I am very lucky to live in a city/country where risks of theft from my person is low - even when I lived for 20 years in London I never once felt unsafe listening to music.

The closest was two young men got very close to me on the tube, when I was playing on my brand new Hong Kong imported PSP - but I just took my headphones off and held on to it all the tighter. I think they were just interested as most people hadn't seem one in the flesh yet.

I can't say I know of anyone personally who suffered theft or accident /caused/ by them listening to music on headphones.

When I cycled a lot, I had a small speaker strapped to my handlebars rather than wearing headphones, as I liked being able to hear cars around me - but when I was younger I regularly cycled in headphones, and was still able to hear enough of the road around me to not feel that I was missing anything.

Remember, we don't make drivers drive around with no music and their windows open, so that they are better able to hear cyclists...

curious, you got any citations for this claim?

As far as assailants, a skilled ninja wouldn't be detected even if their target weren't wearing headphones...

Must be terrifying.

It also has an integration with the phone which can add GPS awareness but it works fine without it in my experience.

Or by regulating bicycle food delivery services so thatheir employees' continued employment and wage magnitude doesn't hinge quite so thoroughly on how rapidly they deliver.

As much as I get the urge to plow through pedestrians on bike paths (and stay proudly in the way of bikes on pedestrian paths), in real life, normal people don't do that kind of thing. Bikes have brakes for a reason.

Doesn't stop me from using an AirZound or digital airhorn. Saved me countless times. Like a bell is heard by a driver blasting their stereo while checking their phone, slowly veering into the cycle lane.

I imagine there's also a rule about directing airhorns against law abiding cyclists.

Headphones on folks while they're out walking is ridiculous and antisocial and if they get hit because they didn't hear a bell then they had it coming. I always have a single earbud so I don't lost my situational awareness entirely, but even that can still wash out the rest of the world noise pretty well.

same with most of the Japanese car brands or even Citroen, Peugeot...

Even with bikes being off the sidewalk, there is need for a quick way of getting others pedestrians attention.

Being tired in a crowded street in rainy weather doesn't help either.

Well this is a bit of an appeal to consequences. I would say (a) this is a very good reason to build dedicated infra, and (b) if something ever does happen, a court is really not going to take this line of reasoning very well, so be careful with it... even if in practice it's how you consider it.

Here in the UK, there was an infamous case of Charlie Alliston who ended up getting a ridiculous 18 months prison sentence after colliding with a pedestrian who hit her head and subsequently died. He was riding a "fixie" without a front brake and was cycling at around 18mph through some green traffic lights. The pedestrian was crossing the road further on (i.e. not at a junction which is fairly normal) and wasn't paying enough attention, so Charlie shouted at her to get out of his way. He started to reduce speed (rear brake only), but then decided that he could just aim for the gap behind her, but she then reacted to his shouting by stepping backwards into his path.

The point is that the judge awarded such a tough sentence partly due to Charlie not taking all available actions to avoid a collision and also because his bike was illegal to use on the road due to having just one brake. So, if you rely on a bell to clear your path, you could be held liable if they don't respond and you collide.

The articles below discuss both volume and duration. It's also worth checking out the OSHA guidelines which pretty cleanly show the relationship between duration and volume. (ie, "safer" volumes still cause damage with enough duration.)

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-to-rock-out-with-ear-...

https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/2024/01/listen-headph...

https://www.cnet.com/health/wearing-headphones-right-now-fol...

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/noise/prevent/understand.html

I nearly put a passive aggressive "employees" in my post, but that would mix concerns. But having drivers as "contractors", and dodging employers' responsibilities and liabilities, is really the root of this all.

Red stone in Germany is cycling path, not general walk path where cyclists are not allowed.

Air horns are generally allowed upto 105 dB. Peper spray, telescopic batons and other similar devices are illegal. I also carry walking cane.

