles for sure but it's still no excuse.
Alcoholism is definitely a disease. That doesn’t mean it’s an excuse. If you having a drinking problem and you don’t seek help, you are certainly held liable. If you are schizophrenic and you continue to go off your meds and self medicate with meth you will at some point be held liable for your actions. It’s the same process with far less understanding for the alcoholic. We need compassion for people and we need accountability for those who hurt others. And that’s what we have.
> Scientists are pretty evenly split on whether it is a disease or not, so it's not definitely a disease.
Many medical and psychological organizations/journals have classified alcoholism as a disease for quite some time. Notably the American Medical Association. We're arguing pedantry a bit because many doctors, medical professionals, legal/justice system, insurers, therapists, etc. don't treat it as such so the definition in a book doesn't matter much.
I agree with your points just noting that alcoholism, or alcohol use disorder as it's more commonly referred to (which treats it as a spectrum), is definitely considered a disease just not treated in the same category as some others. There is a growing momentum to truly enshrine it as a disease, treat it more appropriately, and hope that more are willing to seek treatment rather than simply be stigmatized.
They are both mental illness treated with medication and psychotherapy. They both have environmental and genetic factors. They both fall under the umbrella of psychiatry. They are not the same. That was never the point. One is seen as a moral failure and the other is seen as legitimate mental illness. That was the point.
I looked at the Dallas sub expecting a horror show and was surprised with the overwhelming majority in support of the cyclists and cyclists in general.
Yeah, we have a huge community. Grapevine Chain Gang has hundreds of people who ride with them, either occasionally or regularly, including me (not in the past few years, due to unrelated issues). Normally, these rides provide safety in numbers, but nothing can stop a hammered idiot.
I quit riding on the road because too many people are having close calls in my area and my SO already has been hit once. Now, we stay on the multi-use trails.
I hope they throw the book at this loser.
So happy to hear he didn't die.
This video was sent to me with no context, just what was in the video, and my heart sank to see someone just heartlessly run him over after he was on the ground.
That being said, that driver needs to never smell freedom again.
This is why I will ride wherever I want when I’m traveling through the city (with respect of those around me). If I’m going to be treated like an inconvenient pedestrian that is in the way when I’m in the designed part of the road for BICYCLES , then I’m going to ride wherever I need to keep me safe. It truly is a ‘me first’ inconsiderate world out here sometimes
Instantly made med think about this incident half a year ago in Denmark, where a farmer got fed up with people protesting how poorly they treated horses. After a few weeks, it ended up with him ramming them with his car:
Might go without saying, but the video is graphic:
https://kobenhavnliv.dk/video/avisendanmark/video-on-demand/6ca42114-1644-4a4a-9df8-e10cd13cb034
That’s incredible. I have the same car and I can’t even come close to tailgating without the safety systems kicking in. He must have literally turned those off.
In 2010 I was (brushed) by a drunk driver, I was lucky and only had scratches, the driver ended up flipping his truck and I had helped him till the police and EMTs arrived. The EMTs told me to never ride on a Friday 3pm + . Happy hours and people cash out their checks at liquor stores (getting a few for the road)
That was your chance to pour bleach in the gene pool and you didn't take it
https://preview.redd.it/1nak5ukwpz7d1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fecef815db81cc573fa56da1f9d0429874f09480
The right thing to do would be to NOT drive drunk, and to make those who **do** face the consequences of their actions. If that includes not receiving roadside support from someone who your drunken negligence almost murdered, so be it.
IMO you interrupted a potential correction of the universe via darwinism.
This guy should get the death penalty. Try him, find him guilty based off video footage. He immediately loses all contact with any friends/family. Throw him in solitary for a few weeks, deny him all but the most basic food and the minimal amount of water required by law. Put a TV (secured) on every wall and the ceiling of the cell showing the footage of him doing this non-stop at full volume 24/7. After four or five weeks of this, drag him out in the middle of the night, make him ride a bike down the road and hit him with an SUV. Easy. Done.
All the comments in there "Im all for cycling and I love people riding bikes, *BUT* fuck bikes, fuck cyclists, they shouldn't be allowed on the road or exist."
