I completely agree with the article. Car drivers have to have a lot more responsibility for their actions. They are already the worst part of every city, with their excessive honking, stinky exhaust and lack of awareness of their surroundings. So far, while riding on the side of a road, I've had a pickup truck driver trying to kill me in the US; numerous buses and trucks trying to hit me or run me off the road, SUV drivers and passengers trying to hit me with garbage and multiple people threatening me with violence (and a bus who had actually succeeded in hitting me) in Lithuania. Just over several years of commuting. In addition, I closely follow traffic rules, and always do the hand signals for turns. Basically, ride the bike the same way as I would drive a car. I also refuse to ever ride a bicycle on the sidewalk.
In contrast, in Denmark, the drivers were very aware of every bicycle and pedestrian and much more relaxed towards them. It felt like utopia there, and according to the locals, the strict liability laws are a large part of it. Another significant reason is that Danes in general are much more calm and relaxed than anyone else I've seen so far.
Us cyclists are responsible for our safety too. All too often I see cyclists:
- running reds and stop signs
- riding without helmets (it's all fun and games until you fly through someone's rear windshield and die because helmets are too ugly and bulky for you)
- riding on the wrong side of the road
Helmets actually have two effects that increase fatalities:
1) Psychological: motorists give less safety margin to helmeted cyclists.
2) Cyclist reduction: locales which require helmets have sharply fewer cyclists on the road, which is is strongly correlated with less empathy from drivers and more cyclist fatalities.
Helmet laws are one of the worst possible ideas if you want cycling to be safe.
There are strong arguments for either case, but I think it comes down to this: Helmet laws make intuitive sense in situations/jurisdictions where cyclists and cars share the road directly -- i.e., places without dedicated infrastructure to separate the two.
Cyclists riding on roads with cars (even with painted bike lanes, but especially without them) are presumably at much greater risk of experiencing a fatal conflict, although statistics about this are less available than one would hope. Cyclists on dedicated cycle paths are at scarcely greater risk than pedestrians, who would probably object to being made to wear a helmet.
Given the above, I would support a compromise law that mandated helmet use on public (car) roads, but not in residential areas or dedicated bike paths.
I live in NZ we've had helmet laws for a long time. As a teen I had a bad crash. I felt the thud as my helmet hit the concrete then the grind as it slid across the rough road surface. If I'd not been wearing that helmet it would have been my skull left to deal with that initial thud and my face to deal with the friction while sliding along the road. I was pretty banged up but not as badly as I could have been. I was a teen no way I'd have worn a helmet if I wasn't required too.
It's a situation where what's best for one person isn't always the same as what's good for everyone.
If they weren't required, there would have been more cyclists, possibly a better separated lane for you and the driver (assuming one was involved) would have been more used to and aware of the importance of sharing the road with those like you.
If you're planning on mountain biking or doing certain commutes, it absolutely makes sense to wear a helmet and yet, that doesn't mean that helmet laws are good for the safety of the populace as a whole (and this isn't even getting into 3rd order effects like heart disease in the sedentary, pollution related diseases, etc).
Folks who post on Hacker News rely on their mind almost exclusively for their income. And yet, when bicycling comes up, there are always advocates for doing away with helmets and for attempting to up the penalties for cars. Few, if any, appear to realize that cars are always going to have the "right of weight" on the road.
If you want to tighten up the laws for car drivers, that's fine - but it's still going to be the bicyclist who suffers the most in such an accident. Penalties won't help them when they are dead, a vegetable, or otherwise critically injured. Penalties won't stop a hit from the head from damaging the brain. Penalties won't stop cars from hitting bikers.
Look at the drunk driving penalties in the US. They are some of the harshest driving related penalties on our books; yet some people still drive drunk (and that's not counting those who drive (or ride) at a few percentage points below the legal limits).
