At the tram stop just now, right next to some of the best bicycle infrastructure you'll ever see, an American tourist came to me to ask me if the Dutch government was doing anything about "this terrible bicycle problem" we have in the Netherlands. 🙃
He was really concerned to see so many bicycles everywhere. To his American brain, bicyclists were a terrible thing. He said he almost got hit by a bicyclist multiple times today. (Presumably by walking in the middle of the bicycle road. I don't know how else you manage to do that.) 🙃
If you want to exprience our "terrible bicycle problem" yourself, here's a video I recorded a few years ago of me biking through the area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZUHHBbz_kQ
(Said tram stop is roughly at the start of the video.)
@Mara lol. Did you ask him if they were doing anything about the gun problem in America?
@Mara I wish Germany was this terrible.
@Mara lovely, I wish the city where I live had this much bike infrastructure. There are some very nice scenic bike routes outside of town, but inside it's mostly narrow lanes painted on pre-existing sidewalks and roads and most of the drivers take them as suggestions at best or outright ignore them.
I've read some anecdotal evidence that having streamers on your bicycle handlebars has the effect of making cars give you your space in bicycle lanes.
I'd love it if someone did a study on that.
@Mara That is truly amazing. I'm so embarrassed to be American too much of the time 🤦♀️
Also, that American has clearly never been in NYC. I often wonder how other cities do it, but most are not as dense as Manhattan. There are so many types, regular people with bikes, tourists on city bikes, food delivery people on electric bikes, box and parcel delivery people also on electric bikes, and regular scooters and electric scooters going in all directions. Your ride was serene 😊
@Mara Do you have an electric bike or are you just really fast?
@Mara you have bike ROADS? I want that! (US - Texas - suburb. We have sidewalks and riding trails that are not meant to get you around the city, just for recreation)
Oct 4, 2026, 4:24 PM@Mara One problem might be that in much of the world this sign means "pedestrians please walk here".
@cford We don't have those signs anywhere here. We have these:
Oct 4, 2026, 4:27 PM@Mara Ah. No ambiguity there.
Oct 4, 2026, 4:24 PM@Mara at least 2 ways:
* The bicyclist cycling on the footpath. I was once injured by one crashing into me from behind. He was going as fast as bikes could go. There was a bike lane but for some reason he wasn't using it.
* By not stopping on a red traffic light (or just not following the general traffic rules). My 4 year old came very close to being hit by a fast bike a few weeks ago, when we both were about to step on the street after the traffic light turned green for us (which meant they were definitely red for the bicyclist for a good 5s before that).
Oct 4, 2026, 4:35 PMOct 4, 2026, 4:38 PM@zeenix @Mara Tourists that are unfamiliar with the concept of three separated paved spaces (cars, bikes, pedestrians) sometimes incorrectly assume that the bike lanes are pedestrian lanes, ignore the signage, and essentially wander into (bicycle) traffic and then get angry. This is the North America equivalent of walking out into the middle of a busy highway and getting mad at the cars.
@Mara Someone here (California, US) was arguing against bicycle infrastructure because it took space from cars, and did not remove any cars from the road. The basic argument was “How dare you spend ‘my’ tax dollars on something that does not directly benefit ‘me’”. The selfishness is stunning.
@gordotango The costs of all of our tax-paid bicycle infrastructure are actually offset multiple times over by the benefits of having a healthy population due to biking being so popular. Effectively, the costs of our bicycle infrastructure is negative. ✨
@Mara Yes. And I actually responded to him that I use my bicycle around town more when it is safer. I replace about 10 trips a week with my bicycle, and rarely use a car around town. We also have horrific pedestrian infrastructure.
@Mara I have heard a couple people here (US) get worked up about bicyclists being in their way when they're driving. I don't understand it. If we could replace a third of the people on the road with bicyclists, wouldn't driving be better? People here seem so mentally captured by certain ideas, like they fully internalize the propaganda: bicycles are a menace on the road, and it's not a meal if it doesn't have meat.
@sillyCoelophysis Almost everywhere in this area, the bicycle roads are fully separate from the car roads.
it's because Americans are just mental. They seriously have issues understanding anything they don't want to understand. Fucking morons.
Oct 4, 2026, 4:27 PM@Mara "cultural differences"... x)
... I in turn was not too delighted to hardly ever find a sidewalk in Cali. 🙃
@Mara
Don't leave us hanging, what did you tell him? 😆
@notsoloud I told him that only happens to American tourists.