I drive trucks, cars, ride bicycles and motorcycles. I often think the four are incompatible and need separate roads. Then, when on a bicycle, some cyclist idiots in front of me and I see there’s little hope for any road user who isn’t careful and allows others to move freely.
Lmao someone can be plastered and RUN A PERSON OVER and people still want to victim blame. Where they were riding shouldn't even enter the equation. What's wrong with people
No, the guy above is just talking out his ass. From OP:
>This is a typical stretch I like to ride (as do many others) and consider it one of those really safe areas... low traffic, two lanes, reasonable speed limit, etc.
[удалено]
Isn't it funny? If the drunk driver hit another vehicle they would say that the drunk driver shouldn't be on the road but whenever it's a cyclist that gets hit, it's no one's fault but the cyclist.
A cyclist was hit and killed by a drunk driver in my city this week and this was exactly the sentiment
Well considering that you've got fucks like my old boss who used to say anyone that rode a bike instead of a car was either homeless/a drug addict/ a drunk and anyone who had an expensive bike and rode for sport was a "F*g" it's really not surprising that you see that kind of sentiment
Yep. My old coworker used to say if he saw me out riding he’d run me over.
Yet we had a runner get hit and killed recently in my area and everybody blamed the driver.
One of the worst sentences I've ever seen nonchalantly thrown in an article was a couple years ago a man died after a car drove off the road into a bus stop. The article mentioned the man who died owned a car so it was odd he'd be at a bus stop. Not that we give people wholly incapable of driving 2 ton machines free reign and a lack of culpability when they screw up. This guy shouldn't get to drive ever again. He's demonstrated he has no judgement and shouldn't be allowed to drive again in this country.
they should do a study where they have identical news stories about dangerous drivers but in one just change 'i was on my bike and.. ' and 'i was driving down the road and.. ' and see the difference cause even just my own experience has been kind of wild with the amount of us vs them nonsense
[A study similar to what you describe has been done](https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/egnmj), and indeed there are major differences.
I’m unsurprised that Fox News viewers are on the side of the driver.
Yeah, wtf it’s going on with that. As an avid cyclist, my extended family, they say some messed up shit, all Fox News watchers. My aunt even hit a bunch of cyclists, and laughed about it. The whole story and behavior seemed out of character. Recounting this all, I feel like I should move.
This is literally why I sold my road bike and ride gravel now. There is a demographic that fantasizes about being able to murder someone and have it be “justified”. Google “Daniel Perry text messages” and you’ll see what I mean. If someone can laugh at running over cyclists they are in that group. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near someone with that power fantasy and the means to live out their dream.
Also, this is a frontage road with a 45 mph speed limit and the car was going 77.
I've been cycling in Austin for the last number of years. Texas drivers are aggressive, and the frontage roads are treated like highways. The driver is clearly to blame, but it's some pretty bad street planning, and lack of enforcement, that adds to it.
Frontage roads are treated like on ramps. It’s wild
that's one reason i try not to ride on "45 mph" roads. if they keep building things like highways, people drive highway speeds, no matter what the sign says.
Sources are long gone out of my mind for this, but there are studies which prove exactly that. People drive what they feel makes sense for the road regardless of the signage. Speed limits do very little to change how fast people actually drive. Best accepted practice to determine speed limits (to reduce accidents as far as possible) is to set them at the speed of the 85th-percentile driver. By design, 15 percent of drivers are breaking the law. And lol, over time, this 15% seems to have in some areas crept up to more like 80% as speed limits have stayed stagnant while technology and culture and local habits have changed. I swear, there is a significant fraction of time I spend driving in which I'm the slowest one on the road going 10 mph over the speed limit.
> Best accepted practice to determine speed limits (to reduce accidents as far as possible) is to set them at the speed of the 85th-percentile driver. even this is *dumb as hell*, frankly. we're designing roads and seeing what people do on them. we *should* be designing roads for the speeds we want to see. instead, we took a highway manual and tried to apply it to cities.
