alt Hacker NewsSure, industrial scale transport and personal transport share a rolling platform with an engine, but they're different platforms with different requirements, different economics and different lifecycles.
However, you're making my point for me. If you fail to invest in good public transport it will suck. That is downstream from designing your society around cars instead of transportation for everyone. Bikes do not work for extremely long distances (although school children here will happily pedal 10km to school and back on the daily), but those long distances are a requirement precisely because infrastructure is designed around cars. Even so you can take bicycles on trains and use them for last mile transport at your destination, or store a bicycle at your destination train station (most have lockers or guarded storage) if it's a commute.
Regarding bad weather; if winter is bad enough for bicycles to fail, then certainly it is not safe to drive either, and lethality is orders of magnitude higher. Generally though people here ride bike paths that are shovelled and brined just as the roadways are.
Bikes have their own infrastructure that they do not share with trucks. It is for human beings only.
Here's some reasons to hate cars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umgi-CbaSRU
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> industrial scale transport and personal transport share a rolling platform with an engine, but they're different platforms with different requirements, different economics and different lifecycles.
What does this mean? This feels a bit like a distinction without a difference, as the infrastructure built is shared by both.
> although school children here will happily pedal 10km to school and back on the daily
How flat is it there? I can’t imagine a typical kid biking 10km each way around me. I feel like the average kid at my kids’ school would take 45 minutes or more to bike that distance.
> Regarding bad weather; if winter is bad enough for bicycles to fail, then certainly it is not safe to drive either, and lethality is orders of magnitude higher. Generally though people here ride bike paths that are shovelled and brined just as the roadways are.
Extreme hot weather and pollution are both a much bigger health risk for bikes than cars.
> Regarding bad weather; if winter is bad enough for bicycles to fail, then certainly it is not safe to drive either
This is a big claim with no justification.
Cars have dynamic traction control, internal temperature control, etc. You may get frost bite on your bicycle, but almost certainly not in your car. Having four wide wheels makes the vehicle radically more stable.
Add seat belts, air bags, etc. cars have far more safety features than a bike can.
Of course, cars go faster and going faster increases lethality at the limit. No argument there, far more people die in cars in general. But specifically concerning weather, cars allow people to do many things that a bicycle cannot.
Not to mention general comfort. Being in a bike in a snow storm is very unpleasant!