Originally Posted by trekets
Originally Posted by Expatriate
I'm sure the driver checked to make sure no cars were coming, and made his turn.
How on earth can you be "sure" what the driver did or saw?
And I notice that your statement says he made sure no cars were coming. You didn't mention bicycles or motorcycles which are traffic too. Obviously the driver did not make sure no traffic was coming. He pulled into the bicyclists path and the bicyclist hit the front of the bus. Any accident reconstruction expert would easily be able to conclude that the bus driver was at fault.
In this exchange, I think trekets is right, but Expatriate has an important point.
While the bus driver is almost certainly
technically at fault, per oboeguy:
Originally Posted by oboeguy
It looks like a classic left-cross from the description so I'd say it's very highly likely the bus driver's fault entirely.
Collisions like this should remind us not to rely on motorists seeing us. You have to stay alert in traffic,
all the time.
Since no car crashed into the bus, it is apparent that there were no cars traveling along with the cyclist in the same direction at the same time. Therefore, the cyclist had no legal or practical obligation to keep to the right, especially considering he was approaching a bus depot entrance, and there was a bus coming from the other direction. Alarms should have been going off inside the cyclist's head for at least half a block. Now, it's possible that the cyclist was using the full lane and the bus driver still did not see him, though it's more likely that he was keeping to the right and not even paying attention. That, combined with a momentary lapse of attention on the part of a driver, spells disaster.