What I Learned From Staring at 106,000 Cyclists 

And the sensibility of the laws. I tend to break the Dutch traffic law of extending an arm before a turn a lot because as a kid I had pretty bad motor control so I couldn't do it without a lot of wobbling and swaying which is very unsafe, and now as an adult I only do it in busy places, especially for oncoming traffic and traffic from the sides, but not when eg. leaving an empty cycle path or turning on a crossing that is essentially empty. I wonder how much that played into his analysis of what % of people do stuff wrong?

Especially when you want to make a left turn this is a really interesting option. In most systems you're screwed as a cyclist when you need to make a left turn.

Maybe it is a UK centric problem but night time is when I am more likely to be assaulted by car drivers. Being pushed by a car, van or lorry into the pavement or a ditch was a weekly occurance when riding at night, sometimes preceded or followed by with verbal abuse

Nice guessing and random theorizing. /mikael

@@LifeSizedCity Not quite. I was born and raised 20 km from Amsterdam. I studied in Amsterdam. There was a huge difference in attitude in those 20 km.

@@LifeSizedCity Another unprofessional comment huh? I don’t really think you are a certified city planner. All the things you spit out is bs.

@@ronaldderooij1774 the plural of "anecdote" is "anecdotes" and not "data".

The inverse is true as well: As more cyclists break the rules, that area becomes safer. This has one simple reason: Rulebreakers make drivers more careful, because they can't predict behaviour as well. Careful drivers are safe drivers.

@@bramvanduijn8086 that is true, but it starts as people start yo feel safe. As they don't feel safe, they will kerp following the rules. The safer they feel, the more risk they take and in the end, create an safer environment. The more people follow the rules, the more dangerous a situation is.

I prefer conversations with people who know the profession. I've worked for Dutch cities and know the cultural and professional context. Come back when you're better equipped to discuss. /mikael

@@LifeSizedCity I am, but it looks like you aren't.

I've seen some narrow paths and streets in the UK have cyclists dismount signs, but standing beside a bike to push makes them wider than if they rode slowly.

Pretty much how the cyclists applies rules in Danish cities

@@peter_smyth cyclist dismount signs are meaningless, put out by lazy authorities who impose sanctions against one group but not others. legally the signs have no force of law whatsoever and should be ignored.

I remember a similar pedestrian light system from Glasgow in the UK! Sometimes I really miss the chance to just move diagonally over the crossing, because it is just so much more convenient.

We have those here is Los Angeles - we call them "scramble crosswalks." All traffic signals for cars turn red, and the pedestrians and bicycles can go every way they want.

On the other hand, overall, bicycle infrastructure here is crap.

You don't think Danes cycle everywhere outside of Copenhagen? _Of course we do._ I'd even say that provincial cycling, or even just any kind of cycling outside of Copenhagen is drastically different from big city cycling, and much more in line with what Danish cycling actually is. Same best practice principles, but a very different result.

@@TheNinetySecond Copenhagen doesn't has that great of cycling infrastructure and outside the city, it isn't even close what the Netherlands has as bike infrastructure.

@@TheNinetySecond I would be very interested in a study of Danish provincial cycling.

You have never been to Denmark, have you? Haha. Dutch nationalism in a nutshell. Say hi to Geert Wilders at your next meeting! /mikael

@@LifeSizedCity I have! Did you ever bean in the Netherlands? And if so, where, because you compare one city with a complete country!

more segregated infrastructure does not equal safer, more segregation in fact causes so many other issues that are ignored by the segregationalists, such that more people die comparatively. Segregation allows motorists the same freedoms as before in NL, have you seen the nice wide roads that allow motons to travel where they like by car? Intersections between segregated lanes and motor roads is where the most deaths in NL occur, around a third of the 200+ deaths happen there each year.

Not in Amstardam, but in all the other cities of Holland. Copenhagen by the way sucks.

