It's Never a Bicycle Accident
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I called the police and reported the asshole for reckless driving, they said they'd follow up on it which I trust they really will. Driving is a privilege, and I would love it if reckless drivers would lose their license at the first offense.
that’s too punitive, but i’d be quite happy with a quickly escalating, income-/wealth-adjusted fine. so like 0.01% of yearly income on first offense, 0.1% on second offense, 1% on third offense, or something like that, on a rolling 12-month basis, where you can voluntarily give up you license for 3 months to reset the scale of you can’t/don’t want to pay. driving without a license could reinstate the scale and invoke the next level of fine on top.
Doubly so for pickups, which are now so large that they offer a near-nonexistent risk on the driver's end for poor driving and nearly-certain serious-injury-and-or-death for anyone caught up against it.
Empathy and compassion are all fine and good, and in this case, the compassionate would make sure to take anyone who has shown willingness to cause an accident off the road for good. Not even a terrible person deserves to have a murder on their conscience, and nobody deserves to die because someone wasn't paying enough attention while flying down the highway.
Because huge numbers of people need to drive to be productive members of society and anyone without their head in the sand knows that "normal traffic flow" is routinely in violation of the letter of the law, often to the point of being criminal (usually at the officer's discretion). That brings us to selective enforcement. And we all know who gets the shaft when everyone is breaking the law and we have to choose who it gets enforced against.
In the Netherlands? I find that claim suspect.
Though I would get behind cracking down on dangerous drivers endangering pedestrians and cyclists even in the US where it's much harder to live without a car. Maybe it would get easier to live without a car if we began skewing policies in that direction.
?? I understood the OP as referring to vehicles sharing the roadway with bicyclists and apparently in a school zone.
I have no sympathy for anyone’s excuse—worker or working moms who drive on roads shared with pedestrians and bicyclists. I live in the US, and our car-centric culture is toxic to anyone not in a car.
This is exactly my point. The laws are far too broad to have stiff penalties and draconian enforcement. Of course nobody should be driving 40+ through some downtown center signed at 25 where pedestrians are present. But people routinely make common sense exemptions to the letter of the law. They treat that stop that could have been a yield were it not for the option to turn left as a yield. They ignore a 40-20-40 speed limit drop when that drop is there for a particular problem condition that is not applicable at the time. Etc. Etc. Cyclists and pedestrians make common sense exemptions all the time too, albeit a different set of exemptions specific to their mode of transportation. The overwhelming majority of traffic participants behave reasonably, but reasonable is not consistent with the letter of the law.
Of course we don't want "reckless drivers" on the roads but "reckless" is by its very definition an ambiguous term and nobody's yet to nail it down in statutory form in a way that doesn't leave gaping loopholes or make reasonably people subjet to being screwed at the discretion of law enforcement. And we see that every time law enforcement tries to go hard on a particular type of crime it just devolves into doing the most enforcement against the most vulnerable.
in addition, institute traffic calming measures like narrowing lanes, grade separations, cut outs/cut ins, and more trees in suburban/urban areas, so that it's more instinctive to drive slower, for everyone's benefit in those areas.
Mistakes may sometimes lead to extreme consequences. A cyclist not indicating and thus experiencing an accident is not much different from someone ignoring safety rules around power tools and getting (badly) hurt by it. The damage is accidental, not punitive.
"Death sentence" in such cases is overly emotional and meant to derail a discussion. It's meant to divide, not unite.
Instead of having such almost pornographic fantasies about crimes and punishments, let's rather invest some energy to determine how we can lower the number of accidents, e.g. by providing better street law education for children who are about to start cycling, and better traffic enforcement.
In such a situation, a cyclist may want to switch lanes to the turning lane, and - of course - would have to indicate the lane change. If no such indication is given, as a car driver, I would expect the cyclist to continue onwards, especially if there are lights that are green. I would not expect the cyclist to swerve out without indication - and as a cyclist, I agree that this is a very dangerous situation for the cyclist, since not only you are swerving out into the direct path of a car, but you also get slower relative to it.
