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I am a cyclist and a driver. Unfortunately, I think the only way forward for cyclists is intense litigation against both cities and drivers around car collision

I am a cyclist and a driver. Unfortunately, I think the only way forward for cyclists is intense litigation against both cities and drivers around car collisions. The city will not prosecute cars for dangerous driving or violations, even if they hit drivers. Its crazy to me how getting caught going 15 miles over the speed limit will double your car insurance rates, but hitting a cyclists won't do anything because as a driver you can say "they darted into the lane" to any cop and won't be cited for anything. I was hit by a car once, had my bike totaled, and got a small settlement from the driver's insurance company. If I was hit again, I would immediately go to a lawyer and take the insurance company to the cleaners an donate all of the money to a bicycle advocacy org, and I advise everyone I know who gets hit to do the same thing. It sucks but it seems like personal injury law is the only avenue to make change here and introduce some form of penalty and feedback to hitting a cyclist with a car. There is no infrastructure to stop this because drivers don't care, they can hit cyclists without consequence.

daniel-cussen 6y ago
I believe bicycles are purposely devoid of rights by the automobile industry lobby to get people to go through all the pain of buying and owning a car. It's painful, and people hate it, but they do it because there's no other good way to get from point A to point B in America. Some examples: 1) I suspect the "new car smell" that car buyers believe affects their judgment is purposely chosen glue (I think it's a glue) that dissipates into a gas that literally, psychiatrically impairs buyer's judgment. It's real. [edit: it's still relatively mild]. 2) Stealing a person's main means of transport should be punished independently of how expensive that mode of transport is. So, the penalty for stealing a car should be based on the price of a car and the fact it was the main means of transport for that person. Same goes for bicycles, it could have been a $100 bike, but it's the main means of transport and that person is equally stranded as the driver without it. For this reason, being a bike thief stealing 10 bicycles could mean a decade in jail, if laws were different. Who would steal bikes then? 3) Enforce both car driving violations and bike driving violations, but based on lethality of the vehicle. Right now both driving a car drunk and riding a bike drunk are a DUI, which is ridiculous. 4) Legislation that privileges driving over biking harms children, because they can ride a bike starting age 8 or so, but can't drive until 16. 5) Driving is an extremely lethal activity, but AFAIK biking deaths are mostly attributable to automobiles. If you try to run someone over with a car you can be charged with (I forget the wording but more or less) "using a deadly weapon". Because that's what it is. A killing machine.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  If you try to run someone down, and end up killing them, that would be considered murder. If you try, but don't end up killing them, it would be assault with a deadly weapon at the very least, or possibly attempted murder. If you just so happen to kill someone without intending to, it could be considered vehicular manslaughter.
  - wutbrodo 6y ago
    > If you just so happen to kill someone without intending to, it could be considered vehicular manslaughter. There's an additional constraint of acting negligently. If you're going 45 on a road where the speed limit is fifty and someone sprints out in front of your car, you won't be convicted of vehicular manslaughter (assuming obviously that you didn't have time to react).
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      Right, that's why the word "could" is in there. All of the crimes I mentioned have an element of either intent or fault attached to them. Coming close to someone, even at speed, without intending to do any harm is not "attempted murder" or assault in any form. This is fortunate, because to pass a cyclist, one often is forced to come within a few feet of them to accomplish the maneuver.
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        ... to pass a cyclist, one often is forced to come within a few feet of them to accomplish the maneuver. Somehow I'm reading "within a few feet" as "six inches". IME bicycles are much narrower than automobiles. If it's safe to pass an automobile, it's safe to pass a cyclist while leaving at least eight feet. If it's not safe to pass, don't pass.
        taeric 6y ago
        Cyclist get pushed by the air more than cars. Give a bit of extra room.
telesilla 6y ago
The legal infrastructure you suggest absolutely works to reduce accidents and increase driver responsibility. When I'm driving in the Netherlands I am critically more aware of cyclists there, due to the road layout but also because of assumed liability, I'd better be 100% sure I'm driving safely. https://www.bikecitizens.net/presumed-liability-shrinks-cycling-levels/ https://www.bikecitizens.net/presumed-liability-shrinks-cycl...
- an_opabinia 6y ago
  This is my perspective, I exclusively bike to get around. We can play out the premise described by the OP, and it just doesn't add up. If some schmuck with California's minimum $15,000 per person injury insurance disables you, what would you do? Sue them for their additional median $97,300 net worth? Which might be less than $10,000 liquidated? That is you'd expect to get, somewhere between $25,000 and $112,300, for your lifetime injury. Perfect enforcement with 100% liability legal system would get you $25,000-$112,300 in my estimate, for the rest of your life. If you're permanently disabled, it's peanuts. It's a shitty outcome. The problem is in part, clearly, that people are really poor. And then suppose it's a totally recoverable injury. Out of $112,300 you recover $25,000, realistically, and the driver is bankrupted. You could put a whole family on the street. It's not Europe, they will go on the street! Is that justice? They're all completely broke dude. They have nothing besides their car. People are living paycheck to paycheck, and you're comparing European countries where neither disability nor bankruptcy condemns you to a life of poverty. 20% of Americans claim some disability. 20% of Americans have zero or negative net worth, which is 4x the EU + UK's 5%. You have a 1 in 5 chance of getting hit by someone in their car, and recovering a maximum of $15,000, or $0 if they're uninsured. The simplest answer is that only people who are rich enough to pay the remedies of death by vehicle accidents should drive. That can be as simple as either requiring self-insurance (i.e., you must have a net worth more comparable to death settlements, or $500k-1m), or at least an insurance that covers that kind of injury (which poor would not be able to afford). I don't think that sounds like justice either, think how disruptive it would be if you had to be that rich to drive? It would certainly impact rich people too, because they'd be underwriting their nannies, cooks and, checking my notes, teachers, firemen, nurses, etc. to get to work. It's pretty crazy too, the degree of wrong in the comments to this. At least bring some facts to this discussion. People are just trying to survive, of course they are going to go with the cheapest possible lowest coverage insurance. On top of that, "about 15% of California drivers have no insurance, according to the Insurance Research Council." (1) Like what do you think those people with negative net worth (20% of Americans) are doing? Buying $2,000/yr auto insurance policies? It boggles the mind. (1) https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/state/california/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/state/californi...
Retric 6y ago
Unfortunately, many cyclists stake stupid risks which also cause accidents. I have seen stoped cycling between rows of parked cars and darting through a red light, or going full speed down a sidewalk past rows of parking garages etc. Without dash cams it’s nearly impossible to tell the root cause as reckless driver or a suicidal cyclist. This is why both drivers and cyclists really should be recording things. It doesn’t prevent injuries, if it can make a huge difference afterwards.
- matsemann 6y ago
  > I have seen people cycling between rows of parked cars It's kinda ironic that that's used as an example of bad cycling, and also exactly where most bike lanes are put: in the door zone of parked cars.
  - Retric 6y ago
    I meant stoped cars at a stop light. Which should have been clear from context as you don’t normally get rows of parked cars on public streets. Anyway, that and other instances of sharing a lane beside a car is monumentally stupid. The only way to fight stereotypes like this is with hard evidence.
    - nl 6y ago
      > I meant stoped cars at a stop light. That and other instances of sharing a lane beside a car is monumentally stupid. Ironically the point of this article is how this is always permitted and the sole reason sharrows exist is to point it out. Judging by your comment it isn't widely understood.
      - Retric 6y ago
