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EUCs can be dangerous


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17 minutes ago, Paul A said:

Speedy Feet's thoughts on the behaviour of the incident by the two NYC riders.

Speedy Feet downloaded and saved a copy of the video made and uploaded to the channel of that YouTuber.

 

The footage is originally from the video camera of 'Turbo'.

The footage was used as the teaser/introduction to a video,  to induce interest for people to view, the click bait...

 

Should people really strive to be like that YouTuber? 

The YouTuber that denigrated, ridiculed, treated with contempt the multitudes of viewer comments expressing concern?

The YouTuber that ended the follow up video with the group of riders flipping their middle fingers, to show that they were unrepentant?

There are plenty of other, more polite riders, who have actually hit people.

So yes, I'd prefer them to be rude and unrepentant, and have a close call, than actually hit someone and be polite about it. That is the logical conclusion you are driven to, if you actually care about pedestrian safety.

If you care about pedestrian safety, it's better to ride fast in the street than to ride slower on the sidewalk or bike lanes (pedestrians have a bad habit of walking into bike lanes). If you wanted me to speculate about how those NYC riders can ride that way without hitting pedestrians, that would be my explanation.

Mick hasn't injured anyone, so if people want to strive to be more like him, I'm 100% cool with that.

Again, a lot of your complaints boil down to people being rude, and not specifically that they're putting anyone in danger.

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The significance of the middle fingers by the riders, is that it shows they are unrepentant.

The significance of the middle fingers by the riders, is that it shows they do not care about the safety of others.

The significance of the middle fingers by the riders, is not about being offended.

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Pedestrian safety would be better served when:

 

Road users do not speed through red lights at a pedestrian crossing.

Road users do not travel on the wrong side of the road.

Road users do not act irresponsibly.

 

Road users obey traffic laws and traffic rules.

Road users do not believe that they are so highly skilled, that road laws and road rules, do not apply to them.

Road users do not believe that they are exempt from obeying road laws and road rules.

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48 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

There are plenty of other, more polite riders, who have actually hit people.

I’m not sure if you’re unfamiliar with probability calculations, or if you simply haven’t thought this through just yet.

 Alleycat race that is being discussed lasted for less than an hour, and had maybe around twenty participants. Let’s call it 15 ride hours in total.

 One could estimate that there are 100 000 riders around the world, many of which have been riding for 5 years or more. Let’s roughball it to 20 000 000 ride hours in total.

Maybe a handful people have been injured by relatively careful riders. Let’s call it 500 000 ride hours per injury.

 For the Alleycat style riding we don’t know the exact number, all we know is that it’s more than 15.

 Now, how in the earth can you twist this into a logic where the Alleycat race is safer for pedestrians than relatively careful riding? Enlighten me, please.

 

48 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Mick hasn't injured anyone, so if people want to strive to be more like him, I'm 100% cool with that.

Neither have I. I’m not sure how much Evx has ridden in total, but I have about 33 000 km. Maybe people should “strive to be more like me” instead?

 

Edited by mrelwood
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It's getting hard to keep track of all this because the goal posts are moving all over the place. But I'll try.

11 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

For example the young girl who was yanked back by the woman, probably because young girls don’t tend to look if there are any race participants speeding towards her if she has the green light. The other girl behind them was luckily a few steps behind, since the woman probably couldn’t have yanked them both. Referring to all of the words: risk, consequence, legality, manners, and example.

Sure, that looked like a close call. But this is a single instance, during a race, and I think it's pretty clear that Turbo doesn't usually speed through pedestrians like that.

Anyway, this discussion is more about Live than Turbo. I don't know why we're talking about Live, that's just who Paul A brought up.

18 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

Whether or not the behavior of a tiny group of riders is acceptable or not isn’t measured in the amount of injuries. It’s about the unnecessary and unexpected rush they pose to others, concerning the consequences of their behavior to other people, legality of speeding through red lights and riding on the wrong side of the road, manners of said behavior, and providing example to riders and non-riders alike.

 Further regarding risk: I have never been killed by playing Russian roulette. Does it prove that it’s a low risk thing to do?

Sure, you can legitimately disagree with their manners etc. But that's not what this specific discussion is about. Paul A specifically claims that these riders are endangering people (and that's why he has to post about them, constantly).

Regarding Russian roulette: It depends on how many times you play. After the 500th time you play without getting shot, it becomes obvious that there's no bullet in the gun. We're talking about multiple riders with very long and extensive riding histories, who have not, to my knowledge, run into any pedestrians during that entire time. Either they're all extraordinarily lucky, or it is in fact a low risk thing to do.

22 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

I haven’t commented on putting car drivers in danger, but it’s obvious that riding fast between cars is a surprise element that may cause for example elderly drivers to panic. Risk, consequence, manners, and example.

