Originally Posted by
wphamilton
You mean make drivers responsible for the risks they create for the rest of us? I'm with you on that, but there are a lot of attitudes that would have to change first at least in America.
They are a lot of devices in a car to protect the driver and passengers, but the outside seems designed to cause maximum injury to pedestrians and cyclists. If you accept that people will have accidents, and car manufacturers do that with passive safety devices, then it's a bit selfish to only adress the health of the driver and the passengers. Crumple zones protect others to, but only other car drivers. It's not impossible to design cars in a way that they will do less damage if they hit a cyclist or a pedestrian.
Accidents happen, okay, but given the fact that there is an accident, it's the one who chose the car as means of transportation who causes the most of the damage and injury, regardless of who caused the accident in the first place. I don't see why road users who aren't as likely to cause huge damage and injury should pay for it.
I've always thought that deliberately putting other people at risk for one's own convenience showed that you had some intention and responsibility for it, but recent decisions by our US federal law enforcement proves I was wrong. I can't see it happening until that whole paradigm changes.
Where I live the car driver is almost always liable concerning civil law. If the cyclist was riding reckless on purpose and the driver never stood a chance of preventing the accident, it might be different but still the driver will be liable for a large portion of the damage.
This has little to do with actual blame and criminal law, and is more an insurance matter. But it's fair when a cyclist just has to true a wheel and the car needs a repaint and a new 500 dollar light unit. With two bikes in an accident, you don't have a lot of expensive damage like that. Drivers pay for it in their monthly insurance bill, but they have no claim discounts also, so maybe it has also been a cause in driver becoming more careful.