And here's where I start getting into preachy territory: it's ultimately up to the biker to keep themselves alive; car drivers aren't going to magically become perfect drivers, and accidents will still happen. If you want to ride a bicycle on the same road as cars which weigh thousands of pounds that can move at speeds more than double your own, the only thing that will ultimately keep you alive is you.
Well yes, but the article explicitly says that in 87% of accidents, the car driver was at fault, not the cyclist, so obviously it's not the cyclist's fault.
The study doesn't differentiate between blowing through a stop sign and a rolling stop. You're drawing the conclusion you want, not what the data says.
Everyone kicks down. I've seen drivers treat cyclists like shit, and seen cyclists treat pedestrians like shit. In my hometown there have been a couple of deaths of pedestrians because cyclists are too busy being macho on their morning commute. As a pedestrian, I've been buzzed and verbally abused by cyclists riding where they're not supposed to.
Yes, the cars:cyclists thing is more dangerous to life and limb, but cyclists:pedestrians has the same proportion of arseholes. I'm not sure who pedestrians 'kick down' to, but no doubt they'd be the same if they do.
My city had 47 pedestrians killed by cars in 2016, and back in 2010 we had the first and last known pedstrian-cyclist collision fatality, it was an 80 year old man.
How many cars do you have driving and how many bicycles? If the number of cars is greater than 47x the number of bikes, might completely flip that outcome.
I just read the article about statistics errors including base rate fallacy on HN today, worth a read:
Another caveat would be how many are sharing the same space. In a lot of places cyclist and pedestrians are sharing a footpath or some sort of shared cycle path. There aren't nearly as many shared spaces between cars and people.
I'm not sure why the focus is so much on the death rate. To me, my comment reads more about the arsehole behaviour of various groups. I even literally state that at the start of the second paragraph. The GP is talking about drivers acting like arseholes, and I'm responding that cyclists act like arseholes too, and so would pedestrians if they had someone to 'kick down' to.
Interesting, though, that you seek to 'excuse' the death of the pedestrian in your city 'because he's old', but don't bother to note the age spread of the vehicular deaths.
I don't know where they get this statistic from. Is it provable? In Sweden they separate cars and bikes and there are much fewer accidents as a result. I heard a cyclist had thrown their bike at a horse because they felt the track was 'bikes-only' (it wasn't and an incredibly stupid thing to do even if it was). Everyone will say cyclists do this, motorists do that, stupid jaywalking pedestrians... blah blah. People are dicks whatever mode of transportation they use and the law should reflect that.
That is precisely the reason why I refuse to ride on sidewalks and always stop at zebra crossings to let people pass. I tend to think that the person in a higher momentum vehicle has much more liability for his actions, i.e. baby < kid < adult < bicycle < car < SUV < bus.
I commute by bicycle. Cars are generally something I don't have to worry about because my commute is mainly not on roads and where it is there are generous bike lanes (although I have been almost hit by cars, deliberately, before). The non-road portions of my commute are on paths that are marked at regular intervals with words and symbols noting that the paths are shared between pedestrians and cyclists.
Every "close encounter" with a pedestrian I've ever had has been because the pedestrian, usually with his face buried deeply into his phone, starts swerving to the side or, worse, abruptly turns. Responsibility is on all parties in spaces where there is shared traffic, not just cyclists or cars or pedestrians.
I cycle a lot myself but I would agree that a lot of cyclists ride like idiots. They are irresponsible around cars and irresponsible around pedestrians. It always bothers me when I see them ride around at night without lights at high speed. That's just asking for trouble.
In my hometown I regularly see pedestrians walking/jogging in the bike lanes, even though the sidewalks are clear. I just think every group has its assholes.
In my hometown, runners use the bike lanes and cyclists use the sidewalks. Not quite that extreme, but true in many cases.
I run in bike lanes to avoid the dip and rise at every driveway and to make myself more visible to drivers at intersections. I will hop on the sidewalk if a cyclist is approaching.
I've seldom had a cyclist stop for me at a crosswalk (when crossing), when they either have a stop sign, or I had the green but there were no cars in the opposite direction. It seems as though they felt I "got in their way" meanwhile as a pedestrian I have the right of way and I should not have to tie my crossing to avoid their path.