I’m guessing some law (law-abiding) gives you the right to bother people who are using their own feet instead of wheels because you want to pass them and they should have to actively watch out for you and yield to you? Okay, that part is fine. But I don’t see how it is nice or, I dunno, ethical.

In my experience (in my locale) as a cyclist you either give pedestrians a wide enough berth, dismount so that you can pass them if it is crowded and there is no passage, or use the vehicular road.

I remember violating this one time when I belled someone that I wanted to pass on the sidewalk. But I was a child at the time. Even more self-centered than I am now.

These seeming rules for yielding to cyclists are worse than the laws and norms when cars interact with bicycles, by the way. At least where I am: cars never honk cyclists. They have to wait for them or find a window to pass them safely. They can’t honk them into the ditch or something.

Being able to get the attention of runners improves the situation, reducing the speed while circulating on a mixed path solves it completely. If you wanna go fast get on a bike lane or the road.

Legally, use of horns in traffic is restricted, and abuse can be punished. Doesn’t keep people from honking all the time.

In my (Dutch) city, there is this infuriating piece of road where the bicycle path suddenly gets routed onto the kerb, intentionally mixing bikes and pedestrians. I believe the theory is that bikes will go slower so pedestrians don't need to worry about crossing the road as much or something.

Predictably, lots bikes are taken by surprise, either brake hard and suddenly or fly through pedestrians (who the biker thinks are in their bike lane, because they would be two meters earlier).

In my experience, when bikes and pedestrians meet, one of the two groups is in the wrong place and should be watching out/slowing down and waiting.

The example video shows various instances of pedestrians walking in bike lanes (and seemingly being surprised at the sudden appearance of a bike there). You can't fix stupid, but at least you can tell them to get off the bike path.

Personally, I see no use for this bell since in Austria bicycles share the road space with cars, trucks and trams rather than pedestrians, which could be more dangerous, and what I would need is a bicycle bell that could penetrate car enclosures so that drivers would get off their phones and pay attention to the stuff around them.

Yes, I know, ideally there should be dedicated cycle lanes only for bicycles but nothing in life is ever ideal, and the city isn't gonna do that anytime soon since that would mean completely eliminating car traffic on the narrow streets, witch would be political suicide, so a bell would be an instant life saver.

One large fine, and people will learn.

Saying this it's mostly teenagers in the idiot role from what I've seen and they are reckless by default.

People can shout "domestic terror" all they like, but if it's not true, it's not true.

Also "don't let the restaurants cover the pavement with tables" follows the same logic.

Perhaps, planners should travel the route three times for every permitted mode of transportation, including walking, biking, and driving.

What would you suggest cyclists do until that happens? Never go faster than walking speed? Then I can leave my bike at home. Cycle on the road, where cars can hit me, instead of the dedicated bike lane, use of which is often mandatory?

> a court is really not going to take this line of reasoning very well

A court will rule in favor of the pedestrian stepping onto a bike lane without looking getting hit by a bike that's too close to do anything?

My bell just gives me the significant improvement of possibly getting a reaction from the pedestrian long before I need to start braking.

However, not everybody does cycle like that. And while legally and ethically dubious, the bell still helps in that case as well.

Left side is for bicycles. Right side for pedestrians. It is a dedicated lane but a shared space.

Huh? Germany has signs on same shared pavements that tell you that by law your bike needs to be on there, not on the road.

Are you suggesting people break the law over your preferences?

No. There are just people who will walk on a designated bicycle lane because they haven't seen the signage, are ignorant or careless about it, or will just cross it to get somewhere else. All while wearing ANC headphones. This isn't about bothering someone, but warning them. It's really no different from someone jaywalking without seeing you, and honking to make them aware of that. Or are you supposing you'd just break and wait until they're finished crossing the street?

I have a pair of Hunt wheels and they work fantastically, bonus points because they are “always on”, pedestrians are aware of them, but are never surprised.

