This is America
Don’t catch you slippin’ now
Seriously, don’t slip. It will both literally and metaphorically cost you an arm and a leg in the states.
Ambulance in my area
Bikes: a transportation vehicle with health benefits. Ambulance: a transportation vehicle for the unwell.
Bikes are the natural enemy of the ambulance. A war between the bike clan and the ambulance clan is on the horizon.
Solution: Ambulance bikes.
(A show like Top Gear but for bicycles could be pretty awesome.)
It exists
It does not transport people but it is great for places with a lot of traffic to have a first responder on site quickly before an actual ambulance arrives.
This seems great for large parks and pedestrianized areas. This bike can probably get to a patient a lot faster than an ambulance trying to fit down a walking path. They can start assesing and treating as other vehicles arrive.
We got those here in NL, although they don’t transport patients afaik.
It would collapse on itself due to paradox
Nah, I could see it being pretty great. Reviews of new high performance bikes of all kinds, interesting challenges, builds. For instance, build and test something that will force cars to give you the legally required clearance.
Heck, they could even do a Vietnam trip and go down the Ho Chi Minh trail, which is a famous example of the bicycle’s utility.
Like brothers and sisters
The Ankh-Morpork Ambulance Guild strikes again.
Sounds like it’s time for Vetinari to have a word with them.
A hypercompetent autocract whose only concern was the perfect management of his city was the only unrealistic thing about Discworld.
It has to do with morphic wossname. On the Disc only one person gets to play City Skylines, but he gets to do it with infinite detail.
I mean kinda, but he used his authority very sparingly.
GDP📈
How the fuck is this “fuck cars” content? I hate cars as much as everyone here, but I don’t think we can replace ambulances with bikes
You, kind sir, deserve a reward.
Bravo!
The point of an ambulance is to get to the hospital as fast as possible, while have other people keeping the person stable. They also need to not leave the person exposed to all the various debris that is thrown up by fast moving vehicles. This is an awful idea.
It is “fuck cars” content because 1. the lack of proper bike infrastructure is what led to the crash, and 2. making road victims have to hire lawyers just to get their medical bills paid.
Maybe playing devil’s advocate here, but if it was the ambulance’s fault then the ambulance company’s insurance should be paying for all of the medical bills, including the ambulance ride. And the bill for the ambulance ride pays the EMS workers salaries and the vehicle maintenance.
The amount of profiteering in the medical industry is obscene, but I’m not sure this is an example of it…
I’m not a lawyer, but it strikes me that this could be exactly what is happening. The ambulance company’s insurance wouldn’t pay the hospital directly, they aren’t health insurance. So instead, the cyclist’s health insurance footed the initial bill. Then they went after the cyclist for his deductible/copay/whatnot. Now he has to get the money from the ambulance company. If this was vehicle on vehicle violence, he would have gone to his auto insurance, who would have in turn went after the ambulance company’s insurance, but he might not have auto insurance or auto insurance might not be willing to get involved because he wasn’t driving. So he has to go direct to the company. Wouldn’t be shocking if the company pushed off any non-legal petitions from him because he doesn’t have the name weight of an insurance company with lawyers on retainer, so now he is seeking a legal remedy. Insurance doesn’t just work always, there is often a degree of negotiating and litigation involved in these exchanges, especially if one party disagrees with another on matters of liability
It’s called a ‘for profit business’, look it up, people!
they couldve gotten way more than $1,800 if they hit a few more cyclists on the way. theres plenty of room in the back of an ambulance
Meanwhile in Russia(and pretty much rest of Europe): citizems get full healthcare and even foreigners get some of it. For free.
This is what happens if any foreigner for example breaks bone in Russia:
- Emergency, including emergency specialized, medical care is provided to foreign citizens in case of sickness, accident, trauma, poisining and other cases requireing emergency treatment. Such medical treatment provided by state and municipal healthcare organizations is free of charge.
Oh lol, America is now officially worse than Russia. Well that didn’t take long.