        No this is really not about that, cyclists are always allowed to take up the full lane in cities, but it’s rarely legal to split a lane, and even then it’s a terrible idea. Preliminary results from a study in the United Kingdom, conducted by the University of Nottingham for the Department for Transport, show that filtering is responsible for around 5% of motorcycle Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) accidents. (Bicycle statistics are harder to locate.)
Etheryte 6y ago
Legislation is one part of the correct answer, but not all of it. Here in the Netherlands there's "strict liability" [0], in which the driver is always liable for at least 50% of the damage, and usually 100% liable, but that is only a part of the solution. The law is worth very little without proper infrastructure. Infrastructure that provides clear and physical separation works, as demonstrated by Oslo's zero cyclist fatalaties [1]. [0] https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/strict-liability-in-the-netherlands/ https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/strict-liabili... [1] https://thecityfix.com/blog/how-oslo-achieved-zero-pedestrian-and-bicycle-fatalities-and-how-others-can-apply-what-worked/ https://thecityfix.com/blog/how-oslo-achieved-zero-pedestria...
- consp 6y ago
  > 50% of the damage, and usually 100% liable Not strictly, the driver (bestuurder) of a vehicle (anything requiring a drivers license, also mopeds) is considered a more capable participant in traffic. Pedestrians and cyclists are at the bottom of that food chain. If you hit something in the "lower classification" you have to prove you are innocent and the burden is on you completely. If the cyclist was using his phone, collect witnesses after you help the victim as you are in no way liable if you made every effort to stop and look. (e.g. in a low speed collision, assuming the cyclist made a mistake). High speed collisions are usually completely attributed to the driver as they should be aware of cyclists all the time. e.g. Not slowing down at a crossing (even one with traffic signs) is reason to forgo any rights if you hit a cyclist as you should be aware of any participant in traffic which is less capable (in the protection sense) as you are. Even if the cyclist drives though a red light as you should anticipate mistakes. You are usually liable for the 50% but it is not a given. Always go to court if you consider the cyclist made a mistake. e: please not that in normal cases the damage is a percentage fault division to both parties, in case a pedestrian or cyclist is involved the minimum will rise to 50% for the other party to cover in case "overmacht" (force de majeure) cannot be proven which is where the "always 50%" comes from. There are however numerous cases in which this has been proven and can be used in a court of law. It will however almost never be 0% for the driver of a vehicle.
  - nostromo 6y ago
Spooky23 6y ago
IMO the answer is to have registration and insurance for bikes, which would create financial incentives to drive reporting and behavior. In the limited experience that I have as a frequent pedestrian visitor with dedicated cycling lanes in NYC, they feel dangerous to pedestrians. Many cyclists don’t want to stop or yield to pedestrians, and left turn markings on avenues are still evolving and confuse a lot of drivers.
- matthewmacleod 6y ago
  That will mostly create an incentive to not cycle, which is the last thing we need.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    I doubt it. Cycling is well established, but the rules around road use are insane. That won’t get fixed unless someone is getting a big bill.
    - adamcstephens 6y ago
      I’m not sure where you live, but here in Ohio cycling is definitely not “well established”. When you compare infrastructure it’s not even a competition. Don’t want to deal with bicyclists breaking laws? Get them off the streets onto their own dedicated infrastructure. Then bicycling actually would become well established. “Big bills” do nothing to stop drivers from breaking the laws, but go on thinking that it will change cyclists.
- karaterobot 6y ago
  Where I live, bikes are considered vehicles, like cars or trucks. It makes complete sense to me that you'd need to be licensed to operate a vehicle -- any vehicle -- on public roads. In this thread about how dangerous it is to ride a bike in cities, I'd love to hear an explanation for why we think it's a good idea for anybody to hop on a bike and ride in traffic with no training, no oversight, no insurance, and no registration.
pmiller2 6y ago
It's even worse than that. I'll just let this URL speak for itself: https://ggwash.org/view/37541/drivers-who-kill-people-on-bikes-often-dont-get-prosecuted https://ggwash.org/view/37541/drivers-who-kill-people-on-bik... That said, when I am driving, I have absolutely no issue with people on bicycles who ride predictably and follow the rules. It's those who don't that anger me. Specifically, I'm talking about things like riding through a crosswalk, riding the wrong way, and not signaling lane changes. There's a reason you're supposed to walk your bike through a crosswalk, and not signaling when you're a ~200 lb driver + rider combo facing down vehicles weighing more than 10x and capable of going much, much faster than you is just dumb. That doesn't mean drivers aren't dumb, too. On top of the usual traffic BS we all deal with while driving, I also see a lot of instances of drivers not taking over a bike lane when turning. Usually, in this case, this just seems to lead to a lot of "go! no, you go! no you go!" business, but it's 100% a recipe for a crash.
- bdamm 6y ago
  While there’s a valid point to be made about expecting cyclists to behave, one also needs to consider that the vast majority of infrastructure in the US is for cars. Lights often don’t respond for cyclists, for example. If you were driving your car and you needed to get out of your car and walk over a nearby light standard and then get back in your car whenever you wanted to use a lighted intersection, how long would you go on before concluding that this was a waste of your time and start crossing when there is a large enough gap in traffic instead?
  - bjourne 6y ago
    Another example is one-way traffic signs. They are positioned for drivers which means that they are low enough to easily be missed by cyclists whose sitting positions are higher up.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    I have no problem with that if it's done safely. But, I've had people try to blow through an intersection when I'm turning at a protected left. That's just asking to be hit.
D13Fd 6y ago
Honestly, as a driver and pedestrian, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for bicyclists. In my city, at least, I’ve almost been hit by cyclists multiple times as a pedestrian. In one case, the cyclist was going the wrong way, blatantly ran the light, and screamed at me as he passed within maybe two-three feet of me at full speed while I was crossing the street. In another case, a cyclist blew by my at full speed down a steep hill on the sidewalk, again coming stupidly close to an accident (for both of us) for no reason. As a driver, I constantly see cyclists on the wrong side of the street, back and forth between the sidewalk and not, and not obeying stop signs or stop lights (let alone other rules). I’ve never even heard of one being ticketed. I’m all for new bike lanes that are separated from traffic. But honestly before a city encourages more bike riders I really think they need to dramatically step up enforcement of traffic laws against them. If running a red light or stop sign is a $200 ticket in a car, it should be a $200 ticket on a bike. Otherwise it is just unsafe for everyone involved.
- enriquto 6y ago
  > If running a red light or stop sign is a $200 ticket in a car, it should be a $200 ticket on a bike. Curiously; in France many red-lights are excepted for bicycles. There's often a special, permanent "orange" signal that applies to bikes, thus they are explicitly encouraged to run the red light. If I understand well, this was in agreement with drivers, who were annoyed to wait for all the bikes to start slowly after the light turns green. I think that if you ever try to use a bicycle in transit (I mean, seriously over a few days, not for 5 minutes), you will see that it is essentially impossible to do correctly. Sometimes you have to turn left across many lanes of fast cars, what are you supposed to do? Inevitably you take the least dangerous path.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    I rode a bike as my sole form of transportation for a few years. it's not "impossible" to do correctly, but it may be impossible to do without exceeding the amount of effort you're willing to exert. > Sometimes you have to turn left across many lanes of fast cars, what are you supposed to do? one of the great things about biking is that you get to pick and choose between car rules and pedestrian rules depending on which set fits the situation best. whenever I am uncomfortable making a left turn, I pull off to the right and cross the intersection like a pedestrian.
godelski 6y ago