This is the exact spot:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Eemnesserweg,+Baarn/@52.21...
kids coming from Eemnesserweg turning right, car going straight, oncoming cyclist traffic on the road from the right as well. It was a pretty close call, there simply is no room there for faster driving than the speed at which the bikes move, which is fine because it takes less than a minute to cross the center of this town.
*...to an offshore shell company over which they have 100% control.
The victims will be just as dead. Cars are lethal.
Your idea of some form of progressive rate punishment sounds really good. Time is probably the easiest to implement parameter:
- impound_car(time)
- impound_license(time)
- impound_license_and_car(time)
- impound_license_and_all_cars_owned(time)
It's the same reason why cars have blinkers. If a car does not use the blinker, a resulting accident is a preventable mistake by the car driver. In the same vein, a cyclist not indicating a change of lane and/or direction has endangered themselves, and others.
A car driver who has no idea about the intention of a cyclist will assume that the cyclist will continue to use the same lane / the same direction as before - and act accordingly.
No car driver wants to be involved in an accident - at best, it's costly and causes legal hassle. At worst, you have been part of a death.
So, when a cyclist 'does not put out their hand' you play it safe as a driver.
Its amazing how this simple fact is utterly incapable of being understood by every driver on the road. not just the ones that think they score points for clipping cyclists.
The arrogant, self righteousness of todays entitled drivers is going to be what pushes Gov to mandate autonomous driving.
What a lot of people don’t realise is that you can’t overtake bicycles in a single lane. If there’s no cycle path/markings a bicycle takes up the full lane for exactly this reason. Bicycles can’t cycle close to parked cars due to passenger doors opening up randomly, and the sides of the road by the curb is generally not maintained enough to cycle in.
Cars/buses/trucks have to wait until they can safely overtake.
That's also super dangerous because car drivers are aggressive dicks who seem to hate anyone on a bike, so I generally won't cycle in places without bike lanes or shoulders unless it's like 4am and the roads are totally abandoned, but I'd rather risk getting deliberately rammed by a car than accidentally squished between lanes.
If you stick to the side of the road, you make it the default decision for people (many of which I'm sure might not if they knew better) to pass too close to you, plus you've got no buffer or escape route.
The thing is most people don't understand that putting yourself in the middle of the lane, as a bike, is the safest thing to do for everyone. Motorcycles are taught to do exactly that: position themselves so that they positively take their lane.
Cycling in the city is scary because going with a bike in the traffic is straight-up insanity.
Hating someone and unnecessarily acting in ways that might cause their death because they are moving slowly due to being on a bike is, to put it mildly, psychotic.
That said, bikes are dangerous for everyone involved. If you encounter a bike you slow down all traffic (because you can't overtake safely, and that's difficult on busy roads), you have to keep distance and account to the fact that you could run over the biker AT ANY TIME because bikes are NOT reliable when roads are not 100% correctly maintained. They can stop at any time on the road for some reason without even a warning, and as soon as you touch them they're pretty much dead. That's enough to give any driver a 500% stress increase. And I'm sure for the biker is the same.
I know I sound like an asshole but if drivers hate cyclists, and pedestrians hate cyclists, and motorbikers hate cyclists, and public transport drivers hate cyclists, and truck drivers hate cyclists, and politicians hate cyclists... I'm not saying they're right, but for sure there is a recurring reason that's worth investigating.
Going slower isn't unsafe, it's safer.
You're confusing inconvenience for lack of safety. Going slower and driving as if the vehicle in front of you may stop at any time is safe, responsible driving.
That's only stress and useless danger for everyone involved.
If we use that logic we can make all kinds of arguments about a car being the wrong vehicle for the wrong roads.
For example, is an SUV in the city the right vehicle for the right road? or is that causing useless stress and danger for everyone involved?
Yes, SUVs are stupid and totally the wrong type of vehicle for a city, but for a different set of reasons.
You should overtake the cyclist the same way you overtake a car, in my country there is a fine if you're doing it wrong.
Do you have the same problems when you need to stay behind a digger or horse drawn carriages? All of this is traffic in the sense of getting from A to point B and are totally valid to use the streets payed by their tax dollars.
But you don't see people complaining about such traffic. It's always only the cycling specific traffic that is the "wrong vehicle for the road".
