bike
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Background: It’s difficult to appreciate the amount of energy that is consumed by a citizen of a modern industrial economy. If we only consider household electricity, a “reasonable” amount of consumption (ignoring air conditioning or heating) can be more than 5 kilowatt-hours (~200 watts of average usage over a 24-hour period). A non-bicycling-enthusiast adult can…
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The issue: One ever-present hazard for bicyclists is the possibility of being “doored”—hit by a suddenly-opened driver’s side door of a parked car. A similar issue confounds carpool passengers: when exiting a full vehicle, the driver’s-side passenger must open the door directly into traffic (since they cannot exit on the curb side). This presents the…
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![Easily win the Tour de France every year thanks to this bicycle secret: there’s no law that says you CAN’T enter the race with multiple people on a bike! [*]](https://worstplans.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/1-bikes-all.png?w=1024)
[*] But you would be disqualified from the race. Background: Bicycle races have stagnated due to their archaic one-rider-per-bike format. Proposal: To usher in a new era of bicycle-based excitement add variety to bicycle races, an “entrant” to the race could be re-defined as a single bicycle, rather than a single person. Then, participants would…
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Background: It can be hard to motivate yourself to exercise—especially since you know you can always put it off until later. Proposal: But what if we could set up a situation where you would have to exercise? Specifically: You purchase (1) a stationary bicycle and (2) a special type of heavy-duty safe (Figure 1). You…
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The issue: Bike theft is a common crime that rarely results in negative consequences for the thief. Hypothesis: It would be less common if there were a clear downside to stealing a bike. The proposal: In a “let the punishment fit the crime” frame of mind, let us imagine that a bike thief is apprehended.…
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The issue: Traffic laws are made with the idea that everyone is driving a car. In the US, four-way stops are all over the place, at almost every intersection. In a car, this isn’t a huge burden, since it requires no human effort to stop and then accelerate again. But with a bike, this requires…
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