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The author was hit by a motorist. As a road cyclist, I ride predictably, visibly, and legally. Yet every close call or collision has been due to motorist impati

The author was hit by a motorist. As a road cyclist, I ride predictably, visibly, and legally. Yet every close call or collision has been due to motorist impatience, inattention, and/or lawlessness. By over-emphasizing the "luck" factor and using the narrative of some inanimate force of nature "a car" causing the harm, we continue to fail to hold those directly causing the problem responsible.

StevenWaterman 3y ago
You're right and I do agree. But a full description of events wouldn't make for a particularly catchy title.
- dairylee 3y ago
  I think you're missing the point. Nowhere in the article does it mention that someone was driving the car. It's just an inanimate car with no driver. It absolves any responsibility to the human behind the wheel. --- Luckily I got hit by a driver. Luckily I got hit by a car. I got hit by a driver on Sunday I got hit by a car on Sunday. --- No less catchy. It's why there are media guidelines around reporting on collisions. https://www.rc-rg.com/guidelines https://www.rc-rg.com/guidelines
  - StevenWaterman 3y ago
    No, I do understand. I'm as anti-car as the next guy. It's absurd that we have normalised multi-ton death machines travelling at high speeds within arms-reach of pedestrians. One of the first things I said after it happened was "fucking cagers", which is a phrase I picked up years ago from DIY electric bike forums. I don't own a car and hope I never have to. But it's also not as simple as driver hits pedestrian. Two drivers were involved. The resulting wreckage slid into us. I am reasonably confident that one of those two drivers is at fault - distracted or not paying enough attention and straying into the wrong lane, but I have no idea which. Maybe I'll find out eventually, when the police finish investigating. If I was reporting on the crash, then sure, maybe "a driver slid into me after crashing into another car in a collision that was maybe his fault" would be a better title.
Retric 3y ago
Should and is are different. Humans aren’t perfect, so you assume that risk by being unprotected near cars. Taking that risk is permitted and thus bikes are allowed on the road, but don’t confuse that for equity. Humanity has collectively decided cars have more utility than bikes. It’s possible to completely isolate bikes and cars onto separate networks that don’t overlap but humanity decided it’s generally not worth the investment. Thus you’re given the freedom to take risks, but the general assumption by juries etc is you’re partially at fault in any collision. Disagree and downvote all you want, but that’s simply reality whatever you or I personally prefer.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  > Humanity has collectively decided cars have more utility than bikes. Not humanity only the planners of unwalkable/uncyclable sprawling towns with bad public transportation...
- bigDinosaur 3y ago
  This is not a decision that 'humanity' took, only poor planning of cities which now many people take as just the way things are, their lifestyles largely determined by a very few number of men 70 years ago. There are many places that do it better. Bicyclists are often forced by law to take the unnecessary risk of riding with cars (e.g. by making it illegal to ride on sidewalks). I have to admit that personally I find there's literally no topic like bicycles that gets people to jump from logical arguments to just spewing hatred (or total disregard) and your comment is just the precursor to the literal dehumanisation that cyclists face on roads.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Completely banning the sale of cars was and still is an option. The possibility of doing so in any but the most limited situations is currently unthinkable by most people. If I could wave a magic wind I would ban all cars and Taxi in NYC, but that’s a seriously minority opinion.
    - CalRobert 3y ago
bsuvc 3y ago
> Yet every close call or collision has been due to motorist impatience, inattention, and/or lawlessness. This reminds me of how every driver thinks they are at least above average and most people think they are even an excellent driver. I guess the same applies to cyclists.
- eulgro 3y ago
  But cyclists don't ride at 60 mph in a thousand kilograms vehicle, so it hardly matters to anyone but to them.
  - atdrummond 3y ago
    I’ve been hit by a half dozen cyclists (all in SF, despite having spent more time as an adult in more biking dense Europe) and never by a car. I’m probably not going to attempt to draw any policy or broader conclusions from this.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      I have been hit by a car; the driver didn't look my way when pulling out after having stopped at a minor-to-major junction. Even at, to guess, 10 mph, I don't recommend it. Wrote off my bicycle. But yeah, small samples are bad to draw conclusions from.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      The people who have been rammed by a car can't contribute to this discussion as they're dead. It's around 10-20 every year in San Francisco. It looks like there was one pedestrian death caused by a cyclist in around the last 10 years.
  - dazc 3y ago
    You still wouldn't want to be hit by a moving bicycle though, regardless of speed. People can act recklessly when they perceive themselves to be invulnerable and this applies to everyone, cyclists included.
- 3y ago
CalRobert 3y ago
If we reported on traffic violence like anything else like we'd have headlines about kids dying in collisions with bullets.
throw0101b 3y ago
> By over-emphasizing the "luck" factor and using the narrative of some inanimate force of nature "a car" causing the harm, we continue to fail to hold those directly causing the problem responsible. See also: > Before the labor movement, factory owners would say "it was an accident" when American workers were injured in unsafe conditions. > Before the movement to combat drunk driving, intoxicated drivers would say "it was an accident" when they crashed their cars. > Planes don’t have accidents. They crash. Cranes don’t have accidents. They collapse. And as a society, we expect answers and solutions. > Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word "accident" today. * https://crashnotaccident.com https://crashnotaccident.com * https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/travel/safety/road-users/crash-not-accident https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/travel/safety/road-users/crash...
mistermann 3y ago
> we continue to fail to hold those directly causing the problem responsible. That would fun to deconstruct....we've got the driver of the vehicle, (possibly) people that may have agitated the driver contributing to their carelessness, their parents for raising them the way they did, the driving instructor, those who design and oversee training/testing for drivers licenses, the same for enforcement of laws, nosy (or not) journalists who keep all of these officials on their toes, all of us for complacency with how all of this complexity is run....tricky business, maybe too much work to even think about when one can just blame the driver and be done with it, "close enough".
- steelframe 3y ago
  > That would fun to deconstruct It's pretty straightforward for me. You hit me, I sue you. Not your driving instructor. Not the license administrators. Not your parents. I sue you.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    It is not at all rare to encounter a human who refuses to consider complex causality....in fact, I don't know if I've ever met a single one who can....and this is a smart forum, relatively anyways.

