My boyfriend lives there so I go often to Amsterdam, and even though biking is becoming "fashionable" where I live (Barcelona, Spain), the difference in the amount of bikes between both cities is abysmal, they are way way ahead.
The Netherlands is a super flat country though, so biking there is really easy compared to my city. I use our public bike system and there are some parts of the city that are way too steep if you are not used to it.
I lived in Amsterdam for 3 months last year and one of the lesson I learned was this: Watch out for the trams. More important than that: watch out for the native bicyclers.
The folks in Amsterdam are pros on bikes. They've been riding on a daily basis since they were just wee lads. I couldn't believe the things I saw them do on bikes. (Talking on a cell, carrying an umbrella, multiple people on one bike, dresses, suits.)
So if you are heading to Amsterdam, remember this: if you see a bicycle rapidly approaching, do not alter your motion in any way. Ever. Don't dodge left or right, don't slow down or run ahead. Don't be creative. They see you and don't want to hit you.
Several times early on, I nearly got creamed. Eventually, you'll resist the urge to "get the hell out of the way" and realize they will always work around you.
I'll second that - France is another place where people seem to be born with bicycle attached. I spent two months last year cycling around France and was constantly amazed at the skills employed by cyclists I saw.
You see groups of cyclists whizzing along chatting as they go, effortlessly maneuvering around traffic (including you or me). It was incredible.
One time I was tiring near the summit of a mountain in the pyrenees and an old man reached into the back pocket of his cycle top and handed me a sugar cube whilst overtaking me on the way around a bend. The gradient we were on was about 10-15% I think. I nearly went over the edge trying to take the cube from him.
(Talking on a cell, carrying an umbrella, multiple people on one bike, dresses, suits.)
Sign #458 you have been in Japan to long: you had to read this sentence six times to realize it was not ironically listing "things regular people do on bikes every day".
Actually the takeway for me from this is nothing to do with Amsterdam, but rather that even in San Francisco, home of all things green, car-centered city design makes a real human-centered city seem alien.
Absolutely. Not to be an ass about it, but Amsterdam is flat as a pancake and San Francisco (which he compares it with) is definitively not.
Bikes are often very practical in cities but not when it's raining and not when the gradients are significant. Despite the rain and minor inclines I have a Brompton http://www.brompton.co.uk/ here in London and adore it.
Denmark is at least as crazy about biking as Amsterdam. In Copenhagen it's a major advantage to be on bicycle, specially in rush hour where you easily get from A to B 2-3-4 times faster than cars.
Rain is not really a factor, Copenhagen is rainy all the fucking time. Steep roads definitely is. But it isn't all. In Buenos Aires, which is relatively flat, I saw maybe 3-4 bikes in as many weeks. The major factor, IMO, is presence of bicycle paths and the fact that bicycles are actually a part of the design of the 'traffic flow', which means that bikers are first class citizen in Danish cities, while I would never even fuckin' dare to ride a bike in Buenos Aires - it's simply not safe.
Automobile ownership happens to be discouraged in Denmark. Naturally, people bicycle in a nation in which it is essentially illegal to own a car. http://www.google.com/search?q=denmark+car+tax
Ok, there is a 180% tax on cars. 15k Honda fit = 42,000$ (ouch), but that just makes the used car market more valuable. I had a working old Volvo that was worth ~1k and needed 1-2k of work done per year to keep on the road. So buying one of those would have cost 2.8k with 1.8k of that in tax so it's not exactly making car's illegal and keeping it on the road cost is only 200$ / month. You just need to find the loophole.
I've seen them biking when it's raining as well, but I think their roads and paths are prepared for it. As in, the surface isn't as polished as the streets here, so it's much harder to slip, unless you're as clumsy as... me :(
Oh and, you should have seen my dutchie friends biking on ice this winter, absolutely impressive.
Rain is not unknown in London. But even though you can do it cycling is unpleasant when it's raining particularly when, despite the carping, the alternative of public transport is as good as it is here. The Brompton lets me make the decision at the time rather than first thing in the morning.
Weather also counts. I don't think Amsterdam ever gets quite as warm as San Francisco, where I wouldn't want to be caught riding a bike on a warm day in a suit.
When I was in Seattle, though, plenty of people biked to work. Yeah, we didn't have bikes all over the streets, but it was a refreshingly good start.