I've been hit twice. Both times I was at a stop sign. The second time the guy just said "oh sorry, the sun was in my eyes." Meanwhile I thought I was going to be pushed into moving traffic and die by someone who in no way could have avoided me. Took me a full minute to catch my breath and gain enough composure to lay into the guy who hit me. He never got out of his car, never said sorry (real sorry), nothing. I've had cars chase me because they don't think I should be riding in the right most lane (no bike lane or construction). One time a Pizza Hut driver almost killed me. I called his boss, they didn't care. One time an UBER DRIVER almost hit me and then proceeded to chase me because I yelled and flipped him off. I sent a photo of the license place to Uber and the local PD, nothing. Not even an acknowledgement. The fact is that people don't care. You go on HN or Reddit and people will complain and actively encourage hitting riders. It is always the rider's fault, even if the driver broke the law. And I'm tired of it. I don't care if the rider was in the wrong, you're a lot more squishy on a bike than in a plastic housing with a motor. There's this weird dichotomy of not caring about the life or safety of someone.
- prepend 6y ago
  I’m sorry you had these experiences. I too got hit twice, but no major damage other than totaling my bike. The reason why I have little sympathy for these types of stories is that I witness cyclists being assholes every day I drive. Stuff like running lights and stop signs, changing lanes with no signals, riding on sidewalks and crosswalks, riding in lanes with moving cars, etc etc. I understand that in the US bike environments are really unsafe, but I don’t think that routine not obeying traffic laws or conventions is the way to go.
  - recursive 6y ago
    Car drivers seem to violate traffic laws at least as often as bicyclists. And that's just speed limits.
    - prepend 6y ago
      Certainly, I don’t think car drivers are perfect by any means. I’m not sure the exact ratio, but I see cars speeding every day as well. But it’s pretty rare to see a car run a red light or weave around other cars.
TylerE 6y ago
Sure. And let's hit cyclists with the same penalties as drivers for the same violations. I see cyclists blowing stop signs and ignoring traffic lights regularly.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Sure, when cyclists start killing car drivers.
  - zabzonk 6y ago
    They kill and maim pedestrians at lights.
    - vyhd 6y ago
      At what scale? How does it compare to the 6,600 pedestrians killed by drivers in 2019 [1]? Is it even within three orders of magnitude? [1]: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a31136893/pedestrian-deaths-increase-2019/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a31136893/pedestrian-death...
- et-al 6y ago
  Bike commuter here. The reason why I sometimes treat traffic lights as stop signs is because I'm worried the driver coming up to the red light might be distracted by their phone and run right into me. This has happened to two of my friends. So my seemingly disregard of the traffic laws is often to put more space between me and heavier vehicles. However if car and I end up at a four-way stop at the same time, I'll let the car go first because I don't trust that driver saw me. With driving a two-ton vehicle should come more responsibility and attention, but Americans view driving as a God given right.
  - smogcutter 6y ago
    > The reason why I sometimes treat traffic lights as stop signs is because I'm worried the driver coming up to the light might be distracted by their phone and run right into me. As has happened to two of my friends. This is something motorcyclists need to be hyper-aware of too. Same idea approaching yellow lights. Here’s a scenario that happens all the time: you’re coming up on a yellow. There’s a car in the intersection ahead waiting to make a left into your path. The car behind you isn’t slowing down, he either isn’t paying attention or wants to run the yellow. What do you do to stay alive? The right answer is to act earlier to avoid that situation in the first place, but there will be times when you find yourself in a bad spot.
ErikAugust 6y ago
Call me crazy, but as a runner I’ve thought of getting one of those follow drones for documenting trails... but what about as a “dash cam” for cyclists? You would certainly be able to get evidence of the sort of thing you are describing.
- alpaca128 6y ago
  Where I live it is illegal to use dashcams for this purpose, whether on cars or bicycles. If you do it and give another reason that's fine, but it will still not be accepted as evidence in court. The rarity of good bike lanes does not improve the situation either.
  - recursive 6y ago
    Why on earth would it be illegal to use a dash cam for your own protection?
    - mstade 6y ago
      I can't speak for the parent poster but here in Sweden it required a ruling by the Supreme Court to determine that dash cams should be legal. Until then the footage was inadmissible as evidence, as far as I'm aware, because it was effectively seen as illegal surveillance.
    - maurits 6y ago
      Switzerland has stringent privacy rules, including in what other countries would consider 'public' space. Sorry, no English: [1] [1]: https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/fr/home/protection-des-donnees/technologien/videoueberwachung/explications-sur-la-videosurveillance-au-moyen-de-cameras-embarq.html https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/fr/home/protection-des-donn...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dr_dshiv 6y ago
You might be interested in the history of the "Stop Murdering Our Children" campaign. It had a massive impact on the development of the Netherlands. In the 60s, automobile-pedestrian deaths were higher per capita than in the usa. It wasn't always a bike mecca. https://www.dutchreach.org/car-child-murder-protests-safer-nl-roads/ https://www.dutchreach.org/car-child-murder-protests-safer-n...
- JasonFruit 6y ago
  Accusing people involved in accidents of murder might not be the best way to make them sympathetic and gain their support.
  - corty 6y ago
    Nowadays, you can get yourself sentenced for murder for a traffic accident: https://m.dw.com/en/berlin-car-race-death-top-german-court-partially-upholds-murder-conviction/a-53853406 https://m.dw.com/en/berlin-car-race-death-top-german-court-p...
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      If you intentionally race through a city.
    - sidlls 6y ago
      Good. Punishments for bad driving ought to be much more severe.
      - cbozeman 6y ago
        The only thing more severe than a life sentence is execution... so... execute bad drivers?
        sidlls 6y ago
        I meant more generally. Drivers get off very easily for very poor behavior that is often negligent and sometimes maliciously so, especially in their treatment of pedestrians and cyclists. "More severe" includes "any at all."
callinOutLiars 6y ago
I’m a cyclist and driver too, and I always get annoyed when cyclists always blame the cars. Most cyclist don’t follow the laws and then yell at you for their fault. I stopped my bike at a stop sign, the dude behind me wasn’t prepared for it and hit me with his bike. He then yelled at me for stopping. Honestly, both drivers and cyclists are rude and selfish on the road.
- hansvm 6y ago
  To be fair, where I live the cars don't stop at signs either. A typical reaction when I stop (in a car in front of them) is to flip me off and honk or speed past in the wrong lane.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  The difference is that when a cyclist is rude and selfish, it might put you in a bad mood for the rest of the morning. When a driver is rude and selfish, cyclists can die. I'm so sick of this "but cyclists are mean too!" whataboutism in every thread of this nature.
  - kaybe 6y ago
    In addition the rules and streets themselves often don't make that much sense for cyclists. If the situation was similar for cars you'd see them behave very differently as well.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    > The difference is that when a cyclist is rude and selfish, it might put you in a bad mood for the rest of the morning. Had a cyclist illegally cross horizontal to a lane on a 40mph road, almost resulted in a 3 car collision - luckily all three drivers (including me and the car behind me) were paying attention. A cyclist absolutely can cause deaths by not obeying the laws of the road.
    - lmm 6y ago
      What you're really saying here is that cars are so inherently dangerous that they amplify unlikely-to-be-deadly mistakes from other road users into events that are very likely to be deadly.
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
Usually this sort of thing is grassroots and ooorly funded - but just imagine what the enormous financial resources of the self-driving car industry could do - by increasing the costs and deadly perception of human car driving in every city that say Uber operates in, the likelihood of those jurisdictions approving even stage 4 cars on the road will increase. Just hire the same lawyers that the tobacco industry was paying. I should send someone a memo Having said this, (as a daily commute cyclist pre covid) the issue is lack of delegated infrastructure- and I think that applies not just for mixed human drivers and human cyclists but (as much as it disappoints) we will likely need separate roads for self driving cars and human (cars / bikes / pedestrians). Self driving seems a really hard problem now we are past the "california highway" level. To be safe at night or in rain or in Italian backstreets or Mumbai rush hour seems behind reach. So we can use infrastructure to reduce the need for better AI. But that gets expensive. We can probably avoid building a second road network - but we need compromises. Separated bike lanes will help this - those great wide Dutch streets with pedestrian bike car and the tram lanes come to mind - main roads where the central lanes are for automated use only. The cost will be enormous (and blows most business models out the water) but we may win elsewhere - reclaiming some of the streets back as living areas, migrating deliveries off trucks and into smaller slower delivery vehicles designed to trundle down thinner streets. Either way i look forward to a future of slower vehicles a d bike paths
