Young lady, indignant:
"I've already hit the curb three separate times"
"I don't think they were needed"
Girl, YOU'RE THE REASON THEY'RE THERE!!!!
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Young lady, indignant:
"I've already hit the curb three separate times"
"I don't think they were needed"
Girl, YOU'RE THE REASON THEY'RE THERE!!!!
I went to Hawaii with my wife’s family a while back, my sister-in-law kept complaining about speed bumps in a part of the road there that’s 35 mph. She kept complaining because she kept hitting them at 60 miles an hour and we kept having to tell her they’re there because of you.
There's some rural highway intersections near where I live that have been getting the stop signs replaced with roundabouts and similarly people keep complaining because they have to slow down but these are intersections that happen to have frequent fatal collisions because people aren't slowing down. One of them has already had multiple single vehicle collisions where a driver just blasted into the center of the roundabout so the roundabout is clearly working at forcing traffic to calm down a little
Edit to add: there's another rural highway intersection that was a 2 way stop for quite some time. The county is getting ready to install a roundabout so they started by turning it into a 4 way stop. The new stop signs have a gantry arm over the road, flashing lights, signs 500 feet back saying "stop ahead" with flashing lights and signs 500 feet earlier than that saying "new traffic pattern" also with flashing lights. People have continued to blast through that new stop sign ignoring all of the new signage and flashing lights where previously there wasn't a single sign or light. Now I see regularly the sheriff parked just out of sight watching that intersection because drivers can't be trusted to follow basic traffic safety laws and not blast through a stop sign at 65+mph (in a 55 zone of course)
Some people be treating the gas pedal like an on off switch...
We all instantly realized this ahaha
OK here’s the upliftingnews take (beyond charitable): curb-height stuff is easier to hit than bicycle-height objects and she’d only do the former
Reminded of this:

Anyway someone grab her keys ;)
The complete lack of self-awareness.
Absolutely insane
Exactly! If she can't be trusted to protect her (oversized) car, then she can't be trusted with a cyclist or a pedestrian!
She was a moron, but that wasn’t an oversized car (which makes it worse). Imagine the damage she’d do in an SUV.
For the ignorant driver that clearly shouldn't be driving if you already hit a brand new curb 3 times:

She should.. curb her enthousiasm.
I've heard a rumour that someone in my town is suing the city because they put up one-meter tall concrete dividers for a bike lane, and they drove into one and flipped over their car. Total write-off
Like, you absolute buffoon, you drove into a wall. Where do you think the blame should lie?
That is literally why the most you tend to see is plastic bollards or just a painted line. The cities don’t want to deal with the lawsuits from angry drivers that are more concerned with the damage to their cars than the life they just took.
Fatalities caused by vehicles aren't even treated as homicides in the US. What do you expect from this 3rd world country?
There is a little more to it than that.
A barrier has to start somewhere. The blunt end is considered a hazard for cars if it is too close to the lane, called the clear zone. That blunt end is considered very dangerous and either needs to be located out of the clear zone or have expensive and large crash cushions protecting the blunt end.
It is going to be very difficult finding a civil engineer who will approve installing a blunt end right next to an active travel lane. That makes it useless if you're trying to protect a bike lane next to traffic.
great, now cyclists can be safe in 0.000000000000000000001% of San Jose.......
do you even know how big that city is? if you're not from the bay area, do not try to guess based on the size of San Francisco! SJ may not have a huge population but it is extremely the opposite of dense.
Downtown is dens**er** but still not very dense. the whole downtown area is basically 6 square blocks! exaggerating... but really there is only like 5 high-rises, can't even be called skyscrapers.
tl;dr - DO MORE, SAN JOSE!!! (you still owe me for my one bike that was stolen and the wheel [almost my leg] that got ran over by and old lady in a Honda when i was at an intersection... i should've thrown the remaining bike on her windshield....)
I read the title and thought they were literally blocking the bike lanes with concrete barriers. Apparently I'm a little too used to anti-pedestrian actions by municipalities...
Curb.
It’s a curb.
I'd still take a curb over just paint.
But yeah, definitely should be 3 or 4 feet tall minimum.
which san jose? the capital of costa rica? or the city in california?
Probably california cuz Americans have main character syndrome.
seems so
Drivers have such an irrational disregard to the point of hatred for bicyclists. I don't get it.
you are different. you are bad. you are a threat.
it's that simple and ape-brained.
they also have a irrational disregard and hatred of each other, often based on vehicle make and model.
or just the fact you are in front of them and therefore in their way and you are slowing them down.
All our problems in the world stems from our unevolved ape brain. And unfortunately, most people don't realise it.
most folks embrace it.
I sometimes experience that with reckless drivers but I have never been one to have road rage.
cyclists and peds have rage too. it's not exclusive to drivers. it's just that there are more drivers so they are more statistically significant.
the issue is people being entitled and full of rage at random strangers, not the method by which they transit.
i live in a city where i can drive, bike, walk, or take the subway to work. i have been harassed and had crazy irrational folks of any transit method come at me in screaming rages because of my 'offense' at them. and they never see themselves as the problem. it was me, because I made them angry for existing in a moment and space in time which they did not think I should have existed and it was VERY UPSETTING for them. plus I was like 'slowing them down' or 'in their way' or somesuch.
Sounds like textbook narcissism
it's not. it's just being a douchebag.
So it's basically a raised median?
Like... We have raised medians. Drivers navigate roads with raised medians all the time. Maybe that one woman just doesn't know how to drive very well?
Her logic is hilarious lol. "I don't think the barriers are needed because I keep hitting them"
Lady... you are the reason they are needed!
(To the woman): Your issue is that a small swerve can lead to impacting with a solid object that could damage your car. That issue remains regardless. The question is whether you ALSO hurt a person in the process.
So like, ACAB and all but i want to kiss the officer who took away my MIL's license when she hit one of those barriers and then wandered off into the rain. All the signs of dementia, right? No. She has the munchausens. We had been trying to hide her keys for years and she kept finding them, but she refuses to drive without her license. Dude seriously saved lives that night.
Kinda blow my cover by saying I live here. But this is great news.
Hedges or trees would also work, they look nicer.
I have mixed feelings. Hedges and trees block vision. They can be done well, but I have seen a lot of places where they made traffic less safe.
Trees give a nice shade canopy and help reduce the noise level of a an otherwise loud city street, plus they can reduce the heat island effect that's a near constant in our concrete cities
I had a recent trip take me both into Manhattan and the Chicago Loop and it was night and day how loud the one with more mature trees to break up the echoey canyon of concrete and glass was than the other, despite the other having more vehicle traffic at that moment
No defense of the poor drivers, but I do worry that infrastructure like this doesn’t get maintained. Visibility is a critical part of its function.
Towards the end they say they may be adding reflective thingies.
If we assume it didnt get maintained, still better than cyclists dying
For sure but even better if we can also prevent property, and save even more cyclists by ensuring motorists see the obstruction and choose to stay away
I’d be happy with concrete curbs where I live. I hate those stupid white plastic toothpicks my city puts up.
Make them bigger, when a truck tries to go over them the wheel should break