I lived in a not very flat part of the Netherlands and most children went to school by bike (also if you had to travel >20km/day). Now I live further north (flat) and I can certainly say that I prefer biking uphill to biking against the wind (flat => more wind).
It reminds me of when I used to work in Holland and would cycle to the train station to commute to the office.
The train stations in most large cities have HUGE bicycle-carparks, literally bikes as far as the eye could see, so people would generally get in the habit of parking in the same spots.
Anyway, I had a fairly decent bike compared to most others around i.e. I bought it new from a shop so it had yet to get beatup and was given a huge cycle lock like this.
My colleagues used to say there was little chance of the bike being stolen.
One day I came back from work and returned to my bike only to find someone had broken the padlock (and it was a tough padlock) and stole the security chain leaving the bike.
I told my colleagues the next day and they laughed saying this was not unusual, often the chains are desired more than the bikes.
I didn't know how to feel as I kinda thought it was bad my bike was not stolen, given it was a decent new bike (and worth more than the security chain). I was told there is a certain etiquette where it is ok to "borrow" old, beatup bikes (especially if it is a cold night and you need to get home and live far away) and many people do it, but taking a new bike would be "stealing", the thief however probably "needed" and nice big chain for his new bike.
I like to think there is a certain truth to that (atleast for the place and time I was there) and to this day it is one of my favourite memories of that country.
Anyway, remember having a big chain is useless without a very good lock!
The big difference in Amsterdam is how cars are not really welcome in the city center - and the drivers feel it. Access to many roads is restricted for private cars, almost every street is one-way, and practically everyone regularly rides a bike or walks.
This makes drivers respect the non-armored road users (pedestrians and cyclists) and streets are actually pleasant places to spend time in. Almost everywhere else city planners have basically said: "let's just turn this city into a giant racetrack slash parking lot".
Things are only slowly starting to change but at least some people are actually thinking about giving cities back to the people that live there: http://www.carfree.com
I rode in Denmark and never wore a helmet. I now ride in SF and always wear a helmet. My justification is that I'm shit scared of being hit by a car here - a problem I didn't have there.
Once cyclists reach a critical mass, I imagine that motorists become accustomed to it and accidents with cars becomes less of a problem.
Whether a helmet actually helps in those cases is another issue, but at least it makes my mom happy :)
I don't think helmets are important enough for me to wear one. Luckily I don't live in the "land of the free" (lol) so I can ride a bicycle without a helmet without the police punishing me for it.
Why is it anyones business if you wear a helmet except for the cyclist him/herself?
I come from Denmark and used to live there. The traffic culture is better for biking there. I live in South America now and only feel comfortable biking on the few dedicated bike lanes, that are separated from car/motorcycle traffic. I also lived in Portland, OR, USA for a while, but the traffic culture and the roads aren't as good for biking there either. If I think the conditions are dangerous I'd rather not ride a bike at all than wear a helmet and pretend it makes me safe.
On the helmet issue I'm ambivalent. There was a study a while back that indicated that drivers drive more aggressively around cyclists wearing helmets...giving them 6 inches to a foot less space on the road. I imagine this is probably less pronounced in places where there are lots of cyclists, as I suspect the brain finds a regular niche for them rather than analyzing each cyclist as a new event. I would think it would take more brain power to make the "Wearing a helmet?" assessment each time and that it would eventually be optimized away by drivers that deal with cyclists every day. In SF, for example, I've found that drivers have no hesitation in driving 6 inches away from me and my bike...so I think they're only giving me the "wearing a helmet" margin, no matter what. I'd obviously rather the niche go the other direction, and drivers would give every cyclist a reasonable amount of space on the road, but that doesn't seem to be what happens. I'm probably not going to convince drivers in Mountain View to respect pedestrians in cross-walks either.
The type of bicycles most popular in America all have a very forward-leaning riding position, compared to Dutch bikes. If you get into a crash at speed there is a good chance you are going to be pitched over the handlebars. A good friend of my brother was in a coma for 3 months after crashing into another bicyclist, flying over the handlebars and landing on his head. An ex girlfriend had the same sort of crash, but she had a helmet on and managed to avoid brain damage.
On a Dutch style bicycle, a headfirst over the handlebars crash is nearly impossible because the riding position is completely upright, and laid back over the rear wheel.
