Drillium Dude 

Nailed it

DD

SylvainG

But if you say something and there is no women around to hear you, are you still wrong?

I'll show myself out...

johnnyspaghetti

It was a beautiful calm sunshiny day. I was out in the field sitting-facing the woods and a 60 ft. Poplar tree fell right over not far in from the edge of the woods.

I-Like-To-Bike

What percentage of cyclists (all cyclists, not just BF A&S posters) do you think demand that "they are vehicles on the road" or have ever claimed to be a "vehicle on the road"? My guess - less than 1%. Probably is about the same percentage of cyclists who endanger pedestrians because they are bigger and more intimidating and have more physical power than pedestrians do.

elocs

Since you are demanding percentages why not provide some of your own other than guesses? My state, like many or even most others specifically states that bicycles are considered to be vehicles on the road just the same as other motor vehicles. You can't ***** because cars and trucks are bigger and more powerful than you on a bicycle and don't respect you and then do the same thing as a cyclist to pedestrians. Wrong is wrong and it doesn't matter what the damned percentages may be. Is this a difficult concept for you?

I-Like-To-Bike

And your strawmen cyclists who demand to be considered vehicles while they run over and bully pedestrians and wantonly violate laws are your strawmen.

dynodonn 

I have personally watched a number of pedestrians step out into the street, in front of me, without so much as a look in each direction while crossing a street. The article states that the woman's child would like to have thought that her mother was thinking about the weekend ahead...... even though I have the right of way, I constantly check the intersection while crossing for such a scenario.

DrIsotope

It took this long in the thread, but there's the post I was looking for. Just as there are careless drivers and reckless cyclists, there are oblivious pedestrians. On a daily basis I watch people who must be operating under the assumption that the walk signal and those crosswalk lines magically combine to form some sort of impenetrable barrier against harm-- because they will wait patiently for the light to change, then step out into the street without so much as a sideways glance.

Situational awareness is something everyone needs. A red light means absolutely nothing to the guy who either doesn't see it, or thinks he's in so much of a hurry that he doesn't care if he "makes it" or not. In no shape or form should this be interpreted as victim blaming, but it took two parties to cause that accident. The cyclist was riding recklessly, and the pedestrian was walking carelessly. Either one could easily have prevented the incident.

mtb_addict

I am not siding with the jerk cyclist in this case...but she should have looked both ways before crossing the street.

I've notice this alot, around here on campus...people cross the street without even looking up.

CarinusMalmari

Your "argument" hinges on an appeal to emotion, and really isn't an argument at all.

Tape2012

That's where you're wrong, it's not based on emotion, but based on values. The belief that all lives are valuable.

Based on your reasoning, if a child is kidnapped, we shouldn't try to recover him/her because one life is statistically insignificant? So your perfectly ok with child abuse, sexual slavery, pedophiles, etc as long as it stays below some statistically significant threshold?

I hope even you don't believe that.

CarinusMalmari

This is your own straw-man argument and has nothing to do with my reasoning.

Tape2012

Admittedly, I used extreme examples when extrapolating your logic.

In every manufacturing facility that I have worked in or managed, our goal for injuries was always zero. Always. That wasn't the case for quality, productivity, on time shipments, etc.

Unless you take the position that EVERY injury is preventable, then you start down a slippery slope where some amount of injuries are acceptable, and that's a position we refused to accept when it came to our employees.

So no, you cannot apply the same strictly numerical analysis to safety that you can to everything else. It's not an emotional argument as you suggest, it's a values driven one.

rachel120

I read the article and for me it left more questions than answers. First, if the author of the article wasn't there, how is there such dead certainty of the pedestrian signal? Was a cop standing right there watching it, or is it a case where people with biases could be fudging the exact second the light turned and the positioning of the people? Second, why did the pedestrian ignore the lessons for crossing a street that I learned in second grade about to look left, look right and look left again before crossing? Since the obvious risk is being hit by a car, why wouldn't the pedestrian practice personal safety to check for moving vehicles? Third, was it one of those intersections where pedestrians get a signal to cross but vehicles can still legally turn right into the crosswalk? Yes, in such cases pedestrians have right of way but I was within inches of being hit that exact way when I was 16 because the car didn't have any means of knowing there was a pedestrian signal active vs the usual turn right on red law.

While yeah, bicycles can screw up and hit someone and someone not bracing for a fall can result in a head injury, I get the feeling from the obvious slant of the article that the situation is a lot muddier than Mrs. Saint being run down by the minion of Lucifer.

johnnyspaghetti

All accidents are preventable. Being in control is the key. Toddlers can be just a dangerous as the elderly and every age in between. "look ahead"

Tape2012

The right on red law requires the vehicle to come to a complete stop and ensure the way is clear before proceeding. He doesn't need to see the pedestrian signal, he is required to look.

njkayaker

Drivers making right turns (on reds) are required to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk, always.

