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Comment by Luc | Hacker News Reader

I think having the right legal framework helps a lot to get a good bicycle culture.

Here in Belgium, when a car hits a bicyclist, the car driver's insurance will always pay for bodily damage of the bicyclist, even if the bicyclist is at fault.

Most streets where I live (in the center of Antwerp) are one-way for cars, but two-way for bicycles. And cars are limited to 30 km/h.

My wife goes to work on her bicycle and gets paid for it (per km) by her employer, enough to buy a new bike every year.

At busy crossings with stop lights, bicycles get a designated space in front of the cars. That way when the light turns green the bicyclists can get going first, safely turn etc.

I just saw 2 policemen on bicycles pass in front of my window...

Measures like these help make bicycling something accepted by society, not something only crazy lycra-clad hipsters do.

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Here in Belgium, when a car hits a bicyclist, the car driver's insurance will always pay for bodily damage of the bicyclist, even if the bicyclist is at fault.

Sorry, but doesn't anyone have an issue with this? Why is there an expectation that cyclists cannot possibly be held responsible for their actions?

By this logic, if my mini hits a bus, I shouldn't be responsible, even if I ran a red light.

I tend to agree with most of the other points, but this one is ridiculous.

Well, there's a huge asymmetry between a car hitting a bike and vice-versa. So I'd guess it's not that the bike can't be held responsible, but that the potential downside for a biker is death, while the car would likely just suffer some dents.

Whether or not that causes reckless behavior on the biker's part, I don't know. But I can imagine the argument.

I wouldn't want to get hit by a car on my bike no matter who was going to pay for it.

Clearly, but you might relax a little if you believe that drivers are more cautious due to the insurance laws.

Biking by itself is not that dangerous. Biking near cars is dangerous. If you want to drive around in a 2 ton vehicle with the power to kill, you better damn be responsible for it.

Also, there is an imbalance in incentives to not get in an accident. If a car and a bike get in a wreck, the person driving has almost no risk of injury where the person on bike is at risk of dying or getting seriously injured, depending on the situation. This law gives people driving a little more reason to be more careful.

Also, keep in mind in the US, if a car hits a pedestrian, the driver's insurance always pays no matter whose at fault.

Biking by itself is not that dangerous

It is if you are a pedestrian. This is also typical of a cyclist's attitude that their vehicle is the only one that matters; impossible to do any harm - it is most certainly possible for a cyclist to cause an accident between two other vehicles that is caused by their lack of due care. (e.g. car A hits car B instead of hitting cyclist C that is running a red.)

You're suggesting C walks as if nothing happened, I'm suggesting that it is an irresponsible law that allows this.

If you want to drive around in a 2 ton vehicle with the power to kill, you better damn be responsible for it.

I'm not suggesting that a car driver should not be at fault. I'm suggesting that all individuals on the road be held to the same standard.

Also, there is an imbalance in incentives to not get in an accident.

I realize this, which is why I provided my example, specifically. Do you not agree that the same imbalance exists for the driver of the mini?

In your somewhat contrived example the cyclist could certainly be cited for reckless behavior.

but, the car drivers would pay the increased premium as if they drove their car into a wall. I have a problem with that.

From a legal and personal responsibility standpoint, the law is lopsided, but it may act as a deterrent to driving in the first place, thereby encouraging bike use. I think that's what the OP of this thread was trying to get at.

I don't think encouraging behaviour of any sort should trump personal responsibility and (more importantly) legal liability.

I'm not suggesting that a car driver should not be at fault. I'm suggesting that all individuals on the road be held to the same standard.

This is a way of holding drivers to the same high standards of care and attention that cyclists have to hold for their own self interest. The same standard is not enough when the power balance is so skewed and defaults towards cars.

This is a way of holding drivers to the same high standards of care and attention that cyclists have to hold for their own self interest.

This is precisely the type of attitude I take issue with. One would think that cyclists would behave like the vulnerable vehicles they are, yet a 15 minute observation of the typical cyclist will no doubt show numerous traffic offences, inclusive of some that most motor vehicle operators would never think of committing. This is common knowledge to all who use the roads we are supposed to share.

