Originally Posted by I-Like-To-Bike
Yes you do sound like Serge; not because of the way you do or don't drive,
Hah! I knew that throwing that line in there would distract you from my point
Originally Posted by I-Like-To-Bike
but for the Pavlovian tendency to blame cyclists for the result of motorists' errors/carelessness and distracted driving.
Ah, but that's where we differ. I think that
in this case both parties should share the blame. Aw, hell, in most cases, both parties should share the blame. It really sucks that it's usually the cyclist that bears the brunt of the consequences, but it's rare that one party is completely blameless. I don't even mean that in the sense of "The cyclist should have expected the driver to do something completely stupid, and should have accounted for it", but rather in the usual "The cyclist did something dumb" sense. Blame isn't some sort of binary value, only taking one of two values. It's a whole sliding scale.
Originally Posted by I-Like-To-Bike
Also Serge-like is joining the EC™choir of proseltyizers who preach that if only cyclists would get with the TRUE "program of safe and efficient cycling", motorist/cyclist interactions would be blissful and virtually risk-free for the newly baptized "educated" urban cyclists.
This is another place where we differ. I don't care how you drive, as long as you take responsibility for it. Hell, I go at speed down the right side of cars stopped at a light, but I know that I'm taking a risk there, and if I get doored, I'm not going to put more than 50% of the responsibility on the person who opened the door. I'm also pessimistic enough to think that even if cyclists performed "perfectly", there would still be at most a 50% reduction in the number of accidents. There are just too many idiotic/clueless/psychotic/unaware (pick one) drivers out there, and using the road involves hundreds, if not thousands, of interactions between you and everyone else near you, and nothing you do can account for all of them.
I guess I'm more interested in people taking responsibility for their own actions. Sure, stuff is going to go wrong, but it usually takes a whole series of things going wrong for there to be an accident, and so the blame should be shared between the parties involved. Yeah, a middle-ground position. Unthinkable.