Yes, it could, hypothetically, cause driver panic. But a more important question is, does it actually cause driver panic? We have years of EUC experience over the entire globe, without a single instance (as far as I'm aware) of this occurring. Or at least, if it occurs, it hasn't led to crashes (none that I've heard of). I also haven't seen anything like this during 18 years of driving.

That means, there are more EUC riders who have been impaled by sticks than EUC riders who have caused car crashes. We're talking about events that are so unlikely, the idea that we need to repeatedly warn riders about it is just bizarre.

But let's take a step back and look at the bigger, psychological picture. You are inventing a hypothetical scenario that has literally never happened, in order to attack riders you don't know. Doesn't that seem weird to you? Why are we doing this?

30 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

Because it should be obvious to every single person past 6 years of age that a busy city street with pedestrian crossings is a different thing than a race track.

You may disagree with the race, but if your concern is pedestrian safety, there are bigger fish to fry. Among PEVs, sidewalk riders (like the one that killed Lisa Banes) are more dangerous. The part that doesn't make sense, is that this race is being used as the prime example of pedestrian safety concerns, when no one was hurt, and they weren't doing the type of riding that typically leads to pedestrian injuries. There are currently zero pedestrian injuries (as far as I'm aware) due to alleycat races and other reckless street riding. To me, it looks like people have irrationally attached themselves to this single case which was an exception (well, almost).

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3 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

I’m not sure if you’re unfamiliar with probability calculations, or if you simply haven’t thought this through just yet.

Yes, I'm a professional statistician. Not making that up, it's literally my job.

4 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

Alleycat race that is being discussed lasted for less than an hour, and had maybe around twenty participants. Let’s call it 15 ride hours in total.

 One could estimate that there are 100 000 riders around the world, many of which have been riding for 5 years or more. Let’s roughball it to 20 000 000 ride hours.

Maybe a handful people have been injured by relatively careful riders. Let’s call it 500 000 ride hours per injury.

 For the Alleycat style riding we don’t know the number, all we know is that it’s more than 15.

 Now, how in the earth can you twist this into a logic where the Alleycat race is safer for pedestrians than relatively careful riding? Enlighten me, please.

Yes, you got that right.

I didn't mean to compare alleycat racing to other riding. I meant the general riding of Turbo, Live, etc. We have more hours for that comparison. Is it enough hours to decisively tell which is better for pedestrians? I don't know. I made that suggestion while in trolling/sarcasm mode. After dealing with Paul A and Mike from the UK bringing this up so many times, and their repeated and extremely farfetched safety concerns, it seems like the only appropriate way to respond.

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3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

It's getting hard to keep track of all this because the goal posts are moving all over the place.

I can only respond to my own posts and my own opinions. I’m sure it’s hard for you to keep track who said what when almost everybody else is strongly against the Alleycat race and that style of riding.

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Sure, that looked like a close call. 

1.

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Sure, you can legitimately disagree with their manners etc.

2.

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Regarding Russian roulette: It depends on how many times you play.

3.

Exactly. How many races should be held to find out?

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

who have not, to my knowledge, run into any pedestrians during that entire time.

And how would you know if they have? It seems that you are disagreeing about an overly aggressive riding style being called unsafe, yet you don’t even know if they have caused accidents or not.

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Yes, it could, hypothetically, cause driver panic.

4.

7 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Yes, you got that right.

5. That’s how many of my points you agreed with. Was that actually all of them?

 

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

You may disagree with the race, but if your concern is pedestrian safety, there are bigger fish to fry.

There are always bigger fish to fry, in every single topic. Why is the world concerned about Putin when Hitler killed hundreds of times of more people? Shouldn’t we talk about Hitler instead? (Yay, I finally got to play the Hitler card!)

 This is an EUC forum and we are EUC riders. Here we talk about the EUC related things we are concerned about, despite them not being the most awful things in the world.

 

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

when no one was hurt

I don’t know if it’s a special skill of mine or what, but I usually have the ability to roughly assess risk, consequence, legality, manners, and being an example to others, without actually knowing the end result or the resulting statistics.

 

10 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

I made that suggestion while in trolling/sarcasm mode. … it seems like the only appropriate way to respond

Free tip: if you want to be taken seriously or to take part in a fruitful conversation, try to find other ways.

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11 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

After dealing with Paul A and Mike from the UK bringing this up so many times, and their repeated and extremely farfetched safety concerns, it seems like the only appropriate way to respond.

To demonstrate what I'm talking about: A lot of these hypothetical scenarios people come up with sound to me like, "what if you crash and the wheel hits a fire hydrant, and it starts shooting water everywhere, and a little girl slips and falls onto the street, and then a car runs her over". Like absurdly improbable Final Destination-style death scenarios.

