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Comment by chdir | Hacker News Reader

> Yes they are speed limited, however they are significantly cheaper.

I see that as an advantage. Where I live, college kids flying around on their scooters/motorcycles in residential areas are dangerous. Electric ones are so silent, you won't even know what hit you.

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I find that with well-maintained bicycles as well. Lots of people take pride in making sure nothing on their bike makes any noise at all (a topic that comes up often on the biking subreddit), and then they ride at 25mph down a bike path shared by people walking or biking significantly slower.

I'd almost rather be hit by a modern car than by a bicycle. At least the car is designed to crumple and protect the pedestrian, bikes aren't designed to protect anyone, yet they go just as fast as other city traffic.

Have you actually seen anyone getting hit by a modern car? They definitely do not protect a pedestrian.

Hence the use of the word "almost".

Uh, cars are designed to crumple and protect the car's occupants. They do this best when hitting a solid object, not a pedestrian. You'd be mowed down and likely killed or left with a traumatic brain injury.

Modern cars certainly are designed to protect pedestrians. That was part of the movement away from steel bumpers towards plastic bumpers with foam inside. I used to drive a 1998 Toyota 4Runner, and you could tell it apart from the 1999 4Runner because the '99 had what people call a 'fat lip bumper'. The bumper was enlarged to help protect pedestrians.

Here's an article from 2007 about designing cars to protect pedestrians: http://www.edmunds.com/car-safety/protecting-pedestrians-thr...

Volvo has pedestrian airbags in their newer cars, the car will detect collision with a person and pop the hood up on a cushion to keep the pedestrian safe: http://www.autoevolution.com/news/how-pedestrian-airbags-wor...

Been hit by both going at ~ 25mph. Bike every time. F • t = m • ∆v

You are far from the reality. Anyone who's been hit by a car and a bike would agree.

Does no one actually see the word "almost" in there? Or are people just not understanding what the word "almost" means? It means "I'm using this unrealistic comparison to make a point." And that point is that bikes have no safety features, yet are pitted head to head against both motor traffic and pedestrians.

Would I get this many missing-the-point replies if I said "I would almost rather die than have my hand cut off"? Would I get a bunch of people saying "you've obviously never died, I've died plenty of times and anyone would rather have their hand cut off" or start quoting physics to me about how much inertia death has versus your hand?

Because I'm pretty sure I wrote the word "almost" in my comment, and I'm also pretty sure I didn't edit it in. Seriously, I'm about 95% certain that the word "almost" was included in my original comment when I hit "reply" for the first time. So literally anyone who read the comment would have had the chance to see that I used the word "almost".

Or are people just not understanding what the word "almost" means? It means "I'm using this unrealistic comparison to make a point."

It doesn't generally mean that though, in what I would think to be the popularly understood context of what you were saying, you were claiming they were very close, not that it was an unrealistic comparison of things far apart from one another.

If you said "I would almost rather die than have my hand cut off", and seemed completely sincere about it, most people would think you were an idiot.

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