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Hitting a pedestrian when riding a bike at 25 km/h has life threatening consequences for the pedestrian. Pedestrians do die when hit by bikers. Especially elderly which have worse awareness around them and are more fragile.


Where do you think cyclists are going 25 km/h while interacting with pedestrians? If it's on a shared pathway they should be going more slowly, if someone fails to do that that's as much their failure as if they hit someone with a car. And if they're on a road/cycle lane and they fail to respect a ped crossing, that's again the same.


If everybody would do everything by the book we wouldn't have this discussion about drunken cyclist.


Not even being snarky but if hitting a pedestrian at 25kmh with a bicycle is so bad, how much worse would it be with a car/truck/bus?


I'm sure flying a plane with 300 people on board while being drunk is worse than driving a car drunk. But that doesn't mean it's now OK to drive under influence, because there is something even worse out there you could do while being drunk.


cool. that was not even my intent by asking the question. i was wondering how lethal it is being hit by a car at 25kmh.


It depends on how you get hit and how do you land. Cars builders have pedestrian safety in mind as they get NCAP ratings for it. If you are lucky, maybe not that much damage. On the other hand full frontal collision with a bus is probably not good for you as there is nowhere for you slide or bounce off to lose some of the energy. Bike is similar to bus as there is no way for you to 'gently' (no 'soft' metal to bend or curves to steer you off it) lose some of the energy.


People here (northern Europe) don’t bike at 25 km/h while drunk, if at all (unless racing/exercising), so it’s not really an issue.


Then I hope you'll never get hit or worse, you hitting somebody else while intoxicated on a bicycle, even if you think is of no consequence.




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