I’ve always argued this wasn’t the case and that motoring is a worse transport mode because of the associated externalities, not because of anything inherent to the users.
But you can’t argue with the scienceTM!
This will turn into a car versus bikers thread unfortunately. But from my experience, commuting by bicycle has been one of the best decisions I’ve made.
I started out in the suburbs, commuting by car 50 minutes each way. Over the years I kept moving closer and closer to the city and my job…which is pretty much the opposite of what Americans tend to do. Eventually I ditched the car commute for public transit, and finally ditched public transit for a bike.
Being in a car sucks. You are isolated, stuck in a behemoth monster of a machine in a sea of other machines. Your isolation makes you feel anonymous, and anonymity gives you the freedom to seethe and yell at other drivers who dare to go slower than you, faster than you, or God forbid, try to get in front of you.
On a bike you are out in the open, feeling the weather and the wind and the change of seasons and daylight. You interact with people way more, and on much friendlier terms…after all, you’re no longer protected behind your locked metal box. You actually have to act like a normal, decent human.
Now yes, there are the Lycra ads-on-butts boys that pretend they’re in a race, but jerks abound everywhere in every activity.
Lycra ads-on-butts people are the BMW of bikers.
Maybe we shouldn’t generalize the entire sport of road cycling based on a few finance d-bags who took it up.
That’s true! I have lots of friends that do competitive cycling and they’re all nice people. When they train, they avoid cities.
The problematic ones are those who run red lights, who cut and curse at recreationsl cyclists in city bike laces while going 50km/h. They almost always wear skin tight shorts and an expensive-looking helmet.
That being said, I think we can agree that every generalization is bad!
Let’s not generalize, perhaps some generalizations are good! /s
Comparing Lycra cyclists to BMW drivers is only an insult if you generalize all BMW drivers to be assholes.
I’ll have you know some of them probably aren’t!
I used to drive a mini, which is basically a BMW, and I wasn’t an asshole… Oh wait, no, I am an asshole. But it wasn’t because of the car.
i have never heard sports cyclists be complained about here in sweden, so this seems to be a country-specific problem and probably is to do with the culture of drivers, as it’s also perfectly normal to see rural people out with their babies in strollers on the roads.
These are some of the reasons I prefer my motorcycle.
Yes, even the “interact with others” part. Motorcyclists have an unwritten code that we acknowledge each other on the road. It’s surprisingly friendly.
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I commute 14 miles one way. Spandex saves a lot of energy. Plus safer because you’re faster. Faster means less cars pass you per minute. The number of cars passing you is important because the odds of getting rear ended by a distracted driver is proportional to the number of cars we are exposed to. The effect is greatest if you can make a yellow light. For context I commute in Phoenix on 45mph roads. It’s also much safer in crosswinds because you swerve less. You can buy used cycling clothing for $25 on eBay. The first mistake I made was to buy regular cycling gear. I should have invested in triathlon year which is much easier to walk in.
Lol… “Study shows what we want it to show”
It’s a comparison between drivers and riders using four cherry picked criteria that would most likely generate the predetermined narrative. It’s science for hire.
Drivers run the gamut from tree huggy beetle driver to Ford f950 with the extra black smoke package and factory standard swastika paint job, and cyclists, while on a narrower scale (you’ll never see mr super smoker on a Schwinn…), still have a similar scale and can absolutely be assholes.
The dissociation part is accurate, but it’s not a matter of vehicle type or size, because commercial drivers are commonly on the same end of the awareness scale as motorcyclists. It’s not about personality, it’s about risk.
So you didn’t bother to read the paper, didn’t you.
using four cherry picked criteria
There’s a lengthy part of that paper discussing their criteria, with references to other studies.
Ford f950 with the extra black smoke package and factory standard swastika paint job
Which doesn’t even remotely exist in Germany, where this study was done. Which, you know, you could have known if you’d actually read the study…
It’s science for hire.
“This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”
https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/universitaet/stimmen/schuster.shtml
The lead authours stated personal goal is to increase proportion of bicycle use from 8% to 25%.
While it might not be “science for hire”, the authours have a pre-existing and documented goal.
I’m not saying the results are wrong… Only that you maybe shouldn’t be so quick to shit on the guy who raised his eyebrow… Because it’s an extremely valid question to ask, given the facts about the relationship between the authours of the study and the clearly personal relationship they have to the subject matter.
They, in essence, did a study that “confirmed” that they themselves are better people than 92% of the population.
The lead authours stated personal goal is to increase proportion of bicycle use from 8% to 25%
Yes, scientists have opinions and agendas.