Are cars causing bike collisions or bikes causing collisions on the road?
I'm a car driver and I'll be honest here - I hate cyclists and bikers. And don't get me wrong, I like bikes in general. To be more specific, I hate them on the road because it's so easy to hit a biker with your car. Sometimes cyclists appear from nowhere. The biggest problem is that it's hard to predict where cyclist is going to move next. It seems that a lot of them think that since they're small, they can maneuver as much as they want.
In terms of safety, I strongly think that while car stays the main type of vehicle, bikers/cyclists should have its own road. Not a lane, but a dedicated road. Single responsibility principle [1] FTW. But, as we know, cities do not have space for more roads (and it doesn't mean that they should). At that point, a lane for cyclists is a trade-off.
Now one may ask, "why don't you sell your car and get a bike instead?". This is a fair question, but wrong way of thinking, since these two vehicles are meant for different purposes, and that's a whole separate topic.
Now should car drivers have a lot more responsibility for their actions? Maybe, but that's a "quick hack", not a solution.
Alternatively, cyclists should have total right of way on roads and should ride in the center just as cars do. It solves the visibility and unpredictability problem (usually caused by side-of-the-road woes such as broken glass, anticipation of car doors opening, pedestrians stepping onto the road etc.).
This is theoretically how one should ride when there is no bike lane. The practice, however, is that drivers consider you an obstruction. I was almost run down by a SCHOOL BUS (!!!) in NYC while doing this.
Exactly this and I'm happy that this is true in the UK. It works really well with 20mph restrictions in most parts of central London, so cycling in a traffic is pretty easy. Some drivers still may get upset if you don't give them way (so they can drive a few mph faster), but they can be safely ignored.
> In terms of safety, I strongly think that while car stays the main type of vehicle, bikers/cyclists should have its own road. Not a lane, but a dedicated road.
I think most cyclists would love to live in this fantasy world, but it's not the reality we live in.
> these two vehicles are meant for different purposes
What purpose is each vehicle meant for? Who is deciding what their purpose is?
> Is it that easy if you actually follow the 3 feet rule (often law)?
That's not about the 3 feet rule. It's about the relativeness of the number of bikes to the number of cars on the road. Yes, there are rules and requirements and al that, but then there is a psychological factor that is usually ruled out. Let's be realistic, check out this random image of New York [1]. Let's count, how many cars and bikers are there. 30+ cars and 1 bike. How many car drivers do you think expect to see the cyclist there? I mean, yes, they all know that cyclists/bikers are there, they exist, they are somewhere around, but the main focus is still on cars. That's what I was trying to say. Take delivery guys as an example. There are a lot of them and they are riding bikes as crazy. Only in GTA you can see a car driver driving as a delivery bike rider. Sometimes I think they are immortal.
> I think most cyclists would love to live in this fantasy world, but it's not the reality we live in.
Agreed.
> What purpose is each vehicle meant for? Who is deciding what their purpose is?
That's a provocative question and I'm not to argue here. Obviously, there is a substantial difference between a car and a bike. If I need to take my 2 year old kid to an emergency room and it's 2am in the morning, I'm not going to take a bike and put whole family on top of my head. This is just a simple example to illustrate what I meant.
The hierarchy of bike lanes are (from worst to best):
none < sharrows (painted "share the road symbols") < in-street bike lane < bike lane along street w/ some buffer in between < bike lane along street with physical barrier < bike path separate from the street.
Unfortunately much of US cycle infrastructure is none/sharrows/in-street bike lane.
In case "presumed liability" seems like a troubling innovation, here in the US we have something like it for rear-end collisions. The person driving the car in the rear, is presumed to have caused the crash.
Heh, which opens up the possibility of fraud by backing into someone. Which then of course results in more drivers deciding to get a dash cam. So now we have excellent coverage of weird things happening in Russia because a decent fraction of the population has a dash cam.
