I chalk this one up as an accident pure & simple.
 

IMO due to the drivers inexperience behind the wheel. This is why I advocate for better instruction in driver's ed, of course this is an educated guess. The driver may be very experienced & this was a mistake he made, that could happen to anyone. If he is not as expereinced as he should be because drivers ed. did not teach him everthing he should know about driving then that means there is not enough education in the course. If it is the same as when I went through it 16 or 17 years ago enough is not taught to teach kids everything they should know before letting them drive. Then all they seemed interested in doing is getting us through the course as fast as they could, taught us the basics & turned us loose. They did not teach us how to react or behave around motorcycles or bicycles, or runners who run against traffic.

Here is the article: http://www.bikeiowa.com/asp/hotnews/...sp?NewsID=1684

There's no way to tell from that link or the source article if the driver's inexperience played a role. It says the cyclist was riding "across" the street. Maybe he was a sidewalk cyclist who put himself in danger. Strange that the kid is charged with failing to yield to "a pedestrian".

His age, 18, tells me he may not have the experience needed to drive. In Iowa drivers have to yield to pedestrians regardless.

This is not an accident. The police charged the driver with violating the right of way of the cyclist, so the driver was at fault. To me, an "accident" is something completely unforseable, like a meteor hitting a car, causing the car to lose control and hit a cyclist.

By using the word accident, you imply no fault, and in this case there was definitely fault on the part of the driver. Inexperience does not excuse fault. If you are inexperienced, you should not be driving in many siuations until you gain enough experience. Like saying its not the "fault" of a pilot with 5 hours of solo time, flying into a storm and crashing.

You shouldn't make up new menaings for words. It just confuses people:

http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dicti...ch&va=accident

Please take note of the second definition.

To me accident imply's the driver hit the cyclist with out intent. He had no intention of hitting him but he do so accidentally. Had it been with intent then it would not be an accident but on purpose.

Regardless of the semantics related to the news article, N_C does have a very good point here. It seems ridiculous that drivers of motorised vehicles are ill educated in the rights and needs of other, non-motorised road users.

I have in the past suggested that it would be benficial for driving instruction to include a mandatory session with a cycling instructor who could make an informative presentation to learner drivers. In fact such a practice could be reciprocated to have cycling instruction contain a piece on motor vehicle use.

Now if only there were pedestrian instruction, we could acheive a trifector.

Don't forget motorcycle instructor too. I think since is probably no such thing as a pedestrian instructor perhaps the safety coordinator or representative of a runners or walkers club would suffice. In my area we have all 4. A motorcycle club & motorcycle instruction is taught at the community college, we have a bicycle, runners & walkers clubs as well.

I am not making up new meanings, if you re-read my post you will see that I in fact defined accident exactly as you quote it from the dictionary. The first, primary meaning of "accident" in the dictionary is 1 a : an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance .
It is foreseeable that if you are an inexperienced driver, you will not know how to react in certain situations and cause an accident. Therefore, it is not an accident, because it was not unforseeable.

I am trying to be precise in order to avoid the perception that the driver was not at fault and did nothing wrong.

I completely agree that more education could reduce collissions of all types by new, inexperienced drivers. But because "accident" has so many meanings, one of them being no fault and no responsibility, I want to make the point that there was fault in this case.

We don't know that. He was charged with failing to yield to a pedestrian. One possible scenario is that the cyclist was riding in a crosswalk and the kid had no way to anticipate that. Being charged and being at fault are often but not always the same thing.

You statred quite clearly that you believed this was not an accident because you consider an accident as something "completely unforseeable". Websters defines accident as something unforseen, not unforseeable. You demand a clearly higher standard. Unforseen describes the fact that the actor did not sense something. Unforseeable means that the actor could not have possibly sense something.

Semantics aside, in either case, the presumption that there is no fault associated with an accident is your own interpretation and not supported by definition or practice. For example, if a defect in my automobile tire causes a blowout and subsequent loss of control leading to the destruction of a mailbox, I will be held liable for the replacement of the mailbox. The tire defect may very well have been unforseeable as well as unforseen, but that does not relieve me of responsibility.

Let's take it a step farther. The following is consistent with what little we know:

The 18 year old driver was making a left hand turn, quite carefully in fact and the cyclist riding the same direction he was came off the sidewalk into the crosswalk at 15 mph or even a bit more and the cyclist actually hit the side of the car. However some cops seem to hate teens and wrote up the kid anyway.

The other side is:

The cyclist had been riding on the sidewalk going the opposite direction from the driver. He then dismounted and was walking his bike in the crosswalk (with the green walk light on) and was hit by the driver. Clearly by any reasonable and legal definition puts the driver at fault in this case.

Either of these fit the few 'facts' we have.