from Hacker News

Cars overwhelmingly cause bike collisions, and the law should reflect that

by mmariani on 6/13/17, 9:42 PM with 115 comments

  • by quantum_magpie on 6/13/17, 11:04 PM

    I completely agree with the article. Car drivers have to have a lot more responsibility for their actions. They are already the worst part of every city, with their excessive honking, stinky exhaust and lack of awareness of their surroundings. So far, while riding on the side of a road, I've had a pickup truck driver trying to kill me in the US; numerous buses and trucks trying to hit me or run me off the road, SUV drivers and passengers trying to hit me with garbage and multiple people threatening me with violence (and a bus who had actually succeeded in hitting me) in Lithuania. Just over several years of commuting. In addition, I closely follow traffic rules, and always do the hand signals for turns. Basically, ride the bike the same way as I would drive a car. I also refuse to ever ride a bicycle on the sidewalk.

    In contrast, in Denmark, the drivers were very aware of every bicycle and pedestrian and much more relaxed towards them. It felt like utopia there, and according to the locals, the strict liability laws are a large part of it. Another significant reason is that Danes in general are much more calm and relaxed than anyone else I've seen so far.

  • by pbiggar on 6/13/17, 11:07 PM

  • by andreygrehov on 6/14/17, 12:47 AM

    Are cars causing bike collisions or bikes causing collisions on the road?

    I'm a car driver and I'll be honest here - I hate cyclists and bikers. And don't get me wrong, I like bikes in general. To be more specific, I hate them on the road because it's so easy to hit a biker with your car. Sometimes cyclists appear from nowhere. The biggest problem is that it's hard to predict where cyclist is going to move next. It seems that a lot of them think that since they're small, they can maneuver as much as they want.

    In terms of safety, I strongly think that while car stays the main type of vehicle, bikers/cyclists should have its own road. Not a lane, but a dedicated road. Single responsibility principle [1] FTW. But, as we know, cities do not have space for more roads (and it doesn't mean that they should). At that point, a lane for cyclists is a trade-off.

    Now one may ask, "why don't you sell your car and get a bike instead?". This is a fair question, but wrong way of thinking, since these two vehicles are meant for different purposes, and that's a whole separate topic.

    Now should car drivers have a lot more responsibility for their actions? Maybe, but that's a "quick hack", not a solution.

      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_responsibility_principle

  • by analog31 on 6/13/17, 10:49 PM

    In case "presumed liability" seems like a troubling innovation, here in the US we have something like it for rear-end collisions. The person driving the car in the rear, is presumed to have caused the crash.

  • by weberc2 on 6/13/17, 11:08 PM

    Generally I support policies which incentives safer driving, but it feels a bit won't to punish drivers when, although nominally" cars cause accidents", the actual root cause is probably more related to cyclist visibility. This is a technical problem, and it should probably be addressed as such.

  • by beerbajay on 6/14/17, 12:21 AM

    I recently moved to NYC which while slightly less hellish than expected, still manages to be very unfriendly to cyclists. NYPD routinely blames cyclists for their own deaths, seemingly always looking for some excuse for the driver's distraction/unawareness/aggressiveness.

    If you want a taste of the local discussion, just peruse the Streetsblog NYC bicycling category: http://nyc.streetsblog.org/category/bicycling/

    I've lived in a few major American cities, where cycle infrastructure is poor and subservient to car traffic, and also in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany where cycling infrastructure is (mostly) reasonable and well-maintained. I've written on Metafilter before about the swedish infrastructure: http://www.metafilter.com/140136/Intersection-Protection#559...

    It's pretty pathetic that the "greatest city" in the wealthiest country in the world can't provide better infrastructure.

  • by i-machine-learn on 6/14/17, 1:31 AM

    It's interesting to note that a common refrain you hear is "Bikes are the worst offenders! I see bikes running red lights all the time". If you pair it with this report, you might think your anecdotal experience doesn't jive with this report. As a biker, I would have to agree with the car drivers, a high % of bikers blatantly (and unsafely) break road rules; a much higher percentage than cars. I'd estimate it at 20-30% in SF.

    Does this mean the law should be focused on bikers? No, here's why:

    1) the laws should be focused on # of bad actors. There are more significantly more drivers than bikers on the road meaning:

    Probability(driving unsafely | biker) > probability(driving unsafely | driver) BUT Number(bikers biking unsafely) <<< Number(drivers driving unsafely)

    2) Even excluding the frequency of each mode of transportation, the risk profile is completely different. A car is a 1 ton fast moving object capable of killing 10s of people (see the London attacks). A bike is much less deadly. The legal constraints should follow the risk profile of the mode of transportation (which is also why truckers have much stricter rules and penalties while driving)

    3) If you do a damage assessment (i.e # of biker deaths caused by bad drivers vs vice versa) you will see the numbers are way way higher on the driver side. So from a public policy perspective it makes sense to focus on the drivers.