Currently many cars have automatic braking (honda, subaru, bmw, tesla, etc) I'm not aware of any that actually record it for playback. Does anyone know otherwise?
That's where "presumed liability" enters the picture. Sans dashcam, the cop can gather other kinds of traditional evidence such as witness accounts, but otherwise the person in back is presumed to be at fault.
Something that scares me. It makes no sense whatsoever to assume guilt/liability is mutually exclusive for one party or the other, and is moreover disingenuous.
Generally I support policies which incentives safer driving, but it feels a bit won't to punish drivers when, although nominally" cars cause accidents", the actual root cause is probably more related to cyclist visibility. This is a technical problem, and it should probably be addressed as such.
I'm betting you aren't a bicyclist. If you ride regularly you quickly realize that it's not a visibility problem, but that some drivers feel like bikes don't belong on the road.
I was raced on road and off, was a bicycle messenger, and used it as my primary transportation. Often cars were openly aggressive, I had a brick thrown at me, various cars would try to run me off the road. It's fairly common to be on a long distance ride and have one issue or another with a motorist that believes the bikes shouldn't be there. I've had numerous things yelled me along the lines of "bikes are for kids" and "bikes don't belong on the road". Threatening by swerving, passing way to close to be safe, revving the engine, "rolling coal", etc.
Fortunately cell phones have helped quite a bit, pictures and videos have lead to convictions. There's even boards where locals share info about hazardous drivers. The cyclist death tolls are definitely non-trivial, I've ridden by quite a few memorials. For some reason hitting a pedestrian is often considered manslaughter, but hitting a bicyclist is often called an "accident", as if it was an act of god, not a driver not paying enough attention.
Apropos of the validity of your story I feel that one, well, who carries a brick in their car, and two, the kind of psychopath who /does/ carry a brick in their car for the purpose of throwing at anyone or anything, not just a cyclist, is not the kind of person to be dissuaded by any of this.
There's a lot of aggressive behavior that, while criminally dangerous, isn't as blatant as a brick. Aggression toward bicyclists is a continuum, and if you habituate the careless drivers to being careful, and you dissuade the thoughtlessly agressive, then the sociopaths may not feel like they're part of some larger body of "acceptable" behavior.
They probably already had a brick in their car. As someone who's had people verbally threaten to run me over this story doesn't sound outside the realm of possibility.
Go to your local ice cream/coffee social cycling ride in any major city and ask around about having things thrown at you. Nearly every person there will have a story.
Oh, I'm not disputing the validity of his story. I'm just saying that anyone willing to do this is already breaking the law, regardless of "presumption of guilt as applied to car vs bicycle incidents".
Yeah, I'm not a cyclist, but I live in a busy city with lots of cyclists. Most close calls I witness are related to a bike riding in a blindspot or in between lanes or occasionally running a red, but the problems you cite are definitely not technical and I think something should be done about them. But I'm not convinced that assuming guilty a priori is the answer to that problem either.
I don't know how much more visible I can be on my bike! When I'm doing anything other than my short commute, I'm decked out in high-visibility clothing, have daytime-visible bright flashing lights on my bike, and am decked out with a bunch of retroreflectors. Despite this, I have to swerve to avoid a door that was opened into the bike lane on at least a quarter or half of my 15 minute rides. I have to slam the brakes to avoid a car that's decided to abruptly turn or switch lanes about every four 15 minute rides. This is roughly the same rate as when I go for shorter 4 minute rides to/from work without any special clothes/lights on. In fact, the only reason I wear the high-visibility stuff is for when I get out into the more rural areas after sunset.
I doubt you could get more people to switch to commuting by bike if you required them to take those extreme measures, and it certainly doesn't seem to help me in the city much.
[edit] A simple thing a motorist can do to improve the safety of cyclists is to open a door using the "Dutch reach"[1]. It pretty much necessitates looking to the left before/as you open your door, and makes the check easier too!
