Originally Posted by Leisesturm

Among the top reasons for being unable to commit to a car free, or even car light, lifestyle is the presence of young children in the family and thus the need to transport them to school, appointments, sports activities, etc. in safety. Being single and dating (as a male) would be next in frequency. The need to arrive at a Service Sector workplace sweat free and presentable is also in the top five. These attitudes are only prevalent in America. Despite the existence of isolated clusters of bicycle centric inhabitants of niche cities like Portland, OR; Davis; CA; NYC; and (apparently) Boston, MA, the overwhelming majority of Americans are mistrustful of the safety of bicycles as transportation. Many would rather use mass transit if for whatever catastrophic reason they cannot (legally or otherwise) operate a car. I know personally an individual who sank into a depression so deep after losing their license that they lost their marriage and employment in just weeks and had to move in with an adult child in another state. The loss of operator status would have been only temporary.

Lets all admit it, we all 'clench' a little when we see a child on the back of an Xtracycle being piloted by a Millenial in busy Downtown traffic. And trailers? Really? The observation that trailers are only marginally safer than bike seats because of their minimalist construction is spot on. I do observe, however, that by more or less universal adoption, adults transporting children on public roadways, be it by Bakfiets, Xtracyle, Long-bike or standard bicycle with child seat, all are under a symbolic white flag of amnesty from motorist aggression, menace or other emotional or bodily harm. Someone should pull the data on child passenger injury and/or death metrics on American roads vs single adult rider metrics. Maybe the way to get American cyclist metrics more in line with the rest of the developed world is for all of us to have children along on our rides. Fun and fresh air for the young ones and freedom from anger and harrasment from cagers for the old(er) ones. Talk about a win-win.

I think 'reckless' needs to be defined more precisely. Someone speeding through a fresh red signal with a bike trailer in tow (something I've never seen btw) would be universally condemned as egregiously reckless. But were they? Did they make it? That would be my question. Assuming sufficient momentum coming towards the stale yellow signal, an attempt to stop dead with a loaded trailer might put the rig into the intersection anyway. We could (and would) argue about why they were going that fast in the first place but the bottom line is if they know the intersection and its behavior from long experience then they are making a calculated risk analysis, the success of which proved its positive cost/benefit outcome. We all do this. What we don't do is give the same benefit of the doubt to others. Why is that? TBH, this being America and the year being 2019 and all that that entails ... yah, I'd like to know more about the reckless idiot the o.p. observed being ... reckless. On its face, there doesn't seem to be much to see here.