Compare: "what if an EUC rider lane-splits, and the car on the left is driven by an old lady with anxiety issues, and she suddenly swerves into the oncoming lane, and there's an 18-wheeler coming right at her, and the driver is looking at his phone" which is basically the actual concern commenters in this thread have with lane-splitting, with only a tiny bit of dramatic flair.

These aren't realistic concerns, and they shouldn't be taken seriously.

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37 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

I can only respond to my own posts and my own opinions. I’m sure it’s hard for you to keep track who said what when almost everybody else is strongly against the Alleycat race and that style of riding. [...]

5. That’s how many of my points you agreed with. Was that actually all of them?

It's true. If you thought I was claiming alleycat racing is more safe than regular riding, well, no.

The point behind the sarcasm is, Paul A is making a huge deal out of these riders being dangerous etc. But given that they haven't injured anyone that we know about, at best those claims are unsubstantiated. It's easily within the realm of possibility that the opposite is true. And it's so tiring dealing with these same unsubstantiated (and often improbable) claims over and over ...

37 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

There are always bigger fish to fry, in every single topic. Why is the world concerned about Putin when Hitler killed hundreds of times of more people? Shouldn’t we talk about Hitler instead? (Yay, I finally got to play the Hitler card!)

Nope, there are not. The most dangerous EUC riding for pedestrians is on the sidewalk. I'm pretty confident about that.

And I'm not saying to ignore reckless street riding. Just try to keep things in perspective. Maybe before posting about alleycat pedestrian issues, post twice about sidewalks. That would make sense. That's what I would expect from someone who genuinely cares about pedestrians.

37 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

I don’t know if it’s a special skill of mine or what, but I usually have the ability to roughly assess risk, consequence, legality, manners, and being an example to others, without actually knowing the end result or the resulting statistics.

Sad news: you do not have this ability, at least not regarding risk. The world is complicated and you need empirical data to be confident about this kind of thing. Many people have another special skill: overconfidence.

Someone earlier pointed out the different road styles in the US and Finland, and I think that's probably a factor going into your (IMO) badly calibrated risk estimates.

If you keep saying that scenario X is a big concern, but there's no record of X ever happening before, that's a good indicator that you're badly calibrated.

37 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

Free tip: if you want to be taken seriously or to take part in a fruitful conversation, try to find other ways.

I choose depending on the context. Some ideas deserve ridicule.

Edited by Skeptikos
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Stills from 'Live' videos of Birthday ride with friends, uploaded March 9, March 10.

 

Rider carving on wrong side of the road.

image.png.fe65d06f80e4267877a49fb656b8a919.png

 

 

'Live" riding at speed on footpath

image.png.a6a60e1ef109a96a070a970d859aa7aa.png

 

'Live' and others riding on wrong side of the road.

image.png.591ff4efe97a3cfa94e06dc6f01e4b8d.png

 

Speeding through red light, pedestrian crossing, pedestrian on crosswalk, car crossing intersection.

image.png.f59dcd64ab4e5aa8d8387447d68eb4dd.png

 

Speeding through red light, pedestrian crossing, pedestrian on crosswalk.

image.png.a09eccb887f59ea8eb8ca905efd05b5d.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Silver said:

You're pretty much just ignoring their main point which is running red lights and cutting through pedestrian traffic crossing the street is dangerous to pedestrians. Without acknowledging that you're not really arguing over the same thing as them.

That's a very ... generous ... reading of the main point. But yes, I agree that speeding through pedestrians is dangerous for pedestrians.

 

5 minutes ago, Silver said:

I don't think anyone would seriously argue that anything a rider could do on the street could realistically hurt a person driving in a car especially since it city traffic and it isn't moving that fast (what like 40 tops?) Your the only one in harms way.

You literally just have to read the thread. Both Paul A and mrelwood have specifically argued this. I did not make their positions up, and at this point half the thread is about this argument.

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Stills from 'Live' videos of Birthday ride with friends, uploaded March 9, March 10.

 

Speeding through pedestrian crossing, pedestrian on crosswalk.

image.png.068e57c829a03cfdbf0c812ab1297338.png

 

image.png.8e0c29c95201cc688bd90193a863c248.png

image.png.7fc516a3658f9ea4ae39e998498c44b2.png'Liv

 

 

'Live' riding backwards on a public road.

image.png.d65f7b81414d364bcb7077177818177a.png

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3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

given that they haven't injured anyone that we know about

The sample size will never be nowhere near enough for a statician, because the public outcry against the race was loud enough to prevent them from being held publicly anymore. But that definitely doesn’t make it un-dangerous.

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

And it's so tiring dealing with these same unsubstantiated (and improbable) claims over and over

Then don’t. You can stop whenever you want. (I hope.)

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Nope, there are not. The most dangerous EUC riding for pedestrians is on the sidewalk. I'm pretty confident about that.