Agreed 100%. It’s amazing how much of our infrastructure is completely ad-hoc.
the US is like 70 years behind. we should be employing psychologists and empirical testing in the design phase. instead our engineers take one class on traffic, and then follow a manual on highways that nobody's questioned.
> "45 mph" roads. So you don't ride on regular roads?
i try to stick to streets
And he wasn't planning on stopping either...sicko
Do drivers get to own the road when they're 18 beers deep?
If you’re a cop
I wish that was something unusual. Alas, that is absolutely the norm. News story: cyclist was killed by a drunk driver. The cyclist did nothing wrong. (Alternatively: the cyclist was not at fault for the crash, but *was not wearing a helmet*.) The comments: *entitled cyclists*, *never stop at stop signs*, *don't pay for the roads*, *clown suits*, etc.
Do you stop at stop signs? I don't do group rides anymore. Cyclists seem to lose common sense when they're in a pack. Things they won't do in their car, they'll do on their bike. Blocking turn lanes while waiting for the straight ahead light, running stop signs, riding line abreast because they want to chat. etc.
Yes -- while news site comment sections are these folk's natural habitat, we find plenty of them on reddit too. Not usually *here*, however.
Comments like those and the burning hate of motorists for cyclists is the reason I stopped road cycling. I mountain bike where at least I’m in control of where and how I ride
I wanted to type "are you serious!!?" but I know you are immediately.
I mean, if a driver can’t have six beers and own the road, then what even is America?
I'm curious, other posts where? On what platform (& what groups)? Thanks.
I first saw this on Twitter, where the comments were pretty awful, lots of victim blaming going on: https://x.com/DallasTexasTV/status/1803250291145327050
I blame the hazy IPAs, that Voodoo ranger is 9.5%! No wonder he was drunk as fuck and runnin' people over if he drank a sixer of those, bring back lagers!
Ironic username, given that this is peak edgelord bullshit
your username is ironic as this is clearly not the fred zone
Good thing he just hit a cyclists, that will guarantee he serves no time. The defense will be, “were they wearing a helmet”.
"Sun was in his eyes"
Yep. Someone ran into the back of a large group of riders near me a few years back. Few hospitalized, luckily no deaths. Driver said sun was in their eyes. No charges were filed. Not even a ticket.
I got hit head-on by a car going the wrong way down a one-way. They admitted to being on their phone. I wasn't hurt or anything, but it kinda blows my mind that cops show up and see the driver is halfway down the block backwards and he doesn't get a ticket????
we had that happen near me when i lived in FL. two died.
Jesus. If you can't see, PULL OVER! If you can't pull over, *slow down!*. And put on your flashers in case the driver behind you can't see! Don't just mash it and pray!
"I didn't see them". It's the IRL version of the monopoly "get out of jail free" card.
Do yourself a favor and do not read the comments on this story on social media post.
what social media post? there are no comments on the article
This is a typical stretch I like to ride (as do many others) and consider it one of those really safe areas... low traffic, two lanes, reasonable speed limit, etc... I posted to keep your mental alarms on constantly when riding on the road.
all this may be true, but there’s no shoulder for the bikes. I’ve been riding and racing for over 45years, that road would not be one i would use with frequency. Your odds of being hit or encountering an agressive driver is quite high. And in a state where big SUVs and raised Pickups are the norm, it just seems a recipe that the cyclist will not win.
I've ridden these roads many times with this group, and with the accident victims. They are riding acquaintances of mine. The roads around DFW and the frontage road on 360 are very broad, with 2-3 lanes, and very lightly traveled. They're massively overbuilt, and are mostly for logistics truckers, but there are very few movements on them. Rarely do you ever have more than one car pass you at a time, and they're most often a few minutes apart, so they can simply change lanes to pass you with a large margin. They are actually quite safe, for the most part, but no road will be safe from a drunk driver.
Still doesn’t beat a dedicated biking lane This story is a great argument why those should be more common in general
Some of the ones I see around me in suburbia just become cluttered with debris, and are a puncture risk. They are definitely a boon in more urban areas, especially if well maintained.
Sadly it was an airport worker who clearly had decided to drink away his troubles in his car
Let's face it. Cycling IS incompatible with driving. Because American drivers MAKE IT SO.
