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To be fair, I also fail to see how wearing a helmet would've prevented his leg from being broken as well
Yeah, the helmet is a bit much.
Not wearing appropriate clothing and headphones while on the road is a fair point though.
What's clothing that allows me to not be at fault for being run over?
I thought traffic laws are only about having two breaks, lights at night etc
I'm not talking about being at fault.
I don't care about court, I'd rather not be run over.
This case seems like an honest accident, I don't think the driver is too blame too much here. The cyclist got into a blind spot (which is why I hate roundabouts for cyclists) and got hit.
Nobody seems truly at fault here, but making others more aware of yourself, and being more aware yourself might have made this avoidable.
Bad road design is yet again the biggest party to blame here.
You have to drive in a way that accounts for bad road design though. if you have to crawl around a corner you can't see well then you have to do that.
It is your responsibility as a driver to make sure that you can safely stop within the distance you can see, at all times.
If you can only see 10cm around the corner, then you have to drive at 5cm/s
If the cyclist got in that bad of a blind spot, then the taxi must have been HUGE. We have boatloads of roundabouts in NL and they are just fine.
I’m with you on that. Where I live some roafs in the city are not lit and people will wear dark clothes and bike at night without lights. Sometimes you don’t even see them until you’re right on top of them.
It can be kind of scary and even when being careful, there is a risk of hitting someone.
Something reasonably reflective and visible in low light.
Don't dress like a fucking ninja in all black that you are only visible when you're looking at me through a windshield while being on my car's hood. That's how. If anything pisses me off is people like this with lights that have battery from 5 years ago that barely makes them working. Or preferably no lights at all riding a bicycle at dawn. It's like fucks have a death wish or something.
The difference between black shirt and a fluorescent red/orange/yellow/green/blue shirt is MASSIVE. You can spot a cyclist wearing these from kilometer away. Black one, few hundred meters or even less if it's road through shade/forest. I'm a cyclist too and all my shirts are such bright colors because I want to be sure I'm visible to others on the roads.
Not wearing appropriate clothing and headphones while on the road is a fair point though.
I've nearly been hit several times (like tires screaching to a halt) while wearing high-viz clothing with the right of way.
It makes no difference when the driver isn't paying attention.
It makes a huge difference if you yourself are paying attention, which seems hard wearing headphones.
And honestly, you said it yourself. "Nearly" hit. Could've been worse if you weren't wearing high-viz clothing.
I cycle daily and just notice how little people are aware of blind spots, cyclists and drivers alike. No harm in driving a little slower, even when you have right of way.
It makes a huge difference if you yourself are paying attention, which seems hard wearing headphones.
What about the driver? Did he listen to the radio? If it seems so hard to pay attention while wearing headphones, why is it still allowed to sell car radios?
wearing high-viz clothing [...] how little people are aware of blind spots
How does wearing high-viz clothing help you when you are in a blind spot? And why does no one ask which colour the taxi was? Was it high-viz or maybe gray or black like most cars?
Drivers also aren’t allowed headphones where I’m from. If the cyclist had a boombox strapped to his bike, that would be comparable to a car radio, but headphones block your perception of external sound a lot more than music from a speaker
No its not. The driver is at fault.
Do not blame the victim.
The driver was at fault.
You can wear whatever clothes you like if you’re on a bike. Just like you don’t have to paint your car a specific colour to be allowed to drive.
And drivers are allowed to blast music so cyclists should as well. All the safety shouldn’t fall on cyclist double standards.
I guess drivers with black cars, gray cars, ... Should also be partially blamed for the accidents with other vehicles when "not guilty", because they aren't visible enough...
If they didn't have their lights on, they ARE
And yet nobody ever will think about holding the color against them. Lights on or off.
I've had drivers not see me and pull out in front of me in broad daylight when I've been wearing a luminous orange top, while riding a bike with a bright flashing front light. What more should I have done to not make it my fault? Set off fireworks?
The article lists four things about the cyclist.
- "not wearing a helmet"
Admittedly a no-go for me. There a lots of options for anyone.
- "was wearing “relatively” dark clothing"
"Relatively" already gives the impression that we aren't talking black, just that it wasn't a signal or hi-vis color.
- "using an earphone"
This wording makes me think the cyclist used one earbud and not both or full headphones. So he could hear his surroundings well.
- "his front light may not have been working"
Not even a fact, but a possibility.
To summarize, he was a traffic participant in a non-signal color, listening to music. That's it.
Of course cyclist are more vulnerable than cars, but anyone who sees fault in the cyclist behavior is often overlooking similar or worse behavior in drivers.
Nobody ever asks the owner of a black car if they have a death wish or ask someone to turn of the radio, because they can't hear the traffic as well.
I wish people would hold all traffic participants to the same standards.
More importantly the driver hit the cyclist from behind. The front light, helmet and earphones are all irrelevant to the accident. It doesn't matter if you hear that a car is behind you or not, if the car just slams into you. If you cycle somewhere except extremely rural areas you will hear cars all the time and you can't turn around to look at every car approaching form behing
What would be relevant instead are back lights and reflectors. The article mentions that the police had found a back light, which indicates it was broken off the bike by the hit.
areas you will hear cars all the time and you can't turn around to look at every car approaching form behing
I do that and cars significantly slow down because they think I will turn left.
In true carbrain fashion, not only they ignore the existence of turn lights, they also ignore the existence of turn signals.
There's always an excuse for drivers.
If a driver isn't paying attention, it doesn't matter what colour a cyclist's clothing are, or that they had a helmet on, or insanely bright lights.
And if excuses are being shifted onto cyclists, what about pedestrians and buildings that drivers smash into on a regular basis? What excuse do you have then?
As someone living in Sweden, I have seen pedestrians and bicyclists wearing dark coloured clothing during autumn nights, they just disappear in the background and VASTLY reduce the distance I can see them at, they just pops out from the background only when you are close to them.
This is not a simple driver issue, these are people who seems to deliberately dress in camo, and then complain that drivers don't pay enough attention.
I am not asking everyone to wear a high-viz vest all the time, but please get a reflector and show that you have some self preservation instinct
It's a broken leg, not head injury. That should've been the end of that argument.
helmets provide a flat +5 armor value, if you wear 10 helmets you are impervious to most forms of damage.
tf2 was a documentary all along
No one is commenting on the fact the driver was a taxi driver, around my area taxi drivers are some of the worst drivers I've ever seen.
I’m not really familiar with the laws over there. After this criminal ruling, does the cyclist now have grounds for a civil suit?
You never hear what colour was the car, whether driver had windows rolled up or down, wearing seatbelt, listening to music, or headlights on. But when the cyclist is the victim, suddenly everything can be used to blame them 🤔
the taxi driver’s view may have been blocked by traffic signs.
Quick quiz, what do you do when you cannot see if it is safe to proceed on entering a roundabout?
Floor it!
Man, after reading the article i feels like it's no good ending for everyone involved. The driver is at fault for not taking a glance, the city is at fault to have a road sign obstructing view, and the cyclist, while not at fault, but would totally turn out different if he wear a hi-vis vest.
At least the cyclist isn't fined.
In my criminal justice system we break the judge and the police's legs and give them 1k. We keep doing that until they take these crimes seriously. Then we break the legs of the town planners until they build sustainable transport solutions. Imagine how quickly people would learn the benefits. We would be living in paradise in no time.
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
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