CycleNutz

During the Covid shutdown, the amount of people driving to and from work was dramatically reduced. This made cycling a lot safer. Now that states are opening back up...a lot of jobs are pulling people back into the office (STUPID). The roads would be safer if we as a society just get rid of the outdated view that work has to get done in the office. It doesn't as proven by 40% of all workers working from home recently. Just a few weeks ago I was able to ride my bike on roads I could never have dreamed of riding on...and now they're all cluttered up with cars again and are 100% unsafe for cycling.

Miele Man

Actually, in some areas it's riskier riding a bicycle now and that's becuase with the much lower volume of traffic, motorists are driving faster and doing so whilst distracted.

Roads would be a lot safer if everyone using them obeyed the Rules of the Road, and if people would concentrate on their driving more than on their myriad gadgets.

Cheers

c_m_shooter

I've had more close calls and seen more stupid stuff in the last 2 months than in the year before that.

genec

Yeah, ironic, while heavy motor traffic does tend to increase the anxiety of the drivers, it does physically often limit their speed... and with other folks stopping at lights and signs, even scofflaws are often held in check.

One thing I have noticed is a bit more eye contact from some... not the folks hot-rodding around of course, they believe they own the roads no matter what... but the other drivers... they seem to be looking at me more to see what my intentions are... and this may come from just more pedestrians and cyclists being on the roads.

Hard to say.

Miele Man

It's really good if a driver is making actual eye contact with you or any other bicyclist. However, studies* have shown that whilst it may appear that a driver is looking directly at you, the fact is they are looking at something beyond you and your presence is not registering with them.

Cheers

* I don't know where that study was published but I read about it back in the mid-1980s

genec

Oh I agree... but I am actually talking about communication beyond a mere glance... hand waves, nods, and simple gestures to an otherwise empty street that indicate real connections between people.

Frankly, in the heyday of my work commuting cycling, I was lucky to even get a glance, and more often than not it was a driver looking through me, not at me. This is decidedly different. I don't expect it to continue when heavier traffic returns and motorists are just playing "follow the leader."

mr_bill

Any studies where flappy bird signals from someone on a bike to someone in a car is understood by anyone other than the signaller? (I clearly told them to yield! WTF!?)

-mr. bill

Miele Man

Sounds a lot like my commute in Toronto Canada.

On a lot of busy city roads, drivers have so much to watch out for such as pedestrians stepping off sidewalks whilst looking at their cell phones, or wrong direction riding bicyclists or bicyclists blowing stop signs or red lights. Other than the cell phone users, I saw all that during my commute along Bloor Street. And many times people would step off a sidewalk without looking.

I try to be aware of my surroundings and what people and drivers are doing. I ride in the lane near parked vehicles, so I have a better sight line in case someone does step out from between parked/stopped vehicles. On side streets I do the same in case a child darts out onto the road in front of me.

Cheers

Joe Bikerider

My rule is never to wave at anyone, bike or car and never trust what’s being waved at you. Three recent examples from my neighborhood.

1) there is a busy crossing of a main road and a bike path. I was going east and stopped. Another cyclist was going west and started waving the oncoming car to go ahead and cross. When I yelled at him, his response was “I was waiting so he could go”. My response was something like “FU, I was not waiting and you’re waving the car into me?“ Stupid.

2) I came up to where a path crosses a busy road. Normally I would just wait. But this time it was A Sheriff waving me go ahead. So I did (against my normal rule) and turned left onto the road in front of the Sheriff figuring he was being so polite he could follow behind me to the upcoming intersection. But no, that pig had to use the half block to pass me on the blind curve. I yelled at him that the pass was dangerous. At the intersection we both stopped. He rolled down his window and was saying that it was safe. Safe in a 3 ton cop car I guess. I yelled more and went my way with my finger in the air. He turned off in another direction.

3). Another time, I came up to a three way stop. A car arrived about the same time I did. So I stopped. Put my foot down and stopped. He looked at me, I looked at him. After what seemed like a pretty long time, no waving or signaling I turned left in front of him and went. Thankfully he turned and didn’t follow me or it would have been like the Sheriff all over again

what can I do?

Leisesturm

Seriously? It's STUPID for employers, now that a temporary situation is terminated to want to RETURN to 'normal'? Why? Because during the TEMPORARY situation your cycling activities were more pleasant? Do you hear how entitled you sound? Awwww, let's everybody say awwww at the total bummer ... just because 40% of workers had to work from home recently doesn't mean it meant the work got done. Many workers had to install cameras in their home offices and keystroke loggers and other monitoring software on their home computers that made them WANT to return to the freedom of the office. It should not require masses of workers shut-in their homes for cyclists to feel safe.