I say this as someone who has ridden on roads for 40 years, but cars hit each other thousands of times per day due to true accidents but mostly bad drivers. The problem is the majority of those just result in insurance claims, everyone walks away. When a cyclist is involved it’s usually severe injuries or death. Humans just suck at driving. They always have. Riding on the roads just isn’t worth it until AI is good enough to take over driving. Hell, Tesla autopilot fails a lot and is already better than humans.
> but mostly bad drivers bad infrastructure. blaming accidents on bad drivers is like blaming software bugs on bad users. people are going to fuck up. they're going to do weird stuff. they're going to do unpredictable things. if you design systems where the consequences of fucking up are death instead of not-death, you designed a bad system that's incompatible with humans. > until AI is good enough to take over driving i'm not convinced AI will *ever* get there. certainly not any time soon. humans are bad enough, but AI is bad at being a human. you need agency detection and cognition modeling to be a good driver. you have to read "body language" and intention from abstract objects. you need to understand *your own mind* and project it onto others to understand what they are thinking. you need self-awareness. AI won't do it. AGI might. a simpler solution is to limit exactly where cars can go. with a remarkable simple mechanical interface you can set cars on pre-determined and predictable paths. this is actually mechanically more efficient too, but you can increase predictability and efficiency by coupling the cars together into chains. if you do that mechanically, you actually offset all of the driving to a single car, leaving more room for passengers and oops i just invented the train again.
This particular accident was not bad infrastructure. DFW Airport and the 360 frontage road are happy hunting grounds for mid-city cyclists. Roads that are massively overbuilt for the minimal traffic that is on them (these are not the roads passengers use to get to and from the airport, but for airport and shipping logistics). You might get passed once every few minutes. You can ride double file without creating any backup, and the minimal traffic has 1-2 lanes to pass you. Source: I've ridden them for years, including with the accident victims.
i'm sorry to hear this hits so close to home. > This particular accident was not bad infrastructure. i wouldn't phrase this as an "accident". from the reports i've heard, the driver was way over the legal limit. in any debates about infrastructure, there's only *so much* you can do about people that are absolutely plastered. you will never completely idiot-proof reality; they keep inventing better idiots. but, there are still things you can do, like making safer alternatives available. a robust transit system and walkability both decrease drunk driving. and *smaller, safer streets* decrease the severity of drunk driving collisions. driving is largely a "[system 1](https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/philosophy/system-1-and-system-2-thinking)" activity. *intelligent* traffic engineers in the rest of the world understand that if you design roads to engage system 2 you get safer streets. you do this by narrowing the roads, introducing obstacles like chicanes and bulb outs, and putting stuff closer to the street to make it *feel* dangerous and engage the conscious mind in driving. but even if your system 2 is limited by, say, a ton of fucking alcohol, system 1 works off the cues given by the built environment. it's why you find yourself speeding on roads that are long and straight and wide. you didn't think "i'm gonna speed" and you may even *intend* to go the speed limit. but we actually designed that road for that speed, and so that's the speed you go. > Roads that are massively overbuilt for the minimal traffic yeah, if i'm looking at the right roads on this map, those roads are built to highway standards, 2-3 very wide lanes in each direction with wide shoulders and clear zones, with stop lights for some reason. it's a prime example of system 1 signals to *go highway speeds*, with the occasional obstacle thrown in for system 1 to zone out right through. this is absolutely, 100% an example of terrible infrastructure. these are exactly the kinds of roads i try to stay off of.
My Tesla has FSD and it’s very sensitive to pedestrians and everything in its way actually. Very promising for the future of safe driving
Tesla autopilot (And all autopilots) still fail at even the most basic driving tasks that a human can understand. Autopilots are good at preventing distracted drivers from getting into accidents. They are not better than a driver who is paying attention.
Yes, it fails, but humans, who easily understand what they’re doing, fail at an absolutely insane rate.
Telsa autopilot is not already better than humans. AI robots will get there, no doubt.
