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Why Nobody Rides a Bicycle in the USA (Vehicular Cycling)

Not Just Bikes

1,181,519 views

Made by humans for humans. No generative AI or AI voices were used in the making of this video. All quotes were read by humans.

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References & Further Reading

Effective Cycling, John Forester, ISBN 978-0262516945
Bicycle Transportation, John Forester, ISBN 978-0262560795

‘Bike Boom’: Lessons from the ’70s cycling craze that swept the U.S
https://archive.curbed.com/2017/6/28/...
https://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/20...

America Could Have Been Building Protected Bike Lanes for the Last 40 Years
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/06/3...

Vehicular Cycling - How Cyclists—Not Just Cars—Blocked Safer Bike Infrastructure
https://thehappyurbanist.substack.com...

Bikeway Planning Criteria and Guidelines
https://web.archive.org/web/200802160...

1976: BIG JIM's Big BOOZY Bike Trip to Braemar - BBC Archive
1976: BIG JIM's Big BOOZY Bike Trip to Bra...

2007.05.17 John Forester - Google Tech Talks
2007.05.17_EXT_TT_JohnForester_BicycleTran...

USA 1977: Chevrolet Impala/Caprice takes the lead
https://bestsellingcarsblog.com/1978/...

The Marginalization of Bicyclists
https://iamtraffic.org/equality/the-m...

Ontario Highway Traffic Act
https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/9...

Road safety and perceived risk of cycle facilities in Copenhagen
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
https://bikefriendlyoc.org/2009/07/08...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-rea...
https://www.thetrace.org/2024/04/road...
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/road-rag...

Bicycle Today - Automobile Tomorrow
https://archive.org/details/BicycleToday

The Racing Cyclist
https://archive.org/details/TheRacing...

Oslo Street Design Manual - English translation
https://www.cyclescape.org/library/do...

Map of buildings in the Netherlands by year of construction
https://code.waag.org/buildings/

Velo-city 2025 in Gdańsk | Bicycle Dutch
Velo-city 2025 in Gdańsk | Global Cycling ...

Comments by John Forester under a Bicycle Dutch blog in 2016:
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/20...

The footage in this video was filmed on location by Not Just Bikes, with some images licensed from Getty Images and other sources.

Script by Nicole Conlan and Jason Slaughter

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Chapters

0:00 Intro
3:54 California tried to marginalise cycling
6:25 The birth of Vehicular Cycling
9:38 The MAMIL's Manifesto
20:15 Just ride like a car, bro!
28:05 Bicycle lanes are ... unsafe?
46:09 The second book is even worse?!
58:16 The actual problems with bike lanes
1:06:14 But what about the Netherlands?
1:13:30 Forester at Google
1:21:18 The Cult of the Vehicular Cyclist
1:26:16 Bicycles are not cars!?
1:31:29 Concluding thoughts
1:32:28 Acknowledgements & Nebula

Corrections
1:18:49 It makes no material change to this video, but apparently John Forester was invited to a bicycle safety conference in the Netherlands in 2013. He was openly ridiculed by the experts there.

20 Comments

@NotJustBikes Creator 10 months ago (edited) Pinned

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@DasUberAdmin 10 months ago

As a Dutchie I have to agree with Forester. I have been killed a total amount of 437 times when using a bikelane. This includes the 5 times I was killed by a bikelane while traveling by train to work. It also includes 12 times when a bikelane came up to me and shot me.

@violent_rose 10 months ago

This is like if an f1 driver said that f1 driving is the only way to drive properly

@alexterrieur3159 10 months ago

"If someone tries to hurt you, don’t let it happen" yeah thanks for the advice my guy

@YakubFloyd 10 months ago

My man wrote a 800 page book on how to be a douche.

@undercoverduck 10 months ago

Me starting this video: "Hhm, I think he's being a bit harsh on this one guy."
Me 17 minutes into the video: "Actually he may have been too lenient."

@phoenix3992 10 months ago

"Never forget, it's hard to justify building a bridge by the number of people swimming across a river." ~Brent Toderian
Such a good quote.

@tschichpich 10 months ago

fun that he forgot in all his hate for childish cycling that children should be able to cycle and survive

@RaccKing21 10 months ago

I am slowly developing a theory that all hobbies and interests are slowly being corrupted and destroyed by min-maxxers obsessed with peak efficiency.

This is only helping my case.

@ludwigroseliusable 10 months ago

I advocate that pedestrians, too, should "take the lane", and just run really fast. This is safer than protected "walkways", this is because we can now do away with the most dangerous part of pedestrian infrastructure, the crosswalk.

@eyrilonakestrysswyn3513 10 months ago

"The utility bicycle is an inferior bicycle used by children. It's amateurish design is so offensive to me, the professional cyclist, that I shall make it my life's work to see as many children trying to get to school or around their neighborhood using these things, get killed in traffic." -- probably Forrester.

@merdufer 10 months ago

What I'm getting is a middle aged American engineer loved LARPing Tour de France cyclist and attracted a cult following, ruining bike as a practical mode of transportation for generations.

@_denzy_6310 9 months ago

The dutch engineer saying they designed bike lanes using "common sense" is comedy gold. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a car and a bike on the same road probably won't end well

@chairmanmeow9110 10 months ago

Making an 1.5 hour long video out of pure spite because someone commented "you didn't read the source material" and you said "okay bet" is the level of commitment that will keep me watching all 1.5 hours

@ninjaconsultantsixshot 10 months ago

The more I watch the video the more I question whether Forester was secretly in the pocket of some anti biking lobby.

@samc12345 10 months ago

This is a CGP Grey level of "dead guy ruined my life" obsessive rage and I love it 😂

@Natt_Quinni 10 months ago (edited)

Speaking as a professional cyclist, vehicular cycling is absolute the worst way to ride, and I can ride as fast as forester thought cyclists should go (when I'm going downhill or have a tailwind, as those speeds are race pace in a group of over 60 riders in any other situation). I have long lamented American cycling infrastructure, and it makes me so mad that it can be traced back to one guy. A friend of mine, one of the most promising young talents in professional cycling in America, was killed while training two years ago. He was not inexperienced. He was a young professional, and he was murdered by an inebriated driver on a road with a huge shoulder. A separated bike lane would have saved him. Forester claiming that vehicular cycling is the way to cycle, and then advocating so hard for it, makes me have to decide to put my life on the line every time I go on the road to train for my job. When Magnus made that decision two years ago, he died. I've been lucky enough not to yet, but every person I train with shares the opinion that it's only a matter of time before one of us is hit by a car. It is amazing when I get to train in countries like the Netherlands or Belgium - it's absolutely safer for the sport cyclist to train in separated bike paths. #rideformagnus #thewhiteline

@SeasonedSalad 10 months ago

As a cyclist, I've never hated another cyclist more than Forester.

@MehdiTirguit 10 months ago

Forester was terrified that bike lanes would lead to cyclists being banished from the sacred car roads. So he bravely took a stand — dedicating his life to making cycling more dangerous for everyone. A true visionary.

@marlene56-143 10 months ago (edited)

My daughter was hit-and-run while riding her bicycle, in a group, in the wee hours of the morning, New Year's Day about 15 years ago in Austin, TX. The driver was trying to overtake them and pass them on the left, unsuccessfully, so. She got a terrible case of road rash that became infected, lead to infection in her knee joint and a weeks hospitalization. The police did minimally required investigation. It did chill the amount of utility and sport riding she did in Austin after that.