bsder 6y ago
> Unfortunately, I think the only way forward for cyclists is intense litigation against both cities and drivers around car collisions. Do you want ANTI-bike laws that ban bikes from everywhere not permitted? To someone rich, the "solution" to having to deal with bike liability is to ban bikes. The only solution is separate bicycle and car infrastructure. Period. Yes, it sucks that San Francisco has backed off separate infrastructure due to budget. However, the solution is to go lobby SF and to make pro-bike infrastructure a single vote issue to make them put it back. One thing I do not understand: why hasn't some rich millionaire/billionaire taken some second/third tier city and funded bike infrastructure into it? It seems like it would be a lot easier to get bikers to move to a city that has infrastructure rather than trying to jam infrastructure into city that is basically land-locked/water-locked.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Biker isn't an inherent attribute. I'm not going to abandon my family and job just for better bike paths.
- iaabtpbtpnn 6y ago
  Road cycling as a hobby starts in the middle class and goes all the way up. A lot of rich people ride bikes themselves.
- 0xB31B1B 6y ago
  The problem is right now in SF we have a strong bike lobby and we vote and it still isn’t enough. The idea that voting with a block is a way to forward policy goals in 2020 is quaint TBH. As far as I can tell pretty much all successful political movements in the US (NRA/guns rights, marriage equality etc) have made the most material progress with both direct action (protests) and lawsuits despite both movements being electorally unpopular and having no electoral success at the time of their greatest achievements. Voting is a necessary but insufficient ingredient in policy change and has never been the silver bullet centrist democrats claim it to be. We need to add some legal adventureism to the mix to push the ball forward here both through expanding common law in friendly ways against car centric policies as well as just making it more costly to not have bike lanes than to construct them for the city and its residents.
sharkweek 6y ago
Cyclist as well - the group I ride with jokes (in a very dark way) about how if we ever wanted someone dead without getting in any real trouble we’d invite them on a bike ride and have someone we know run them over with a car. Easy!
obelos 6y ago
Also sue cities. It's not always possible because of liability constraints for government entities, but sometimes victims of traffic violence can demonstrate negligence and get a foothold into a liability case. City officials often pay little more than lip service to constituents, but they pay attention to risk managers.
novok 6y ago
Even better, or worse, you have to make it into a lawyer industry where they start putting ads on billboards. Then you will really hyper charge it and insurance companies will start acting accordingly. Hell there might be changes to cars themselves to reduce their insurance costs in some vague future.
Diesel555 6y ago
I don't disagree, but I do wish there was a more formalized way to educate both bikers and drivers on the laws. I just saw the Washington DC official bike map has the laws on it, but others do not. And what use are the laws if the drivers don't know them? Both bikers and drivers need to know them to be successful. I've asked a good number of both bikers and drivers in my area and they don't know that the laws exist: A driver must move over to the next lane if it is open and a biker is in the bike lane or the lane the driver is in. A driver must not pass closer than 3 feet from a biker A biker may take an entire lane and ride two wide I think if drivers knew that the above rules, and it became a norm to take the entire lane when 3 feet was impossible based on the size of the lane, then biking would be safer. To not leave this as a "this is bad" without proposing how to fix it... the education could be incorporated into gaining your drivers license, city sponsored advertisements, or having police actively spend a period of time enforcing the above laws (warnings would be fine, more for education than penalty)... or all 3.
tiku 6y ago
this is why you watch out for cyclist in the Netherlands, as it is always your "fault" as a driver if you hit a bicycle.
- tdons 6y ago
  You primarily watch out because you don't want to kill someone else.
  - lmm 6y ago
    So are people in the Netherlands inherently much more caring than people in the US? Or do people, consciously or otherwise, actually care a lot more about monetary liability than causing the deaths of others?
    - tdons 6y ago
      I refuse to believe that people care more about the monetary and legal consequences of killing another person than the moral aspect. Hypothesis: Dutch drivers are more careful around cyclists primarily because everyone rides a bicycle themselves. Knowing what it's like riding a bicycle in heavy traffic makes you a more careful driver.
globular-toast 6y ago
I believe the solution is education. It's ridiculous that people are allowed to drive cars before being able to use the road. Airline pilots learn by building up hours in a small aircraft during the day. Then they learn at night. Then they move to larger aircraft. It should be mandatory to learn to use the road on bicycle before even applying for a car licence. The biggest problem I see is that people simply don't know what it's like to use the road outside of a car. Neither on foot nor on a bike. Dashboard perspective is a real thing. It makes you see other people as obstacles rather than people who are just trying to go to work or return to their family, like you. Requiring bicycle training would dramatically increase the number of cyclists on the road, essentially taking it back from the tyranny of motorcars. It would also ensure that those who do decide to learn to drive have the experience necessary to be a good road user. Additionally, if they do end up causing an accident the licence can be revoked and they can get back on the bike.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
In NL, world famous for its cyclist-friendly policies, whenever there is a car / bicycle collision, the car driver is ALWAYS responsible, even if the cyclist ignored a red light or whatever. The driver will always be safe, but they are operating heavy machinery, so it's up to them to keep safety of the more vulnerable road users in mind. That said, around where I live, car / cyclist collisions are still pretty frequent; I live in an area with a lot of roundabouts where cyclists have right-of-way, but because of angles, darkness, rain etc, visibility of cyclists is often very low.
CalRobert 6y ago
In the United States, it's OK to use your car to kill people (if you're sober) https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to-kill-cyclists.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-t...
einpoklum 6y ago
> I think the only way forward for cyclists is intense litigation In my (non-cycling-related) experience, this is never true. That is, litigation gets you little, if anything. If there is no public, political way forward (inside or outside the political establishment), then you're stuck, and had better work on that. Ideas: * Promote use of public mass-transit instead of private cars (e.g. via infrastructure and mass transit investiment) * De-motivate use of private cars (e.g. through taxation on car purchases and/or on gasoline, stricter pollution regulation, more expensive parking) * Change the law so that in all cyclist-car-driver accidents, the car driver is at fault unless he proves otherwise. This all requires a lot of public pressure, which in turn requires public opinion work through local advocacy. --- Alternatively, some people could go the vigilante way. I'm not advocating this, but in theory, acquaintance of the cyclist victim of an attack by a car driver can retaliate either immediately or ex-post-facto, not within the bounds of the law. That could mean something like a scratching a rebuke on the car's paint, or pasting a piece of material with a written message to the front window in a way which doesn't come off easily, or blocking the car from leaving its parking spot with some kind of inconvenience, together with a rebuke that is easy to remove (e.g. page of paper under windshield); etc. This route does not require mass active support across a country or legislative district; it only requires passive local support for cycling and disdain for car drivers hitting cyclists - enough to create multiple potential suspects while making it very difficult for law enforcement to pin the actions on any one of them. i.e. if people in the same neighborhood don't rat them out.

