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It's Never a Bicycle Accident

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Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#121

Post by matsemann »

prower wrote: post #110
sneak wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone pointed out downthread, there are no "cyclists", just other people who, at that time, are on bikes. Hating someone and unnecessarily acting in ways that might cause their death because they are moving slowly due to being on a bike is, to put it mildly, psychotic.

Going on the street without paying attention to all signs, rules and potential dangers is NEVER OK. That's paramount (for everyone on the road) and I'm not questioning that for a second. That said, bikes are dangerous for everyone involved. If you encounter a bike you slow down all traffic (because you can't overtake safely, and that's difficult on busy roads), you have to keep distance and account to the fact that y…

To use your logic about "everyone hating cyclists" (which is not true, but believe what you want..):

If traffic with cars+cars have thousands lethal accidents, cars+cyclists have lots of lethal accidents, but cyclists+cyclists have almost no lethal accidents, isn't it worth investigating? Maybe the problem here is the cars on the road. Hmm, removing them is probably a good idea.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#122

Post by jamil7 »

prower wrote: post #118
sneak wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, bikes are dangerous for everyone involved. If you encounter a bike you slow down all traffic (because you can't overtake safely, and that's difficult on busy roads), you have to keep distance and account to the fact that you could run over the iker AT ANY TIME because bikes are NOT reliable when roads are not 100% correctly maintained. Going slower isn't unsafe, it's safer. You're confusing inconvenience…

That's not true when you're forced to do 10km/h for prolonged periods of time (that's hindrance to traffic and you can usually get a fine for that) because you can't safely overtake a bycicle that's going in a zig-zag way on the lane to avoid a myriad of potholes, or because it's an uphill road and it's too physically taxing for the biker, sice he choose the wrong vehicle for the wrong road. That's only stress and us…

> sice he choose the wrong vehicle for the wrong road

If we use that logic we can make all kinds of arguments about a car being the wrong vehicle for the wrong roads.

For example, is an SUV in the city the right vehicle for the right road? or is that causing useless stress and danger for everyone involved?

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#123

Post by senectus1 »

jacquesm wrote: post #26

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…

> Driving is a privilege

Its amazing how this simple fact is utterly incapable of being understood by every driver on the road. not just the ones that think they score points for clipping cyclists.

The arrogant, self righteousness of todays entitled drivers is going to be what pushes Gov to mandate autonomous driving.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#124

Post by prower »

matsemann wrote: post #121
prower wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going on the street without paying attention to all signs, rules and potential dangers is NEVER OK. That's paramount (for everyone on the road) and I'm not questioning that for a second. That said, bikes are dangerous for everyone involved. If you encounter a bike you slow down all traffic (because you can't overtake safely, and that's difficult on busy roads), you have to keep distance and account to the fact that y…

To use your logic about "everyone hating cyclists" (which is not true, but believe what you want..): If traffic with cars+cars have thousands lethal accidents, cars+cyclists have lots of lethal accidents, but cyclists+cyclists have almost no lethal accidents, isn't it worth investigating? Maybe the problem here is the cars on the road. Hmm, removing them is probably a good idea.

>If traffic with cars+cars have thousands lethal accidents, cars+cyclists have lots of lethal accidents, but cyclists+cyclists have almost no lethal accidents, isn't it worth investigating? Maybe the problem here is the cars on the road. Hmm, removing them is probably a good idea.

I totally and completely agree. I'm OK with car-free cities. But having both on the same road is wrong and insane.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#125

Post by softgrow »

In transport academia "crash" vs "accident" is contested. I'm a "crash" person but I'm lampooned by "accident" people for it. It's the wrong word or maybe it doesn't matter. There are even people who argue for some are "crash" and some are "accident". The "accident" example quoted is a motorcyclist who was struck in the face (not wearing a full-face helmet) by a bird then rode onto the wrong side and struck another motorcyclist, at least one died. So was it the bird's fault, ie. an unpredictable and without human involvement, or should the first motorcyclist had a full face helmet?

My view is that "accident" implies an act-of-god that couldn't be prevented, whereas a "crash" is an impact, there is no doubt that an impact occurred. If you write off a "crash" as an "accident" you are tempted to not investigate and try and learn from it. The more you dig deeper into "accidents" is you find they some are not. With a decreasing number of fatal crashes, in my Australian state but the same number of police investigating they are starting to find (and prove) that some crashes are deliberate. What has long been suspected of the possibility of suicide and murder by head-on crash is proving to be real.

Words can be important.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#126

Post by senectus1 »

ehnto wrote: post #5

I always tell people I am not a cyclist, I am a bloke who rides a bike. The vilification of a group is how you make harming them palatable to people, and we have all heard the rhetoric surrounding "cyclists". I am far sooner a friend, a son, a partner and someone you know, than a cyclist. I don't even qear lycra, and I spend my whole ride trying to be courteous so at least extend me the same courtesy. Also, get off y…

> Also, get off your fucking phone.

Years ago... before smartphones become an epidemic on the roads, I got personalized number plates AFK as a very nerdy joke. But these days I see them as a message to everyone about staying off their phones...

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#127

Post by julenx »

prower wrote: post #110
sneak wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone pointed out downthread, there are no "cyclists", just other people who, at that time, are on bikes. Hating someone and unnecessarily acting in ways that might cause their death because they are moving slowly due to being on a bike is, to put it mildly, psychotic.

Going on the street without paying attention to all signs, rules and potential dangers is NEVER OK. That's paramount (for everyone on the road) and I'm not questioning that for a second. That said, bikes are dangerous for everyone involved. If you encounter a bike you slow down all traffic (because you can't overtake safely, and that's difficult on busy roads), you have to keep distance and account to the fact that y…

If roads are busy, it's worth noting traffic is created by motorized vehicles in the first place... plus, if slowing down is required to make roads safer, what? why is that a problem attributed to cyclists if usually (depending on which part of the world you live) cyclists don't have alternatives?

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#128

Post by tonyedgecombe »

sneak wrote: post #108
goodcanadian wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyclists roll through signals, intersections & stop signs as if they were mere suggestions and nothing more. As do a lot of car drivers.

By the numbers, way more car drivers do.

Yes, there have been a number of studies that show that’s the case.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#129

Post by Laarlf »

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.

That is the thing that annoys me the most. You don't walk on train tracks, you don't drive on the sidewalk. Excessive speed differences like these are dangerous. Either accept that cycling on the road is dangerous and work with that mindset or choose a fitting medium to travel for the ground given. On a bike, you are weaker and slower than the cars you share the road with. Being hit by a car won't fix infrastructure.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#130

Post by etripe »

caslon wrote: post #70
clairity wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “...I would love it if reckless drivers would lose their license at the first offense.” that’s too punitive, but i’d be quite happy with a quickly escalating, income-/wealth-adjusted fine. so like 0.01% of yearly income on first offense, 0.1% on second offense, 1% on third offense, or something like that, on a rolling 12-month basis, where you can voluntarily give up you license for 3 months to reset the scale of y…

How is it too punitive? They're operating a massive structure of (usually literally) flaming steel. If they can't consider the safety of people who very plausibly will be their victims without constant vigilance, they really shouldn't be driving. Doubly so for pickups, which are now so large that they offer a near-nonexistent risk on the driver's end for poor driving and nearly-certain serious-injury-and-or-death for…

In my mind, because "offence", depending on legislature, might be vehicular manslaughter, a parking ticket or anything in between. There is also a huge difference between driving 55 in a 50 zone and driving 90 at the same location.
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