This is how I go pickup milk in the mornings. /s
this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2026
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Fuck Cars
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Maybe distracted driving should be made criminal offense first, and controls on drivers increased.
2 days ago a car driver in front of me was watching a skiing contest on his phone on the dashboard, last year I followed one who was playing candy crush.
I'm glad my daily commute is 80% on bike paths separated from car traffic, those 20% are why my kids can't go to school with their bikes and my wife does not take her bike.
If they're going to do that, they should also go back to requiring motor cars to be preceded by an attendant on foot, waving a red flag.
You know, for safety.
This one actually makes sense as cars and automobiles are technically heavy machinery. Thus so, they should technically at all times be operated with a spotter outside of the vehicle at all times.
The thing is that the bicycle is the only means of transport for medium distances which statistically makes your life longer, not shorter.
The reasons are the health effects of cycling, compared to the health effects of sitting in a car and not doing daily excercise. The number one cause of death is cardiovascular diseases, which are also caused by lack if excercise. These risks are far larger than the risk of accidents.
If road safety is so important, it should also be mandatory for passengers and drivers to wear helmets.
Their cars and lorries also need high-vis striping, no less than 7 stripes front to back, and 3 wrapped around the body. The stripes must also be painted into the base coat, they may not be part of a wrap.
This is fucked and no way something like this should pass.
Also if a cyclist is expected to wear a helmet and high reflection vest then car drivers should be required to do the same, windows should also be completely down with no music playing what so ever. If you go a cellphone or you are eating a burger or snack bar straight to jail for attempted manslaughter.
Their cars and lorries also need high-vis striping, no less than 7 stripes front to back, and 3 wrapped around the body. The stripes must also be painted into the base coat, they may not be part of a wrap.
Require cars to have a governor that limits speed, either geofenced to anywhere cyclists/ pedestrians are common, or high density, (like within a town) or make them have self driving car like 'AI' cameras, that limit speed when peds/ cyclists are within sight, and either alarm/ brake whenever one comes within 10'.
Im thinking the equivalent would be cars have hi visibility paint. I hate cars with matt colors matching the road. Can't even seen them without the lights on.
Just because they are being pedantic with their proposed regulations, I suggested this up thread.
Their cars and lorries also need high-vis striping, no less than 7 stripes front to back, and 3 wrapped around the body. The stripes must also be painted into the base coat, they may not be part of a wrap.
As an Australian who has lived with compulsory helmets for decades I think wearing a helmet and high vis is probably bare minimum if you have to share with cars and not nearly enough if you have to use door lanes and deal with Ford Rangers and garbage trucks.
Unfortunately once you go down this route cycling partipation drops and its a net fail for public health.
Sedate cycling on seperated pathways and through parks gets lumped in with high risk road cycling. It ends up being completely inappropriate for the type of cycling most people would like to do (not high risk vehicular cycling).
Why bother building expensive dedicated safe infrastructure when people have a magical inch of styrofoam on their noggins and a yellow shirt.to protect them from 2 tonnes of murder machine.
"high risk" is relative. cycling is safe.
Highest risk cycling is motor vehicles not following the rules. If cyclists safety is the priority, educate other drivers, and enforce penalties.
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Y'all are missing the key point, if the headline and my understanding are to be believed. They're proposing making it a CRIMINAL offense, not a fine you misdemeanor, but a can put you in jail criminal offense (felony for you yanks), that's way over the top.
They want to heavily disincentivice any cycling.
Also worth noting not are people on a bicycle are "cyclists", just like not all people in a car are "race car drivers".
There's various types of bicycle, such as riding for pleasure, casual riding, entertainment, or racing. Not to mention the various ages of bicyclists. These distinctions are important, just as much as safe well designed infrastructure for all roadway users, weather they are on foot, or a bicycle, or in a car.
A example of "cyclists"
A example of causal bicyclists
Why does the rider need to be visible? Surely if the bike is visible that is enough. Part of why my bike has bright lights on it. You can't see me? Sure, but you can see the bike, avoid that and everything is fine.
The rider is higher up
But what if the rider gets off the bike? Then he could suddenly become invisible!
Then you just become a pedestrian, it is illegal to run them over too.
A lot of people park their cars on the "bicycle boulevard" that I live on, in order to visit businesses on the street a block over. Then they get out wearing all black and cross the street, and they're very-nearly invisible. I think we should have a law that drivers must wear hi-viz at all times, in case they need to get out of their cars.
(And helmets. Drivers should wear helmets. Head injuries from car crashes are still a serious problem.)
When there are road works they tend to close the high way or at least some lanes because a hi vis jacket doesn't protect you against speeding lunatics.
There are also a lot of photos of hi-vis roadworks and emergency vehicles that motorists have crashed into. It's almost like it's not visibility that's the problem…
I recall there being a phenomenon where drivers brains actually filter out hi-vis jackets as "unimportant data" because we see them so much.
Yeah, the "urban camouflage" theory. Or they expect us to be slow or static like a roadworker or emergency worker and so botch the overtake.
Visibility helps
We are not invisible. The problem is that motorists aren't looking or aren't caring. Put some plain-clothes cops on bikes as bait and catch the incompetent.
Added visibility still helps
It really doesn't, especially if it makes you look less like an ordinary human. You absolutely don't want them to think you're an expert rider who doesn't need space, or something like that.
You don't need them to see you from space. You need them to see you from just far enough away, but actually care enough not to endanger you.
Bizarre to argue against added visibility improving safety
I think the issue was the car its self was not visible enough to the emergency vehicles. Car drivers should be wearing reflective gear and helmets, and the car should be fully reflective.
Is this the same Ireland where a TD couldn't get into Dublin to propose a congestion-mitigation policy to the Dáil Éireann because he was stuck in a traffic jam for THREE AND A HALF HOURS? But, yeah, go ahead, discourage bicycling with punitive laws. What could go wrong?
That's hilarious (in a coping with the horribleness way).
I'll find a citation for it because I'll keep it for future transit discussions.
Edit: Found them: it just happened this week.
https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2026/0121/1554356-m50-traffic-labour/
They probably need to expand that tram system in Dublin. it was great for those few routes from what i remember , maybe frequency could have been improved a bit. It'd seem like a no-brainer to add another 2 or 3 lines. I visited about 15 years ago so hopefully it has improved, but sounds like maybe not.
I dunno how Dublin compares to , say, Manchester, but the Manc system has grown a lot in the last few decades and makes the town centre so much nicer and easier to get around, by all other modes too especially walking.
I'm sure with all those corporate HQs that Dublin should be a lot richer than Manchester . . . oh hang on, those corpos pay fuckall taxes don't they.
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I want good headlights (actually already have that, but everyone should too IMO) and blinkers.
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