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Comment by stonepresto | Hacker News Reader

I had #8 happen to me. Broad daylight, no other cars around, just a distracted driver who wasn't signalling. I'd ridden road for 5 years, but haven't since (2018). No matter how hard you try, if its a problem with the driver the car will always win. Also if you're riding in an area that's not accustomed to bikes, your risk of drivers not paying attention or being actively malicious is much higher.

Now I exclusively mountain bike. The risk of injury is higher, but the average severity of the injuries is minor compared to road.

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> No matter how hard you try, if its a problem with the driver the car will always win.

Which is why we have the "Betriebsgefahr" (operational danger) in Germany. Hard to explain, but it boils down to "You're operating something that is inherently very dangerous. So you will be held responsible to some degree when something goes wrong, even when its not your fault. You accept this responsibility by driving a car"

It's obviously way more nuanced than that, but generally if you hit a bycicle with your car (with no fault on your side), there is a very good chance that your insurance will have to pick up some slack as well, depending on the circumstances.

That sounds nice. We have the opposite rule in one of your northern neighbours. "Bicyclists are inherently unpredictable so it's never your fault if you drive a car, even if it was a little."

(Obviously nobody involved would put it like this, but this is the general theme of the police investigations and the court response the rare times it goes to court.)

Interesting. The same unpredictability would hold for children as well, wouldn't it? And I hope at least there the conclusion isn't the same.

At least here in the US, it absolutely is. Kids get hit by cars and die on a semi-regular basis and basically no one is ever held accountable for it. From Chicago, just a few weeks ago: "Driver issued no citations after fatally striking 2-year-old riding mini-scooter in Lincoln Square"[0].

[0]: https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2022/6/3/23153664/lincoln-...

The concept sounds a lot like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability. I was introduced to the term at a mine site since it applied to blasting activities. Basically if anything/one was harmed during the blast, it was on the mine, regardless of them doing everything correctly. (I’m not holding my breath for this to be applied to US drivers.)

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