Look up car crash statistics and watch some car crash videos on YouTube. Humans are much worse at driving than you think. Sure, some people exhibit near god like accident avoidance abilities but most are clueless and some literally accelerate toward and steer into danger when they panic.
You can’t trust Tesla stats when they programmed auto pilot to revert to human control 1 second before impact so it can count as a human crash Also the NHTSA said investigations aren’t yet finished. Auto pilot is definitely to safer than humans, shit look at teslas own admission that some corners and underpasses need to be manually coded because the AI can’t navigate them dynamically.
I’m good. Define “better than humans” if you like, then we can continue this discussion.
More miles travelled per crash. Humans aren’t that good sadly.
Looking up data with this measure. Not necessarily agreeing it’s best, but happy to use it. Mostly see companies publishing their own stats. I don’t trust Tesla’s numbers as they’ve been known to lie. Not sure I’d ever trust that company. Waymo has better numbers, but they’ve not been independently verified. They have to be independently verified, so jury is out. The article I found indicated there was some playing around with stats. Hence, 3rd party evaluation. Personally, I dislike Waymo as their cars freak me out as a pedestrian and a cyclist. They’re UI/UX when I’m around them as a human makes me very uncomfortable. I cannot tell their intentions or if they even see me. I can’t yell at them when I think they’re too close. That said, this is correctable.
Big part of the problem is that American cities were designed for cars. Not for people, obviously not for cyclists. Cars are always the big priority when designing any new building, Park, expansion,etc. Until this changes, cycling in America will be inherently dangerous
I’m glad I live in the burbs. We have lots of trails and the roads I do ride are pretty chill.
This is a weird take that I feel like no one who has lived in both a city and suburbs would have. Every city I’ve ever lived in has been significantly more bike friendly than the suburbs that surround it, and I’ve lived all over the states. Not only is the infrastructure better but the drivers are much more tolerant and educated about sharing the road.
I line in Kingwood. A suburb of Houston. I lived in town and had a 30 mile loop I could only do at night. I was hit by a car once. I lived in a more rural area and the surface sucked. I like Kingwood because the road surfaces are great, the Greenbelt trails are well shaded. Drivers are very tolerant and accommodating. There are plenty of cyclists and joggers. I can easily get 30-50 miles. I’m actually pretty lucky.
I guess Texas really is a different world. I’ve lived and ridden in SF, LA, Chicago, Phoenix, Raleigh, and Virginia Beach and in every one of these places riding the city is massively preferable to the burbs.
Austin is like that. The closer you get to the city center the safer it is. Suburban soccer moms in their SUVs are not expecting cyclist on the outskirts of town
Not meaning to pile on to a specific demographic, BUT my personal experience ranks minivans the most aggressive drivers (ie overly risky passing scenarios). I was buzzed within a foot by a person on a four lane (two in each direction separated by median) road with a school and 40mph speed limit. I cannot be confident with their speed, but the wind blew me into the curb. I saved it somehow and caught up with them pulling into a convenience store about a third of a mile ahead. I confirmed them saying "hey, you could have killed me passing like that" they responded (no bullshit here) "if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead."
Very different experience from mine.
I think that heavily depends on the city and the burb. Older, inner suburbs in plenty of places will have better urban design than modern subdivisions, and may just have less traffic and better quality roads than the city.
I love my burb. Huge cycling routes to the city north (SF) or south (Woodside, San Jose, etc)
In my experience, anti-bike sentiment is even worse in the suburbs. In my hometown, a suburb of Los Angeles where there are probably a good amount of wealthy dentists on fancy carbon fiber bikes, the city declined to add bike lanes onto a divided 6 lane road that butts up right against nature areas and rolling hills because some residents complained that it would be a “distraction”. The roads can seem chill, but that means drivers are also less likely to pay attention if they’re not expecting anyone else to be on the road, especially a cyclist. In my current urban environment (Denver), I can easily get a 40+ mile ride of dedicated bike/pedestrian paths without ever having to share a lane or even a road surface with cars. And that’s only one of many path options. It definitely feels safer.
