Originally Posted by
Tape2012
I'm an engineer and live by numbers and percentages, but safety is one of those areas where it is inappropriate (and heartless) to analyze strictly by the numbers, especially when deaths and the corresponding larger number of injuries are so easily preventable. Preventing these incidents is totally up to the cyclist and to disregard potential consequences as numerically insignificant goes out the window the first time you injure someone due to your own careless behavior.
Congratulations for having an intelligent comment on the subject. Neither lightning or the lottery are intelligent beings that can make any choices at all. As cyclists we constantly complain about how vehicles on the road don't treat us with respect and risk our lives and safety by their actions so how can we then behave the same way towards pedestrians on the MUPs? Obey the rules and slow down when passing pedestrians--it's simple stuff.
If a cyclist is negligent and hits a pedestrian anywhere who is right where they should be and doing what they they do, why should we have concern for the cyclist when if a car was negligent and hit a person riding a bike we would want to crucify them?