@@ynotnilknarf39 You are missing few very important factors if you claim that cyclist segregation is more dangerous. Because all the studies (also all Danish studies that I've seen) about different types of cycling infastructure consistantly show that completely separated cycle path is by far the safest type of cycling route. Note that completely separated cycle path means a path that doesn't have any crossings with motor traffic. Separated cycle paths are also safer than mixed traffic or cycle lanes in road sections between intersections. The reason why many people claim that segregation is more dangerous, is because statistics show possibly increased risk at intersections. But that doesn't mean that segregation is dangerous, it means that intersection design is dangerous. There are suprisingly few studies comparing the safety of different intersection designs. But the majority of crashes between cars and cyclists at intersection involves a turning car. And that fact already shows the real problem with intersection design. Intersections even in Denmark and Netherlands are still designed in a car-centric way. Most effective way of improving safety at traffic light controlled intersections is getting rid of those light phases where cyclists and turning cars have green light at the same time. And at intersections without traffic lights, most effective way is to limit the speed of turning cars to walking pace with continuous raised sidewalks/bike paths (speed bumps) and tight turning radius. But these designs are still quite rare, because they slow down car traffic a lot.

@@mikkoh5213 I'm not sure about that. Where I live, cyclists have a separate network of cycle paths, separated from the network for cars and the network for cars and the network for buses. So children never really learn how to deal with cars (and cars in our city will encounter much less cyclists than in the rest of the Netherlands). Which will cause dangerous situations when they move to another city. And of course those statistics will appear in the statistics for those other cities (with separated cycle lanes), and not for our city (with a separated cycle network).

Amsterdam is not that great, other parts of the Netherlands are much much better. But Amsterdam is better than anywhere else in the world, including any Danish city. You can really get anywhere by bike, think like a car road network but for bikes, anything above 30km/h typically has a seperate protected bikelane, anything above 50km/h certainly has a bikelane. Protected intersections, protected roundabouts, bike tunnels, bridges, synced traffic lights and sensors to give green for cyclists, traffic lights that give quicker green for cyclists if it rains. You name it.

Dutchie here. It's really interesting that he sais he had to school the city of Amsterdam on unified best practice design. When I see Kopenhagen in the pictures I see utter chaos. I've been to Amsterdam enough times to know it can be chaos there but at least you feel protected from cars at an intersection.

remind me how many Dutch cyclists are killed when coming from segregated infra across a motor road again? Over 60 people a year are killed in Netherlands when they transit from segregated, it is the very nature of the segregation and maintaining the space for motorists that causes so many cyclist deaths in your country. We see how cycling has gone backwards and yet more deaths and more car purchasing, even with the huge purchasing of e-assist cycles there is fewer people cycling than before but no reduction in deaths. The intersections in Netherlands quite literally are killing zones, yet you are so determined that you way is right that you ignore the very thing that is killing and injuring the vulnerable! UK has no segregated infrastructure of note yet we have safer roads for cyclists, there is at least 4 x more motorised miles driven and yet UK has half the number of deaths. Yes the average distance per population head people on bikes travels is more in Netherlands but that isn't per cyclist. Add in four times more motorised miles in Netherlands and you would see a huge increase in deaths compared to UK on top of the 100% worse death toll already. As someone who has ridden in many European countries I'd rather cycling in Denmark than Netherlands, the motorists are less angry and have better awareness, Dutch drivers are worse than Uk drivers and that's going some!

@@mkhtel Amsterdam has a shocking record for road traffic deaths ffs! Pure Ignorance on your part!

@@ynotnilknarf39 before you start talking about statistics, please make sure you understand them. In the UK less than 1% of trips is made by bicycle yet 5,7% of traffic deaths are cyclists. If the UK had the same percentage of cyclists as the Netherlands has, that would account for 2800 deaths per year by bike. Besides that, the main reason give in the UK not to use the bicycle for transportation purposes is lack of safety. If you want to learn more about proper infrastructure, may I advise you to check out the youtube channel Not just bikes where a Canadian explains it all: ru-vid.com/show-UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A

@@ynotnilknarf39 Amsterdam has indeed about the worst cycling infrastructure for cyclists in the netherlands... and yet even though it is the main form of transportation, the number of casualties is limited. edit: the number of fatalities in Amsterdam as a whole has steadily been declining for decades. The number of cyclists getting killed in traffic is about 4 per year with more than 1 million people cycling at least every week.