Helmet necessity seems like more of a factor for the type of bike you are riding vs. cars. In all the cases where I've seen bike/car accidents, the person was wearing a helmet, and they were dead anyway.
OTOH suppose a driver has a cyclist on his right and another cyclist on his left, and only the right one is wearing a helmet...better not to wear a helmet in that case I think.
Helmets are important in certain contexts. I always wear a helmet when riding my road bike. I'm going between 15-40 mph, and in the higher half of the range, I'd really appreciate the helmet in the crash. If I'm being passed by cars going 40+, I assume I'll also appreciate the helmet if one of them hits me.
In the city, when I know that my max speed will be ~17mph and a cars max speed will be ~25mph, I consider helmets optional.
Helmets are not important. If you can't take a little more risk, then drive a car. If you want to be completely safe, you could wear a big padded suit and ride with that, what do you think of that suggestion?
I'd say they are pretty important when it comes to protecting one's own noggin'. I was knocked off my bike twice last year (once by a careless pedestrian and the other by a careless cyclist) and both times my helmet prevented me from suffering potentially bad blows to the head.
"We know helmets are useful in low-speed falls, and so definitely good for children, but whether they offer any real protection to somebody struck by a car is very controversial.
"Either way, this study suggests wearing a helmet might make a collision more likely in the first place," he added.
Hmm... Okay... So your logic for not wearing a helmet is as such:
- It helps in low-speed falls and accidents.
- It may or may not help in high-speed accidents, but doesn't hurt.
Remind me again why I wouldn't wear one? I've seen/heard of plenty of cyclists who get into trouble, and few have been hit by a car going full-speed. Most bike accidents that I've seen are relatively low-speed.
- I've got big hair. If I wear a helment, I have to fix my hair when I arrive wherever I want to be. This implies that if I had to wear a helmet I just would not use my bike
The risk is not relevant to me. It's risky to travel to egypt, I'd still do it. It's risky to walk alone in a dark street in a dangerous part of town - I'd still do it. Why do I do it? Because staying safe is great when it does not directly affect my lifestyle or my fun at life - and wearing a helmet has a very direct consequence - it makes it almost impossible for me to ride a bike anywhere important. I can't always arrive and go look for a mirror to fix my hair.
Wearing a seat belt of a car on the other hand does not have that consequence. A seat belt has no cost, but a helmet has a heavy price.
No, the logic is that it helps in low-speed falls and accidents, but it makes drivers more likely to hit you and doesn't really help much if do. So maybe it's better to wear a helmet--I'm have to look at the data more. But it doesn't seem obvious what the answer is. Here's a statistic:
700 bicyclists died on US roads in 2007. Over 90 percent died in crashes with motor vehicles.
What sorts of crashes though? There's getting hit by a car going at 50mph (goodbye world) versus, say, clipping a car door as it opens and going over your handlebars.
In the former your survivability is suspect even with protective gear, in the second I can see a helmet come into real use.
No, I'd say it's still pretty obvious. Without knowing what percentage of accidents are from car strikes, the latter may not matter. From what I've read, in most city conditions, you're far more likely to get hit by someone opening their door, or bump into something when avoiding people or slow moving cars. In both cases a helmet is pretty helpful.
Maybe someone should design a helmet that looks like it's not a helmet somehow. Maybe it's disguised as a beehive hairdo.
Well, I bet you're right that the former type of accident is more common, but the latter is almost certainly more dangerous when it happens. I do agree that helmets that don't look like helmets would be ideal.
Also, why should one be looked down upon for not always choosing the safety option? There are costs to wearing a helmet as well. You can argue that they aren't worth it, but you can't dismiss them as non-existant and pretend it's merely about "how hard it is to put on a helmet".
Your head will get sweatier even if the helmet has vents, so your hair will end up less presentable at the other end of any journey of length.
You need to carry a helmet around with you wherever you are going since you can't lock it up outside and trust that it will not be damaged.
You need to be careful with it, since they are fairly delicate and prone to damage that isn't obvious - no stuffing it in a bag and throwing the bag around carelessly.
You need to own one - shop for one, find a fitting one, have somewhere to keep it which isn't annoying to get while getting your bike out or annoying to put away, change it every few years.