Cyclists are no better - or worse, to be fair - when it comes obeying the rules of the road than any other participant, be they pedestrian or motor vehicle operator.

I think you actually encourage bad behaviour by removing or lessening liability for a class of road user dependent on their ease of injury. Road safety starts with personal responsibility: understanding that you are doing an inherently dangerous thing with a fast moving vehicle that could result in your death and the death of others.

Asking others to shoulder this responsibility for you because of your vehicle choice is irresponsible, and in my mind contrary to a fair and just law.

I always find it interesting when drivers expect all bikers to follow every 'rule of the road' - meanwhile special laws grant cars the unique ability to pass a biker in otherwise no passing zones: one way single lane, double yellow, etc. Either understand that the two modes of transportation are different and deserve different laws, or don't expect special case laws for either mode.

I don't have any data to support or desupport this claim that a 'typical' cyclist will show 'numerous' traffic offenses in any given 15 minute observation. Anecdotally, today I saw a car stopped in a no-stop zone, a car pulling off a roundabout without indicating, cars pulling onto a pavement and two cyclists crossing at a crossing onto a cycle path and one cyclist pulling over to let cars past.

I take issue with this:

I think you actually encourage bad behaviour by removing or lessening liability for a class of road user dependent on their ease of injury. Road safety starts with personal responsibility

Because you are suggesting that cyclists don't care about being injured, but only whether it will cost them money or not, as if a broken leg and a week off work is fine as long as it's free.

understanding that you are doing an inherently dangerous thing with a fast moving vehicle that could result in your death and the death of others.

Road safety is about this - an understanding that you are involved in traffic and what you do matters. It's just that what motorists do matters more because it is amplified by their machinery.

A cyclist cuts up a car and they swerve to avoid it and hit another car. Any traffic going at a speed where a cyclist could cut them up is slow enough that the cars would crunch a bit. A car cuts up a cyclist and the cyclist swerves into something, and the cyclist gets hurt.

For the sake of their own safety, cyclists should be as careful as they can be. For the sake of avoiding causing accidents cyclists should be careful. But for the sake of protecting cyclists as a class of society, car drivers should be held to a higher standard. That doesn't say cyclists should be held to no standard, it says people whose actions are amplified should have to be more careful than people whose actions are not.

I'm not seeing a huge difference between that and the state of vehicle laws in my home state (Michigan).

Here, if you strike another car, you're at fault. Regardless of what another vehicle does, you're expected to maintain safe stopping distance and an 'exit' if your lane needs to be vacated in an emergency.

I have a friend who actually did get a ticket for hitting a car that ran a red light. Granted, the car running the light got a ticket for breaking the law, but 'fault' for the collision was assigned to my friend.

Red light accidents are tricky and each one is assessed on its particulars. Usually, regardless of the other vehicle's actions, if you are judged to be able to avoid an accident, and you don't, you are being careless, hence at fault.

A lot of jurisdictions have "no-fault" legislation however that gets in the way with regards to insurance.

> Here, if you strike another car, you're at fault. Regardless of what another vehicle does [...]

That's not true. Recently, I was a passenger in a car that stopped very quickly and made a turn into a restaurant. We were hit from behind and the driver of our car received a ticket because it was an erratic, unsafe maneuver.

> you're expected to maintain safe stopping distance and an 'exit' if your lane needs to be vacated in an emergency

It's possible to do this and still hit the car in front of you. I hit someone in front of me trying to make an illegal U-turn. I tried to avoid it but still hit them. They received a ticket.

> Granted, the car running the light got a ticket for breaking the law, but 'fault' for the collision was assigned to my friend.

I don't know the specifics but your friend probably got the ticket because it was determined by the cop after hearing both sides of the story that it was reasonable for him to see the other car coming. He may have been determined at fault in the context traffic laws but not in terms of who pays for it because Michigan is a no-fault insurance state.

I don't see how this is anything like Michigan.

