You can sign up for Proton mail without providing email or phone number, as far as I recall.

I’ve personally seen each of the things I listed multiple times. Sometimes several of those items at the same time (ex: cyclist riding at night, without lights and without a helmet, on the busiest street possible).

I understand why people would do some of those things, but not others. Like you, I have sometimes ridden without a helmet or without lights, and I understand that sometimes one is just caught unprepared. The main thing for me is that when I see extremely risky behavior, especially a combination of them like my example above, I worry tremendously for those people. I also seriously wonder if they are actively trying to get themselves killed.

Yes, I imagine that our cycling infrastructure and conditions are probably very different. I also feel that this study may have focused on some places that have better conditions and infrastructure (and cyclist education) than my area. This may explain the discrepancy in what the study found and my experiences.

What you’ve described all sounds very reasonable. I guess all I was trying to say is that the study had surprising results for me, and I worry that potentially misleading results could encourage cyclists to take more risky behavior. My concern is for cyclists’ safety and for the perception of cycling in general.

I agree with all you said, 100%!

I agree with a lot of what you say and have experienced and done some of that myself. There are just a couple of minor terms of degree that I don’t quite agree with:

Cyclists break laws to reduce exposure to cars and their drivers.

I think that’s true some of the time, but not anywhere near all the time. A few of the things I listed that I’ve seen don’t reduce their exposure.

So yeah, all the things that make using a light vehicle safer tend to make heavy vehicle users pissed off.

Again, I generally agree, except that I think “all” is excessive. Plenty of things that cyclists do that piss off car drivers don’t make them safer.

Yeah, that was poorly worded on my part. What I meant was that the combination of direction AND speed was what was wrong. I was turning from a stop sign and didn’t expect someone coming at speed against the direction of traffic that they were closest to and that I was looking out for.

If they had been going that speed on the sidewalk going the same direction as the car lane closest to them I would have noticed them. If they had come from the opposite direction at pedestrian speed I would have noticed them. It was the combination of both speed and direction that almost resulted in a collision. I hope that clarifies.

Sure, I recognize that what I’m saying is anecdotal, obviously, and I recognize the need for real studies, but it was still surprising that what they seem to be saying in the article (again, I didn’t read the paper in detail) doesn’t match what I’ve seen in my city. I can assure you that I see more of the other things I listed than cyclists running stop signs. But maybe you’re right and I notice stop sign running less because I do it myself (edit: when I’m cycling, not when I’m driving).

Sure, I realize that. Maybe I wasn’t clear or perhaps overly verbose in my previous post, but my point is that running stop signs and red lights is the mildest form of “illegal” (in most places but not all) and like you said, arguably could be said to improve cycling safety. I just thought it was a weird thing to focus on. There seemed to be no mention of either why running stop lights or stop signs can improve cycling safety, or the myriad other ways that cyclists frequently break the law and make things more dangerous for themselves. Maybe there was mention in the paper itself, I didn’t read it in detail, but the article didn’t mention it.

PS: I upvoted you, by the way. Not sure who downvoted you or why.

Let me start by saying that I fully believe in fuck cars and instead having bike lanes and public transportation everywhere.

I alternate between commuting to work by car and bicycle, and I tend to observe other cyclists when I’m driving. What I notice is that a lot of cyclists place themselves in extremely dangerous situations, considering that there are careless drivers on our roads. Running red lights and stop signs is the least of it (I haven’t had a need to run red lights, but run stop signs regularly). Most of what I have observed where I live (an urban area) is not cyclists breaking the law to protect themselves, but the opposite: sometimes breaking the law and sometimes obeying the law, both in a way that makes things more dangerous for themselves and for drivers.

Some examples I’ve seen (more frequently than running stop signs - I very rarely if ever have seen a bicyclist running a red light and would completely understand if they had to do it because of stoplight sensors not detecting them):

Breaking the law (sometimes a combination of several of these):

• Riding on the sidewalk (arguably improves their safety in some ways, and worsens it in others)
• Riding the wrong way, against traffic (worsens their safety)
• Riding the wrong way, against traffic, on the sidewalk (greatly worsens their safety - I almost ran into someone doing this once because I just did not expect someone coming from the wrong direction at high speed in a completely unexpected place when I was turning into a driveway/side street)
• Riding on crosswalks when pedestrian walking lights are on (worsens their safety)
• Riding wearing headphones (not sure if illegal - it is for drivers - but worsens their safety)
• Riding on busy streets not wearing a helmet (not sure if illegal, but worsens their safety)
• Riding on the street at night with no bike lights (worsens their safety)

Obeying the law:

• Riding in just about the busiest, fastest street possible, when there’s a much safer, parallel, designated “bicycle” street to ride a block away. While this is legal, it makes things more dangerous for themselves and for drivers when they have a perfectly reasonable alternative. I personally go out of my way (literally) to find the least busy streets for my commuting route.

So I guess I’m saying that I’m surprised by the results of this study. I only scanned the actual paper, but one thing that comes to mind is that perhaps some/many cyclists have a greater disconnect between what they think improves their safety vs. what would actually improve their safety?

I see, that makes sense. Thanks!

Technically, probably yes, but you can buy old, opened games on eBay. I doubt you can do the same with GOG games. Digital media is much harder if not impossible to resell.

How weird, I wonder if there’s something wrong with my GOG account? I don’t think I’ve received an email from them in years?

In the old days, a friend of mine would carry some paper(?) stickers(?) (labels?) that said something like “I park like an asshole” and superglue it to one of the windows of someone parked like this.

If you wanted to be nicer, you could get some proper pre-printed stickers (most online print/sticker shops should have them) and place them. Wouldn’t cause any damage but would maybe make them think about it a little bit.

I also saw a post recently where someone replaced all the tire valve caps with bright orange or pink little dick shaped caps. This would cause more inconvenience and embarrassment, but not be damaging or dangerous.