Hahahahaha. I see a flaw in this plan.
I don't see why the author views a lack of criminal charges as evidence of some kind of travesty of justice. If a cyclist gets run down by someone who didn't see him, that's an accident, not a crime.
Many of the errors that grievously injure cyclists would have resulted in a broken mirror and scratched paint, had it been car-on-car.
It seems likely to me jurors are recognizing this, and basing their decisions on actions rather that consequences. Which is not necessarily all that ridiculous.
I commute to work by bike every day, and every day I watch drivers with their heads down texting, fiddling with the radio, spaced out, or just plain aggressive. If one of these people hit me due to their inattention or actions, I'm pretty sure most police officers (and juries) would just assume accident. In a lot of cases, the incident wouldn't even be investigated.
There is something deeply wrong with the attitude of "whoops, didn't see him, guess he's dead now, YOLO."
If that's the proposal then my counter-proposal is to ban all bicycles from the streets. People make mistakes, and it's simply not reasonable to put someone in jail for a mistake a normal person would have made.
Can't just ignore the problem. If you pour your wine all over your shirt, thats an accident, if someone is critically injured or killed, that warrants an investigation.
I don't think a "reaction" will have any effect at all. People genuinely don't want to run over cyclists already.
>The buck has to stop with someone, the person who planned the street in the first place, the project manager at Toyota responsible for the software that caused the unstoppable acceleration, and so on.
I disagree. Sometimes things happen that are simply nobody's fault. There's no "buck". And seriously? Street design? Good luck going after the guy who laid out the streets in 1801.
>Can't just ignore the problem. If you pour your wine all over your shirt, thats an accident, if someone is critically injured or killed, that warrants an investigation.
... And it's still usually an accident. Where I live (and can you really name a place where this isn't true?) when someone is injured seriously or dies there's always an investigation. But what you're looking for isn't an investigation. You're looking for criminal charges and jail time.
...an investigation will be launched to find out whether it was an accident (i.e. child did jump in front of car) or a crime (i.e. driver was texting, easily could have spotted child).
Similarly, an investigation should be launched if someone runs down a cyclist. Could be the cyclists fault (i.e. running a red light) or the drivers fault (i.e. running down a cyclist on a cyclist lane where the driver should take care not to run over cyclists...).
b) The article claimed so.
> “We do not know of a single case of a cyclist fatality in which the driver was prosecuted, except for D.U.I. or hit-and-run,” Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, told me.