Only that you maybe shouldn’t be so quick to shit on the guy who raised his eyebrow
They. Did. Not. Read. The. Study.
They, in essence, did a study that “confirmed” that they themselves are better people than 92% of the population.
Look, if you want to dismiss a study, do so, I couldn’t care less. But so far you both haven’t brought anything but ad hominem against the authors.
Look, if you want to dismiss a study, do so
For someone constantly accusing others of not reading, you seem to have a lot of trouble reading. I’ll leave it to the exercise to the reader (not you, obviously, lol) to find the sentence where I explicitly say that this doesn’t necessarily invalidate the results.
brought anything but ad hominem against the authors.
Acknowledging the biases of the people doing research isn’t an ad homienem attack. Would you be clamouring to defend studies about the dangers of smoking written by people with large interests in the tobacco industry? No?
You are having an extreme an emotional reaction to the presentation of fact.
I’m all for more cycling and getting rid of cars entirely, but this is reaserch methods 101. One of my college courses was entirely about finding flaws in research, and this is a great example of a study that has an intended purpose, and very selectively shows the data they want it to show. And with things like qualitative data that requires an opinion to show in the first place, you can throw this out as junk from the getgo. This is popular science made for click bait headlines.
And another ad hominem. Bye.
Edit: and if you cannot see a difference between a scientist advocating for bikes and someone advocating for a known hazardous drug you are completely lost.
Holy mother of based someone on this site who actually reads the fucking study
Climate scientists often have the goal of cleaning up emissions/passing effective regulation to curb climate change. Is that a problem too?
Who just “does science for science’s sake”? This is just a nonsense talking point because you don’t like what they’re saying. You’re arbitrarily deciding this matters when it’s not a standard anywhere.
Critique their work. Try to duplicate it. But assess the work. That’s what matters. You’re functionally saying that nobody can “do science“ if they have an opinion on the thing they are studying.
Did they have a preconceived goal and then did the research to match it, or did they do the research and then formed a goal to match it?
These are two different things. And while the former is bad, the latter is not. In fact, forming a political opinion after in-depth study of a topic is something we should all do.
Most research is somewhere between: scientist has a belief on how something works and does studies that can provide evidence for or against it and competing hypotheses. Doesn’t matter if it’s super basic science about some obscure bacterial protein that has no known real world implications: often the scientists have a belief before doing the studies. There nothing wrong with that as long as you don’t hide data and you are open to being wrong. Aelwero provided no evidence for their claim. If we just accept that “well maybe there lying”, we would have to reject all science by that standard.
Of course independent groups should verify results from other studies. But it’s boring, non-flashy work that makes enemies and doesn’t interest funders. But we should work towards getting more funding to do this. We also should work towards a culture of reporting null data. Not reporting “no difference between groups” can result in a similar problem without anyone intentionally doing it (sorta like the jelly bean xkcd, but with 20 different groups doing the same experiment but only 1 publishes because they didn’t know 19 group already tried and found no association and only they did by chance).
So I’m not the person you replied to. I also admit upfront that I didn’t read the article because I don’t want to. Everything I’m about to say is purely my opinion, and based off of your comment. So, take it for what it’s worth which is literally nothing.
I have scanned a bunch of these comments. You are the first person to mention that the study was done in Germany that I’ve seen. Now, I’m not saying you’re wrong. What I am saying is that it seems like there is a good possibility that this is a cultural thing, and an inconclusive study at best.
Now, like I said, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m simply pointing out that it’s weird that a study used a very specific subset of cyclists and didn’t tell us that in the title, but also probably isn’t representative of the cycling community at large.
It would be like if I posted a headline that said 99% of the people that died of heart related issues are black. So you read my article and find out I did the study in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
So, even if the science is correct. It seems like information that isn’t very relevant outside of the small area where it was conducted. I guess it would depend on where the other studies that they linked to were done. Which I really don’t want to read unless I have to.
This was just an observation based on your comment, and I’m a bored internet stranger taking a poop.
The study didn’t “use a weird subset” of cyclists.
From the abstract of the study
Using a longitudinal multilevel analysis, annual surveys between 2014 and 2019 of a representative sample of the German general population (GESIS PANEL, N = 410) were analyzed. Cycling rather than driving was positively associated with orientation towards the common good in all models.
Since there are cyclists the world over, but they only studied German cyclists. German cyclists are very likely to be very culturally different from say Chinese cyclists, or African cyclists, or American cyclists, or even other European cyclists.