Note that the worst kind of canal towpath cyclist is the one who slows to a crawl and creeps behind me for minutes sometimes unnoticed, biding their time for a passing spot with lots of space. Just ring the frigging bell and I will stand out of your way for the 3 seconds it takes you to get by!

Of course, ringing my bell will often cause people to veer into the way, too. But then if you ring at a sufficient distance, you risk them not hearing it. Except there's no way to tell if they're not hearing it, or just consciously not veering into the way, and in the latter case, you don't want to ring again, because that will sound even more impatient.

Etiquette is hard.

(And yes, I want cars to have a bicycle bell too, so they can greet people without jump-scaring me.)

Also in Sweden, you do only use the bell if really needed.

I ring a very nice bell and can "mute" the bell (touching it with my hand to stop the ring just after thumbing the striker), so when ringing for information rather than hazard, it's a short quick ring, rather than a long loud ring.

Signs here alert cyclists to warn when passing, so certainly this etiquette is considered normal, but also I imagine it is not universal to all regions.

In other countries rings now seem either unnecessary (they have enough space) or rude (I'm not on bike lane, why do you demand me to give you a way).

I regularly cycle on a very narrow shared use pavement which is directly beside a 40mph road. There is space to pass pedestrians, but I would consider it dangerous to try and pass without ensuring they are aware of my presence, even when passing at a walking pace.

A chime of the bell is more of a polite "I'm here" instead of a "Get out of my way!"

Tho I like the proposal to require that manufacturers design car horns to sound as loudly inside the cabin as outside. Might make a dent.

This could serve as the blueprint I guess, skip to the part about the 70s and 80s protests. Collective and popular protests helped by an oil crisis, recognizing vested interests in other modes of transportation (cars) that might want to work against your efforts.

Paths where pedestrians and bikers (and other light transportation vehicles) are mixed are overwhelmingly common.

That is an unfortunate, probably experimental?, traffic design choice...

The OP seemed to suggest that people wearing ANC headgear should stop doing so, but both the bell and the ANC-wearing pedestrians are a non-issue in my lived experience.

It would be a shame if these "cyclist-pedestrian ANC-wars" distract from the real issue, that cyclists are not, but should be, a fully emancipated participant in traffic and infrastructure should be designed with cars (to a degree), bicyclists AND pedestrians in mind.

Safe or not - it is up to individual to decide if it is worth the risk.

I used to live in a city where I would walk everywhere but I had the constant fear of cyclists running over me because they would drive all over the pavements without any regard for pedestrians. Imagine walking and having to look around all the time. I find it amusing how people in websites like this one talk about how we have to be very afraid of cars when the true terror, at least for me, were cyclists.

Jaywalking is even a misdemeanor in some areas of the USA, it doesn't stop it from happening at all.

Of course this requires compensating for the loss in awareness through hearing by looking more diligently before crossing a bike lane, but unfortunately, some people never learn this, or only through a few close calls.

"Annoyingly" ringing a bell and converting a potential accident into a close call seems pretty close to optimal to me.

Other things like loudness levels inside cars cannot be monitored without going in full totalitarian mode.

I don't know where you live but it's quite unusual here to be cycling through areas that have a lot of pedestrians. If the bike lane is a dedicated one, pedestrians are very rarely in it. But yes if all else fails, the road is preferable to the pavement if you're unwilling to cycle slowly enough.

> how do you prevent pedestrians from crossing said dedicated infrastructure without looking?

That's a UX problem. You can also ask how to prevent cars driving on the cycle lane. Which we do in a multitude of ways. You just need to physically communicate segregation and danger.

> A court will rule in favor of the pedestrian stepping onto a bike lane without looking getting hit by a bike that's too close to do anything?

Here, absolutely, if they consider the cyclist is going too fast for the conditions. There's a concept of a hierarchy whereby the more vulnerable class is almost assumed not to be at fault. Same for a car hitting a cyclist, or a motorbike, even.