As someone who has come close to merging into a cyclist a few times - I'm sorry. I grew up in an area without bike lanes, and then moved to SF, so it wasn't a habit to check bike lanes before turning across them (mental process goes - I'm in the rightmost lane, I just need to look out for pedestrians and I can turn). On the upside - I got rid of my vehicle, so I'm no longer a terror to cyclists.
> The actual root cause is probably more related to cyclist visibility
Sounds like you've never commuted by bicycle before. I've seen people decked out in high-vis clothing carried away in ambulances or their bikes found under car wheels with their headlights and tail lights still on. But don't take my word for it[1], the actual studies themselves aren't very conclusive either[2].
The actual root cause is likely inattentive drivers, poor roads/infrastructure, and the all too common drivers' mentality that "bikes don't belong on the roads" many cyclists encounter on a regular, day-to-day basis when drivers feel justified in passing too close, cutting cyclists off, or turning into them.
Your links don't really support your argument. That hi-vis gear doesn't eliminate visibility issues for small-cross-section vehicles is not good evidence that visibility isn't the primary issue.
I've also seen bright red cars get hit; I didn't claim that high visibility is a guarantee, only that it improves the odds.
The infrastructure bit is also not going to be solved by these laws (directly, anyway). Maybe more liability is the way to go for carelessness, but I do worry about those drivers who really do everything reasonable to avoid an accident, but still manage to hit someone.
I highly doubt it's a technical problem. As a biker, by far the most common violation is cars making right turns from non-right turn lanes. In particular, where I am, if you have a bike lane on the far right of the road, and you wish to turn right across it, you must first signal, then merge into the bike lane, then make your turn from your position half in the bike lane half in the rightmost vehicle lane (as the bike lane isn't wide enough for a car, you'll straddle it and a normal lane).
Pretty much nobody does this. You're lucky if you get a signal; half the time the only way you know the driver wants to turn at all is that instinct and experience is telling you their driving is otherwise erratic.
On occasions that I wish were more rare, you'll see a driver take a right from the leftmost lane, blinker be damned.
The other common problem is that Uber drivers tend to believe the bike lane is their personal drop-off lane. I've had Ubers stop in the lane when there is parking right there next to the lane. In San Francisco of all places.
As a driver, and a biker, bikers: a red light applies to you. I've had a few close calls with bikers running reds. Laws like the proposed make me wonder how I'd "prove" it, if I didn't have a dashcam. (Which reminds me that I really need a dashcam.)
All of this is operator error, not problems with visibility. People are too damn lazy, so lazy they can't be bothered to follow the law, because 99% of the time it is without consequence, for them.
It doesn't help that the laws vary from state to state and city to city. In Oregon, it is illegal for a driver to enter the bike lane prior to making a right turn. This leaves right turning drivers blocking cars in their lane while trying to judge an approaching bike's speed and distance using their rear and side mirrors. California's law makes more sense, even though it sounds like too many drivers don't establish a position on the road that makes their intention to turn clear to cyclists.
Presumably the burden of knowing what's around is placed on the person operating the vehicle? In motorcycle safety classes they teach you not to outride your vision. Basically, you have to ride as though there could be a pothole, brick wall, whatever around every corner, every hill, etc. so go at a speed that lets you stop before hitting anything you don't see. Why aren't drivers taught this?
That is where the burden is placed, but it doesn't change natural human limits. Bikes are small, silent, agile, and often erratic things that often ride within mere inches of a car (if they're weaving in between lanes). In a busy city, you can check the bike lane before you right turn, and a bike could easily slip back into it while you change your focus back to the intersection. I'm a pedestrian in a crowded city, so I know that drivers aren't always attentive and that's a big part of the problem, but I also drive on occasion, and it can be hard to stay on top of all of the cars, bikes, and pedestrians all around you (and many cyclists and pedestrians pay no regard to traffic laws).
> so go at a speed that lets you stop before hitting anything you don't see. Why aren't drivers taught this?
