angryjonny's theory #1

[angryjonny]

Pushbikes are worse for the environment than cars.

Here's my theory.

Cars are quite efficient when they pootle along at 30mph. There's no real wind resistance, their momentum carries them forward and the engine just has to tick over to keep them at 30. What uses more petrol is accelerating to 30 from a standstill or from slower speeds.

If I go to work by bicycle let's say I am doing 10-15mph, realistically, because I am a bloke not an olympic athlete. Every other car on the road has to slow down to 10-15 when they're stuck behind me, wait for an opportunity to pass, and then accelerate away. That's every single car that passes me.

If I go to work by car I'm just another car pootling along at 30 pumping out light emissions at economic speeds.

My theory is that the CO2 produced by all those cars slowing, waiting and accelerating to pass a pushbike is greater than the CO2 that would be produced by one more car on the road.

Discuss.

[Marmalade]

I've often thought this very same thing.

I was behind a bus today that has a sign on the back 'travelling by bus is 10x more efficient than by car'

well, if it holds 50 people and is full then maybe close but then it'll do at very best 20mpg whereas a car of the same age may do 50 mpg with 5 people in it. Thats not 10x more efficient.

As it is it had about 3 people on it so was being a whole lot less efficient than my van was with just me in it
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Nobby the Bastard: How yo tell the difference between the actual japanese and her just screaming because she's had live fish stuck up her arse? [url=https://www.nicks-shop.co.uk/bcf-goodies-15-c.aspGet BCF stickers and things here[/url] Reflective helmet stickers - Legal requirement in france - Clicky

[LordShaftesbu...]

Solution: ban cars and bicycles will be much better for the environment.

I have similar thoughts when I'm stuck behind a queue of cars trying to get round a bus. "Stupid bus" I often think to myself, but then realise if it wasn't for all the cars I'd have no problem getting past ...

[Marmalade]

So, ban the cars and tell my other halfs boss she'll be in work every tuesday about 10:30 and have to leave by 3:45 to get the bus home.

Thats it, one bus comes through our village, on a tuesday.
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Nobby the Bastard: How yo tell the difference between the actual japanese and her just screaming because she's had live fish stuck up her arse? [url=https://www.nicks-shop.co.uk/bcf-goodies-15-c.aspGet BCF stickers and things here[/url] Reflective helmet stickers - Legal requirement in france - Clicky

[angryjonny]

Yes, I've often questioned the economy of buses over cars in the past. Theoretical efficiencies (at full capacity) are different from practical ones.

This is a slightly different argument though, not so much about CO2 economies of scale, more just that the obstruction of having a pushbike on the road causes more CO2 to be released into the atmosphere than would be the case if that pushbike were exchanged for a car.

If enough cars were replaced with pushbikes then yes, there would be a CO2 saving, but, in real-world application on today's roads, I'd argue each pushbike is responsible (simply by its presence) for more CO2 production than each individual car. Just because it isn't actually coming out of the bike doesn't mean that it isn't being produced as a result of the bike's presence.

[daemonoid]

Interesting idea, discounting the inconvenience of other's:
The CO2 emissions of my fairly frugal car are 121g/km. A cyclist on the other hand needs ~250 Kcal extra for a 10km journey. Now, assuming they gain those calories by eating a steak sandwich (a high polluting form of food) they need two slices of brown bread (118Kcal) and 112g of steak (140Kcal). From here we see that the steak causes ~1480g C02 and the bread ~37g. So in the end lets round that down to 150g/km to give the cyclist the benefit of any earlier rounding errors.

Not meant as proof of anything really, but it just shows how cycling (if you have a non-green diet) can be worse than driving on its own. However, you could switch to chicken and bring that right down to 40g/km
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[G]

No, no, no.

Cars are the reason I can get from A to B quickly on a motorbike or mountain bike - if everyone else had them, I'd be stuck in 2 wheeled traffic jams. So no banning them, ta.

"If you want to get past, get a bike!"

[D O G]

1. Unless the cyclist is riding like a prat then you should be able to pass without going over the white line...
2. I overtook vastly more cars when I commuted to work by pushie than overtook me.

Anyway, I didn't do it to be green, I did it because it was fun, faster and good exercise. Plus an excuse to wear lycra 1st thing in the morning!

[Poseidon]

[Rogerborg]

Don't forget to factor in the 3+ showers each day taken by cyclists, or any other nonce for that matter.

Buses are pretty obviously worse than cars per mile (for many of which they're mostly empty), and electric vehicles just move the problem to the coal fired power plant in the next valley along.

Hang glider is where it's at. Paint your roof black, catch a thermal, job done.
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[Visitor Q]

[G]

London is bad enough - am held up by other motorcyclists more than any other form of transport.

[LordShaftesbu...]

[G]

Actually, I've realised a massive issue with this suggestion.

It's in relation to people slowing down and then having to speed up again.

But people also do this for pretty ladies in summer.

The end of this sort of logical thinking is to ban all kinds of 'eye candy' from using pavements on public roads .

[andym]

Just a little thing about the buses, most of the ones I drove done about 7mpg on average, this will have been lowered because of the use of adblue (but at least the piss helps lower emissions), anyway most of the cars on the road are more fuel efficient these days, but you look at most of them on a busy morning during rush hour and you'll see that probably about 90% of them have 1 person in there, where as a double decker will hold about 79 people, and they usually do during rush hour, and that's most of them in the morning and evening.... during quieter times the services are cut down as they don't want to have them running with no passengers, also the companies monitor passenger numbers and decide if they can cut more services.

OK public transport is slow, smelly, usually doesn't run etc, but when the services do run properly then it is a very environmentally friendly option.

As for the push bikes, maybe they don't create any emissions, but I think they should have a registration of some kind because of the amount of red lights they run through (but if someone flattens them when they go through the red light it's always the driver at fault), the amount of times they use the pavements and pedestrians have to jump out of their way. In my opinion cyclists are a menace on the road... maybe they can weave through traffic during rush hour, but from previous experience the cyclist feels the need to use up as much of the road as possible forcing anything trying to overtake them (which you are supposed to give them the same width as you would a car) to get the boot down to pass them.