Sorry. Apparently I didn’t read your comment carefully enough.

When I put even an ounce of effort into my cycle I become a sweaty mess which can be a little antisocial depending on the situation

Sounds neither simple nor technical.

As somebody living in a city that's quite bike friendly, all things concerned, but still not close to Dutch or Danish levels of biking safety, I'll take any "technical solutions that try to solve social/political problems" I can get to make my commute safer.

Also, anything that makes biking feel safer will make more people try commuting by bike, which in turn increases the political will to change traffic laws and space use. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

Your argument was not a solution. You just said, "NL fixd this, why haven't other countries?" which doesn't add any value.

Have you considered that other cities/countries can't just add infrastructure that hasn't been designed from the start to accommodate bikes the same way NL has without taking space away from pedestrians or cars as the roads have stayed as narrow as back in the 1800s?

And that fixing it is not a switch you can just turn on on a whim, but requires decades of political and societal change around repurposing infrastructure, plus capital, before consensus is achieved? Democracies are complicated, even moreson in times like these.

What do you do until then, when a bell is an instant improvement?

You're commenting off the sidelines without realizing why most countries can't flip a switch and become NL overnight.

>It would be a shame if these "cyclist-pedestrian ANC-wars" distract from the real issue, that cyclists are not, but should be, a fully emancipated participant in traffic and infrastructure should be designed with cars (to a degree), bicyclists AND pedestrians in mind.

Yeah but what do you do if they are? There's no ANC wars here, Skoda just made a better bell. Are you also against the development of better bicycle helmets, because where you live you don't need them? Like yes sure, infrastructure is the real solution, but what do you do until that arrives?

I used to commute to work by bike in ~1M city in Europe, mostly on dedicated bike lanes, but some shared, and had just the smallest, barely audible bell, only because it was required by law. I don't remember using it much at all. I don't know what the problem is. Maybe the Londoners should take a good look at themselves.

They are though(at least here in the UK) - a guy was convinced of manslaughter for hitting a pedestrian on a bike just last month. In general the rule is that the person in charge of a bigger/heavier vehicle is the responsible party in almost all collisions.

And that's before the battery fires.

> People should not hear loud music when driving - max is normal speaking voice level.

which feels like a more than acceptable constraint to me.

Pedestrians step onto the dedicated bike lane I use to commute on average at least once per way for me.

> But yes if all else fails, the road is preferable to the pavement if you're unwilling to cycle slowly enough.

Of course I'm taking the road if there's no dedicated bike lane. Cycling faster than walking speed on the sidewalk seems reckless to me.

> That's a UX problem. You can also ask how to prevent cars driving on the cycle lane. Which we do in a multitude of ways. You just need to physically communicate segregation.

Yes, but I can only use the bike lane that already exists. Of course I prefer the ones with better UX.

> There's a concept of a hierarchy whereby the more vulnerable class is almost assumed not to be at fault.

Not where I live. You are allowed to e.g. trust adult pedestrians without any visible signs of impairment to not randomly step into the road. Otherwise, driving cars next to sidewalks or crossing intersections would only be possible at walking speed as well.

Of course, if you already see somebody approaching the road, somebody walking unsteadily, visibly intoxicated etc. you are obliged to still brake preemptively. The question here is whether visible noise-cancelling headphones would be considered a similar visible impairment, I suppose.

Personally, I just always assume I haven't been noticed, because ultimately I don't want to run somebody over even if I would be legally in the clear. That's a different story, though.

I had to mount an airhorn onto my bike. At least people listen to that, though it's so loud I only use it in emergencies.

I would also argue that a reasonably broad way for pedestrians and bicyclists can be shared without any issue, if both parties pay some modicum of attention to their surroundings and treat each other with mutual respect: Pedestrians by keeping to the right side of the path, and cyclists by slowing down when overtaking and ringing the bell to let people know they are approaching.