daniel-cussen 6y ago

I believe bicycles are purposely devoid of rights by the automobile industry lobby to get people to go through all the pain of buying and owning a car. It's painful, and people hate it, but they do it because there's no other good way to get from point A to point B in America. Some examples: 1) I suspect the "new car smell" that car buyers believe affects their judgment is purposely chosen glue (I think it's a glue) that dissipates into a gas that literally, psychiatrically impairs buyer's judgment. It's real. [edit: it's still relatively mild]. 2) Stealing a person's main means of transport should be punished independently of how expensive that mode of transport is. So, the penalty for stealing a car should be based on the price of a car and the fact it was the main means of transport for that person. Same goes for bicycles, it could have been a $100 bike, but it's the main means of transport and that person is equally stranded as the driver without it. For this reason, being a bike thief stealing 10 bicycles could mean a decade in jail, if laws were different. Who would steal bikes then? 3) Enforce both car driving violations and bike driving violations, but based on lethality of the vehicle. Right now both driving a car drunk and riding a bike drunk are a DUI, which is ridiculous. 4) Legislation that privileges driving over biking harms children, because they can ride a bike starting age 8 or so, but can't drive until 16. 5) Driving is an extremely lethal activity, but AFAIK biking deaths are mostly attributable to automobiles. If you try to run someone over with a car you can be charged with (I forget the wording but more or less) "using a deadly weapon". Because that's what it is. A killing machine.

pmiller2 6y ago
If you try to run someone down, and end up killing them, that would be considered murder. If you try, but don't end up killing them, it would be assault with a deadly weapon at the very least, or possibly attempted murder. If you just so happen to kill someone without intending to, it could be considered vehicular manslaughter.
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  > If you just so happen to kill someone without intending to, it could be considered vehicular manslaughter. There's an additional constraint of acting negligently. If you're going 45 on a road where the speed limit is fifty and someone sprints out in front of your car, you won't be convicted of vehicular manslaughter (assuming obviously that you didn't have time to react).
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    Right, that's why the word "could" is in there. All of the crimes I mentioned have an element of either intent or fault attached to them. Coming close to someone, even at speed, without intending to do any harm is not "attempted murder" or assault in any form. This is fortunate, because to pass a cyclist, one often is forced to come within a few feet of them to accomplish the maneuver.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      ... to pass a cyclist, one often is forced to come within a few feet of them to accomplish the maneuver. Somehow I'm reading "within a few feet" as "six inches". IME bicycles are much narrower than automobiles. If it's safe to pass an automobile, it's safe to pass a cyclist while leaving at least eight feet. If it's not safe to pass, don't pass.
      - taeric 6y ago
        Cyclist get pushed by the air more than cars. Give a bit of extra room.

telesilla 6y ago

The legal infrastructure you suggest absolutely works to reduce accidents and increase driver responsibility. When I'm driving in the Netherlands I am critically more aware of cyclists there, due to the road layout but also because of assumed liability, I'd better be 100% sure I'm driving safely. https://www.bikecitizens.net/presumed-liability-shrinks-cycling-levels/ https://www.bikecitizens.net/presumed-liability-shrinks-cycl...

an_opabinia 6y ago
This is my perspective, I exclusively bike to get around. We can play out the premise described by the OP, and it just doesn't add up. If some schmuck with California's minimum $15,000 per person injury insurance disables you, what would you do? Sue them for their additional median $97,300 net worth? Which might be less than $10,000 liquidated? That is you'd expect to get, somewhere between $25,000 and $112,300, for your lifetime injury. Perfect enforcement with 100% liability legal system would get you $25,000-$112,300 in my estimate, for the rest of your life. If you're permanently disabled, it's peanuts. It's a shitty outcome. The problem is in part, clearly, that people are really poor. And then suppose it's a totally recoverable injury. Out of $112,300 you recover $25,000, realistically, and the driver is bankrupted. You could put a whole family on the street. It's not Europe, they will go on the street! Is that justice? They're all completely broke dude. They have nothing besides their car. People are living paycheck to paycheck, and you're comparing European countries where neither disability nor bankruptcy condemns you to a life of poverty. 20% of Americans claim some disability. 20% of Americans have zero or negative net worth, which is 4x the EU + UK's 5%. You have a 1 in 5 chance of getting hit by someone in their car, and recovering a maximum of $15,000, or $0 if they're uninsured. The simplest answer is that only people who are rich enough to pay the remedies of death by vehicle accidents should drive. That can be as simple as either requiring self-insurance (i.e., you must have a net worth more comparable to death settlements, or $500k-1m), or at least an insurance that covers that kind of injury (which poor would not be able to afford). I don't think that sounds like justice either, think how disruptive it would be if you had to be that rich to drive? It would certainly impact rich people too, because they'd be underwriting their nannies, cooks and, checking my notes, teachers, firemen, nurses, etc. to get to work. It's pretty crazy too, the degree of wrong in the comments to this. At least bring some facts to this discussion. People are just trying to survive, of course they are going to go with the cheapest possible lowest coverage insurance. On top of that, "about 15% of California drivers have no insurance, according to the Insurance Research Council." (1) Like what do you think those people with negative net worth (20% of Americans) are doing? Buying $2,000/yr auto insurance policies? It boggles the mind. (1) https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/state/california/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/state/californi...

Retric 6y ago

Unfortunately, many cyclists stake stupid risks which also cause accidents. I have seen stoped cycling between rows of parked cars and darting through a red light, or going full speed down a sidewalk past rows of parking garages etc. Without dash cams it’s nearly impossible to tell the root cause as reckless driver or a suicidal cyclist. This is why both drivers and cyclists really should be recording things. It doesn’t prevent injuries, if it can make a huge difference afterwards.

matsemann 6y ago
> I have seen people cycling between rows of parked cars It's kinda ironic that that's used as an example of bad cycling, and also exactly where most bike lanes are put: in the door zone of parked cars.
- Retric 6y ago
  I meant stoped cars at a stop light. Which should have been clear from context as you don’t normally get rows of parked cars on public streets. Anyway, that and other instances of sharing a lane beside a car is monumentally stupid. The only way to fight stereotypes like this is with hard evidence.
  - nl 6y ago
    > I meant stoped cars at a stop light. That and other instances of sharing a lane beside a car is monumentally stupid. Ironically the point of this article is how this is always permitted and the sole reason sharrows exist is to point it out. Judging by your comment it isn't widely understood.
    - Retric 6y ago
      No this is really not about that, cyclists are always allowed to take up the full lane in cities, but it’s rarely legal to split a lane, and even then it’s a terrible idea. Preliminary results from a study in the United Kingdom, conducted by the University of Nottingham for the Department for Transport, show that filtering is responsible for around 5% of motorcycle Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) accidents. (Bicycle statistics are harder to locate.)