He also started complaining about all the bicyclists that "go over the speed limit". (What speed limit??) He seemed quite upset when I told him there are no speed limits for bicycles.
Good grief, we're a stupid country. I get so tired having to apologize for it. :picardfacepalm:
That's funny!
Looking at the inner city of Amsterdam I can imagine it. The teeming tourists who don't know where to walk generate cyclists who just want to go places, so they don't slow down. To an American tourist the whole country IS the inner city of Amsterdam, rather than the exception.
I was there for my first time a couple years ago and it was abundantly clear to this USian what were the bike lanes, the pedestrian, and the car lanes - and where to cross each of them! Despite being in all sorts of busy areas we didn't have issues not getting hit, even when crossing at the wrong spots when it was clear!
It did require actually looking at the signs and the other people, but that shouldn't be any sort of stretch if you're in a foreign country.
Grrr USians 😑
@deirdrebeth @Mara Yeah, I'm not making a BIG excuse for this USian!
@Mara As an American who just got back from visiting the Netherlands for the first time, it should be illegal to visit a country without knowing literally the first thing people would tell you about getting along there.
It’s not even that crazy to infer from first principles that since bikes have their own lanes, you treat them like you would crossing a car lane without a crosswalk.
Also every walking guide we had literally mentioned it first thing.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
American tourist are the worst, almost as bad as English tourists
@Mara How funny. What did you tell him?
I live in the US. I have two friends that lost their husbands after them being hit by a car going for a bike ride after work. That I could know two people that happened to makes it clear the US has a real bike problem.
Unfortunately a lot of the animosity to cyclists here is from the right wing. They don't hate bicycles in themselves but the "type" of people who ride them in their mind. Intellectual elites who eat kale and think they are holier than thou. Damn communists thinking the road should be shared.
Oct 4, 2026, 8:26 PM@Mara I believe some people who are not used to there being bikes around have a mental model where a cyclist rolling, no matter how slowly, triggers the same internal reaction as a car doing the same thing. Someone going around them on a bike at a low speed startles them and it feels like they might be about to be run over. Nevermind that the speeds, visibility and maneuverability involved are very different.
Oct 4, 2026, 11:30 PMyeah sure, an uhmerican walking... and dancing with a unicorn and Dodo I presume.
@Mara Where "almost" in this context is just another way to spell "didn't".
And yet miraculously somehow he was still totally fine, almost as if it's not actually a problem at all...
@Mara I've seen it and it's an epidemic. It's too late to save the Dutch, but fortunately we Americans seem to be immune. 😜
Nevermind: it's just "this terrible education problem" that the US government is doing nothing about.
As a bicycling German: the Netherlands are doing this just fine.
BTW: thanks again for wg21.🔗
@Mara :masto_love: :masto_lol: :masto_love:
@Mara Have you asked him about that terrible truck problem the US have?
@mrotteveel @erk Cycling is allowed there.
@Mara
Did the tourist speak really loudly so that you could understand what they were saying, Mara?
@Mara
Another person who shouldn't be allowed to travel.
Oct 4, 2026, 5:49 PM@Mara Expect the unexpected... Well, maybe not really unexpected
@Mara Ghehe the VVD has been trying for decades 😝
@Mara Do I dare say “not all American tourists”? Because when I visited the Netherlands I felt only envy at the place bicycles hold in Dutch society.
Oct 4, 2026, 6:35 PM@Mara I imagine this individual would also look at a pedestrian plaza and ask why there's no parking...
@Mara :-D
@Mara car brain stronk
@Mara I can honestly understand why though. Here in the US most places have been made with the assumption of cars and maybe a small concession to pedestrians. Bikes here are a 'problem' to people. I bike to work often someplaces I have to go to the sidewalk (not allowed) as I have almost been hit multiple times in some intersections. People cannot see that the cars or the infrastructure are the issues, because that is what they use. It must be the bike that inconveniences them.
@Mara please don't think all us Americans are this dumb and out of touch. Be safe out there!
Sorry for that... 😆
We can't keep track of them all anymore...
Oct 4, 2026, 7:52 PM@Mara did you ask the American what the US Government was doing about their TERRIBLE PRESIDENT PROBLEM?
These people from the Dutch Cycling Embassy might know the answer:
@Mara people who haven’t lived in the Netherlands don’t understand the Dutch have a complete network of long distance bike highways independent from the car ones, and Dutch people think nothing of a 40km ride like I would a 5 minute walk.
@Mara It's you, buddy. You are the problem.
@Mara I'm assuming that the correct response to this is, "Do you think there aren't enough?"