Originally Posted by
dynodonn
It is not about fear, but the environment created in that cyclists must keep and maintain such a high vigilance for their safety stemming from motorist complacency, inattentiveness, and blatant disregard for vulnerable road users due to low consequences or incentives to avoid injuring or killing vulnerable road users.
^^^^^ +10.
Basically, cyclists are not being spared of the slightest lack of vigilance (punished by death and often blamed in the court), while truck drivers are given merciful understanding and forgiveness in the court even when the fault is theirs.
Some quotes from the
article linked in post #131:
Safety advocates would like to see a range of reforms: Better training for drivers, restrictions on the size of trucks allowed on busy thoroughfares, better-designed streets, more federal funds for bike and pedestrian safety and tougher penalties for drivers who kill bicyclists and pedestrians. Meanwhile, there’s also a small but growing movement in U.S. cities to adopt a simple truck retrofit — one already in use in much of the world — that could immediately save lives.
Originally Posted by
northernlights
Such a very common sense thing to do, but apparently some are too impatient to take three seconds to have a look around to evaluate conditions at the intersection to see if it is safe to proceed. Common sense is not so common it seems, and there are those who have the misfortune of being born without it. But if they are still intent on playing chicken with a 10,000 lb dump truck or bus at the intersection, well there's not much more anyone can do about it except let Darwin take its course.
Such cold-blooded comments.
Being crushed by a big truck driven by a human being is not like being eaten by a grizzly bear. I can see northernlights' comments applying to the tourist plunging from a mountain top while taking pictures, or the zoo employee mauled by a lion after forgetting to close the cage door, but maybe you are equating the drivers to dumb rocks and uneducated animals.