Etheryte 6y ago

Legislation is one part of the correct answer, but not all of it. Here in the Netherlands there's "strict liability" [0], in which the driver is always liable for at least 50% of the damage, and usually 100% liable, but that is only a part of the solution. The law is worth very little without proper infrastructure. Infrastructure that provides clear and physical separation works, as demonstrated by Oslo's zero cyclist fatalaties [1]. [0] https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/strict-liability-in-the-netherlands/ https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/strict-liabili... [1] https://thecityfix.com/blog/how-oslo-achieved-zero-pedestrian-and-bicycle-fatalities-and-how-others-can-apply-what-worked/ https://thecityfix.com/blog/how-oslo-achieved-zero-pedestria...

consp 6y ago
> 50% of the damage, and usually 100% liable Not strictly, the driver (bestuurder) of a vehicle (anything requiring a drivers license, also mopeds) is considered a more capable participant in traffic. Pedestrians and cyclists are at the bottom of that food chain. If you hit something in the "lower classification" you have to prove you are innocent and the burden is on you completely. If the cyclist was using his phone, collect witnesses after you help the victim as you are in no way liable if you made every effort to stop and look. (e.g. in a low speed collision, assuming the cyclist made a mistake). High speed collisions are usually completely attributed to the driver as they should be aware of cyclists all the time. e.g. Not slowing down at a crossing (even one with traffic signs) is reason to forgo any rights if you hit a cyclist as you should be aware of any participant in traffic which is less capable (in the protection sense) as you are. Even if the cyclist drives though a red light as you should anticipate mistakes. You are usually liable for the 50% but it is not a given. Always go to court if you consider the cyclist made a mistake. e: please not that in normal cases the damage is a percentage fault division to both parties, in case a pedestrian or cyclist is involved the minimum will rise to 50% for the other party to cover in case "overmacht" (force de majeure) cannot be proven which is where the "always 50%" comes from. There are however numerous cases in which this has been proven and can be used in a court of law. It will however almost never be 0% for the driver of a vehicle.
- nostromo 6y ago

Spooky23 6y ago

IMO the answer is to have registration and insurance for bikes, which would create financial incentives to drive reporting and behavior. In the limited experience that I have as a frequent pedestrian visitor with dedicated cycling lanes in NYC, they feel dangerous to pedestrians. Many cyclists don’t want to stop or yield to pedestrians, and left turn markings on avenues are still evolving and confuse a lot of drivers.

matthewmacleod 6y ago
That will mostly create an incentive to not cycle, which is the last thing we need.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  I doubt it. Cycling is well established, but the rules around road use are insane. That won’t get fixed unless someone is getting a big bill.
  - adamcstephens 6y ago
    I’m not sure where you live, but here in Ohio cycling is definitely not “well established”. When you compare infrastructure it’s not even a competition. Don’t want to deal with bicyclists breaking laws? Get them off the streets onto their own dedicated infrastructure. Then bicycling actually would become well established. “Big bills” do nothing to stop drivers from breaking the laws, but go on thinking that it will change cyclists.
karaterobot 6y ago
Where I live, bikes are considered vehicles, like cars or trucks. It makes complete sense to me that you'd need to be licensed to operate a vehicle -- any vehicle -- on public roads. In this thread about how dangerous it is to ride a bike in cities, I'd love to hear an explanation for why we think it's a good idea for anybody to hop on a bike and ride in traffic with no training, no oversight, no insurance, and no registration.

pmiller2 6y ago

It's even worse than that. I'll just let this URL speak for itself: https://ggwash.org/view/37541/drivers-who-kill-people-on-bikes-often-dont-get-prosecuted https://ggwash.org/view/37541/drivers-who-kill-people-on-bik... That said, when I am driving, I have absolutely no issue with people on bicycles who ride predictably and follow the rules. It's those who don't that anger me. Specifically, I'm talking about things like riding through a crosswalk, riding the wrong way, and not signaling lane changes. There's a reason you're supposed to walk your bike through a crosswalk, and not signaling when you're a ~200 lb driver + rider combo facing down vehicles weighing more than 10x and capable of going much, much faster than you is just dumb. That doesn't mean drivers aren't dumb, too. On top of the usual traffic BS we all deal with while driving, I also see a lot of instances of drivers not taking over a bike lane when turning. Usually, in this case, this just seems to lead to a lot of "go! no, you go! no you go!" business, but it's 100% a recipe for a crash.

bdamm 6y ago
While there’s a valid point to be made about expecting cyclists to behave, one also needs to consider that the vast majority of infrastructure in the US is for cars. Lights often don’t respond for cyclists, for example. If you were driving your car and you needed to get out of your car and walk over a nearby light standard and then get back in your car whenever you wanted to use a lighted intersection, how long would you go on before concluding that this was a waste of your time and start crossing when there is a large enough gap in traffic instead?
- bjourne 6y ago
  Another example is one-way traffic signs. They are positioned for drivers which means that they are low enough to easily be missed by cyclists whose sitting positions are higher up.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  I have no problem with that if it's done safely. But, I've had people try to blow through an intersection when I'm turning at a protected left. That's just asking to be hit.

D13Fd 6y ago

Honestly, as a driver and pedestrian, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for bicyclists. In my city, at least, I’ve almost been hit by cyclists multiple times as a pedestrian. In one case, the cyclist was going the wrong way, blatantly ran the light, and screamed at me as he passed within maybe two-three feet of me at full speed while I was crossing the street. In another case, a cyclist blew by my at full speed down a steep hill on the sidewalk, again coming stupidly close to an accident (for both of us) for no reason. As a driver, I constantly see cyclists on the wrong side of the street, back and forth between the sidewalk and not, and not obeying stop signs or stop lights (let alone other rules). I’ve never even heard of one being ticketed. I’m all for new bike lanes that are separated from traffic. But honestly before a city encourages more bike riders I really think they need to dramatically step up enforcement of traffic laws against them. If running a red light or stop sign is a $200 ticket in a car, it should be a $200 ticket on a bike. Otherwise it is just unsafe for everyone involved.

enriquto 6y ago
> If running a red light or stop sign is a $200 ticket in a car, it should be a $200 ticket on a bike. Curiously; in France many red-lights are excepted for bicycles. There's often a special, permanent "orange" signal that applies to bikes, thus they are explicitly encouraged to run the red light. If I understand well, this was in agreement with drivers, who were annoyed to wait for all the bikes to start slowly after the light turns green. I think that if you ever try to use a bicycle in transit (I mean, seriously over a few days, not for 5 minutes), you will see that it is essentially impossible to do correctly. Sometimes you have to turn left across many lanes of fast cars, what are you supposed to do? Inevitably you take the least dangerous path.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  I rode a bike as my sole form of transportation for a few years. it's not "impossible" to do correctly, but it may be impossible to do without exceeding the amount of effort you're willing to exert. > Sometimes you have to turn left across many lanes of fast cars, what are you supposed to do? one of the great things about biking is that you get to pick and choose between car rules and pedestrian rules depending on which set fits the situation best. whenever I am uncomfortable making a left turn, I pull off to the right and cross the intersection like a pedestrian.