This was part of my driver's education curriculum.
A certain amount of "visibility" problems are cause by drivers too, if they are too close to the car in front then they lose peripheral vision, or they're driving too fast or some combination of the two.
Sure a rider dressed completely in black at night will be hard to see, but if you can't see a cyclist in front of you in broad daylight and have enough time to react to them then you're either driving dangerously or you're eyesight isn't good enough to be driving.
There is a decision on how to act when you don't have visiblity into a situation, and with the current "it's not your fault" legal perspective for motorists, the choice is reckless maneuvering that will kill obscured cyclists.
> Where I live, it is illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk. Cyclists will ride in the road, then through a crosswalk if the light is red.
Okay, these cyclists are not following the law for sure.
> No wonder people get frustrated and hit them.
... What? So, a cyclist breaks a minor law, which is that they use the sidewalk at a red light, so it is _okay_ to hit a _200 pound cyclist_ with a _2 ton metal object_? Jesus christ, what world do you live in where there's moral equivalence there.
If this isn't a textbook case of motorist entitlement, I don't know what is.
> So, a cyclist breaks a minor law, which is that they use the sidewalk at a red light, so it is _okay_ to hit a _200 pound cyclist_ with a _2 ton metal object_?
I suggest you try cycling as your main means of transportation in your city for a few weeks.
The key to surviving as a cyclist using bad cycle infrastructure is to be flexible and aware of the dangers around you. Crossing at a crosswalk is a reasonable response to drivers who don't check their mirrors and don't signal before turning. Running a red light when there is no cross traffic is a reasonable response to the fact that cars and bikes have different abilities to get up to speed from a stop and impatient drivers (especially, again, turning ones) are a huge risk to cyclists.
It's absolutely true that cyclists are often not strict rule-followers, but the rules are designed for cars which are large, fast, heavy, and can cause huge amounts of damage, while cycles are small, slow, light, and can cause at best small amounts of damage.
As a cyclist, I have to ride as if every single vehicle is actively trying to kill me.
> Where I live, it is illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk.
For what it's worth, people often believe this even when it's not true in their area. For example, in Austin (where I live) it is legal to cycle on sidewalks, though I often hear people say they think otherwise.
Now, I'm not saying I do it, as a cyclist who wants to live a long life. But it is legal and (as my sibling commenters have said) it doesn't give any drivers a right or reason to hit cyclists.
In NYC, it's illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk unless you're 12 years old or younger or it's specifically allowed by a sign (I've lived in the city for decades and have never seen such a sign anywhere I've been, so they're probably pretty rare):
That map covers, what, about 0.001% of Austin roads? You can take it on faith that my conversations about people cycling on sidewalks don't have to do with those very few streets downtown. My point stands that cycling on Austin sidewalks is legal in 99.99% of cases and nobody has the right or reason to "get frustrated and hit them."
As an aside: I find cycling downtown to be the easiest, because traffic speeds are much slower and there are a number of good bike lanes (some even physically protected). In addition, most drivers downtown actually expect pedestrians and therefore don't blindly turn with high speed at lights.
Really? I can kill people now when they frustrate me? Smash the lady at the checkout fiddling for exact change over the head with my bottle of Mr. Clean? Use my steak knife the my waiter when he comes back with the bill and we haven't had a single refill on drinks?
I recently moved to NYC which while slightly less hellish than expected, still manages to be very unfriendly to cyclists. NYPD routinely blames cyclists for their own deaths, seemingly always looking for some excuse for the driver's distraction/unawareness/aggressiveness.
I've lived in a few major American cities, where cycle infrastructure is poor and subservient to car traffic, and also in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany where cycling infrastructure is (mostly) reasonable and well-maintained. I've written on Metafilter before about the swedish infrastructure: http://www.metafilter.com/140136/Intersection-Protection#559...
It's pretty pathetic that the "greatest city" in the wealthiest country in the world can't provide better infrastructure.