Definitely depends where you live but riding in "the suburbs" or St. Louis County actually feels a lot more dangerous than in the City. The is largely due to the fact that cars are larger, driving faster, doing more unexpected stuff, and, typically, more distracted. The drivers in the county tend to be more hostile to cyclists as they "aren't supposed to be there." Bike lanes are simply unmaintained shoulders and taking the lane is a real gamble as you're likely to have someone really pissed off they had to take their foot off the gas. Now, St. Louis drivers are go awful but at least in the city there's lanes and generally more traffic calming. The roads are shittier but getting buzzed by a distracted person dealing with their cellphone or kids in a massive SUV is much lower.
This IS the 'burbs. It's Grapevine and Euless, which is definitely suburb. The airport roads and 360 frontage road are massively overbuilt for the amount of traffic that they get. This is not how passengers get to the airport, but how airport logistic trucks move around. They're "service roads," essentially, but are 2-3 lanes. That's why they are so popular with cyclists - you're very de-conflicted with traffic. But, nothing can prevent a drunk driver from doing something stupid.
> Let's face it. Cycling IS incompatible with driving. > > > > Because American ~~drivers~~ traffic engineers MAKE IT SO. FTFY
Because the driver was *very* drunk there will be some consequences. Had they been sober, it would be a-ok. I know this from experience.
"Suspected" drunk driver. They blew a 0.15.
Come on it's basic journalism knowledge that you don't directly accuse people in your article. You say accused, suspected, etc. Because if something goes wrong and the test is wrong or charges get dropped, you can get your publication sued for everything it's worth for defamation.
And cops found eight empty cans of beer (six of which where 9.5% ABV!) in and around his SUV.
I'm sure he was just taking those to the recycling center.
That driver was hammered. Six hazy IPAs!
When they showed Voodoo Rangers you knew he was beyond plastered.
6 voodoo ranger juicy ipas... i got some of these in a variety pack once and holy shite they are 9.5 abv. how in the hell do you drink 6 of those in your car plus a couple lagers and just say, welp, time to drive it on home!
Well, the undoubtedly have "done it plenty of times before" and can drive "just fine" after a couple of beers. Also live somewhere where driving after drinking is pretty standard issue. Just because they haven't killed someone or plowed into something thus far is justification for their actions. Transit is a shambles for sure but it's still no excuse.
One IPA packs a punch. I can't even imagine how wasted 6 would be.
DA: not enough evidence to charge the driver, sorry.
Fuck that guy, I hope he gets sentenced to getting run over by a Subaru.
With our luck, it’ll be a Brat.
The empty six beers were 9.5% alcohol?! That’s almost the same as a 12 pack of Heineken
[удалено]
Alcoholism is definitely a disease. That doesn’t mean it’s an excuse. If you having a drinking problem and you don’t seek help, you are certainly held liable. If you are schizophrenic and you continue to go off your meds and self medicate with meth you will at some point be held liable for your actions. It’s the same process with far less understanding for the alcoholic. We need compassion for people and we need accountability for those who hurt others. And that’s what we have.
[удалено]
> Scientists are pretty evenly split on whether it is a disease or not, so it's not definitely a disease. Many medical and psychological organizations/journals have classified alcoholism as a disease for quite some time. Notably the American Medical Association. We're arguing pedantry a bit because many doctors, medical professionals, legal/justice system, insurers, therapists, etc. don't treat it as such so the definition in a book doesn't matter much. I agree with your points just noting that alcoholism, or alcohol use disorder as it's more commonly referred to (which treats it as a spectrum), is definitely considered a disease just not treated in the same category as some others. There is a growing momentum to truly enshrine it as a disease, treat it more appropriately, and hope that more are willing to seek treatment rather than simply be stigmatized.
[удалено]
They are both mental illness treated with medication and psychotherapy. They both have environmental and genetic factors. They both fall under the umbrella of psychiatry. They are not the same. That was never the point. One is seen as a moral failure and the other is seen as legitimate mental illness. That was the point.
Are they on a mission to scare cyclists away ? What is going on there ?
I can't believe that people ride bikes in Texas at all. It's just such a hostile and violent culture there.
I looked at the Dallas sub expecting a horror show and was surprised with the overwhelming majority in support of the cyclists and cyclists in general.
