justblues

I got the latest issue of Outside Magazine yesterday in the mail and there was an interesting article highlighting an attorney that specializes in bicycle related cases. It was a very long article but much of it can be read online:

Megan Hottman, Bike-Car War Mitigator | City Biking | OutsideOnline.com

CbadRider

Moved from Commuting to Advocacy & Safety.

keyven

From the article:
"Often as not, they have been wronged, but Hottman consistently quotes a statistic that many riders don’t know or choose to ignore: roughly 47 percent of all bike-car mishaps happen because riders are at fault. That figure is debatable—there’s no national database, and Hottman’s use of it derives from small-sample studies, media accounts, and her own experience working on cases over the years. Still, there’s no doubt that riders often behave recklessly on roads and highways. Ask any driver who’s seen them blow through red lights or come screaming the wrong direction down one-way streets."

This, from a pro-cyclist lawyer, who's simply being a realist. I wonder how many people here would agree with this.

I do believe the 47% rider-is-wrong figure may not be far off the mark.

howsteepisit

47% would not surprise me at all.

FBinNY 

Given that bicyclists and motorists draw from the same pool within the human race, I'm not at all surprised that responsibility and irresponsibility are similarly distributed.

OTOH- those figures have been bandied around for decades, and various versions include children. A decent percentage of bicycle/car collisions involve children, and I'm curious whether the 47% number includes children or not.

keyven

Yes interesting point, didn't think of that. Children being included would certainly impact the numbers somewhat.

SactoDoug

That 47% figure is actually slightly in the cyclist favor. If it were equal wrongdoing, then it would be 50%.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the vehicles, it is usually the cyclist that ends up with the worst injuries.

kickstart

Also, would that include all "children" under the age of 18, or just those under the legal driving age?

spare_wheel

Nor I.

But this misses the point completely. Cars and trucks are extremely dangerous heavy machinery. Collisions between motorvehicles and people are frequently lethal. It is the *ETHICAL* duty of a driver to do everything possible to avoid hitting even the most clueless child, grandma, pedestrian, or cyclist.

(And while bikes are far, far less dangerous than motorvehicles it is also the ethical duty of cyclists to avoid collisions with other vulnerable road users.)

FBinNY 

Yes, and the vast majority do. But even when people are driving and/or riding responsibly, and exercising reasonable caution, errors in judgment happen and collisions occur.

genec

Wouldn't surprise me either... but simply doing the math, this means that motorists are more at fault than cyclists.

genec

The pool isn't the same however... as you yourself point out... the pool for cyclists draws more from younger people, such as children and no doubt college age students. The pool for motorists draws more from those of an older age, and obviously over age 16. Those older folks should be more worldly and mature.

spare_wheel

I strongly disagree.

I disagree that north american motorists generally exercise reasonable caution. In fact, our laws and society encourages drivers to favor convenience over caution.

Let me quote the Dutch automobile association

ANWB - Voetganger of fietser

howsteepisit

The margin of error on the guesstimated 47% would likely be high enough to make it a wash. That number was alawyer's guess based on her experience. Get over the bike are more right than cars. There is enough blame for everyone.

CbadRider

I just took a cycling traffic skills class at a local community center put on by the League of American Bicyclists. My local city tracks cycling accidents and 47% is right in the ballpark for the number they came up with; I believe it was actually a bit higher.

The main causes were riding on sidewalks and salmon riders going the wrong way. It also included children, but there wasn't any distinction made between child and adult accident victim numbers.

ItsJustMe

47% is totally believeable. Also, of the 53% that's caused by motorists, I think a heck of a lot of those would be avoidable by cautious cyclists. I don't always do what I'm "legally allowed" to do because I don't want to be dead right.

I-Like-To-Bike

Did "they" conclude that any accident involving a cyclist on the sidewalk, regardless of traffic conditions on adjacent street, was caused by or the fault of the cyclist?

I suspect that some of the more ardent LAB instructors of VC persuasion might come to the same by-the-numbers conclusion about cause/fault with all accidents involving a cyclist in a bike lane and possibly any cyclist not taking a lane.

unterhausen

the LAB instructors I know are very practical, and I can only imagine them having a pro-cyclist bias. There are lots of people that ride bikes in a manner that endangers themselves. It's an issue

genec

There are cyclists that ride in a manner that endangers them... I have to fully agree with this... I see this all the time... we all see it from time to time... some cyclist doing something you truly feel is liable to make them a Darwin Candidate...

But the flip side is that we also see motorists making poor decisions... but rather than harm the motorist, the poor acting driver is more likely to harm others outside of their vehicle. And the bottom line is that even the best acting cyclist is still quite vulnerable to even the smallest act of poor behavior done by a driver of a couple of tons of glass and metal.

It seems to me that while cyclists have a duty to try to prevent harm to themselves... and let's face it, to also avoid hitting pedestrians... motorists have a responsibility to avoid harming others... including peds and cyclists. That puts a higher level of responsibility on the motorists.

kickstart

Driving a semi in an urban environment, often transporting haz-mat, I know I can't let my guard down for a moment because even the slightest mistake could lead to a disaster. That said, when I'm on a bicycle it never enters my mind that my responsibilities as a cyclist are any less because I'm less of a hazard.

genec

The laws of physics alone dictate that a cyclist is less of a hazard to others than a motor vehicle. That is undeniable. That does not mean that a cyclist can let their guard down... as cyclists are also clearly more vulnerable.

unterhausen

I'm trying to decide if the fact that we're the bug and not the windshield really means much. I don't really think it does, although I understand the point. If I do anything that could be considered to be scofflaw behavior, it's because I'm really sure that it's safe.

kickstart

I figure less of a hazard, but still possibly a hazard, so why even worry about it, and just do the right thing all the time regardless of mode.

ModeratedUser150120149

I think you, and many others for that matter, misunderstand the nature of the term "ethics".

Ethics is not a fixed, concrete like thing. What is, and is not, ethical conduct is highly dependent on the particular society and the specific culture of a particular person. Your comments are from a particular perspective; a perspective that is not shared by society at large.

Laws are the arbiters of different views about what is, or is not ethical. That is true for many things that I will not mention here. Just picture protests about this particular practice, or that.

As a cyclist my obligation is not to someone else's ethics, or social viewpoint. It is to the law where I am riding.

spare_wheel

In my experience, LAB instruction tends to have a VC ideology and one of the hallmarks of this ideology is the claim that most/many collisions occur due to illegal behavior or poor road positioning. When one looks at available data the causes of accidents are far more diverse.