And it would also be the very same people who would complain about a cycle path beside the road as it's a waste of tax dollars in their mind if it's not used by thousands of cyclists a day.
I don't get it. If you just hate people that power their transportation themselves say it, but don't use such excuses.
With a bike in front of you, you are always 0.8 seconds away from committing a murder.
Again, I'm 100% in favour of totally abolishing cars in every city, I look forward to that actually. But having bikes and cars together is a glaring design failure and, quite honestly, nothing more than pure insanity.
You chose the 800 millisecond value by choosing to follow too closely.
You can make it whatever interval is most convenient for you.
In my country you need to pass cyclists with minimum 1.5m distance to the side within city/village (usually 50 kph speed limits) or 2m outside of the city/village.
That minimum distance is there especially for such situations where the cyclist needs to dodge Potholes, Glass, ...
That minimum distance is also required if the cyclist is riding on the shoulder. Some paint on between you and the cyclist doesn't keep anyone of you safe on it's own.
Yes. And this doesn't just take into account cyclists, it also takes into account car doors suddenly opening or pedestrians suddenly walking into the road.
If traffic with cars+cars have thousands lethal accidents, cars+cyclists have lots of lethal accidents, but cyclists+cyclists have almost no lethal accidents, isn't it worth investigating? Maybe the problem here is the cars on the road. Hmm, removing them is probably a good idea.
I totally and completely agree. I'm OK with car-free cities. But having both on the same road is wrong and insane.
But that's cobblers, isn't it? The roads are there for everyone. People get to use them because they're members of our society and following the law, not because they happen to use one particular type of vehicle.
Because cyclists need their own dedicated cycleways which at least in the UK there aren't many of. Cyclists are going too slow for motorised vehicles and too fast for pedestrians.
No-one should break the rules or the law. I'm curious why you think cyclists are more likely to do so. It's easy to find many examples of drivers breaking both. https://www.youtube.com/user/CyclingMikey
I actually disagree with this. You should not break the spirit of the law, and as citizens we have the moral responsibility to ensure we challenge the law where it is inappropriate or misguided by breaking it. The law is fallible and laws change over time, they often put in place for reasons that no longer apply (or are completely false premises in the first place). A great example is jaywalking - which if enforced is completely ridiculous.
Regarding cycling, the highway code wasn't really written for cycling safety. Some red lights are actually safer for a cyclist to jump, it's often safer to mount the pavement and cycle in places - sometimes there's badly designed cycle lanes that end in the middle of nowhere with no option to cycle safely, one-way streets and low traffic areas can force rule abiding cyclists down unsafe busy roads etc. etc.
I always let the bus and the truck have the right of way, even when I'm in my car, because I prefer to die in my bed.
Here are some examples of things that work in various countries:
The Netherlands fixed this ages ago. You hit a cyclist with a car, it's your fault regardless of the circumstances for the insurers. The net result is a country where drivers are very mindful of cyclists and check their right side mirrors before turning right and their left side mirror before 'dooring' a passing cyclist. Failing to do that is expensive and there are so many cyclists that it is in any case a good idea. Besides, nobody wants it on their conscience to have people hospitalized because of inattention, sloppiness, or incompetence.
France at some point introduced a simple traffic rule that states that when over taking cyclists you need to give them a lot of space. So, now you see cars slowing down and overtaking cyclists properly on two lane country roads: i.e. waiting for the left lane to clear and then using that and giving the cyclist at least a meter or so of clearance. It's kind of funny to see that in action but it works. Failing to do that has hefty fines associated with it if you get caught. So drivers actually do this. France has a lot of cyclists on country roads training and getting taken over by cars doing 90 km/hour is not risk free unless they keep their distance. So, a completely sane rule. Any accidents tend to be very nasty. And again, nobody wants that on their conscience anyway.
London introduced fees for entering the downtown area. Unless you have to be there, you'll want to avoid that because it's expensive. It also has cameras all over the place so if you mess up, it will be on camera. That was mainly done for pollution and security reasons but it also made it a safer place to bike around.
I am far sooner a friend, a son, a partner and someone you know, than a cyclist. I don't even qear lycra, and I spend my whole ride trying to be courteous so at least extend me the same courtesy.