Another thing to note about this practice of reacting to an accident by redesigning the roads: you end up with roads that might look more chaotic to an outsider, but that give everyone clear ideas of where to go AND give redundancy where if one party fails in detecting and responding to another the other can still save themselves. He mentioned that more people break the law in Amsterdam, and I expect a chunk of that is because it is safe to do so. For example many people don't stretch their hand out when making a turn (which is illegal) as a turn signal, but slowing down while moving to the left of your lane and someone in front of you stretching their hand means it isn't needed at all. In many places, infrastructure is designed to work for people following the law. Here, it is designed to work even if some people are not doing so. For example say you have a drunk driver. In the US, they can go wherever and at whatever speed they want. In a typical Dutch bike-centered intersection they will have to slow down as the road narrows and splits in two around a 'flight hill', then navigate a speed bump on top of which is the bike lane. A cyclist in this scenario is facing a slower driver on a more specific section of road, and the flight hill will dampen the impact of any car to cyclists or pedestrians waiting for it to pass. EDIT: By the way, in the field that I am studying in this is called robustness: A robust design can handle things that it wasn't specifically designed for decently, at the cost of a tiny bit of 'peak scenario' performance. This for example allows you to relax certain assumptions. In my field that often means relaxing the assumption 'the data here is distributed in this way' or 'all my variables have little to no correlation', but here it means relaxing the assumption 'all people are following the law' down to 'people are generally following the law and/or decently attentive and sensible'

Completely agree. Only rarely have I been in large herds of cyclists, but it's kind of freeing just how automated the experience is. You just start and stop whenever everybody else does, and it's often a quite leisurely pace as well. Conversely, afternoon shortcuts make perfect sense, since there are fewer cyclists, pedestrians and drivers, and everyone is much more alert (if not *most* alert) at that time of day.

Well it's part of the bystander effect.

Amongst others, the university of Groningen has an interdisciplinary research unit on traffic since 1977, now part of the psychology department. They also offer education in English: Traffic Psychology and Sustained Mobility www.rug.nl/research/heymans-institute/traffic-and-environmental-psychology/ Quick Google search and I found 3 other universities in the Netherlands that offer courses in traffic psychology

Lol not in Denmark, but the Netherlands has it and a lot more knowledge and info than he has.

It's not what he is talking about though. This type of thing exists in most countries.

It's also much harder to deviate, even if you want to, when there are a lot of other cyclists around to maneuver around.

@@joseville Exactly what I mean, you annoy others, while getting no gains yourself.

Agreed, it's not that you are seen to deviate, so much as there's less room for error. Anyone who has had to drive for much of their daily transit knows that it's dangerous and dumb to deviate during rush hour, where there's plenty of room and time to deviate on a quiet weekend afternoon.

BTW the Dutch are known for "not to comply" to the rules. So that is also a thing.

You should travel more in Denmark before commenting. I've worked for several Dutch cities. /mikael

You're only revealing that you haven't been around in Denmark because what you're saying is obviously false. In fact I dare you to show me a Danish city or town with no cycle paths.

@@LarsPallesen it’s about beteeen a city and a village. Yes I’ve had a lovely vacation in Denmark.

It has done already. Jyst go to the Netherlands. There they change intersections because of it! Copenhagen isn't that great with infrastructure compared to the Netherlands!

@@emiel1976ep Exactly!!

I know them well and have worked on projects in Dutch cities who want to be better. /Mikael

Oh yeah. Sure. Hahaha

@@LifeSizedCityMikael, show me data, I only respond to data.

A Dutch nationalist like you will HATE the latest upload! /mikael

I know many and I used to be one. I offer merely the observation that most Recklists were bike messengers. That's all. :-) /mikael

Tak! Kender godt Guldborgs arbejde. Nu har jeg jo arbejdet med alt det her i mange år i mange byer så ja, jeg hiver hårdt i de ører jeg har fat i. :-) /Mikael

The more crowded, the more useful a bike is since you will be making more short-distance trips. Though at some point pedestrians win, because they take up even less space than cyclists. Extreme hills would be a problem, but moderate hills aren't. It might change the type of bike used. Extreme weather is not a problem as long as it is weather you can dress for. -50C would start to be an issue, as would +50C. The only thing you really need cars for is goods transport, emergency services, and some taxis to fill any gaps.

Crowded cities certainly don't become less crowded if everybody drives cars in stead of bicycles. Just imagine how much space 50 cars take up in traffic vs. 50 cyklists.