godelski 6y ago

I've been hit twice. Both times I was at a stop sign. The second time the guy just said "oh sorry, the sun was in my eyes." Meanwhile I thought I was going to be pushed into moving traffic and die by someone who in no way could have avoided me. Took me a full minute to catch my breath and gain enough composure to lay into the guy who hit me. He never got out of his car, never said sorry (real sorry), nothing. I've had cars chase me because they don't think I should be riding in the right most lane (no bike lane or construction). One time a Pizza Hut driver almost killed me. I called his boss, they didn't care. One time an UBER DRIVER almost hit me and then proceeded to chase me because I yelled and flipped him off. I sent a photo of the license place to Uber and the local PD, nothing. Not even an acknowledgement. The fact is that people don't care. You go on HN or Reddit and people will complain and actively encourage hitting riders. It is always the rider's fault, even if the driver broke the law. And I'm tired of it. I don't care if the rider was in the wrong, you're a lot more squishy on a bike than in a plastic housing with a motor. There's this weird dichotomy of not caring about the life or safety of someone.

prepend 6y ago
I’m sorry you had these experiences. I too got hit twice, but no major damage other than totaling my bike. The reason why I have little sympathy for these types of stories is that I witness cyclists being assholes every day I drive. Stuff like running lights and stop signs, changing lanes with no signals, riding on sidewalks and crosswalks, riding in lanes with moving cars, etc etc. I understand that in the US bike environments are really unsafe, but I don’t think that routine not obeying traffic laws or conventions is the way to go.
- recursive 6y ago
  Car drivers seem to violate traffic laws at least as often as bicyclists. And that's just speed limits.
  - prepend 6y ago
    Certainly, I don’t think car drivers are perfect by any means. I’m not sure the exact ratio, but I see cars speeding every day as well. But it’s pretty rare to see a car run a red light or weave around other cars.

TylerE 6y ago

Sure. And let's hit cyclists with the same penalties as drivers for the same violations. I see cyclists blowing stop signs and ignoring traffic lights regularly.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Sure, when cyclists start killing car drivers.
- zabzonk 6y ago
  They kill and maim pedestrians at lights.
  - vyhd 6y ago
    At what scale? How does it compare to the 6,600 pedestrians killed by drivers in 2019 [1]? Is it even within three orders of magnitude? [1]: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a31136893/pedestrian-deaths-increase-2019/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a31136893/pedestrian-death...
et-al 6y ago
Bike commuter here. The reason why I sometimes treat traffic lights as stop signs is because I'm worried the driver coming up to the red light might be distracted by their phone and run right into me. This has happened to two of my friends. So my seemingly disregard of the traffic laws is often to put more space between me and heavier vehicles. However if car and I end up at a four-way stop at the same time, I'll let the car go first because I don't trust that driver saw me. With driving a two-ton vehicle should come more responsibility and attention, but Americans view driving as a God given right.
- smogcutter 6y ago
  > The reason why I sometimes treat traffic lights as stop signs is because I'm worried the driver coming up to the light might be distracted by their phone and run right into me. As has happened to two of my friends. This is something motorcyclists need to be hyper-aware of too. Same idea approaching yellow lights. Here’s a scenario that happens all the time: you’re coming up on a yellow. There’s a car in the intersection ahead waiting to make a left into your path. The car behind you isn’t slowing down, he either isn’t paying attention or wants to run the yellow. What do you do to stay alive? The right answer is to act earlier to avoid that situation in the first place, but there will be times when you find yourself in a bad spot.

ErikAugust 6y ago

Call me crazy, but as a runner I’ve thought of getting one of those follow drones for documenting trails... but what about as a “dash cam” for cyclists? You would certainly be able to get evidence of the sort of thing you are describing.

alpaca128 6y ago
Where I live it is illegal to use dashcams for this purpose, whether on cars or bicycles. If you do it and give another reason that's fine, but it will still not be accepted as evidence in court. The rarity of good bike lanes does not improve the situation either.
- recursive 6y ago
  Why on earth would it be illegal to use a dash cam for your own protection?
  - mstade 6y ago
    I can't speak for the parent poster but here in Sweden it required a ruling by the Supreme Court to determine that dash cams should be legal. Until then the footage was inadmissible as evidence, as far as I'm aware, because it was effectively seen as illegal surveillance.
  - maurits 6y ago
    Switzerland has stringent privacy rules, including in what other countries would consider 'public' space. Sorry, no English: [1] [1]: https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/fr/home/protection-des-donnees/technologien/videoueberwachung/explications-sur-la-videosurveillance-au-moyen-de-cameras-embarq.html https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/fr/home/protection-des-donn...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dr_dshiv 6y ago

You might be interested in the history of the "Stop Murdering Our Children" campaign. It had a massive impact on the development of the Netherlands. In the 60s, automobile-pedestrian deaths were higher per capita than in the usa. It wasn't always a bike mecca. https://www.dutchreach.org/car-child-murder-protests-safer-nl-roads/ https://www.dutchreach.org/car-child-murder-protests-safer-n...

JasonFruit 6y ago
Accusing people involved in accidents of murder might not be the best way to make them sympathetic and gain their support.
- corty 6y ago
  Nowadays, you can get yourself sentenced for murder for a traffic accident: https://m.dw.com/en/berlin-car-race-death-top-german-court-partially-upholds-murder-conviction/a-53853406 https://m.dw.com/en/berlin-car-race-death-top-german-court-p...
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    If you intentionally race through a city.
  - sidlls 6y ago
    Good. Punishments for bad driving ought to be much more severe.
    - cbozeman 6y ago
      The only thing more severe than a life sentence is execution... so... execute bad drivers?
      - sidlls 6y ago
        I meant more generally. Drivers get off very easily for very poor behavior that is often negligent and sometimes maliciously so, especially in their treatment of pedestrians and cyclists. "More severe" includes "any at all."

callinOutLiars 6y ago

I’m a cyclist and driver too, and I always get annoyed when cyclists always blame the cars. Most cyclist don’t follow the laws and then yell at you for their fault. I stopped my bike at a stop sign, the dude behind me wasn’t prepared for it and hit me with his bike. He then yelled at me for stopping. Honestly, both drivers and cyclists are rude and selfish on the road.

hansvm 6y ago
To be fair, where I live the cars don't stop at signs either. A typical reaction when I stop (in a car in front of them) is to flip me off and honk or speed past in the wrong lane.
umanwizard 6y ago
The difference is that when a cyclist is rude and selfish, it might put you in a bad mood for the rest of the morning. When a driver is rude and selfish, cyclists can die. I'm so sick of this "but cyclists are mean too!" whataboutism in every thread of this nature.
- kaybe 6y ago
  In addition the rules and streets themselves often don't make that much sense for cyclists. If the situation was similar for cars you'd see them behave very differently as well.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  > The difference is that when a cyclist is rude and selfish, it might put you in a bad mood for the rest of the morning. Had a cyclist illegally cross horizontal to a lane on a 40mph road, almost resulted in a 3 car collision - luckily all three drivers (including me and the car behind me) were paying attention. A cyclist absolutely can cause deaths by not obeying the laws of the road.
  - lmm 6y ago
    What you're really saying here is that cars are so inherently dangerous that they amplify unlikely-to-be-deadly mistakes from other road users into events that are very likely to be deadly.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

