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Every road is dangerous for a cyclist. Really the only solution is to adopt pedestrian-centric traffic laws like The Netherlands or Japan. In Japan, blowing a

Every road is dangerous for a cyclist. Really the only solution is to adopt pedestrian-centric traffic laws like The Netherlands or Japan. In Japan, blowing a stop sign and killing a cyclist would be a "dangerous driving causing death" charge, which would result in a prison sentence, loss of your license, a fine, and ~$1,000,000 in compensation to the family of the person you hit.

laurieg 6y ago
In reality, it doesn't always work quite like this. Japan has a system of assigning a percentage of blame to both parties in a traffic accident. "He was 80% to blame for not yielding, you were 20% to blame for being too far out in the road." While in general this system works fairly well, there does seem to be a lot of pressure to share blame as much as possible. The only person I know how got 100%/0% was T-boned by a driving going through the middle of a red light. Also, cars are often judged to be be much more at fault than cycles. Perhaps this is why bicycles can often be very reckless on the roads: taking blind corners without slowing down, cycling on the wrong side of the road against traffic etc.
- rangibaby 6y ago
  In reality it does work quite like that if someone dies and you are judged to have driven dangerously (危険運転致死傷罪).
paulcole 6y ago
And in America if you want to kill someone the best way to do it is with your car. https://www.metafilter.com/137440/If-you-want-to-kill-someone-do-it-with-a-car https://www.metafilter.com/137440/If-you-want-to-kill-someon...
ehnto 6y ago
I spent a couple of weeks walking and riding in Japan last year. Tokyo and Osaka specifically. My biggest take away was that everyone is constantly collaborating to make it work. Bikes, people, cars, everyone is shuffling around and compromising. People and bikes seem to slip through eachother when foot traffic is light, with bikes or people giving way depending on what's easier for both. The gutters are often flush with the road, so if there was a bigger group of people a bicycle could just ride off the footpath and back on again to get around them. Half of the time there is no delineation between footpath and road, so cars drive very slowly and infrequently and everyone shuffles around subtly to make it work. In western cities I've noticed people are instead antagonistic, everyone is actively looking for something to be angry about. If they could help someone by moving a little bit, they won't, because it's their lane not yours. If you move around stopped traffic to get to a safer spot on your bike, you'll get yelled at, sometimes the argument is that it's "Unfair", like children arguing over who gets the front seat. I feel like it's the car-centric infrastructure that leads people to think the city is for cars. You don't see this attitude in foot traffic only areas like foot-malls and public transport, where people are seem more likely to help eachother, and you could liken parts of Osaka and Japan to a city-wide foot mall with some allowances for cars. I also visited Sapporo and whilst there were still lots of bikes it was clear it was a more car focused city, and you could feel how much more difficult it was to move around the city because of it. More time waiting for cars to do their thing before you could do yours, instead of the other way around. So, I'm happy to put the blame squarely on the automobile.

laurieg 6y ago

In reality, it doesn't always work quite like this. Japan has a system of assigning a percentage of blame to both parties in a traffic accident. "He was 80% to blame for not yielding, you were 20% to blame for being too far out in the road." While in general this system works fairly well, there does seem to be a lot of pressure to share blame as much as possible. The only person I know how got 100%/0% was T-boned by a driving going through the middle of a red light. Also, cars are often judged to be be much more at fault than cycles. Perhaps this is why bicycles can often be very reckless on the roads: taking blind corners without slowing down, cycling on the wrong side of the road against traffic etc.

rangibaby 6y ago
In reality it does work quite like that if someone dies and you are judged to have driven dangerously (危険運転致死傷罪).

paulcole 6y ago

And in America if you want to kill someone the best way to do it is with your car. https://www.metafilter.com/137440/If-you-want-to-kill-someone-do-it-with-a-car https://www.metafilter.com/137440/If-you-want-to-kill-someon...

ehnto 6y ago

I spent a couple of weeks walking and riding in Japan last year. Tokyo and Osaka specifically. My biggest take away was that everyone is constantly collaborating to make it work. Bikes, people, cars, everyone is shuffling around and compromising. People and bikes seem to slip through eachother when foot traffic is light, with bikes or people giving way depending on what's easier for both. The gutters are often flush with the road, so if there was a bigger group of people a bicycle could just ride off the footpath and back on again to get around them. Half of the time there is no delineation between footpath and road, so cars drive very slowly and infrequently and everyone shuffles around subtly to make it work. In western cities I've noticed people are instead antagonistic, everyone is actively looking for something to be angry about. If they could help someone by moving a little bit, they won't, because it's their lane not yours. If you move around stopped traffic to get to a safer spot on your bike, you'll get yelled at, sometimes the argument is that it's "Unfair", like children arguing over who gets the front seat. I feel like it's the car-centric infrastructure that leads people to think the city is for cars. You don't see this attitude in foot traffic only areas like foot-malls and public transport, where people are seem more likely to help eachother, and you could liken parts of Osaka and Japan to a city-wide foot mall with some allowances for cars. I also visited Sapporo and whilst there were still lots of bikes it was clear it was a more car focused city, and you could feel how much more difficult it was to move around the city because of it. More time waiting for cars to do their thing before you could do yours, instead of the other way around. So, I'm happy to put the blame squarely on the automobile.