StevenWaterman 3y ago

You're right and I do agree. But a full description of events wouldn't make for a particularly catchy title.

dairylee 3y ago
I think you're missing the point. Nowhere in the article does it mention that someone was driving the car. It's just an inanimate car with no driver. It absolves any responsibility to the human behind the wheel. --- Luckily I got hit by a driver. Luckily I got hit by a car. I got hit by a driver on Sunday I got hit by a car on Sunday. --- No less catchy. It's why there are media guidelines around reporting on collisions. https://www.rc-rg.com/guidelines https://www.rc-rg.com/guidelines
- StevenWaterman 3y ago
  No, I do understand. I'm as anti-car as the next guy. It's absurd that we have normalised multi-ton death machines travelling at high speeds within arms-reach of pedestrians. One of the first things I said after it happened was "fucking cagers", which is a phrase I picked up years ago from DIY electric bike forums. I don't own a car and hope I never have to. But it's also not as simple as driver hits pedestrian. Two drivers were involved. The resulting wreckage slid into us. I am reasonably confident that one of those two drivers is at fault - distracted or not paying enough attention and straying into the wrong lane, but I have no idea which. Maybe I'll find out eventually, when the police finish investigating. If I was reporting on the crash, then sure, maybe "a driver slid into me after crashing into another car in a collision that was maybe his fault" would be a better title.

