Originally Posted by thdave
I gave up commuting for about 5 yrs. in the early 90's.
I was very upset because of a traffic death caused, inadvertently, by a cyclist. I was convinced that cyclists are a menace to traffic.
A cyclist was coming up a hill slowly and was passed by a car who crossed over the yellow line (by a foot or so) to pass. A 20 yr. old woman driver came over the hill and down, saw the car coming in her lane, and went off the road into a ravine and died. Very tragic. There was a lot of yelling at the scene and the driver of the car at fault blamed it on the cyclist. I work with the cyclist.
Since then a bike path has been installed and a rail put in to prevent cars from going in the ravine.
I was quite torn over this but eventually got back on the bike and commute now more than ever.
Yet another case of the driver blaming the cyclist for his manoeuvre. What was the cyclist doing wrong? Simply cycling slowly up a hill is not bad cycling. Depending on the width of the oncoming lane, either the deceased driver was overreacting to a perceived, but non-existent danger, or the overtaking driver should not have been overtaking approaching the brow of a hill.