3 ms·

Citation needed.

tom_ 6y ago
A statement of the form "I am XXX" requires no citation. I doubt there are many who have done a more comprehensive study than AdamN of what it is like to be them. For whatever it's worth, I would agree. I am confident that most cyclist/car accidents will be the car driver's fault. Would you even be surprised, if this turns out to be genuinely the case? I wouldn't! Do you even drive a car? I do! Car drivers are shits - or at least behave exactly like them - one for the philosphers, perhaps - and I cannot fathom how anybody that drives a car could think otherwise. Have you not noticed how these people behave? (Sure, lie to us all you like - but don't lie to yourself!) Car drivers would run your kids down, and you know it, if it would save them 5 seconds - then in court they'd cry about how things are so difficult for them now they're facing prison. Because they know they'd probably get away with it. Out of the tiny number of times an accident is the cyclist's fault, the vast majority could be avoided if the driver was paying an appropriate amount of attention - and the 6-year-old rule of thumb is a good one, I think, when it comes to gauging how much attention is appropriate - given they're driving a 1500+ kg 200+ bhp murder machine, a major design goal of which is ensuring its occupants come out unscathed from any collision. I am confident the remainder could be dealt with on a case by case basis.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Sigh. You may not realize this, but when someone says "I am reasonably certain that X," they are not, in fact, generally asserting their certainty. They are, in fact, asserting X to be true. So, to your "I'm confident that..." I also say: citation needed.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > You may not realize this, but when someone says "I am reasonably certain that X," they are not, in fact, generally asserting their certainty. They are, in fact, asserting X to be true. No, they are claiming that they have a belief (implicitly, often, a justified belief) that X has a high probability of being true, unlike stating merely “X” which denotatively is a claim that X is true without qualification.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      If it is a justified belief, then asking them to justify it is not a problem then, is it?
adrianN 6y ago
Accident statistics in Berlin show that in accidents involving motor vehicles and cyclists, the motor vehicle is at fault about 2/3rds of the time. The ratio is a lot worse if you restrict it to trucks. It's also worse if you restrict it to accidents causing serious injury (a lot of accidents caused by cyclists happen while filtering through a line of stopped cars and touching a mirror).
- pmiller2 6y ago
  And where are these statistics? And why is Berlin typical in this aspect? And why are cyclists doing such an obviously dangerous (to them) maneuver?
  - adrianN 6y ago
    They are a google search away. I mentioned Berlin because I live there and looked at them before. I guess cyclists do these maneuvers because they're legal and standing at the back of a queue of cars is not a safe place to be for a cyclist. I'd rather touch a mirror and fall than be rear-ended by an inattentive driver.

Citation needed.

tom_ 6y ago

A statement of the form "I am XXX" requires no citation. I doubt there are many who have done a more comprehensive study than AdamN of what it is like to be them. For whatever it's worth, I would agree. I am confident that most cyclist/car accidents will be the car driver's fault. Would you even be surprised, if this turns out to be genuinely the case? I wouldn't! Do you even drive a car? I do! Car drivers are shits - or at least behave exactly like them - one for the philosphers, perhaps - and I cannot fathom how anybody that drives a car could think otherwise. Have you not noticed how these people behave? (Sure, lie to us all you like - but don't lie to yourself!) Car drivers would run your kids down, and you know it, if it would save them 5 seconds - then in court they'd cry about how things are so difficult for them now they're facing prison. Because they know they'd probably get away with it. Out of the tiny number of times an accident is the cyclist's fault, the vast majority could be avoided if the driver was paying an appropriate amount of attention - and the 6-year-old rule of thumb is a good one, I think, when it comes to gauging how much attention is appropriate - given they're driving a 1500+ kg 200+ bhp murder machine, a major design goal of which is ensuring its occupants come out unscathed from any collision. I am confident the remainder could be dealt with on a case by case basis.

pmiller2 6y ago
Sigh. You may not realize this, but when someone says "I am reasonably certain that X," they are not, in fact, generally asserting their certainty. They are, in fact, asserting X to be true. So, to your "I'm confident that..." I also say: citation needed.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > You may not realize this, but when someone says "I am reasonably certain that X," they are not, in fact, generally asserting their certainty. They are, in fact, asserting X to be true. No, they are claiming that they have a belief (implicitly, often, a justified belief) that X has a high probability of being true, unlike stating merely “X” which denotatively is a claim that X is true without qualification.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    If it is a justified belief, then asking them to justify it is not a problem then, is it?

adrianN 6y ago

Accident statistics in Berlin show that in accidents involving motor vehicles and cyclists, the motor vehicle is at fault about 2/3rds of the time. The ratio is a lot worse if you restrict it to trucks. It's also worse if you restrict it to accidents causing serious injury (a lot of accidents caused by cyclists happen while filtering through a line of stopped cars and touching a mirror).

pmiller2 6y ago
And where are these statistics? And why is Berlin typical in this aspect? And why are cyclists doing such an obviously dangerous (to them) maneuver?
- adrianN 6y ago
  They are a google search away. I mentioned Berlin because I live there and looked at them before. I guess cyclists do these maneuvers because they're legal and standing at the back of a queue of cars is not a safe place to be for a cyclist. I'd rather touch a mirror and fall than be rear-ended by an inattentive driver.