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Comment by blenderdt | Hacker News Reader

I don't know the rules in the US but in the Netherlands the car is always at fault in case of an accident, unless it is proven the cyclist was at fault.

This makes the roads a lot safer for cyclists.

When this law was introduced years ago the Dutch also made fun of it: https://youtu.be/ivY06w83fKU

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American drivers are rarely prosecuted for murdering cyclists, even if the driver was running a red light, speeding, or committing some other kind of traffic violation. Even drivers that hit-and-run regularly get off with some kind of "time served" or probation plea. Sometimes they'll be given a moving violation fine of a few hundred dollars.

This is an opinion piece from 2013 but is still accurate because enforcement has not changed since:

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-t...

More recent examples:

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/cycli...

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-court...

Another example here in NYC recently. The driver ultimately blamed a vehicular malfunction and the DA basically said there was no way to disprove that so the driver walked free. By all appearances the driver got away with road rage murder.

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2022/01/13/driver-who-killed-del...

In British Columbia this year (after some changes to the insurance system), the provincial insurance corporation, ICBC, billed a cyclist $3700 for damage to a car that hit him after the car driver blew through a stop sign:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cyclist-bill...

They have just in the past month updated the policy, but there have been several instances of this in the past 12 months.

You don't know the rules, but you can probably hazard a guess.

In Toronto, a driver took their eyes off the road, reached for a water bottle on the floor, hopped the curb, hit and killed a pedestrian, and was found not guilty.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gideon-fekre-sentence...

Well they said they were reaching for a water bottle. For all we know they were yelling "death to the sidewalk dweller" as they deliberately murdered someone.

In Canada, drivers are not generally held responsible for driving that is normally incompetent. So the defence would of wanted to establish that such incompetence had occurred. It had to be a mistake that anyone could make.

It's a a pretty big problem, but no one seems to care...

The laws in the US are a patchwork of state and local regulations – but the rules are "fuck you, I'm drivin' here", and "yeah I'm parked in the bike lane, whaddaya gonna do about it?"

In New York at least, drivers are almost never prosecuted for hitting cyclists or pedestrians, even if the driver is at fault.

Just a nitpick, a car driver is by default 50% liable when involved in an accident with a weaker road user (cyclist, pedestrian, skateboarder, etc). That just means their liability insurance will have to cover the costs.

For most crashes and/or road traffic accidents, no "fault" is usually determined, FAFAIK.

The funny detail is that cyclists can choose to prosecute the car driver if they want the car driver to take on 100% liability, and in that case fault will be determined. But if a judge then finds the cyclist at fault, the car driver's liability decreases to 0% and the cyclist gets nothing.

> For most crashes and/or road traffic accidents, no "fault" is usually determined, FAFAIK.

This might be true. On the other hand, I know that especially in fatal accidents, forensic analysis is sometimes able to tell whether the driver was speeding or was exhibiting other kinds of illegal/reckless behavior, in which case prosecution for 3rd degree murder (dood door schuld) is usually pursued.

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