Also, get off your fucking phone. Yes, you. Are you so basic and selfish you can't spend a second from your skinner box? Yes, at lights too. Driving your car is the most important thing you will do today, at least be present for the occasion. I promise the memes will be there when you get to your destination.
I generally look not so much at the car, but the driver, to see if he sees me. If he doesn't, I get off the road. Also if he's on the phone. If I'm behind the car, I watch for his brake lights and backup lights.
It amazes me how quickly people shift attention too, some people are back on their phone before they even finish turning at a junction. You could almost be impressed, but then you realise it's just stupity meeting luck on a daily basis.
and we have all heard the rhetoric surrounding "cyclists".
I know how entrenched each sides are in this argument - drivers and cyclists. Neither will give an inch.
The best way to get cyclists some kind of safety is to INSIST on a full bore licensing, registering, insuring framework for cyclists just as the ones that exist for motor vehicles. Yes some form of license plates, registration, driving licenses, point deductions for bad riding etc.
And taxes and fees just like for motor vehicles, whether ICE vehicles or electric vehicles.
You cant just hop on a bicycle use infrastructure others are paying for and expect to be treated like equals without paying into the system your fair share.
Governments, underwriters, law enforcement & other stake holders just dont have any incentives to respond to your concerns, any other way. This is how the world works. It is in the interest of bicyclists to make it work for them through those ways.
The taxes for a car aren't even close to offsetting their costs on society (infrastructure, external factors like pollution etc). I already pay for the infrastructure through taxes. And most cyclists (including me) also operate cars. So that's not really an argument. Making cycling cheaper is a also net win (health, environment,+++), so making cycling more expensive is a stupid idea. Actually, saying "cyclists should pay your fair share" would mean that cycling would end up cheaper than now, and cars even more expensive. So I'm all for it.
As do a lot of car drivers.
> And taxes and fees just like for motor vehicles, whether ICE vehicles or electric vehicles
Those taxes and fees are for road upkeep and resurfacing. The fourth power law [0] tells us that bicycles have (if we're being exceedingly generous) a negligible impact, even relative to the average Mazda Miata.
> licensing, registering, insuring framework for cyclists
We have gun licenses, hunting licenses, driving licenses, pilot's licenses, and more. Note that all of the above can and will kill you, or those around you, if practiced unsafely. Per the fine article above, "It's Never a Bicycle Accident" is an astute way of putting it. Shawn Bradley isn't paralyzed because he was cycling unsafely, but because someone else was driving unsafely.
The same point is made regarding insurance: mandatory insurance means if you're in an accident someone else causes, your car isn't totaled or in need of thousands of dollars worth of work that the at-fault party can't pay for. This isn't much of an issue with bicycles though: a car can easily cause thousands in medical bills, but a vehicle is driving away relatively unscathed from any interaction with a cyclist.
> Cyclists roll through signals, intersections & stop signs
We come to a full stop when driving to verify it's safe. If it's safe, there's no penalty for coming to a complete stop. If it's unsafe, we recognize that it takes time and distance to stop your 2-ton vehicle; as such, it's a good thing you were already stopped. Considering cyclists weigh approximately an order of magnitude less, they also take dramatically less time to stop.
Do note that with the above, we're even arguing to your point: the cyclists rolling through signage are simultaneously the worst offenders, and the ones most likely to have their lives altered because of it. While we can say the best drivers can kill someone, the worst cyclists aren't going to kill anyone but themselves.
I don't see how licensing, registering, mandatory insurance etc. will change anything, but make cycling less popular.
Per my understanding, road infrastructure is typically paid from general taxes (obviously depending on country). As cyclists require less road space, cause less road wear and have practically no environmental burden compared to motorists it's probably the case that we pay a disproportionately high percentage of infrastcuture costs.
I pay for the infrastructure, it comes from income tax not registration. Yet look how little of my money goes to bicycle infrastructure anyway. Registration typically covers registration administration and sometimes third party insurance levys, different state to state but it almost never covers infrastructure. I also have two cars anyway, every cyclist I know owns a car.
