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It's Never a Bicycle Accident

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Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#21

Post by sneak »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #10

One of the linked accidents in the article looks terrible, a man is cycling along the road, a bus overtakes him and clips his handlebars, knocking him to the ground and then running over his torso with the rear wheels of the bus. 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…

For this reason I always try to drive in the center of the lane or even in the left tire-track of a lane when cycling in places without a shoulder or dedicated bike lane; that is, make it clear they can't just scoot past me on the left by taking as much of the lane as possible.

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.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#22

Post by bogle »

adrianN wrote: post #2

Victimblaming is par for the course whenever a cyclist gets injured. It's really infuriating. I don't think that blaming the driver is good either, as the article says, most of the time it's a failure of the infrastructure that even made the situation possible. Very few drivers try to actively kill cyclists.

You should try cycling in my town. Okay, that's hyperbole but the way the drivers of many vehicles show massive aggression towards cyclists on the roads is narrowing the margin between an accident and a murder.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#24

Post by VBprogrammer »

folex wrote: post #12

It's so strange to have this "areas of death" in our towns. You turn the wrong way - you're dead. You saw the wrong color - dead. I understand that it takes some evolution to solve that, but it's SO. STRANGE. 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 t…

I'm pretty sure you could frame anything as it's negative externalities and make it sound crazy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of...

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#25

Post by railton »

anovikov wrote: post #11

Absolutely untrue. I am not a cyclist but i have about once in 3 months or so, a near accident where i just barely avoid crushing or rolling over some crazy cyclist that falls on his damn bike right under my car or drives from round the corner at full speed without damn looking anywhere. However careful i am trying to be it's just a matter of luck that i didn't kill anyone (and i once scratched my car and the other g…

In the UK the majority of drivers who kill cyclists do not go to prison https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-28345522

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.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#26

Post by jacquesm »

Just the other day here a guy in an SUV passed through a cloud of cyclists pedal to the metal during the morning rush hour when a lot of local kids cycle to school either with their parents or alone. I confronted him a little bit further on (when he had to slow down again, which is one reason why such hurrying makes no sense, it's just too busy). His motivation: none of the kids put out their hand. So that carries a potential death penalty these days, in case you weren't aware of it, and this is supposedly the most bike friendly country in the world. His own ~7 year old daughter was in the passenger seat, I wonder how he would feel if it was his kid on the road with a person like him zooming by in an 1800 Kg vehicle. People like him are the reason I still ride with my kids to school in the morning.

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.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#27

Post by spikeheap »

anovikov wrote: post #11

Absolutely untrue. I am not a cyclist but i have about once in 3 months or so, a near accident where i just barely avoid crushing or rolling over some crazy cyclist that falls on his damn bike right under my car or drives from round the corner at full speed without damn looking anywhere. However careful i am trying to be it's just a matter of luck that i didn't kill anyone (and i once scratched my car and the other g…

Reminds me of the saying:

“If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole.

If you meet assholes all day long, you’re the asshole”

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#28

Post by narag »

WalterBright wrote: post #6

Never? Some accidents involving bicycles and cars are the bicycle's fault, some are the car's fault. Some are both, some are neither's.

I see the problem with the headline, so I can understand the overreaction. But you're right, "never" is as unrealistic as the headline.

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.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#29

Post by fuzxi »

WalterBright wrote: post #15
adrianN wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For none of them it's useful to think of "an accident" because that doesn't lead to actions that prevent future crashes.

An accident is an unintentional crash, which is not the same thing as not somebody's fault or not preventable.

IMO, the word 'accident' implies a lack of negligence.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#30

Post by WalterBright »

brnt wrote: post #16
WalterBright wrote: post #6

Never? Some accidents involving bicycles and cars are the bicycle's fault, some are the car's fault. Some are both, some are neither's.

Dutch law has a nice solution: liability correlates with weight. The more weight you put on the street, the more explaining you have to do, because you chose to potentially cause more damage. In a collision, the weightiest vehicle therefore is by default liable, unless they can prove otherwise. This means that in bicycle-car accidents, drivers almost always pay, and in bicycles pedestrian accident the cyclist.

I've seen cyclists drafting behind trucks, where they ride about 5 feet behind the right rear bumper of a panel truck going 35 mph.

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?

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