The law is more complex than I perhaps made it seem. The car's insurer can for example sue the bicyclist afterwards to get some money back if they think they can prove something (but they have to pay first, that's the default). There's also a provision that it doesn't apply for knowingly getting into a dangerous situation (but, on the other hand, if a bicyclist runs a red light thinking it's safe, this provision wouldn't be triggered).

I haven't heard anyone call it ridiculous before, so it's probably down to me not explaining it very well or not knowing all the details.

It's also not a law tailor-made for bicyclists, it applies to all 'vulnerable road users', i.e. pedestrians, skaters, also passengers in cars...

Thanks, that addresses some of the things in my response.

Contrast that with cycling in the states where you're derided and people throw stuff at you from passing cars (beer cans seem to be a favourite projectile).

In the cities it's still somewhat doable but outside it's simply impossible. No separate lanes, cars passing you within inches, risking you being clipped by a mirror.

That happens most often when you are on a road you really don't belong on. Are you familiar with Highway 9? (for those who don't know, twisty steep 2-lane mountain road, very popular with bicyclists who ride in the middle of the lane and later complain about all the cars) Though they love it to death, that road was not built for cyclists, and it's far too expensive to expand it to give the cyclists their own lane.

Except those bicyclists pay taxes too, and have the exact same legal right to use the road. Riding in the "middle" of the road is a necessary technique to prevent being passed danngerously closely.

Neither of those things justifies being assaulted.

As a side note, it appears that SR-9 near Silicon Valley existed long before automobiles, and thus was not built for automobiles either. It was probably "built for" horse wagons and pedestrians, and used by bicyclists years before any motorist.

That is true, but whether their actions are 100% legal or not, the road is not designed to properly accommodate both cars and cyclists. Thus they piss of drivers, and hence the frustration towards cyclists, which is what I was explaining.

Of course they don't deserve to be assaulted, I never said that they did. I personally try to treat them as kindly as possible.

For reference, I say 'no business being on' because they know they will be putting themselves in a compromised position, legal or not. They can shake their fist at drivers and such, but they know it is unsafe going in. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's a smart idea.

> Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's a smart idea.

I think that goes for the whole fixed-gear story as well, even where it's legal it isn't very smart. As a bicyclist you're already vulnerable enough, no point in adding more factors to increase that vulnerability.

To be fair, I'm sure that the cyclists find the cars on highway 9 to be equally frustrating, especially when they're being treated like they don't belong there.

I've biked all over the western United States, and I've never had actual beer cans thrown at me. That said I have been on the receiving end of a certain amount of aggressive driving and general idiocy but the prevalence is pretty much the same city or country.

Luc, can you describe your wife's employers bicycle policy? I'm trying to set one up at my company as well, and haven't found the ideal plan yet. Suggestions welcome!

I don't have access to the exact agreement at the moment.

My wife's employer, funnily enough, is a petroleum company. I think the bike policies of the company are those set out by Collective Bargaining Agreement (negotiations between employer and employee organisations) for the whole petroleum sector, but I can't find a good English language article.

Colruyt, a supermarket company in Belgium, is well known as having a successful bicycle policy. E.g.

- company-owned bicycles placed at the train station closest to the HQ so people can use the train to commute

- free bicycles for employees who use them at least 3 times a week for their commute

- 0.15 eurocent per kilometer compensation

This is just the bicycle part of it though. They also have programs to facilitate and encourage car-pooling, or to encourage use of scooters instead of cars. Their trucks must be >95% full before delivering, they use rail as much as possible etc. (Some of this is from memory, don't shoot me if I'm off by a few cent or percent).

Coincidentally Colruyt is also the most profitable and fastest growing supermarket chain in Belgium.

One more thing - a lot of this is backed by laws or measures in the tax code. E.g. the 'compensation per km' is tax-free to the employee and there are likewise tax reductions on the employer's side. So these things may be harder to implement in a different country.

This is fantastic. Thanks for the detailed response Luc!

If you're in America, there are similar tax breaks available, so make sure you look into those.

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