Where I live, bicycle infractions are fineable and also demerit your car license. So no problem there but enforcement.
Of course cyclists can be in the wrong, but riders die when motorists are in the wrong, the stakes aren't the same. Saying cyclists are in the wrong doesn't suddenly make the mistakes equal. We could bicker about this point ad nauseum but motorists are the ones who chose to bring a lethal weapon into the community that day so it's their responsibility to make sure not to kill anyone.
Now this one is controversial and I am sure there are tonnes of selfish cyclists, but when I do anything marginally illegal it is in order to give drivers an easier time or make myself safe. I will pull onto the footpath in order to do a hook turn instead of sitting in the intersection for one example. Technically not illegal here either but motorists assume I am trying to cut ahead.
In my city of 30k people there are several traffic lights equipped with road sensors. So they only ever go green if something heavy enough or with enough metal / magnetic mass in it rolls over it. Especially for left-turn signals it's impossible to get them triggered as a cyclist here.
One will remember waiting in the middle of the road for a few minutes. So I decided I'll come to a stop if needed and see that it's safe to run the red light. I'd even do it if police is seeing it.
This topic has also been raised to the city council and local administration but I guess my tax money will not be spent on cycle friendly infrastructure.
> You cant just hop on a bicycle use infrastructure others are paying for and expect to be treated like equals without paying into the system your fair share.
There are a few studies that show that cycling saves cost while driving cars is subsidized by the government. That's taking taxes, fees into acount. Even the heavy petrol taxes in Europe.
Probably it helps to keep that in mind if one is again annoyed by cyclists (read people) using the road.
Years ago... before smartphones become an epidemic on the roads, I got personalized number plates AFK as a very nerdy joke. But these days I see them as a message to everyone about staying off their phones...
It sucks to read this, but its completely sound and logical for those who only drive cars. As more people start using bicycles these days, its slowing shifting though.
To be fair, the injured party in an accident has no particular relevance to who is at fault.
For this to become more acceptable you have to have more motorists that ride the bicycle. And for that to happen you have to have better bicycle infrastructure.
There is one class of accidents where I think there is some culpability both on the part of the cyclists and infrastructure makers, though. Where the dedicated bike paths and roads intersect, there is often not enough visibility due to signs, hedges, pylons, etc. to spot some of the faster Lycra types in time. I suppose the well-meaning infrastructure makers assumed everyone is a casual cyclist going slow enough to be spotted in time.
Cars and bikes do not belong on the same road without seperation. Mixing different speeds of transportation on the same road is inherently a stupid idea. And if you hold up everyone, don't expect people to like or respect you. Maybe i should start to park in bike lanes. Same issue really.
> Cars and bikes do not belong on the same road without seperation
That is not true. Even inside towns, cars can be driven safely at reasonable speeds of 10-20 km/h.
How great that you are so superior yet you want cars to take 2-10 times as much fuel to let them drive at speeds they are not made for while creating more traffic jams. The next time i overtake a cyclist i will keep that in mind and use the first gear and full throttle.
People like you are the reason why "cyclist" becomes an insult. Justifying being annoying is a great way to make you popular i've heard.
Tragedy of the commons.
> Justifying being annoying is a great way to make you popular i've heard.
Seems to work for you.
Ah so you’re saying the lifestyle isn’t superior because it throws self interest out of the discussion.
And yes, it works out quite well for me. My hatred for cyclists who don’t use the bike lanes built literally for them is growing daily and so is my skill to hold the horn for minutes and holding low speeds in first gear. They want coexistence and they get coexistence.
My view is that "accident" implies an act-of-god that couldn't be prevented, whereas a "crash" is an impact, there is no doubt that an impact occurred. If you write off a "crash" as an "accident" you are tempted to not investigate and try and learn from it. The more you dig deeper into "accidents" is you find they some are not. With a decreasing number of fatal crashes, in my Australian state but the same number of police investigating they are starting to find (and prove) that some crashes are deliberate. What has long been suspected of the possibility of suicide and murder by head-on crash is proving to be real.
Words can be important.