Moe Zhoost

I'd think that competent employers would have thoroughly analysed the effect of WAH on their business operations. And, through such analyses, would modify their business practices if appropriate. My guess is that many will adopt a more extensive work-from-home strategy; however many jobs that maybe can be done remotely in a pinch will never be adequately effective that way. On the other hand, many employers may see a real bottom line advantage in reducing their physical infrastructure.

In any case, motor vehicle traffic will always be a challenge. Humans are prone to a concept called risk compensation. Most of us tolerate a certain level of risk and when circumstances reduce the probability of a negative outcome, folks will change their behavour by driving more aggressively.

Digger Goreman

"What does the FOX say?"

Chillin' meditation recommended....

delbiker1 

Bs!

Siu Blue Wind

Caffeine free coffee isn't so bad ya know.

c_m_shooter

As an hourly factory production worker, I don't understand how a person could be "working from home" and be working. Ya'll must be smarter than me.

AlmostTrick

I've been enjoying the lower levels of motor traffic on my work commute. And yes, some of the remaining drivers have been speeding up. Is it safer with less traffic anyway? My guess is yes, and it's certainly more pleasant. I don't consider it unsafe either way.

CycleNutz

Duh.

That is obvious.

what isn’t obvious is why people like me (accountant) haven’t been able to work from home years ago. At home I have this thing called a personal home computer, this other thing called Excel, this thing called a headset, this thing that is called a modem that lets me connect...

Pugs2xLove

Why bother drinking coffee at all? That's like driving a Ferrari with a Yugo engine. All fluff, no stuff.

Pugs2xLove

My wife works for an insurance company and has been working from home for a few years now due to medical reasons. Her production is tracked through the company's laptop and installed monitoring software (i.e. keystrokes, amount of policies being processed, worked on, inactivity while on the clock, etc.....). It helps ease the stress for her not having to drive into work, park, deal with traffic, annoying co-workers, office gossips and politics, etc....and with me bike commuting to work more, this has saved us money on gas and wear and tears on our vehicles.

Miele Man

The same could be said for drinking non-alcoholic beer or wine. People like it for the flavour but don't want the buzz of an alcoholic drink or they need to avoid alcohol fgor medical or religious reasons.

Cheers

roundypndr 

During the time of shelter in place, I noticed how much quiet the roads were, but also observing, as well as hearing anecdotal comments on how much faster motorists were driving on our local roadways. According to our state's highway patrol, road collision numbers were down 70 plus percent, but their issuing of 100 plus mph speeding tickets jumped 40 plus percent during the same time period.

downhillmaster

All of the frontline restaurant and retail workers should start working from home?
Good to know that you think through your random ideas before you spew them onto the inter webs

Gresp15C

I've been working from home since March 10. I work in hardware R&D, with about half of my time spent in the lab. I was extremely lucky to be able to throw a bunch of equipment in my car and set it up in the basement rec room. My entire family is working from home, either as students or doing their day jobs. Our house is not huge, but large enough to accommodate. I have reliable high speed Internet service.

Not all are so lucky. A lot of folks are going to lose their shirts. Our leaders may see the world as a bunch of people working in offices, but that's not the world we live in, even in the US.

An amusing observation: Since we've been having most of our meetings and discussions remotely, the amount of office intrigue and politics has dropped considerably. In the tech industry, there's naturally been a lot of discussion about remote work, for a couple of reasons. First, that industry (e.g., computer programming) is almost optimally set up for remote work to begin with, and a lot of people were already working remotely. Second, packing more and more programmers into San Francisco and a couple of other big cities wasn't ever sustainable, and was already getting ready to crack open.

I have a sneaking suspicion that some managers frown on remote work, because they are justifiably nervous about their own reasons for existence as managers. What if remote teams were better at managing themselves owing to a more relaxed atmosphere and flexible hours?

The way I figure it, even a 10% reduction in car traffic would be beneficial, but I don't realistically expect cars to vanish. When the lockdown is eased at my workplace, I'll go back, but my group has already agreed that we could have more frequent work-from-home days along with flexible hours that let us avoid the worst of commuter traffic.

indyfabz

It's now gotten even worse in my area because more people are back on the roads and AND many are still driving recklessly like they were when there were fewer people on the roads. While I don't know the details yet, the 17 Y.O. son of a couple I know was struck and killed by a car over the weekend. He had just graduated high school and was an experienced cyclist who was on his school's MTB team.