Nope, riding on a 4” wide plank above pedestrians is more dangerous. Even if no-one has been harmed by that yet. There are always bigger fish.

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Maybe before posting about alleycat pedestrian issues, post twice about sidewalks. That would make sense.

Come on, how many times have you posted about the bigger issues than anything EUC related? We talk about individual subjects, they are never in the correct ratio regarding their dangerousness.

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Sad news: you do not have this ability, at least not regarding risk.

Like I said: “I usually have the ability to roughly assess”… Of course it’s not confident or precise! That would be a foolish claim.

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Someone earlier pointed out the different road styles in the US and Finland, and I think that's probably a factor going into your (IMO) badly calibrated risk estimates.

Roads are different, sure. But they don’t affect whether running the reds or the wrong side of the road is illegal or not, and whether it demonstrates bad manners. And the 4 other points you earlier agreed with.

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

If you keep saying that scenario X is a big concern, but there's no record of X ever happening before, that's a good indicator that you're badly calibrated.

Again, it doesn’t take an accident to make something risky. Would you claim that crossing a busy Highway only doing somersaults can’t be risky because no-one has died doing it?

3 minutes ago, Skeptikos said:

Some ideas deserve ridicule.

Thank goodness we have you delivering the prize! :P

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18 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

Roads are different, sure. But they don’t affect whether running the reds or the wrong side of the road is illegal or not, and whether it demonstrates bad manners. And the 4 other points you earlier agreed with.

wasn't debating manners but ok

18 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

Come on, how many times have you posted about the bigger issues than anything EUC related? We talk about individual subjects, they are never in the correct ratio regarding their dangerousness.

I mean... it's like if you claimed to care about fires, but you only post about an InMotion wheel that almost caught fire, and never post about Gotway fires. And you bash InMotion multiple times per week. This hypothetical person obviously does not care about fires. (We all know who this hypothetical Australian person is.)

18 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

Again, it doesn’t take an accident to make something risky. Would you claim that crossing a busy Highway only doing somersaults can’t be risky because no-one has died doing it?

Do you believe EUC lane-splitting is as rare as highway somersaults?

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On 3/17/2022 at 2:51 PM, Paul A said:

Other road users are endangered by the reckless behaviour of irresponsible riders.

When a car(s) needs to take out evasive action to avoid hitting an EUC rider that is on the wrong side of the road, an EUC rider that is squeezing in between cars, an EUC rider that is speeding through a red light.......other road users are endangered in having to seek actions to save the life of a reckless EUC rider.

Collateral damage to others, caused by the deliberate, illegal actions of irresponsible EUC riders.

This was the statement made.

There has been no claim that an EUC rider could hurt a person driving in a car.

Do not make misrepresentations in order to set up a straw man argument.

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On 3/17/2022 at 3:14 PM, Skeptikos said:

If I'm driving on city roads, I'm not going to swerve, because I don't need to. At the worst I'll just hit the brakes. The biggest danger is that someone rear-ends me, which is more annoyance than real danger.

 

On 3/17/2022 at 3:14 PM, Skeptikos said:

As a driver, my actual concerns are 1) me hitting other people, and 2) other cars hitting me.

 

When an irresponsible EUC rider, including but not limited to:

speeding through a red light in front of a car

straying onto the wrong side of the road, into an oncoming car

squeezing through a narrow gap unexpectedly, causing a car driver to take evasive action to save the EUC rider from serious injury/death.....

 

causing a car driver to take quick evasive action....causing a car driver to do the above quoted statements......

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13 minutes ago, Paul A said:

When an irresponsible EUC rider, including but not limited to:

speeding through a red light in front of a car

straying onto the wrong side of the road, into an oncoming car

squeezing through a narrow gap unexpectedly, causing a car driver to take evasive action to save the EUC rider from serious injury/death.....

 

causing a car driver to take quick evasive action....causing a car driver to do the above quoted statements......

I mean, I guess I have to agree pedestrians/bicyclists/whatever are more likely to get hurt than car drivers.

 

Probably the biggest issue here is the step "quick evasive action". You're implying it's a crazy swerve, which is just not what drivers, including me, generally do. For me "quick evasive action" is braking or moving a bit to the side to make space. You can see in the video that you keep posting, that there aren't any cars swerving in response to EUCs.

So we're still talking about an improbable chain of events. First the car driver has to swerve like a complete idiot, then there has to be someone in the exact wrong place when they swerve. And I'd personally blame the car driver at that point, and I think the law would too. I don't mean to move the goal posts on you, but this is still pretty farfetched even in this version.

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Anyway, here's a twist: I said earlier that Lisa Banes was killed on a sidewalk, but she was actually on a crosswalk.

So maybe I was a bit too confident about the sidewalk thing. Good example of how intuition about risk can be wrong, and why you need data.

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