America is a third world country with a Gucci belt.
Sue them for 1 million. Profit.
Trumps america, not 1,800 3,000! It would be communism otherwise!
He was on a bike… it wasn’t worth abandoning the car
Look at the picture in the article and read the story. The biker was trying to ride past the ambulance near the curb as the ambulance was turning.
The biker felt entitled to do whatever he wanted instead of waiting his turn and got himself ran over.
It’s called a right-hook. Cars pass bicycles, then turn right immediately in front of them, causing the cyclist to hit the car. Quite a few cyclists have been killed this way.
Car brain drivers then blame the cyclist.
To be fair, almost no drivers are taught to look in their right hand mirror for cyclists or pedestrians when turning right. Their focus is usually on the oncoming traffic lane. We need to address things like this and train drivers better rather than expect drivers to clue in themselves.
Yep. And even though I’m also a cyclist, I’ve almost made the same mistake while driving.
It’s really an issue of the traffic design. For example, we tend to slap bike lanes just to the right of traffic lanes and hope it all works out fine. And it is fine…until intersections where cars might be turning…
What? At least in Germany, this is literally the most important thing in tought in driver’s education to always look into the mirrors and over the shoulder to check for traffic (pedestrians cyclists, …) before setting the flashers and turning right (or left).
For the most part in north america, drivers are only really taught to look for other cars. The only exception is cross walks and even then people nearly run over old ladies as they cross. Even in front of the police they probably won’t even give you a warning if you nearly hit a pedestrian in an intersection. I’ve seen drivers honk at children crossing at a deignated crosswalk in a school zone.
Kinda sad something like that requires explicit training. I live in a city with a lot of cyclists. I don’t even have a car, just occasionally borrow my friend’s during the few times I actually need one. And even I check the mirrors for cyclists before turning. No one had to tell me to, it just makes logical sense if you give the slightest damn about the safety of anyone else on the road besides yourself.
People would gladly run over pedestrians if it was legal. Cars do something to our brains that make us more selfish
You mean the part of the article where it says the ambulance “turned into him”?
You’re making assumptions based on vague wording in the article and your preconceived notions of cyclist behavior. You don’t actually know what happened.
I’m making facts based on the picture.
You’re asserting your view based on an ambiguity. The picture and story could easily depict the ambulance overtaking and turning into the cyclist. You seem dead set on making this the cyclist’s fault when that assertion is just not supported by the facts given in the article.
Most of the people in here are dead set on assuming it’s not the biker. So what are the odds that the ambulance was just passing the biker and cutting him off at the turn? I’d call it less than 50/50.
But move past that and keep going. If the biker was just cut off right before getting to the intersection, then that also means the biker didn’t stop at the intersection.
That means that at best the biker was partially at fault.
That means that at best the biker was partially at fault.
I disagree. I think a likely scenario is that the cyclist was riding close to the right curb, and was being passed by the ambulance that then makes a sudden right turn, turning into the cyclist, as the article states. How would that be any fault of the cyclist?
You’ve driven me to this, you monster…
Here’s the intersection:
No stop sign. The cyclist did not have to stop. Why do you think it’s more likely that the cyclist was attempting to overtake the ambulance rather than the ambulance overtaking the cyclist?
It’s very unlikely that the ambulance would drive by and turn right in front of the bicyclist (which would still show that the bicyclist didn’t stop at the intersection) and the article didn’t state that at all.
The article doesn’t state much, but you’re willing to make a lot of assertions about the situation anyway. In your last comment you said there was no way the cyclist wasn’t at least partially at fault. I replied with a possible scenario where the cyclist was not at fault. The bicycle doesn’t have to stop at the intersection if there’s no stop sign. I don’t see one in the pictures in the article. If the ambulance didn’t see or otherwise ignored the cyclist, a right hand turn directly into the cyclist is a very real possibility. That happens far too often.