It's interesting to note that a common refrain you hear is "Bikes are the worst offenders! I see bikes running red lights all the time". If you pair it with this report, you might think your anecdotal experience doesn't jive with this report. As a biker, I would have to agree with the car drivers, a high % of bikers blatantly (and unsafely) break road rules; a much higher percentage than cars. I'd estimate it at 20-30% in SF.
Does this mean the law should be focused on bikers? No, here's why:
1) the laws should be focused on # of bad actors. There are more significantly more drivers than bikers on the road meaning:
2) Even excluding the frequency of each mode of transportation, the risk profile is completely different. A car is a 1 ton fast moving object capable of killing 10s of people (see the London attacks). A bike is much less deadly. The legal constraints should follow the risk profile of the mode of transportation (which is also why truckers have much stricter rules and penalties while driving)
3) If you do a damage assessment (i.e # of biker deaths caused by bad drivers vs vice versa) you will see the numbers are way way higher on the driver side. So from a public policy perspective it makes sense to focus on the drivers.
That being said, I think public policy should have some focus on the bikers. I think humans expect some sense of fairness in their legal systems and when car drivers don't see rules fairly applied, you get road rage directed at pedestrians and bikers. So I'd applaud:
* Stricter enforcement of ticketing on bikers who fail to signal before turns, do not slow at busy intersections, running red lights, unsafely lane splitting , etc. I've seen so many bikers do this and it's so unsafe.
* Education requirements for BOTH drivers and bikers for getting a state id / drivers license
I ride a bike in Australia as a commuter regularly, and rode in Amsterdam and Berlin on a recent trip. Wow, the difference was amazing. Berlin, especially, was a dream come true. Cycling in a city was actually pleasant.
Australian drivers are actively hostile to cyclists. To the extent that I've had stuff thrown at me (by strangers) from cars. This is a specific cultural problem that I've not seen elsewhere. You can see it in the comments on any site whenever the question of cycling comes up.
We also have a problem with lycra-clad sports cyclists who generally behave intolerantly. Often they defend this as a reaction to driver hostility. But it's not helping.
Aussies really hate anyone breaking the rules, too. Or rather, someone else breaking the rules when they have to obey them. Cyclists being unidentifiable by camera, and therefore able to run red lights with impunity, enrages car drivers stuck at one of our 4-hour red lights.
It's pretty rare to see a "normal" person cycling as a method of transport here. Which is ridiculous, because the climate's amazing for it.
Cars are a thing of the past. I'm in Leiden, NL right now, and "wow" what a refreshing thing to be surrounded by bikes instead of cars. It feels human, it's futuristic and beautiful.
The bike infrastructure in the Netherlands really is amazing.
It has roughly 4 significant advantages over many areas though. A history of relying on bicycles, temperate weather, flatness and a population density that can justify spending a lot of money on infrastructure.
I live in region about the same physical size as the Netherlands, with a population of ~300,000. It isn't stunning that we have 50x less infrastructure here.
I ride my bike to work and it's incredible how asinine and stupid some drivers are. Some of them don't even know (or at least pretend) that bicycles can occupy the rods along with cars. It's just ridiculous.
But in the end, I actually blame the police. Truth is police just doesn't give a damn. If police acted when they see a car disrespecting a bicycle (for instance seeing a car passing the bicycle without holding the minimum legal distance from it... which happens constantly a lot of times every day to me) or when they see a car ignoring a STOP or priority sign when a bicycle is coming, then the car drivers would learn the lesson and it would stop.
But no, the police just ignores those situations and this way nothing will ever change,
If you dig deep enough into this article you see this sweeping assertion in the headline is based on a few hundred crashes in South Australia. And rather than say the cars were at fault, the report says in most cases the cyclists were found to be not at fault. Which I don't believe is the same thing, legally.
And if it is it undermines the central thesis of the piece, which is that car drivers should be assumed to be at fault and have to prove their innocence.
If it's so dangerous to be a cyclist, we should probably make bicycles illegal outside designated bike paths.
