What an interesting thread!
Some people seem convinced that cars drivers should always be blamed in an accident between a bicyclist and a car.
Rules are there for a reason, they work only if everyone follows them.
Whatever happened to teaching children to look both ways and be careful when crossing a street or road? I taught our children those simple rules and in addition to conventional traffic rules, I always emphasized to them that when you are riding A pedestrian and a bicyclist have to do everything to avoid getting hit by a car for a simple reason, it doesn’t matter whose fault is the accident, you, as a bicyclist, will lose.
Someone has an interesting comment that a motorist must not expect a bicyclist to break cadence… so much for rules!
After the discovery of antibiotics and vaccines, “survival of the fittest” went out of the window. Now with the “social engineering” where rights are irrationally assigned to certain favored parties, we are seeing common sense being ignored. Collectively, humanity is going in reverse-evolution. 😉
A few years ago, a bicyclist came flying out from a sidewalk on to the main street, apparently intending to cross it without breaking cadence (must have heard and believed the expectation from motorist) as my wife was making a right turn on a green light and hit her car on the door… not breaking cadence thing didn’t work out too well for the bicyclist. My wife asked the lady if she needed ambulance, the lady said no but my wife called the police, just in case. The bicyclist was found to be alright by the EMT, the police gave a written warning to the bicyclist… back then, the police was more about enforcing rules as they were meant.