All I’m saying is that there is not enough information in the article to ascertain what actually happened, and yet you’re very eager to blame the cyclist. You have a clear bias, and your conclusion, while possible, is not the only one that can be drawn from the limited information in the article.
You’re right, this fucking cyclist had the audacity to be riding in the road, which is clearly designed for automobiles. Pedestrians and cyclists need to stay in their designated zones, it’s not a motorists responsibility to drive safely. /s
In the road isn’t a problem if you stay in the lane where you belong. The cyclist tried passing on the shoulder cause he didn’t want to obey the laws.
This is one of the most American things I’ve ever read.
If America the legal battle will cost the EMS a huge part of their budget.
Not even close. Notice the date it was posted.
That’s awesome! But as an outsider, the ambulance story still seems more “American” to me. There’s been a significant shift in how America is perceived here over the last 30 years.
I’m an outsider and I stand by the 4th of July vet shooting an eagle free story.
That made me swell with a sliver of American pride. Which is a pretty remarkable achievement this week.
150 shots with a .22 to hit the branch. I’m amazed he didn’t hit the fucking eagle.
150 shots to hit and cut the 4 inch (10 cm) of rope (I guess about 1/4 inch (6 mm) at least not more than 1/2 inch (1 cm) thick) between the eagle and the branch located 70 feet (20 m) above ground, so realistically 100 feet (30 m) distance with a rifle that is not his, i.e. without knowing the aiming point.
He didn’t hit the rope but the branch. If he was shooting for the rope he really would’ve shot the eagle.
Last Thursday, Jason Galvin used a .22-caliber rifle with a scope to fire 150 shots at the distant rope that was tangled around the eagle’s leg.
Yeah watch the video. It has a picture of the branch he shot down.
Ah ok. Interestingly, he shot the left part of the branch quite close to the eagle.
lacks guns and burgers but I’ll take it
The driver was distracted because he was eating a Big Mac while cleaning his pistol.
If only there had been a good ambulance with a gun.
Is this fuck cars or fuck the us?
Show of hands, who pays for ambulances regardless of why?
I will always opt for a Lyft or Uber, unless I am actively dying from something that could kill me in 30 minutes or less, like a massive severed artery or something like that.
They are just as fast, and if I start literally dying in the hospital waiting room, they will most likely pay attention.
The only way it makes sense to take an ambulance to a hospital is if you literally have no other option, or if you are so seriously injured you’ve already lost consciousness or are mostly paralyzed.
You can call an ambulance, paramedics arrive, stabilize you, and then refuse to get in the ambulance.
This costs you nothing.
Then you just bite on your wallet and take an Uber or Lyft, which costs 10 to 20 dollars.
Get in the ambulance? 1 to 3 thousand dollars, for a shitty version of the care you’ll recieve in the hospital anyway, can’t avoid those costs.
My intention is definitely “fuck cars.” The fucked-up thing here is that even ambulance drivers, who should know better more so than almost anybody, are incompetently right-hooking cyclists. Billing him for it is merely the icing on the shit-cake.
Ahhh okay, but you’re not trying to argue that paramedics should be on bicycles or taking public transit! That was the thing that puzzled me.
I think we could avoid a lot of the issues with pedestrians and cyclists getting hit by motor vehicles by getting rid of stroads and properly designing cities to separate streets and roads.
So your alternative would be that ambulances should no longer use cars? From my perspective all kind of emergency services such as fire department, law enforcement, ambulances should be the very last cars we get rid of as a society. They have to be fast and they need to transport a lot of stuff and people.
The rest of the world does without GIANT and dangerous emergency vehicles for one. They still put out fires and transport sick people. How american fire departments are getting people killed (video from “not just bikes”)
The rest of the world often also builds better infrastructure, like a protected bike lane, to signifcantly reduce the conflicts between cars and not cars.
Most countries that do that are also significantly smaller lol
The size of a country shouldn’t impact urban areas that much. Cyclists aren’t biking from california to florida on a daily basis, they are biking from their home to their job, gym, or groccery store. Your country is not too big for bike lanes, you’re city planners are just wastefull.