Second, there's a saying with the motorcyclists I personally know, "full face or no face", meaning in the event of a mishap, helmets that provide less coverage are far less likely to protect the rider. I don't think we should mandate what type of helmet people wear, or wearing a helmet at all, but assigning some responsibility to the rider who got hit where a full face helmet would have protected might be appropriate.
> Spanish and Japanese speakers couldn't remember the agents of accidental events as adeptly as English speakers could. Why? In Spanish and Japanese, the agent of causality is dropped: "The vase broke itself," rather than "John broke the vase." [0]
Here's a figure from the article: https://web.archive.org/web/20210319233610/https://www.econo...
The difference between "crash" (there's likely a human agent) and "accident" (there is no human agent) seems to be the same.
On the other hand, in my experience from editing the professional writing of colleagues, there's often subtle implications from the chose of words. We tend to have so many different options in English, but two words never really mean the same thing because each carries different connotations either from history or from usage. Yet many readers aren't quite aware of those implications. I'm not sure if the implication does not exist for them, or if they are simply not aware of how it might colour their perception.
[0] "Lost in translation?", The Economist, 2010-07-29, https://www.economist.com/johnson/2010/07/29/lost-in-transla...
I've also been struck by behind, on my left arm, by a car driving fast. Couldn't use my arm for 1 month
Small nitpicking: I just don't like the final sentence comparison with
> "That’s not a bike accident more than getting bit by a shark is a swimming accident"
Sharks do it intentionally, even if that's probably often out of confusion with other preys (they don't like human flesh), it's a natural thing as much as a rhino could charge you, a croco or a mosquito could also bit you. Cars however, is one of the many artificial things in this over-consumption society. I'd have more compared it like:
> That’s not a bike accident more than getting shot by a bullet while walking in the street is an accident
You might argue a bike hitting a pedestrian probably won't be as lethal as two tonnes of SUV hitting a cyclist, but that's a lame justification curled in the deepest realms of double standards. There's plenty of examples when cyclists didn't care enough about cars because the car is supposed to act as the cyclist is apparently clearly in a disadvantage. Same with pedestrians and cyclists, again.
Again, not to defend or blame anyone. I am driving my car maybe two times per month and I am mostly on bike, foot or public transport. But from my experience you just have assholes with egocentric justifications and reasoning on all sides.
No, it's not. A driver is driving something lethal that kills thousands each year. Don't try to pretend a cyclist being remotely close to a driver when it comes to severity of the actions. It's not a "one-sided view", it's the truth that drivers are far more dangerous than cyclists. If 99 scientists says something and one quack says something else, the truth isn't somewhere in the middle, you know.
> but misses the whole point of the actual problem completely
True, that cyclists need better infrastructure and similar stuff. What also misses the point is to start devil's advocating that "cyclists are just as bad".
"The cyclist wore no helmet" (as if that changes fault in an accident)
The car "couldn't stop in time" (e.g. for a red light before hitting a cyclist/pedestrian in the intersection)
When the cyclist is struck at night the car driver sometimes is quoted with the claim the bike had no lights. While sometimes that may be right, the car driver obviously didn't see the cyclist (otherwise they wouldn't have run them over) and the light is often damaged in the accident. The cyclist on a stretcher is not available to counter that claim leaving a biased report.
You can tell if the light was on when it was damaged, by examining the filament. They do this in airplane accident investigations to see which panel lamps were on when it crashed.
This doesn't work for LED lights, though. Just incandescent.
Imagine people who never saw that concept - high speed (>30mph) roads near pedestrians. And then someone comes and says "Let's build these danger zones with custom rules, they will allow people to leave public transport for personal vehicles. And if you step it wrong, you might get killed!".
Would these people agree? Would they take it as a natural idea? Insane.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of...
I believe the solution will be autonomous cars, which are not only (overly) cautious, but can pick you up or drop you off, and then scuttle off to underground parking or to pick up the next person.
I give you a particularly egregious example coming out of Swiss German: Somewhere after WW2, handicapped people became a big topic. At the same time, the German word for "handicap" apparently started to become a bit of a swear word for some reason ("behindert"). So, politics changed the word to... "invalid". So now, people aren't just being labelled handicaped but actually worthless - thanks, I hate it. And then the word got calcified by introducing the state "invalidity insurance" (Invalidenversicherung) in 1960. Politicians really have a knack for butchering the language.