(Some people) take care while moving around with it on - it makes your head unusually bigger so you're more likely to bash it on doorways/cupboards/other furniture, and if bashed they usually recommend replacing them.
The arguement against compulsory helmets is that they discourage people from cycling, so instead they take the car. The fewer cyclists on the road - the more dangerous it is for those that do cycle.
They're looked down upon naturally. Evolution ensures that the "goal" (and I use that word loosely, but you get what I mean) of a species is to replicate, and in order to replicate, one must survive, thus survival is generally thought of as one's primary ambition. Consciously deciding not to ensure your own survival is aberrant behavior.
Consciously deciding not to ensure your own survival is aberrant behavior.
So everyone who chooses a job they need to drive to instead of a local lower-paying job is aberrant? Everyone who chooses a car for looks instead of safety rating? Everyone who goes out without a first aid kit? Everyone who eats barbecued food known to be higher in carcinogens? Everyone who works with power tools? Everyone who walks by a main road when there's a 10-mile longer route away from traffic instead?
(These are the sorts of decisions along the intensity of wearing or not wearing a bike helmet).
Guy-risks-self-saves-life-becomes-hero-wins-girl is a very common story line. Guy-is-coward-wins-girl less so.
Those activities aren't perceived as risky. They are to some extent, though probably not as much as riding a bike on high-traffic roads (with or without a helmet). Most people drive their car every day and will never get in a serious accident. Every frequent bike rider will hit their head on pavement a few times.
But again, it's all perception. Driving without a seat belt is considered similarly stupid. The reason is that the cost of wearing a seat belt (like the cost of wearing a helmet) is trivial and the benefits are (or at least would seem to be) significant.
The last thing you mentioned is something entirely different, called altruism. That's shown in many animals, and is a case of choosing replication of a gene over survival. It's entirely unrelated, and it also occurs a hell of a lot more in movies than it does in real life.
I don't walk in roads where cars drive. Also, I've never hit a pothole when walking, or been sent flying by someone opening a car door at an inopportune time.
On April 8, 2003, at age 72, Dr. Atkins slipped on the ice while walking to work, hitting his head and causing bleeding around his brain. He lost consciousness on the way to the hospital, where he spent two weeks in intensive care. His death certificate states that the cause of death was "blunt impact injury of head with epidural hematoma"
It's also not obvious that helmets are a universal help in another way:
By design, bicycle helmets are only effective only at very low speeds (< 14mph). Any deviation from this and a bicycle helmet can actually increase the severity of injury [ref]. For example, an off-center impact on the oblong surface of a helmet or having the air vents catch on something can violently twist the head and neck, leading to a potentially fatal neck injury (pp. 173-174, The Art of Urban Cycling by Robert Hurst). Recent research on brain injury adds further confusion, suggesting that the major causes of permanent intellectual disablement and death may well be torsional forces leading to diffuse axonal injury, a form of injury which helmets cannot mitigate (The efficacy of bicycle helmets against brain injury, Curnow, WJ. 2003. Accident Analysis and Prevention: 2003,35:287-292).
I really miss those dynamo generator things. One thing I really liked about growing up in Germany was that whenever I had a wacky "green power" device I wanted to try to build, I always knew exactly where to get a little generator.
It was interesting when I saw if for the first time. How is this Hacker News (serious question)? I'm trying to understand what's supposed to be on- and off-topic, so I can flag/post accordingly.
It's not really code related, but it's maybe interesting for those who spend 3/4 of the day in front of a PC as an idea to do some exercise. It's my transport method to go back home from work and it keeps me from getting rusy now that I don't have time for the gym.
I surely like the way they're bicycling in Amsterdam.
I don't wear a helmet. What I'd like to see is proofs about its efficiency. I never found them (though I didn't search that hard, I admit). Anyone got them?
A very high percentage of cyclists' brain injuries can be prevented by a helmet, estimated at anywhere from 45 to 88 per cent.
http://www.bhsi.org/stats.htm
That's not the answer to the question. That's "government statistics". It's meaningless to refer to a safety statistic like "45 to 88 percent of brain injury can be prevented by a helmet" without understanding how frequent brain injury is in the overall population of bicycle riders.
According to that site, having everyone wear a helmet could prevent 250 to 500 deaths each year out of 80 million bicycle riders (700 deaths, two-thirds with brain injury, 45 to 88 percent prevention with helmets, 80 million riders). So if you wear a helmet, there is a half of a thousandth of a percent chance that you will benefit from it.
