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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024

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Where I live it is an objectively better experience than being on the roads if you care at all about personal safety.

Unless your roads are unpaved, I do not believe that.

Until someone else pointed it out I had no idea just how fast cyclists expected to be able to go on their preferred pathway.

Yes, one of the whole points of a bicycle is to go significantly faster than walking. Last week I was out on my bicycle (on the roads) and averaged 16mph, with a top speed of over 40mph (downhill). Even 16mph is considerably faster than is practical on a sidewalk. When I was going slow, cars mostly passed me with no issues ("mostly" because there's often someone timid who will hang back when there's plenty of room to pass safely). When I was going down that hill, the cars were hung up behind a slow truck so I was actually going faster.

I'll admit I have little tolerance for this complaint since they would happily have all drivers significantly slow down to accommodate them.

As I've said elsewhere in the thread, I would not, and I object to the bicyclist-activists when they make these demands. If you want to go out on the road and have your bicycle be a vehicle, you have to accept the ordinary risks of doing so.