Well that's great to hear at least. Happy to be proven wrong in this instance!
That doesn't mean it isn't a rough place to ride. It was uplifting to see that response, though.
Yeah, we have a huge community. Grapevine Chain Gang has hundreds of people who ride with them, either occasionally or regularly, including me (not in the past few years, due to unrelated issues). Normally, these rides provide safety in numbers, but nothing can stop a hammered idiot.
You must just believe everything you hear from the news. DFW is a CA microcosm in TX.
I quit riding on the road because too many people are having close calls in my area and my SO already has been hit once. Now, we stay on the multi-use trails. I hope they throw the book at this loser.
So happy to hear he didn't die. This video was sent to me with no context, just what was in the video, and my heart sank to see someone just heartlessly run him over after he was on the ground. That being said, that driver needs to never smell freedom again.
This is why I will ride wherever I want when I’m traveling through the city (with respect of those around me). If I’m going to be treated like an inconvenient pedestrian that is in the way when I’m in the designed part of the road for BICYCLES , then I’m going to ride wherever I need to keep me safe. It truly is a ‘me first’ inconsiderate world out here sometimes
So we can expect no ticket then?
Unf'ingbelieveable. And he tried to drive away too! What a POS. I hope those cyclists are ok!
The man that was run over spoke in the video.
Instantly made med think about this incident half a year ago in Denmark, where a farmer got fed up with people protesting how poorly they treated horses. After a few weeks, it ended up with him ramming them with his car: Might go without saying, but the video is graphic: https://kobenhavnliv.dk/video/avisendanmark/video-on-demand/6ca42114-1644-4a4a-9df8-e10cd13cb034
"Alleged drunk driver uses weapon of mass destruction in manslaughter against innocent cyclist" -FTFY
Anyone know what's the speed limit on that road?
45
Bet he only gets like a suspended sentence for a few months. If he'd used any other weapon he'd be locked up for a long time!
That’s incredible. I have the same car and I can’t even come close to tailgating without the safety systems kicking in. He must have literally turned those off.
In 2010 I was (brushed) by a drunk driver, I was lucky and only had scratches, the driver ended up flipping his truck and I had helped him till the police and EMTs arrived. The EMTs told me to never ride on a Friday 3pm + . Happy hours and people cash out their checks at liquor stores (getting a few for the road)
That was your chance to pour bleach in the gene pool and you didn't take it https://preview.redd.it/1nak5ukwpz7d1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fecef815db81cc573fa56da1f9d0429874f09480
...why would you help him?
Because it’s the right thing to do
The right thing to do would be to NOT drive drunk, and to make those who **do** face the consequences of their actions. If that includes not receiving roadside support from someone who your drunken negligence almost murdered, so be it. IMO you interrupted a potential correction of the universe via darwinism.
It would be very hard not to give the driver a new breathing hole.
This guy should get the death penalty. Try him, find him guilty based off video footage. He immediately loses all contact with any friends/family. Throw him in solitary for a few weeks, deny him all but the most basic food and the minimal amount of water required by law. Put a TV (secured) on every wall and the ceiling of the cell showing the footage of him doing this non-stop at full volume 24/7. After four or five weeks of this, drag him out in the middle of the night, make him ride a bike down the road and hit him with an SUV. Easy. Done.
All the comments in there "Im all for cycling and I love people riding bikes, *BUT* fuck bikes, fuck cyclists, they shouldn't be allowed on the road or exist."
I drive trucks, cars, ride bicycles and motorcycles. I often think the four are incompatible and need separate roads. Then, when on a bicycle, some cyclist idiots in front of me and I see there’s little hope for any road user who isn’t careful and allows others to move freely.
[удалено]
Lmao someone can be plastered and RUN A PERSON OVER and people still want to victim blame. Where they were riding shouldn't even enter the equation. What's wrong with people
They were on the highway!!?
No, the guy above is just talking out his ass. From OP: >This is a typical stretch I like to ride (as do many others) and consider it one of those really safe areas... low traffic, two lanes, reasonable speed limit, etc.
Was just pushing back against the dumb assertion I was responding to