When you look at it THAT way, the safety improvement sounds trivial, nowhere near the size of the benefit from wearing a seatbelt. It gives a whole different perspective than "45 to 88 percent of brain injury can be prevented by a helmet".
And, that site pulls data from "multiple sources", not all of which may be legitimate, and appears to be a pro-helmet propaganda site.
Also, there are a lot of other variables -- what percentage of those injuries occur among people who tend to ride recklessly (probably-homeless people weaving beater bikes against the flow of traffic, really crazy bike messengers, etc.) vs. people who tend to ride with the flow of traffic, effectively communicate their intention to drivers, etc.?
It's like if car crash injury/fatality statistics failed to distinguish between licensed & trained drivers and those who have no / suspended licenses, etc. (It wouldn't hurt if education on how to bike safely in cities were more common in the US, either.)
Also, living somewhere with a lot of cyclists (such as Amsterdam) means that people are more likely to learn how to cycle safely from other cyclists, and that drivers are more likely to understand how to share the road with them. There's a major network effect.
You need to do the stats per ride, not per rider. If you are biking to work everyday in San Francisco, that helmet is much more likely to save your head than it is for the average weekend rider.
So if you wear a helmet, there is a half of a thousandth of a percent chance that you will benefit from it.
That's per year, your lifetime risk is ~50x that. Or, .0005% * 50 = 1 in 4,000 which is a fairly large reduction in risk of death. Granted being a heavy smoker is ~1 in 3 chance of early death and plenty of people still smoke but this is one of those things that can kill you when your young.
PS: I would also assume that as the numbers of hours / year increases so do your risks. I don't think the 80 million people average more than ~2-5 hours per week riding so more riding time = more risk.
1 in 4000 over a lifetime is not a fairly large reduction of risk - it's a very small reduction of risk. There's a much bigger payoff in thinking about the 3999/4000 chance that something else will kill you.
I feel those are bad odds. Plenty of other people are happy with them.
Also, that's 1 in 4000 before 60 (60 - 10 = 50). You have a 12% risk of death before 60 which means if you died before 60 the there is a 1 in 500 shot that it was biking without a helmet that killed you. Granted a significantly increased change that it was biking, but using a helmet would not have saved you.
I would agree that biking after 60 without a helmet does not really increase your death chances that much.
It's funny to see the perspective a first time visitor to Europe has. I was looking through the pictures and trying hard to see anything unusual. Once I really put myself in the author's shoes as having been raised solely in North America, I could start to see the novelty.
Those raised in Europe look at these pictures and it's probably the same feeling Americans get looking at a blog about old dumpy cars http://www.losercars.com/ .
If you're european what do you find most novel about north america?
If you're american what do you find most novel about europe?
I'm curious if Amsterdam is missing the deadly car drivers that we have in San Francisco. I haven't been riding a bike in SF long but it feels a lot like London for the hate-hate relationship between cyclists and drivers.
I disagree, there is definately no hate-hate relationship here in the Netherlands. Everybody who drives also cycles, so they are aware of the fear cyclists have for cars and are always give cyclists space. This respect is then usually abused by the cyclists so they tend to demand right of way, making driving even more precarious.
I think we do have less of them. I guess it's because the law favors bicyclists so that virtually always the car is found to be at fault. It provides a good balance.
I think the hate-hate relationship is probably just meant to keep each other sharp as in: always make sure you pay attention 'because the other guys are bastards'.
The great things about bicycles is that it doesn't matter if you've got a 2grand plus bike, and then go on a spin on a crappy 30 year old bike its still great fun.
More likely, it's because they can be taken on public transport without paying extra. In Belgium trains have a special compartment for bicycles, but during rush hour they sometimes fill up quickly, so you can't be sure you'll be able to take your bike with you. So these small bikes are cheaper to take on the train, and more convenient.
My boyfriend lives there so I go often to Amsterdam, and even though biking is becoming "fashionable" where I live (Barcelona, Spain), the difference in the amount of bikes between both cities is abysmal, they are way way ahead.
The Netherlands is a super flat country though, so biking there is really easy compared to my city. I use our public bike system and there are some parts of the city that are way too steep if you are not used to it.