Cyclists cause 10% of car-bike accidents

[redrhodie]

Hmmmmm - I'm not willing to take any responsibility for the person who hit me... She was not paying attention, she failed to yield, she was driving without insurance. I'm not going to give her any outs. I wasn't severely hurt or killed because I was paying attention and I was if not able to totally avoid the collision at least able to mitigate the consequences. I think that we are waaaaaaay to lax with drivers in this country. We are so enamored with car culture that we don't accept that drivers have EXTRA responsibility to safely pilot the dangerous vehicles that they have been give the privilege of being licensed for. I use my bicycle quite vehicularly - I don't do things that are dangerous just to please motorists and believe you me I recognize my own vulnerability, but I am not willing to give motorists a pass just because they are bigger. It's like excusing the kid on the playground who punches another kid by saying he can't help himself and its better to just stay out of his way.....

Oh, no, I don't think bad drivers should be given a pass at all. That's not what I'm saying. Just since we are not in control of how anyone else is driving or riding, we must take extra care of ourselves. Sometimes that means giving up your right of way. Maybe that is giving the car a pass, but I see it as giving myself the security of getting where I want to go in one piece. I see it as outsmarting the bully.

[Eden]

Oh, no, I don't think bad drivers should be given a pass at all. That's not what I'm saying. Just since we are not in control of how anyone else is driving or riding, we must take extra care of ourselves. Sometimes that means giving up your right of way. Maybe that is giving the car a pass, but I see it as giving myself the security of getting where I want to go in one piece. I see it as outsmarting the bully.

She made a left across my path after I had already entered the intersection.... it was pretty cut and dry that she did something that she should not have. I do believe in being alert and keeping a close eye on other traffic and its kept me from having any serious interactions with cars for 25+ years until just two months ago. Yes, you cannot control the way others drive, and I do believe that you can do a great deal to keep yourself safe but I also think its completely bogus to just say oh well I'm small and vulnerable, if someone hits me I should just accept that it was my fault for being there. NO - it was not my fault - roads have never been the exclusive province of the motor vehicle and motorists need to accept much more responsibility than they do. They are the ones who have the most capacity to cause harm, so they should bear the most responsibility to conduct themselves safely. Just because that is not what actually does happen doesn't mean that it should not be that way, nor does it mean that we should not work towards it actually happening. Yes, I totally believe in never trust a driver and always be alert and ready to react, put your own safety before anything else, but I am not willing to blame cyclists for collisions that I think cars are responsible for just because they are smaller and more vulnerable and I'm not willing to say well this is the way it is and it just can't change, so accept it. I want change - I want laws that mean more driver responsibility - I want laws that remove licensing from poor drivers.

[redrhodie]

She made a left across my path after I had already entered the intersection.... it was pretty cut and dry that she did something that she should not have. I do believe in being alert and keeping a close eye on other traffic and its kept me from having any serious interactions with cars for 25+ years until just two months ago. Yes, you cannot control the way others drive, and I do believe that you can do a great deal to keep yourself safe but I also think its completely bogus to just say oh well I'm small and vulnerable, if someone hits me I should just accept that it was my fault for being there. NO - it was not my fault - roads have never been the exclusive province of the motor vehicle and motorists need to accept much more responsibility than they do. They are the ones who have the most capacity to cause harm, so they should bear the most responsibility to conduct themselves safely. Just because that is not what actually does happen doesn't mean that it should not be that way, nor does it mean that we should not work towards it actually happening. Yes, I totally believe in never trust a driver and always be alert and ready to react, put your own safety before anything else, but I am not willing to blame cyclists for collisions that I think cars are responsible for just because they are smaller and more vulnerable and I'm not willing to say well this is the way it is and it just can't change, so accept it. I want change - I want laws that mean more driver responsibility - I want laws that remove licensing from poor drivers.

I'm really sorry. I was not saying you were at all at fault for your accident, and I apologize if it read that way. That was honestly not my intention, and I'm sincerely sorry. I was speaking of my own personal views of the way I ride, which is as the survivor of a crash who never wants to go through that again (and whose views have been shaped by the Hurst book). Of course there are accidents that are totally the fault of the driver (arguably mine, though I don't feel that way myself). Yours sounds like one, but my accident could have easily been avoided if I had been riding out of the door zone.

"I also think its completely bogus to just say oh well I'm small and vulnerable, if someone hits me I should just accept that it was my fault for being there." This is not my opinion.

My point was I try to ride in a way to avoid the crash to begin with. I am not saying to accept the crash as my fault for just for being there, but if there was obviously something I could have done differently to avoid getting hit to begin with, then that I would regret. I'm probably not explaining myself very well. I'm trying to make Robert Hurst's arguments, but I'm obviously lacking his writing skills.

Again, Eden, I didn't mean to offend you.

[Eden]

I'm not offended, I don't disagree with the heart of your argument, I just think its more of a two way street. I also haven't taken your remarks personally - I just have wanted to stress the fact that I really feel that there was nothing I could have done. I honestly think that more cyclist/car crashes are like mine than are ones that could have been avoided and I really think that ones truly caused by the cyclist are the rarity - 10% as the study indicated sounds right to me. I think it leaves motorists an easy out to say well cyclists are more vulnerable and we should be careful.

Of course we all need to think of ourselves and take every care to remain safe- but at the same time we really need to hold motorist highly accountable for their actions. And I'm not just talking about cyclists - pedestrians and other innocent motorists suffer too and we as a society don't take it as seriously as I think we need to. I really think that negligent, distracted driving is a problem (cell phone driving has been proven to be more dangerous than drunken driving!!) and we fail to remove these people from our roads. We had a driver (on a phone) kill a pedestrian in a cross walk here when he ran a red light - he had multiple, multiple, multiple moving violations and had already hit a cyclist head on because he had drifted onto the wrong side of the road. He STILL has not had his license permanently revoked. This is WRONG. I think we are way too lax and way too willing to blame anyone but the driver when collisions occur.