Originally Posted by RobertHurst
True. If you take absolute responsibility for staying out of trouble on the bike, the only decision to make would be to stay off the bike entirely. What if you really want to ride though?
It is my opinion that, despite the strong language in the passage quoted by HH, Hurst's theory on responsibility is a bit more realistic than it is made out to be in this rather bizarro thread.
If we cyclists don't place any trust in drivers, never give away any of the power over own own fates to strangers, we could never get anywhere. We could never ride anywhere but a velodrome closed for our private use. In particular, every time we are passed by a car there is something going on which is out of the cyclist's control; responsibility for our safety is given over, at least partially, to complete strangers on a frequent basis. It's an unfortunate reality of sharing space with other users. As we ride from the city centers to the suburbs and beyond, the percentage of responsibility that we can hoard for ourselves is less and less.
You have to trust, but I think you also have to recognize when you're doing it and what the stakes are. In traffic, trusting strangers without realizing it is a bad thing. Perhaps minimizing the amount of trust placed in drivers is the best policy.
Robert
Thank you for finally weighing in. I wish you could have done so sooner and we could have avoided all the strange tangents this thread took. It's nice to have the actual author around sometimes to clarify their work.
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"Let us hope our weapons are never needed --but do not forget what the common people knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny. If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government -- and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws" - Edward Abbey