Whether or not there's a pedestrian signal is completely irrelevant.

elocs

Drivers turning right at a stop sign or a right turn after stopping at a red light nearly always only look to their left. As a pedestrian in those situations trying to cross the road I've had some close calls like the time a dump truck was turning right on a one way street and I was coming to the intersection on his right. With the amount of traffic coming down the street I though I had plenty of time to get past him before he turned but I was wrong. Right when I was in front of his grill that was as tall as I was he took off to turn, never having looked to his right to see if anybody was walking down the sidewalk. Only thing I could do was grab the grill and hold on and scream as other drivers honked their horns to make him stop. It happened so fast I almost didn't have enough time to be scared.
Where I live it is legal to ride on the sidewalk and safer in nearly every situation except that one but I have a loud battery horn on my bike to get the driver's attention.

rachel120

Exactly. I saw a motorist that ran a red light and caused an accident who swore up and down that she had the green light and the other car was the one that ran the red light. I believe that she genuinely believed she had a green light. She didn't though, she ran the red. I was a witness against her as I had been 5 or 6 car lengths ahead of her, ran the red light (it was yellow and I thought I had time to enter the intersection, but it turned red just before I entered the intersection) and saw the prelude to the accident when checking my mirror for police.

And me witnessing it is also a need for situational awareness. I saw her not slow down in my mirror and I just froze, convinced I was about to see someone die. So I traveled a bit of distance not looking ahead of me, my eyes locked onto my mirror. I'm glad no one legally stepped out or pulled out ahead of me, I would have hit them not knowing they were there.

Elocs is right. They are legally supposed to come to a full stop and look all directions. But are you going to blindly step out while counting on that law, like the pedestrian in the article supposedly did, or are you going to look first before proceeding? I walked about a mile today. Twice if I had relied on adherence to the law I would have been hit; I wasn't because I kept my eyes on traffic and stopped just shy of stepping out when it was clear the car wasn't stopping.

elocs

It's not just vehicles turning right though. There is a very busy street just a block from my house and a light 2 blocks away where I usually cross on my bike or walking and press the walk button to get across. I remember the movie "Starman" with Jeff Bridges playing the alien who clones himself to look like Karen Allen's dead husband. The 2 of them are driving across country and she asks if he knows the rules so he can drive. Not long after as he was driving he nearly gets into a wreck when he blows through a light. She screams at him, "I thought you said you knew the rules!!!" He said, "I do know the rules: Red means stop, green means go, yellow means go very fast" which is exactly what he did.
So I push the walk button and look to my left and wait and it's amazing how often a vehicle will accelerate when the light turns yellow and get most of the light red, sometimes all red. One time when I had pushed the button and waited until the light had turned green and had I stepped off the curb I would have been killed by an ambulance--not on a run, just trying to beat the yellow light and missing all of it.

Bikes are vulnerable to being hit by cars but pedestrians are vulnerable to both cars and bikes. And let's be honest--not every cyclist is a blameless angel on 2 wheels. Hit a walking kid while on your bike and you will find your excuses for doing it won't go far because they have a diminished responsibility because of their age.
So it behooves us to respect and treat pedestrians how we wish we were respected and treated by motor vehicles even when the pedestrians are less than perfect as we are.

B. Carfree

I believe that is mostly correct, but there was a little issue in the late nineteenth century in NYC. The city put speed limits in place to slow down the "scorcher" cyclists to the speed of horse carts. I believe that was the first speed limit in the world.

njkayaker

This is illegal.

The pedestrian has a legal obligation to look and yield to traffic that can't reasonably stop in time.

In any case, looking (by the driver and the pedestrian) is necessary regardless of the legal issues to avoid collisions.

The law just makes what is obvious common-sense explicit.

People (drivers or pedestrians) shouldn't need the law to know to look.

indyfabz

IKR. We had a death in Philly a few years back. Pedestrian was crossing the street legally heading for the train home. He was struck by a speeding cyclist who had blown the light. Pedestrian fell, hit his head, fell into a coma and later died. According to several witnesses, the cyclist got up, straightened his handlebars and rode off. The victim was a paralegal with a wife and kids who no longer have him. The law firm he worked for offered a sizeable reward to no avail.


I walk a lot. Not a week goes by that I don't have to take evasive action to avoid being hit.

work4bike

I can't say how many times I've heard cyclists complain because they perceive that motorist are impatient around cyclist; however, the same impatience can be seen in cyclists. I've seen it first hand and there are countless examples on youtube.

elocs

Evidently our hypocrisy knows no bounds.