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It's Never a Bicycle Accident

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Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#61

Post by bandana »

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…

"just barely avoid crushing or rolling over some crazy cyclist that falls on his damn bike right under my car"

You are supposed to respect a safe separation distance so that you don't "barely avoid crushing them" if something happen, not tailgate them. Since it happens every 3 months, consider if your driving might be at fault. If not for the cyclist, at least for the sake of not scratching your car, eh.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#62

Post by WalterBright »

renewiltord wrote: post #49
WalterBright wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Well, looks like the law will work there. He'll have lots of explaining to do and the explaining will be easy. Hardly sounds like a counter-example.

The idea of "default" liability is unjust. Who is at fault needs to be proven, at least with a preponderance of evidence. If that cannot be done, then liability should be shared.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#63

Post by AYBABTME »

sneak wrote: post #21
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…

Not sure why you're downvoted, I do similar exactly because otherwise cars pass me by a mere few centimetres. If I'm in the middle of the lane, they can't unless they're really set on pushing me off, and then at least I have a buffer of space to my right that I can verve into.

If you stick to the side of the road, you make it the default decision for people (many of which I'm sure might not if they knew better) to pass too close to you, plus you've got no buffer or escape route.

The thing is most people don't understand that putting yourself in the middle of the lane, as a bike, is the safest thing to do for everyone. Motorcycles are taught to do exactly that: position themselves so that they positively take their lane.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#64

Post by anoncake »

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.

No, not actively. But they took the decision to pilot tons of metal through a populated area. If you could have avoided that at all, e.g. by taking public transport or cycling yourself, and hit someone, you fully deserve the blame.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#65

Post by brnt »

DocTomoe wrote: post #46
brnt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In all fairness that sounds a lot like "laws do not exist for cyclists". Having to prove your innocence is incompatible with the idea of rule of law. As a car driver, I would start setting up dash cams (which are illegal in Europe thanks to GDPR) to help me proving my innocence.

Both parties in the accident would need to prove their innocence. All else being equal, the party that introduced more kinetic energy onto public roads will be taken to be the most likely source of excess kinetic energy causing the accident.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#66

Post by anoncake »

joeyjojo wrote: post #20
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…

Looked at a billboard designed to grab your attention - dead.

Put that billboard up – promoted, probably.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#67

Post by DocTomoe »

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…

I don't think the hyperbole helps anyone ... You do not put your hand out because you want to ask for mercy of the executioner in the metal coffin, you put your hand out to indicate your intention.

It's the same reason why cars have blinkers. If a car does not use the blinker, a resulting accident is a preventable mistake by the car driver. In the same vein, a cyclist not indicating a change of lane and/or direction has endangered themselves, and others.

A car driver who has no idea about the intention of a cyclist will assume that the cyclist will continue to use the same lane / the same direction as before - and act accordingly.

No car driver wants to be involved in an accident - at best, it's costly and causes legal hassle. At worst, you have been part of a death.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#68

Post by sfjailbird »

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…

Agreed, and I believe people of the future will be astounded that we used to accept that public streets were killing fields for small kids, animals and the inattentive. (Not to mention having a significant portion of the area taken up by idle vehicles, but I digress.)

I believe the solution will be autonomous cars, which are not only (overly) cautious, but can pick you up or drop you off, and then scuttle off to underground parking or to pick up the next person.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#69

Post by WalterBright »

nielsole wrote: post #56

Other phrases (at least in german media): "cyclist injures _himself_ badly" "The cyclist wore no helmet" (as if that changes fault in an accident) The car "couldn't stop in time" (e.g. for a red light before hitting a cyclist/pedestrian in the intersection) When the cyclist is struck at night the car driver sometimes is quoted with the claim the bike had no lights. While sometimes that may be right, the car driver ob…

> the light is often damaged in the accident

You can tell if the light was on when it was damaged, by examining the filament. They do this in airplane accident investigations to see which panel lamps were on when it crashed.

This doesn't work for LED lights, though. Just incandescent.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#70

Post by caslon »

clairity wrote: post #50
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…

> “...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 anyone caught up against it.

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