Oh I don’t disagree, just a fair point, it wouldnt make any sense in rural areas, which is 97% of the USA landmass lol
Which makes my point. Japan has 300+ people per square km, almost 10x as dense as the US. They still put out fires and carry sick people.
My point is it’s much easier to have localized support when there isn’t miles between buildings lol
A bike lane would’ve helped. If there wasn’t one, I can see a good reason for whatever the fuck really happened here.
If there had been a bike lane, he could/would have stayed there behind the stopping line acknowledging the right of the ambulance to go first, but without one…I can see someone in panic trying to get out of the way and then getting run over regardless of where he was positioned.
Youre ignoring the bike lanes are separate from the car lanes, which protects cyclists. But in the US the firedept doesn’t like that. Lanes need to be so wide and space so clear that the bikes have no space
I’m not sure I get what you’re saying, or what I’m missing.
I’m talking about the most basic kind of bike lane, which by all means is just a line on the tarmac. It does however ensure that the bike has a place to be, and that the bike will be visible to the cars, because the bike lane’s stopping line is further ahead than that of the cars. I also don’t know the exact situation from the article, but if the bike had been at the stopping line in this bike lane, it would never conflict with a right turning ambulance.
Fun fact, many if not most of those ambulances are made in Canada, and not the USA.
Fun fact: Where they are made doesn’t dictate what specs they should have.
Absolutely true, it was mostly just a response to the “rest of the world” part of the grandparent’s comment.
The rest of the world does without GIANT and dangerous emergency vehicles for one.
Could you show me those small and safe emergency vehicles that are used outside the USA? Because I’m outside the USA, I literally live near a firefighter station, and they’re all probably as big as US vehicles.
Literally the video i shared explains everything down to the metrics? Why are you sealioning on the specific post that has your answer?
And also because someone else discussed german firetrucks I know the sizes. German fire trucks are almost a full meter less wide than US ones. A german firetruck is only half a meter wider than a ford f450
The video is half an hour long and I really don’t feel like watching it all to find out something that could be said in one or two paragraphs of text, so I ignored it at first. As I expected, the video deals with a bunch of more or less relevant topics that you or OP didn’t mention at all. It actually is a bit interesting, I’ve watched a part of it, and I do have to admit that US fire trucks are bigger than those where I live. The problem is that their deadliness is a consequence of several other factors, and only indirectly of their size. What you and OP decided not to do is to communicate that point with any nuance, and all that I could read from your comments is that, by some logic, getting hit by a 10-metre truck is much safer than getting hit by a 15-metre truck. OP complained about the driver “right-hooking” the cyclist, you just said the trucks are too big, do I really have to watch a half an hour video to understand why your comments don’t sound nonsensical?
I appreciate you digging in and trying to get what I was saying. Bit of a nightmare here to keep up with which arguments ive made in the thread above the reply, as people ask the same things over and over.
I did say that firetrucks have a huge say in what kind of infrastructure can be built, and how big it’s allowed to be. Segregated bikes lanes for example are mostly forbidden by firedepts who can’t reach them with their massive trucks. There are no right hooks on segregated bike lanes.
I get your point though, apologies!
and they’re all probably as big as US vehicles.
Key word: “probably.” Which means you don’t actually know.
Chances are, you’re mistaken. But hey, post a pic and we’ll compare. I’m betting it’ll end up like this, though.
Any vehicle large enough to carry the necessary equipment and people for emergency services is going to be dangerous to pedestrians. Not sure what you’re trying to prove here.
In These Votes: People who failed elementary physics.
No, you’re missing the point. It’s not about the emergency vehicle itself hitting pedestrians. It’s about the fact that having a very large vehicle, such as a ladder firetruck, as the “design vehicle” for the street forces engineers to design in a larger intersection turning radius, which increases regular cars’ speed through the intersection. That is what decreases pedestrian safety.
