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You’re a Cyclist Who Was Just Struck by a Car Driver. Here’s Why It Was Your Fault
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this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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Cyclists and pedestrians are more vulnerable, the law is there because drivers have a duty to be extra careful around them.
Yeah the part I have a problem is, is where you're automatially at fault even when you were careful and did nothing wrong.
It's a concept called "strict liability," which is well-established in U.S. law, we just don't apply it to cars. The idea is that when you knowingly engage in an activity which is inherently dangerous, you have to accept liability for any consequences, even if you did nothing wrong. The example that sticks with me from an ag law class was the organic farm that sued a crop-dusting company when an unexpected wind caused pesticide to drift onto their land. The organic farm won. The court found no negligence by the crop-duster, but held that it was a case of strict liability. The act of putting pesticide in the air simply carries that risk, and liability with it.
The Netherlands is just saying that hitting a vulnerable road user is a risk of driving, even if it's not your fault. It is your responsibility to factor that in when making the decision to drive. Framed that way, I think it makes more sense: Don't blame the person hit for the driver's decision to drive a car.
In most places in the US we have pedestrians, vehicles, and bicycles all mashed together in close proximity. Statistically, there will be people killed by drivers who did nothing wrong.
Hell, there will be people killed by drivers because the pedestrian/cyclist did something stupid like run into traffic.
This law would cause a lot of harm to innocent people and I'm glad we don't have it.
Oh man, this is old, but it didn't pop up as a notification in my app.
Anyway, I think we should apply strict liability standards to driving, like the Netherlands does, and here's why:
First, it's a concept that applies to torts in civil courts, not criminal courts. Nobody would be going to jail for something not their fault. The remedy in tort law is usually monetary damages, so briefly, it would at worst cause insurance rates to go up.
The higher insurance rates would apply more to bigger, heavier, taller vehicles which do more damage to vulnerable road users. That would put a downward pressure on the size of vehicles, which protects everybody.
And, as I see it, nobody is blameless in a collision. Wisconsin (and many other states) has a "modified comparative negligence" system, which assigns damages in court based on each party's percentage of fault. It assigns a certain, low percentage of blame to each party in a collision just for being on the road. So, by that same principal, choosing to drive a vehicle per se assigns fault to the driver. In the case of hitting a vulnerable road user, that decision is almost solely responsible for the severity of the other person's injuries. It might've been their fault, but crushed bones is not a fair and just consequence for a moment of inattention by a kid.
To avoid rambling on longer, the upshot is that I'd trade higher insurance rates for saving children's lives.
How did you do nothing wrong if you hit a pedestrian/cyclist?
Anywhere you can drive fast enough to not stop in time should be protected highway, where there is no risk of pedestrians or bicycles.
As someone that is a pure pedestrian (tram/trains otherwise), cyclists (and rarer but even worse, people on e-scooters) are much more of a personal menace to me than cars.
There is a predestian traffic light accross a street with 2 dedicated bike lanes, that I have to cross everyday. And I've seen a fair amount of near misses there, mostly caused by reckless cyclists that disregarded traffic rules and common sense.
In fact I'd say a good bit more than half of cyclists do not think the traffic light applies to them. If there see no one crossing, most cyclist will just run the light. This basically happens daily. I sometimes shout after them, but meh.
And in one extreme case, a cylist, still a good bit off from the traffic light, saw it was about to turn red abd took that opportunity to cross the road himself. So he just turned left, right into traffic to cross the road. That car next to him hardly manage to brake in time, there was tire noises. Really good reaction by the driver.
It maybe a rare case, but had he hit that cyclist, I don't think it would be fair to blame the driver. He did something incredibly stupid.
Really confused by the description here (no clue what side of the road you are driving on, not sure why the cars are moving when the light is red, or why the car beside a bike needs to brake the avoid hitting the cyclist). But two main things: as a pedestrian, I don't see how this is relevant to you. The car is always wrong principle should also apply to peds hit by cyclists: the cyclist is always wrong.
Also someone who regularly drives and recently had a person random step sideways into the middle of the road (no intersection) right in front of me the other week, I think me stopping in time is just basic reaction someone should have. If your car can't do that and you aren't expecting people to do that, you are failing what should be the most basic of requirements to be allowed to drive a car. If I had hit them, it would have been my fault imo.
So a cyclist darting out in front of oncoming traffic bears no responsibility if they get hit?
The scenario they're talking about is in a 4-way intersection. Imagine you're driving straight through an intersection; you have a green light, everything is fine. Then out of nowhere on your right side a cyclist zips by in front of you. You have 0.3 seconds to see them and apply the brake and have your car stop. That's not always feasible.