Retric 3y ago

Should and is are different. Humans aren’t perfect, so you assume that risk by being unprotected near cars. Taking that risk is permitted and thus bikes are allowed on the road, but don’t confuse that for equity. Humanity has collectively decided cars have more utility than bikes. It’s possible to completely isolate bikes and cars onto separate networks that don’t overlap but humanity decided it’s generally not worth the investment. Thus you’re given the freedom to take risks, but the general assumption by juries etc is you’re partially at fault in any collision. Disagree and downvote all you want, but that’s simply reality whatever you or I personally prefer.

throwaway290 3y ago
> Humanity has collectively decided cars have more utility than bikes. Not humanity only the planners of unwalkable/uncyclable sprawling towns with bad public transportation...
bigDinosaur 3y ago
This is not a decision that 'humanity' took, only poor planning of cities which now many people take as just the way things are, their lifestyles largely determined by a very few number of men 70 years ago. There are many places that do it better. Bicyclists are often forced by law to take the unnecessary risk of riding with cars (e.g. by making it illegal to ride on sidewalks). I have to admit that personally I find there's literally no topic like bicycles that gets people to jump from logical arguments to just spewing hatred (or total disregard) and your comment is just the precursor to the literal dehumanisation that cyclists face on roads.
- Retric 3y ago
  Completely banning the sale of cars was and still is an option. The possibility of doing so in any but the most limited situations is currently unthinkable by most people. If I could wave a magic wind I would ban all cars and Taxi in NYC, but that’s a seriously minority opinion.
  - CalRobert 3y ago

bsuvc 3y ago

> Yet every close call or collision has been due to motorist impatience, inattention, and/or lawlessness. This reminds me of how every driver thinks they are at least above average and most people think they are even an excellent driver. I guess the same applies to cyclists.

eulgro 3y ago
But cyclists don't ride at 60 mph in a thousand kilograms vehicle, so it hardly matters to anyone but to them.
- atdrummond 3y ago
  I’ve been hit by a half dozen cyclists (all in SF, despite having spent more time as an adult in more biking dense Europe) and never by a car. I’m probably not going to attempt to draw any policy or broader conclusions from this.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    I have been hit by a car; the driver didn't look my way when pulling out after having stopped at a minor-to-major junction. Even at, to guess, 10 mph, I don't recommend it. Wrote off my bicycle. But yeah, small samples are bad to draw conclusions from.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    The people who have been rammed by a car can't contribute to this discussion as they're dead. It's around 10-20 every year in San Francisco. It looks like there was one pedestrian death caused by a cyclist in around the last 10 years.
- dazc 3y ago
  You still wouldn't want to be hit by a moving bicycle though, regardless of speed. People can act recklessly when they perceive themselves to be invulnerable and this applies to everyone, cyclists included.
3y ago

CalRobert 3y ago

If we reported on traffic violence like anything else like we'd have headlines about kids dying in collisions with bullets.

throw0101b 3y ago

> By over-emphasizing the "luck" factor and using the narrative of some inanimate force of nature "a car" causing the harm, we continue to fail to hold those directly causing the problem responsible. See also: > Before the labor movement, factory owners would say "it was an accident" when American workers were injured in unsafe conditions. > Before the movement to combat drunk driving, intoxicated drivers would say "it was an accident" when they crashed their cars. > Planes don’t have accidents. They crash. Cranes don’t have accidents. They collapse. And as a society, we expect answers and solutions. > Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word "accident" today. * https://crashnotaccident.com https://crashnotaccident.com * https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/travel/safety/road-users/crash-not-accident https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/travel/safety/road-users/crash...

mistermann 3y ago

> we continue to fail to hold those directly causing the problem responsible. That would fun to deconstruct....we've got the driver of the vehicle, (possibly) people that may have agitated the driver contributing to their carelessness, their parents for raising them the way they did, the driving instructor, those who design and oversee training/testing for drivers licenses, the same for enforcement of laws, nosy (or not) journalists who keep all of these officials on their toes, all of us for complacency with how all of this complexity is run....tricky business, maybe too much work to even think about when one can just blame the driver and be done with it, "close enough".

steelframe 3y ago
> That would fun to deconstruct It's pretty straightforward for me. You hit me, I sue you. Not your driving instructor. Not the license administrators. Not your parents. I sue you.
- mistermann 3y ago
  It is not at all rare to encounter a human who refuses to consider complex causality....in fact, I don't know if I've ever met a single one who can....and this is a smart forum, relatively anyways.