Thus, German cyclists ARE A SUBSET OF CYCLISTS in general. Which is what I was saying.
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Obvious bad journalism. “Study shows XYZ are bad people” is never not gonna be a clickbait headline since scientific studies would never claim to show something so subjective.
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you’ll never see mr super smoker on a Schwinn
😂 This made me laugh out loud
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I mean, really the problem is people that exclusively drive.
Fixed headline:
Study Finds People Who Drive and Cycle Are Better People than Those Who Exclusively Drive
Some people don’t drive at all. And some never have.
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I always felt it but now I know it. I just am a better person than all these drivers.
Driving turns mild mannered people into raging assholes.
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They used:
- political participation,
- social participation,
- neighborhood solidarity and
- neighborly helpfulness
To define “better”.
As an individual who walks to most of my destinations, I am a shutin, and by these metrics, a literal monster.
I think you, and the users of public transport, are not at all represented in the study
They go exactly in the middle, of course. Straight to Purgatory.
It explains in the article what the criteria used were. You’re welcome to critique that, of course, and I have done elsewhere, but you should read the article, if only so you can critique it properly!
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Well then why bother asking? If you’re not going to read it, and you don’t care about what it’s saying, then you’ve just come here to get pissy
As drivers are wont to do…
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I’m well aware of the concept - but the whole point of them is to suggest other perspectives to view a concept from to gain a different understanding of the issue at hand
What you did is just asking questions that were answered in the article, thinking “haha, I’ve got them!” Then you got defensive and pretended they were all rhetorical when everyone pointed out you’d know the answer if you just read the damn article.
For example, let’s imagine we’re discussing an article about a court fining someone for violating a gag order.
A good format for a rhetorical question might be “would the judge have given this sentence to him if he was …?”
Note how this isn’t something that would be covered in article, because it covers a theoretical scenario.
A bad rhetorical question might be “how much was the fine?” This is because you could just read the damn story.
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If the critical thinking is obvious, and explicitly answered in the content being discussed, then you have added nothing to the conversation
You asked 2 questions that are actually highly relevant to a discussion about this article, and they weren’t attached to any argument. Do YOU know what a rhetorical question is?
Yes, but why male models?
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Okay, pal. Stay angry and ignorant.
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Lmao at the number of downvotes on this one
I mean, just ask any cyclist for directions to a nearby place. Generally if they know they will be willing to help you out with it.
People in cars are too busy, scared, frustrated, unaware of the areas they drive through outside the main road/whatever that they’re in my experience less willing to stop and help others out.
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Smartphones have reduced the need, since visitors to my town have a map in their pocket, but it’s nice to try to help. It feels good.
My bike is a Dutch carbon fibre recumbent
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See, we’re in a thread about how cyclists are better than
youdrivers. One really must declare oneself a cyclist when identifying oneself as a better persondeleted by creator
My experience is from Toronto lol
There we have some bike paths, but you have to know where they are if you don’t want cars to squeeze by you all the time.
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Further thoughts: This reminded me of something I read a while back about assuming that people who have one virtue also have all the others. Like, why should we assume that someone who is (e.g.) honest is also generous?
I think that has some applications here. Okay, so cyclists are, it seems, more community-minded. Does that mean they possess all the other virtues? Are cyclists also less likely to steal or to cheat on their partners? We don’t know and this study doesn’t tell us.
Like, why should we assume that someone who is (e.g.) honest is also generous?
We should not.
Source: am honest, but not particularly generous.
Agreed. I’m generous but not honest.
I may work overtime, but I’m definitely taking things from the storeroom on steal from work day.
According to the study I read, we in the developed world generally do, but in the less industrialised world, people generally don’t. Which was itself really interesting!
It’s true. The amount of fragile, impotent people I encounter on my daily commute is astounding. There’s really no point in wasting space on private cars inside a city.
@frankPodmore the facts are in! Drivers are big mad!
What if you’re a cyclist that drives?
I bet they cancel out.
I don’t know, the people riding bicycles over the 3 foot wide sidewalk on the bridge (which has a bike lane going each way) in my city come across as selfish assholes.
They probably are. That said, it’s always a good idea to ask the question: “why would people use the worse alternative?”
WDYM?
Good thing they cycle then
This finding wont fix anything and will only make car-brained vs commie-bikers flame war worse
Damn, the scientists at the lab for reducing flame wars are gonna be pretty sheepish when they find out.
Flame wars are a significant contributor to global warming
Good point, we should use the steam rising off these dudes to power turbines for clean electricity, instead of letting it leak wastefully into the atmosphere.
