Originally Posted by
dobber
I had to do a double take, I though I was in the AnS forum.
I think the description makes it crystal clear that the cyclist was at fault. Red light, t-bone. Doesn't get much clearer than that.
Well, let's think about that.
Looking at the intersection in Google Maps, it appears that it's approximately 80 feet from the second crosswalk line across the westbound lanes of Highway 7 to the eastern side of the left-turn lane on southbound Islington. Let's assume that the rider was moving along at 10 mph - that's around 15 feet per second, so it would take just over five seconds to cross those 80 feet. Now, I don't know the speed limit on Highway 7, but judging from the satellite view let's take a guess that it's about 60 km/h, or roughly 40 mph. An appropriate yellow light time for a stoplight on a 40 mph road is 3.9 seconds. Thus, if we assume that the light changed to yellow as the cyclist entered the intersection (in which case he is legally entitled to finish crossing), he'd still be a second away from crossing in front of the left turn lane when the light went to red. If, during that second, the SUV moved into the intersection, he'd hit it, yet not legally be at fault since he was in the intersection legally.
Obviously, there are a lot of assumptions here regarding the length of the yellow light, the cyclist's speed, his position in the lane, where he was when the light changed, and whether there was any time period during which all directions of travel had red lights to allow the final cars to clear the intersection before the cross traffic got a green light. The point is, if you don't know all of this information, you can't accurately judge whether the cyclist or the driver was at fault.
One thing is clear, though: If the driver had followed Joey's rule #1 above, the cyclist would not have hit him.