I think more needs to be done to make the roads safer for bikes. Multi lane roundabouts are insane when you throw in cyclists. I don't know a solution but they are way too dangerous.
Other things like bicycle lanes and intersections need to be designed to minimize risks like in the Netherlands.
Bicyclists and drivers have responsibilities to follow safe practices like:
- not running stop signs
- using proper reflectors, clothing and lighting
- not getting too close to other traffic or occupying their blindspot(s)
- not getting caught between curb and turning vehicles, and turning vehicles eliminating space to prevent bicycles from occupying space that is unsafe.
- not riding on sidewalks because it's mostly illegal
Often running stop signs and red lights (while taking due care) is safer for cyclists. This has started to be recognised with some places legalising it.
From personal experience - I have yet to see a cyclist "taking due care" when they run the stop sign by where I live. They just run it full speed downhill and cars have to dodge them.
What especially confuses me in this situation is that if the cyclist runs into a car turning left after the car properly stopped and then started moving without see the cyclist speeding downhill (uphill from the car and usually beyond the view due to the said hill), the cyclist is the one with the most to lose. They do it anyways.
It's safer[1], and other places (California[2], Denver[3] from a quick Google search) have looked to implement similar laws.
You probably only notice when the cyclists don't take "due care" before they proceed into an intersection. Of course there will be dumb people, but the chances of them causing injury to anyone else is still tiny compared to cars. You're missing all the times (quiet streets, quiet times of the day) when no one is around and it doesn't make sense to wait for a light (and for cars to show up that'll probably pass too close by the cyclists when the light turns green).
I think the key here is that stop sign is treated as a yield sign and not an automatic right of way. That distinction makes a lot of sense to me, but is quite different from what I've been observing in my neighborhood.
Alright can you explain this? This happens all the time where I live and almost every time the cyclist winds up mismatched with the flow of traffic and cuts off cars.
If going straight at a t-junction there is no point in stopping for example. If at the lights and it's clear and there is a backlog of cars behind it is safer to move off on the red light before the cars as to avoid being caught up in the mass of accelerating cars when the light turns green.
Some of those things you've listed are not safe practices at all.
Riding on the sidewalks are legal in some places (sidewalks are OK to ride on in Seattle as many of the multi-use trails join up with them and the roads do not have shoulders), and same with "running" red lights - in Idaho cyclists are allowed to do this[1] as it's proven to be safer[2].
"If the insurance company contests the claim, the injured cyclist or pedestrian has to take the case to a civil court."
If we're going to be liberal pinheads here, why don't we go all the way? Make cyclists who use public roadways retain insurance coverage for the same necessary risks(pip, uninsured motorist, minimum liability insurance).
Most cyclists (in the US) own cars too. They are covered by their auto insurance in the event of a bike crash. My wife was hit by a car as a pedestrian and we dealt with everything through our auto policy.
That being said, it's important to realize this only applies to civil cases, which are decided on the balance of evidence, not "beyond a reasonable doubt".
Absent any other factors, it's more likely the the car caused the accident. This is just like the default assumption that, absent any other evidence, if there is a rear-end collision, the fault lies with the person in the rear, even if the person in the rear claims that the person in front actually threw their car into reverse and was driving the wrong way.
You don't. All you have is the evidence available. That being said, a judge or jury has the ability to read in to the tone and body language of both parties to make a determination...therefore, you get a dash camera.
Please stop writing articles that argue laws need to be changed to make cycling safer so that more people ride bikes. It immediately signals to me that the article is strongly biased towards cyclists.
Cyclists do need to be protected and laws do probably need to be changed, but don't make it part of your agenda to convince everyone to cycle.
In contrast, in Denmark, the drivers were very aware of every bicycle and pedestrian and much more relaxed towards them. It felt like utopia there, and according to the locals, the strict liability laws are a large part of it. Another significant reason is that Danes in general are much more calm and relaxed than anyone else I've seen so far.