this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2026
170 points (98.9% liked)

Bicycling

3421 readers
8 users here now

A community for those who enjoy bicycling for any reason— utility, recreation, sport, or whatever!

Post your questions, experiences, knowledge, pictures, news, links, and (civil) rants.

Rules (to be added on an as-needed basis)

  1. Comments and posts should be respectful and productive.
  2. No ads or commercial spam, including linking to your own monetized content.
  3. Linked content should be as unburdened by ads and trackers as possible.

Welcome!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
wolfeh@lemmy.world
170
Atlanta's New Bike Barriers Are Flipping Cars and That's a Good Thing (www.motorbiscuit.com)
submitted 5 days ago by JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org to c/bicycling@lemmy.world
72 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The heart of the matter

Painted bike lanes offer absolutely no physical protection for cyclists if a distracted driver drifts over the white line. While a car climbing a concrete divider looks like an infrastructure failure, it is actually the barrier successfully absorbing an impact that otherwise would have struck whoever was riding in the bike lane.

As Wagner pointed out to reporters after witnessing one of the crashes firsthand, if that barrier hadn’t been there, the distracted driver “could have killed somebody” because the car was right in the designated cycle lane.

[–] BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 5 days ago (2 children)

This is a driver failure of paying attention, not a failure of design. People would complain about freaking guard rails and concrete posts in front of stores if someone hits it.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

I saw someone drive into one of the large red concrete spheres at a Target once. Stopped their car quite effectively.

[–] mirshafie@europe.pub 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

There will always be a problem with people not paying attention though. You only need to be distracted for a second to kill a pedestrian or a person on a bike.

But the design doesn't need to be this invasive. Copenhagen which is a top-tier bike city does three levels of "roads": cars lowest, bikes 10 cm (3 inches) up, and pedestrians at the top level a further 10 cm up. That's more than enough to catch even the most distracted drivers, and it keeps pedestrians clear of the bikes so they can go full speed too.

[–] BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That would be effective against most commuter cars in in the USA. But then there's the trucks they make now where anyone directly in front of it is invisible. Those 6 inches would do nothing with the asshats that drive those distracted.

[–] mirshafie@europe.pub 1 points 4 days ago

Yeah you're right, those trucks are stupidly big. I've seen a few of the smaller variants in Sweden recently (and they enrage me to the point of plotting murder), but they're nowhere near an F-150.