See also: https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/design-controls/design-vehicle/
That’s a much better, clearer way of stating the point. Thank you.
Tell me youve never been in another country without telling me youve never been in another country.
Ambulances and firetrucks in Europe and Asia are smaller than most american pickup trucks.
I agree that the US have way too many way too big trucks but this…
Ambulances and firetrucks in Europe and Asia are smaller than most american pickup trucks.
… is just wrong. I live in Germany and even small villages with only volunteer firefighters have full blown trucks way above 10 tons.
Most fire departments have something like this:
MAN TGM 18.330 Tank with 4,000 litres of water 18 tons total weight
More specialized departments close to industrial facilities, airports can be also much bigger. This one is currently the biggest weighting 52 tons.
Most fire departments have something like this:
Okay, but look how short that is compared to the American equivalent:
More specialized departments close to industrial facilities, airports can be also much bigger. This one is currently the biggest weighting 52 tons.
Okay, but look how short that is compared to the American equivalent:
The longer the truck is, the larger the turning radius it needs at intersections. The larger the intersections are, the faster regular cars drive through them. The faster the cars drive, the less safe it is for everybody else.
Deciding how large a vehicle a street should accommodate is called choosing the design vehicle. You pick that, and then the whole street is designed around it.
Guess what: here in the US, we often send even trucks like the second one I pictured – the one that’s even longer than your “industrial facility and airport truck” – to residential neighborhoods. Fire departments want to own trucks like that and we just fuckin’ let them. And that’s why our neighborhood streets are too often designed like goddamned airport runways!
Edit: Oh, and by the way…
I agree that the US have way too many way too big trucks but this…
Ambulances and firetrucks in Europe and Asia are smaller than most american pickup trucks.
… is just wrong.
The MAN TGM 18.330 you cited has a wheelbase of 3,900/4,200/4,500 mm (source).
A Ford F-150 Super Crew with an 8’ bed and an F-250/F-350 Crew Cab with an 8’ bed, both of which are considered pretty typical American pickup trucks, have wheel bases of 163.7" (4158mm) and 176.0" (4470mm) respectively (source).
He’s playing a little fast and loose with the notion of “most,” but otherwise, no, he’s actually not wrong!
Here in 'Murrica, they send something like in the second photo when grandma falls in the bathroom.
Yes, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. The truck in the first photo is smaller than the trucks my city fire department has. There’s a retirement community not far from where I live, and they send a ladder truck for medical emergencies there several times a week. I’m not really sure what use 4,000 liters of water would be when somebody is having a stroke.
Weight doesn’t matter in this context? US firetrucks are almost a meter wider than german ones. A german firetruck is only about half a meter wider than a Ford F450.
And also firetrucks in US are first responders, they go before ambulances for most emergencies.
Unless they have some sort of advanced materials science in other countries we don’t know about here in the US that makes them as light as cardboard, I’d bet my year’s salary you wouldn’t volunteer to let one hit you.
And yes, I have been out of the US. Shall I tell you what we say about those who “assume” things over here?
Clearly you didnt watch the video, because you couldn’t be more wrong. This is uniquely a north american thing
A lot of EMTs work 24-hour shifts, and 48-hour shifts are not uncommon. The thought that the ambulance driver on the road next to me might be at hour 46 is… frequently worrying.
The problem isn’t the EMTs being incompetent, the problem is with the industry standards and the employers.
That again sounds more like a shithole country problem tan a car problem.
I was forced to work a few 24+ hour shifts in healthcare and working on zero sleep fucked me up. It gave me migraines, vomiting, insomnia, manic depression and I felt like I was going to have a heart attack.
It is beyond cruel and inhumane that employers can force people to work without sleep. It is so fucked that not allowing someone to sleep is considered a form of torture by the Geneva convention.
My former roommate is an EMT and he spent 90% of his 48 hour shifts sleeping and playing video games.
Exactly this. They transported someone, they filled out a PCR for billing to send to insurance and the patient.