Only plumbers may complain about broken toilets
Cyclists own the roads here, see for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqQSwQLDIK8
Thankfully we have bike roads almost everywhere.
Media always portray it as a passive car just happened to hit a cyclist. But that shapes the discussion. It was an action by a driver. Not “he was struck from behind by an automobile while riding his bicycle a mere block from his home.”, as the article says. The cyclist wasn't struck. It wasn't by an automobile. It was a driver (actively) hitting him.
When it's framed like that instead, one can actually start improving and understand why it happened and try to avoid it in the future. Instead of portraying it like a freak accident like a meteor just happened to strike and there is really nothing to be done.
The only cyclists I see behaving recklessly on the road are groups of teenage boys, and that’s more to do with them being teenage boys than being cyclists.
Pilots don't learn to fly in airliners. Captains don't learn to sail in ocean liners. Why on earth do we let people operate machinery weighing multiple tons and capable of high speeds on the public highway without having anywhere near the same level of experience?
99% of car operators on the road have zero experience of the road outside of a car. A person on a bike is still a person, but a person in a car is a car. They can't feel the road. They hate travelling under the speed limit because there's a tank of fossil fuel and they only need to squeeze a pedal to effortlessly ascend hills or battle the wind. This is why they will never treat cyclists as people and with respect.
Cars tend to pass way too close, and taking the lane (which is completely legal where I live) means I have some space to move a little bit away from a car while it's passing too close.
I'm a cyclist and I've had a few incidents in the past. Some of them my fault, some of them not. But calling them accidents is very damaging
Could some focus on the car side of the problem help solve this with less expenditure of political capital?
Requiring proper driver education for example doesn't require people to show empathy to these weird creatures they've never met - cyclists. I'm certainly not a US culture expert, but that might be one feasible baby step in certain US states.
Yes, but no.
All of these accidents have basically nothing to do with the mode of transportation. It's a "being reckless accident". And you'll find recklessness in basically every mode of transportation ... from roller skates, over bikes, cars and even airplanes.
And, without wanting to defend the reckless, it's kind of understandable ... tail-gaiting the car in front does not go wrong 99.9% of the time. Clipping traffic on a bike does not go wrong 99.9% of the time. Going down the hill on rollerskates does not go wrong 99.9% of the time.
I understand why people are being reckless ... there is no consequence 99.9% of the time ... until ... that last time ... somebody gets hurt.
"an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury."
I'll stick by my remark on it :-)
If something happens up front and the trucker has to hit the brakes hard, is it his fault if the cyclist goes under his rear bumper?
You are trying to make an argument that default liability is unjust and you are failing at that.
This has a strong precedent: Class A vs Class C licences.
It is only abroad that I started to see such dangerous cycling, and then discovered this idiotic war between the modalities.
Most cyclists would struggle to go much more than half of that speed. I think this must be an outlier.
I've also seen cars drafting behind trucks on the motorway doing 90kph. But they are a minority.
[1] https://www.cyclelawscotland.co.uk/blog/article/the-time-is-...
As a car driver, I would start setting up dash cams (which are illegal in Europe thanks to GDPR) to help me proving my innocence.
Is CCTV also illegal now?
Its wrong, dashcams are legal in most EU countries, but you don't have any right on the image diffusion.
[edit] I just checked, and tbh, you should search "are dashcam legal in the EU", yoiu'll have a list of countries in which its legal or illegal. Nothing to do with GDPR.
Seriously? I surrounded myself with a metric ton of rigid metal and bazillion safety systems (and pay ridiculous sums for that, mind you) to protect myself and my family in a deadly environment. Cyclist chose to go there practically naked.
And before you say it's not a "deadly environment", it's "deadly people" - that's mostly false. Any human has limits to reaction time, can't see everything and so on, fixing that substantially is really hard if not impossible (self-driving cars, maybe).
Yes, as a driver I basically chose to sign a blood contract to kill people with low probability cause I'm not a perfect machine. But did I have much choice? Driving my mom to a hospital on a bike is impossible. Are you sure you didn't sign other such contracts in you life for yourself and your family? Are you sure your quality of life you chose does not condemn other people to poverty and death?