It was about to turn red for the cyclist. Meaning it was red for the cars. Or it just turned green and they should still be going <20mph. If you can't stop when someone runs a light that just turned red for them, then you're not prepare for what cars regularly do, and they sometimes do it at 60mph, giving you even less reaction time.
In most of the US, there's no separate lights for cyclists.
In any case, you're missing that the cyclist did the equivalent of coming from an adjacent lane to cut off cars next to him. No car can anticipate that, from a cyclist or from another car.
Exactly. Which is why the light must have been red for the cars perpendicular to the cyclist if they light was yellow for the cyclist.
Yes you can? How else would you drive without getting in a wreck most days? That's happens to you at least on a weekly basis if you drive regularly here on the interstates. I've never hit them. Generally you can read when people want to get over if you pay attention. Cyclists are even easier to read since they're not in a box with tinted windows. I've had a few times I've hit my breaks before one has even turned their head to avoid collisions (on my bike) because I could tell they were gonna suddenly turn. I would say without warning, but given I could tell they were, that wouldn't be entirely accurate: they just gave no intentional signals and those not paying attention will easily miss the intent (unfortunately, the person right in front of me did collide with the person suddenly turning in front of them in one of those cases).
If you can't tell most of the time, you aren't paying attention.
...what? Have you ever driven before? This behavior causes wrecks ALL THE TIME, it's probably the #1 cause of wrecks. It's definitely one of the most dangerous things a driver can do. Same applies to cyclists.
I'm sorry that you have such horrible cyclists on your area.
I do agree that you presented scenario the cyclists would be at fault. But the driver would still be at fault also, it is their job to not hit anything in an intersection, regardless of lights and indicators. The driver being able to stop shows that they were driving appropriately.
Well, luckily this time they didn't. And I do know this is the anti-car sub and I'm not trying to be anti-bike at all. But there as a pedestrian from my expirence, I'd like to see numberplates on bikes.
Like on the same intersection, if there is a truck stopped and I cross, I'll stop and check the bike lane .. because I don't trust the red light with them.
But it's not just here. Even back in Germany I had trouble with it. Maybe I'm being a Bünzli, but there was a mixed predestian/cyclist lane and in Germany you have 2 very similar signs that designate how the lanes are used. If there is a horinzal line between the predestian and cylist, it's mixed. If the line is vertical, there are 2 separately marked pathes for each lane. Couldn't be easier, right?
Well, the city decided to pave the of this "mixed lane" with two different colours of bricks that basically painted two lanes. A reddish one and a usual, "stone coloured" one. Grey I guess. Anyway.
At more than one occation I was just walking by with a couple of people on this path, that basically is just randomly coloured for no reason ... when a cyclist speeds by, yelling that we're blocking that bike path.
And they are gone to fast, so you can't even yell back "there is no bike path, learn to read the fucking traffic signs".
Another problem might be that there really is no mandatory traffic education when buying a bike. Everyone just get's to have one. That might not be that smart in the long run.
Absolutely, and I'm not trying to minimize your frustrations with cyclists either. I've been hit by cyclists numerous times, thankfully I'm big, so it normally just ends up with a confused cyclists on the pavement. Someone smaller than we would not be so lucky.
My observations on cycling design are :
The wider the cycle lane, the less dangerous and fewer conflicts their are.
It should be easier for the cyclists to transfer to car traffic and back than pediatrician traffic. This way a cyclist deciding to pass has to make a decision that could hurt themselves rather than someone else.
Like a vehicle hitting a ped/cyc is always the cars fault, a cyc hitting a ped is always the bicycles fault.
When I say bicycle there, I'm referring to all the wheeled dangers.
The biggest upside I see it that people are oblivious assholes in cars or on bicycles, so at least bikes are slightly safer. Now that I think of it, there are oblivious assholes pedestrians too, I'm talking to you group of 6 walking abreast the entire sidewalk!
You are right and I'm definitly venting a lot of personal and anecdotal frustration here. Thank you for being so rational about it.
Seems pretty unlikely. If yours actually being a reasonable driver, even if someone suddenly steps out into the road without warning right in front of you, you won't hit them. The only exception would be if they were doing something like hiding behind a sign at night and jumped out in front of you. Almost anything else and you actually weren't driving carefully.
If you're going at a slow speed maybe. A lot of cyclist infrastructure is next to roads with speeds of 40, 50, 60 mph.
I gave an example in a comment below. The driver just rolled out, expecting to stop smoothly at a red light when he had to make a really serious emergency brake and it did work out. Barley. I just don't think you can just assign blame in such a general way.