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Comment by nichodges | Hacker News Reader

Such a shame that a car company's response to the danger cars present to cyclists is to modify the cyclist. Victim blaming at its best.

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This is only one of many things that Volvo does to improve the safety of passengers and those outside of their vehicles. I have a 2010 Volvo that has a feature called City Safety [1], an automatic braking system that prevents low speed collisions in city environments, and BLIS which indicates the presence of a person or vehicle in your blind spot. They also have a new cyclist detection system that engages the brakes [3]. I think if drivers can be more aware of others, pedestrians and cyclists, in combination with smarter vehicles that assist drivers in accident avoidance, it's a win-win.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_safety

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_monitor

[3] http://www.techradar.com/us/news/car-tech/volvo-debuts-world...

Second this. A Volvo engineer invented the modern 3-point seat belt, then made the new seat belt design patent open in the interest of safety. as well as countless other innovations

http://www.volvogroup.com/group/global/en-gb/researchandtech...

That is such a stupid attitude.

Sure, don't blame the victim. They'll be dead - but it's much more important that no one blame them!

I assume you never lock your car or your house? Because if someone robbed you you are not at fault! Victim blaming!

Pushing the responsibility from cyclists onto drivers is bad here because the responsibility not to maim and kill people with these one-ton death machines should mostly be the driver's.

After the cyclist has taken appropriate measures (riding correctly; correct lights and reflectors) there's not much more they can do to protect themselves. If they're not riding correctly that's the problem you should be trying to fix - an idiot on a bike is still at great risk of death, even if they're ultra-reflective.

Who said anything about pushing responsibility?

We are talking about if "modifying the cyclist" is desirable or not.

It might not be the victim's responsibility to act safely - yet it's still stupid if they don't.

You're assuming that this reflective spray increases safety. You're then telling people who don't buy and use this product that they're stupid. And you're not saying anything about the dangerous vehicle drivers who cause most road deaths.

The Euro NCAP safety rating was heavily updated a few years ago (2007-ish) to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety. That's why most new cars that come out have those ridiculously tall and flat noses.

Suggesting a precaution isn't victim blaming.

Its simply a "better safe than sorry" product.

Indeed. I try to be as courteous as possible toward cyclists and bikers but during the day they can be damn near impossible to notice. Making them more visible means that there would be one less accident with someone who does try to take notice of them.

Does routinely not being able to see who else is on the road cause you to drive more slowly?

How did you conclude that I speed? Do comments like that cause you to be less of a presumptuous dick?

Maybe, just maybe, humans are not biologically equipped to be moving at the speeds that we do on the roads as well as the complexity of situations faced on the road. Both you, me and the bikers. Supplementing those biological shortcomings, in any way possible, is a clear win for those who care (possibly not for people who don't and would rather just pointlessly argue by positing that people speed without never having seen them actually drive).

Maybe, just maybe, that is why robots have been shown to be better drivers and maybe until we get to the point of entirely replacing human drivers we could have less accidents as a result of supplementing our inadequacies. Despite whatever presumptuous and pointless argument people like you make in order to try make me a villain simply by virtue of me choosing to be behind a wheel and not handlebars.

Arguments like yours really make we wonder if there actually are brains in this community. That level of discussion is something I would expect from an ignorant child.

Let's assume that your juvenile outburst was, indeed, true. What have you then added to the discussion? Nothing. More visible cyclists are still more visible to the type of lunatic that I am. This means that I would more likely avoid them. Saving lives.

If all you care about is finding out who to blame, go right ahead. The rest of the intelligent world will carry on trying to find solutions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith

I think it probably is in good faith, but it’s still pushing responsibility onto other road users for driver error: implicitly the logic runs something like “I didn’t see them, but they weren’t wearing reflective spray so it’s their fault I hit them.” It’s a pernicious line of thinking that if you’re a regular cyclist you realise is everywhere in the discussion of road safety issues.

You see the same thing with helmets, which are designed to reduce (not eliminate) the impact of a cyclist falling from a standing (or riding) position to the ground, ie a 12mph impact, to the point where brain damage is less likely to occur. Thanks to the v² scaling of energy that has to be dissipated, even a 20mph impact exceeds the design limits of a cycle helmet to absorb impact energy by nearly a factor of 3 which means that helmets make little difference in direct collisions with vehicles travelling at normal traffic speeds. Yet I’ve seen cyclists called out for “not wearing a helmet” when they’ve been run over by a cement truck. Cyclists tend to be a tad hyper-sensitive to victim blaming as a result of this kind of thing!

They could indeed start by painting all their cars with it:

https://www.change.org/p/volvo-european-commission-volvo-sho...

That wouldn't work! The paint is reflective, so it would only work if the cyclist was had a light, and asking them to do that would be victim blaming.

I know, the audacity.

Soon they'll suggest drivers wear seat belts, and drive at a set speed limit!

It's not the drivers fault! It's the tree/cliff/road design's.

Anything else is victim blaming!

Where there's multiple crashes in the same place it often is the road design that's at fault, not the drivers of the cars.

One vaguely relevant example is that roundabouts are safer than 4-way crossings for cars, though I think the evidence is a bit more mixed for cyclists.

Agree. My point was changing driver/cyclist behaviour is not victim blaming, but a valid approach to solving the problem.

Road Design, car design, culture, etc are all valid factors as well.

Well, knowing that roundabouts are safer, if the manufacturer of 4 way stop-lights suggested that cars should be painted brighter colors to prevent crashes, I'd consider that in about as poor taste, and as likely to have a positive impact, as volvo trying to repaint bicycles as a PR pitch.

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