Usually this sort of thing is grassroots and ooorly funded - but just imagine what the enormous financial resources of the self-driving car industry could do - by increasing the costs and deadly perception of human car driving in every city that say Uber operates in, the likelihood of those jurisdictions approving even stage 4 cars on the road will increase. Just hire the same lawyers that the tobacco industry was paying. I should send someone a memo Having said this, (as a daily commute cyclist pre covid) the issue is lack of delegated infrastructure- and I think that applies not just for mixed human drivers and human cyclists but (as much as it disappoints) we will likely need separate roads for self driving cars and human (cars / bikes / pedestrians). Self driving seems a really hard problem now we are past the "california highway" level. To be safe at night or in rain or in Italian backstreets or Mumbai rush hour seems behind reach. So we can use infrastructure to reduce the need for better AI. But that gets expensive. We can probably avoid building a second road network - but we need compromises. Separated bike lanes will help this - those great wide Dutch streets with pedestrian bike car and the tram lanes come to mind - main roads where the central lanes are for automated use only. The cost will be enormous (and blows most business models out the water) but we may win elsewhere - reclaiming some of the streets back as living areas, migrating deliveries off trucks and into smaller slower delivery vehicles designed to trundle down thinner streets. Either way i look forward to a future of slower vehicles a d bike paths

bsder 6y ago

> Unfortunately, I think the only way forward for cyclists is intense litigation against both cities and drivers around car collisions. Do you want ANTI-bike laws that ban bikes from everywhere not permitted? To someone rich, the "solution" to having to deal with bike liability is to ban bikes. The only solution is separate bicycle and car infrastructure. Period. Yes, it sucks that San Francisco has backed off separate infrastructure due to budget. However, the solution is to go lobby SF and to make pro-bike infrastructure a single vote issue to make them put it back. One thing I do not understand: why hasn't some rich millionaire/billionaire taken some second/third tier city and funded bike infrastructure into it? It seems like it would be a lot easier to get bikers to move to a city that has infrastructure rather than trying to jam infrastructure into city that is basically land-locked/water-locked.

alisonkisk 6y ago
Biker isn't an inherent attribute. I'm not going to abandon my family and job just for better bike paths.
iaabtpbtpnn 6y ago
Road cycling as a hobby starts in the middle class and goes all the way up. A lot of rich people ride bikes themselves.
0xB31B1B 6y ago
The problem is right now in SF we have a strong bike lobby and we vote and it still isn’t enough. The idea that voting with a block is a way to forward policy goals in 2020 is quaint TBH. As far as I can tell pretty much all successful political movements in the US (NRA/guns rights, marriage equality etc) have made the most material progress with both direct action (protests) and lawsuits despite both movements being electorally unpopular and having no electoral success at the time of their greatest achievements. Voting is a necessary but insufficient ingredient in policy change and has never been the silver bullet centrist democrats claim it to be. We need to add some legal adventureism to the mix to push the ball forward here both through expanding common law in friendly ways against car centric policies as well as just making it more costly to not have bike lanes than to construct them for the city and its residents.

sharkweek 6y ago

Cyclist as well - the group I ride with jokes (in a very dark way) about how if we ever wanted someone dead without getting in any real trouble we’d invite them on a bike ride and have someone we know run them over with a car. Easy!

obelos 6y ago

Also sue cities. It's not always possible because of liability constraints for government entities, but sometimes victims of traffic violence can demonstrate negligence and get a foothold into a liability case. City officials often pay little more than lip service to constituents, but they pay attention to risk managers.

novok 6y ago

Even better, or worse, you have to make it into a lawyer industry where they start putting ads on billboards. Then you will really hyper charge it and insurance companies will start acting accordingly. Hell there might be changes to cars themselves to reduce their insurance costs in some vague future.

Diesel555 6y ago

I don't disagree, but I do wish there was a more formalized way to educate both bikers and drivers on the laws. I just saw the Washington DC official bike map has the laws on it, but others do not. And what use are the laws if the drivers don't know them? Both bikers and drivers need to know them to be successful. I've asked a good number of both bikers and drivers in my area and they don't know that the laws exist: A driver must move over to the next lane if it is open and a biker is in the bike lane or the lane the driver is in. A driver must not pass closer than 3 feet from a biker A biker may take an entire lane and ride two wide I think if drivers knew that the above rules, and it became a norm to take the entire lane when 3 feet was impossible based on the size of the lane, then biking would be safer. To not leave this as a "this is bad" without proposing how to fix it... the education could be incorporated into gaining your drivers license, city sponsored advertisements, or having police actively spend a period of time enforcing the above laws (warnings would be fine, more for education than penalty)... or all 3.

tiku 6y ago

this is why you watch out for cyclist in the Netherlands, as it is always your "fault" as a driver if you hit a bicycle.

tdons 6y ago
You primarily watch out because you don't want to kill someone else.
- lmm 6y ago
  So are people in the Netherlands inherently much more caring than people in the US? Or do people, consciously or otherwise, actually care a lot more about monetary liability than causing the deaths of others?
  - tdons 6y ago
    I refuse to believe that people care more about the monetary and legal consequences of killing another person than the moral aspect. Hypothesis: Dutch drivers are more careful around cyclists primarily because everyone rides a bicycle themselves. Knowing what it's like riding a bicycle in heavy traffic makes you a more careful driver.

globular-toast 6y ago

I believe the solution is education. It's ridiculous that people are allowed to drive cars before being able to use the road. Airline pilots learn by building up hours in a small aircraft during the day. Then they learn at night. Then they move to larger aircraft. It should be mandatory to learn to use the road on bicycle before even applying for a car licence. The biggest problem I see is that people simply don't know what it's like to use the road outside of a car. Neither on foot nor on a bike. Dashboard perspective is a real thing. It makes you see other people as obstacles rather than people who are just trying to go to work or return to their family, like you. Requiring bicycle training would dramatically increase the number of cyclists on the road, essentially taking it back from the tyranny of motorcars. It would also ensure that those who do decide to learn to drive have the experience necessary to be a good road user. Additionally, if they do end up causing an accident the licence can be revoked and they can get back on the bike.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

In NL, world famous for its cyclist-friendly policies, whenever there is a car / bicycle collision, the car driver is ALWAYS responsible, even if the cyclist ignored a red light or whatever. The driver will always be safe, but they are operating heavy machinery, so it's up to them to keep safety of the more vulnerable road users in mind. That said, around where I live, car / cyclist collisions are still pretty frequent; I live in an area with a lot of roundabouts where cyclists have right-of-way, but because of angles, darkness, rain etc, visibility of cyclists is often very low.

CalRobert 6y ago

In the United States, it's OK to use your car to kill people (if you're sober) https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to-kill-cyclists.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-t...

einpoklum 6y ago

> I think the only way forward for cyclists is intense litigation In my (non-cycling-related) experience, this is never true. That is, litigation gets you little, if anything. If there is no public, political way forward (inside or outside the political establishment), then you're stuck, and had better work on that. Ideas: * Promote use of public mass-transit instead of private cars (e.g. via infrastructure and mass transit investiment) * De-motivate use of private cars (e.g. through taxation on car purchases and/or on gasoline, stricter pollution regulation, more expensive parking) * Change the law so that in all cyclist-car-driver accidents, the car driver is at fault unless he proves otherwise. This all requires a lot of public pressure, which in turn requires public opinion work through local advocacy. --- Alternatively, some people could go the vigilante way. I'm not advocating this, but in theory, acquaintance of the cyclist victim of an attack by a car driver can retaliate either immediately or ex-post-facto, not within the bounds of the law. That could mean something like a scratching a rebuke on the car's paint, or pasting a piece of material with a written message to the front window in a way which doesn't come off easily, or blocking the car from leaving its parking spot with some kind of inconvenience, together with a rebuke that is easy to remove (e.g. page of paper under windshield); etc. This route does not require mass active support across a country or legislative district; it only requires passive local support for cycling and disdain for car drivers hitting cyclists - enough to create multiple potential suspects while making it very difficult for law enforcement to pin the actions on any one of them. i.e. if people in the same neighborhood don't rat them out.