Fortunately hospitals here are accessible by both bike and public transport, and there are insurance provided taxi's for people who can't use them but do have to get to a hospital.
But, none of this means you can't drive a car. It just means by doing that you accept the appropriate responsibility, which plenty of Dutch people do every day! We are known for bikes, but the truth is that we are also amongst the biggest drivers (in terms of distance) in Europe.
It's a "deadly environment" only because there are people who choose to surround themselves with "a metric ton of rigid metal."
I had to execute an extreme manouver to avoid hitting a kamikaze that cut through three lanes almost perpendicularly in very heavy traffic downtown Madrid. He scared the hell out of me, I still remember it clearly fifteen years later.
How curious. You take issue with the exact interpretation of 'never' and yet use a figurative interpretation of 'kamikaze'.
Allow me to simulate a response to your comment in the style of GP:
> Kamikaze? You saw a Japanese attack aircraft cut through three lanes perpendicularly in very heavy traffic in downtown Madrid fifteen years ago? That sounds very unlikely.
Never argue with a bus, and never trust a driver that hasn't looked you in the eye, and even then be wary.
I will say, however, that cost is one of the primary issues which is rarely addressed. In the USA the dollar is king and it shows in all aspects of our lives.
Compared to automobiles, Bicycles are too cheap for their own good. America would have good cycling infrastructure If bicycles cost $20k to purchase, $5k per year to fuel, $500 to register, $1,500 year to insure and if the bicycling lobby spent hundreds of millions of dollars bribing politicians yearly.
Drivers (why isn’t driver a dirty word?), at least in the USA, have a clear sense of superiority and entitlement which drives (pun intended) their sociopathic behavior. “I spent $50,000 on my Tesla and thousands more on licensing and maintenance! That money gives me the right to get back to my bedroom community in San Mateo as quickly as possible, fuck you and your 2-wheels, i’ll run you over with zero legal consequences” is a common attitude.
The USA will never get dutch-quality cycling infrastructure until bicycle riders spend driver-level money.
Where I live, the newspapers print rather graphic photos of particularly bad car-on-car accidents when the happen locally. Part of that is sensationalism, sure - but part of it is making people aware that bad accidents actually do happen, even if you never individually were involved in one, and that you should think about when you made bad decisions that could have lead to accidents in the past - it makes you, subconsciously, show more attention the next few times you drive.
While this may not have been the case in this particular accident, the number of times I see cyclists' complete disregard for traffic rules and thus in effect their own safety is too high. Generally painting cyclists as traffic victims absolves them from any wrongdoing, makes them pay less attention, and may thus lead to more accidents.
Bicycles are dangerous and those cyclists don't know what they are doing, they are a danger to themselves and others - because i am sure quite a few innocent people went to jail accidentally killing them.
It's an interesting statement, given that every example you gave is about a driver of a car about to kill a cyclist. It seems that it's the cars, or rather, the drivers, that are dangerous.
I also avoid driving in residential streets if I can avoid it because of kids on bikes, and I know they're crazy. I did crazy stuff on a bike as a kid, and barely survived.
It's a common bit of dark humour in the cycling community that if you want to get away with murder, make sure the victim is riding a bike at the time.
“If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole.
If you meet assholes all day long, you’re the asshole”
$X are dangerous and they don't know what they are doing, they are a danger to themselves and others."
So where do we go with this line of thought? As you can see, it's not helpful in any material way. We need to make the roads safer for everyone, including other drivers. And not vilify a small (but increasing) and vulnerable portion of road users because of anecdotes.
BTW, I'm a motorist, cyclist, horse rider, old person, ex-child. So I might be biased.
You are supposed to respect a safe separation distance so that you don't "barely avoid crushing them" if something happen, not tailgate them. Since it happens every 3 months, consider if your driving might be at fault. If not for the cyclist, at least for the sake of not scratching your car, eh.
Otherwise I cannot fathom how people are almost dead by your car every other month. Or aren't you following the law by holding a safe distance and a reasonable speed, perhaps?