    That being said, I think public policy should have some focus on the bikers. I think humans expect some sense of fairness in their legal systems and when car drivers don't see rules fairly applied, you get road rage directed at pedestrians and bikers. So I'd applaud: * Stricter enforcement of ticketing on bikers who fail to signal before turns, do not slow at busy intersections, running red lights, unsafely lane splitting , etc. I've seen so many bikers do this and it's so unsafe. * Education requirements for BOTH drivers and bikers for getting a state id / drivers license

  • by marcus_holmes on 6/14/17, 2:31 AM

    I ride a bike in Australia as a commuter regularly, and rode in Amsterdam and Berlin on a recent trip. Wow, the difference was amazing. Berlin, especially, was a dream come true. Cycling in a city was actually pleasant.

    Australian drivers are actively hostile to cyclists. To the extent that I've had stuff thrown at me (by strangers) from cars. This is a specific cultural problem that I've not seen elsewhere. You can see it in the comments on any site whenever the question of cycling comes up.

    We also have a problem with lycra-clad sports cyclists who generally behave intolerantly. Often they defend this as a reaction to driver hostility. But it's not helping.

    Aussies really hate anyone breaking the rules, too. Or rather, someone else breaking the rules when they have to obey them. Cyclists being unidentifiable by camera, and therefore able to run red lights with impunity, enrages car drivers stuck at one of our 4-hour red lights.

    It's pretty rare to see a "normal" person cycling as a method of transport here. Which is ridiculous, because the climate's amazing for it.

  • by dgut on 6/14/17, 12:08 AM

    Cars are a thing of the past. I'm in Leiden, NL right now, and "wow" what a refreshing thing to be surrounded by bikes instead of cars. It feels human, it's futuristic and beautiful.

  • by jbmorgado on 6/14/17, 12:51 AM

    I ride my bike to work and it's incredible how asinine and stupid some drivers are. Some of them don't even know (or at least pretend) that bicycles can occupy the rods along with cars. It's just ridiculous.

    But in the end, I actually blame the police. Truth is police just doesn't give a damn. If police acted when they see a car disrespecting a bicycle (for instance seeing a car passing the bicycle without holding the minimum legal distance from it... which happens constantly a lot of times every day to me) or when they see a car ignoring a STOP or priority sign when a bicycle is coming, then the car drivers would learn the lesson and it would stop.

    But no, the police just ignores those situations and this way nothing will ever change,

  • by jacquesm on 6/13/17, 11:09 PM

  • by gozur88 on 6/14/17, 2:35 AM

    If you dig deep enough into this article you see this sweeping assertion in the headline is based on a few hundred crashes in South Australia. And rather than say the cars were at fault, the report says in most cases the cyclists were found to be not at fault. Which I don't believe is the same thing, legally.

    And if it is it undermines the central thesis of the piece, which is that car drivers should be assumed to be at fault and have to prove their innocence.

    If it's so dangerous to be a cyclist, we should probably make bicycles illegal outside designated bike paths.

  • by xupybd on 6/13/17, 11:50 PM

    I think more needs to be done to make the roads safer for bikes. Multi lane roundabouts are insane when you throw in cyclists. I don't know a solution but they are way too dangerous.

  • by rollingpebbles on 6/14/17, 12:02 AM

    Pulled over, off the street, on a bicycle in Palo Alto to comment...

    In California, it's the law for automobiles to give bicyclists 3 ft / 1 m of clearance. https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2014/09/16/3-foot-buffer...

    Other things like bicycle lanes and intersections need to be designed to minimize risks like in the Netherlands.

    Bicyclists and drivers have responsibilities to follow safe practices like:

    - not running stop signs

    - using proper reflectors, clothing and lighting

    - not getting too close to other traffic or occupying their blindspot(s)

    - not getting caught between curb and turning vehicles, and turning vehicles eliminating space to prevent bicycles from occupying space that is unsafe.

    - not riding on sidewalks because it's mostly illegal

  • by alrs on 6/13/17, 11:01 PM

    The stagnation of cycling in Australia is well-understood to be due to the mandatory helmet laws of the early 1990s.

  • by micahbright on 6/14/17, 12:22 AM

    "If the insurance company contests the claim, the injured cyclist or pedestrian has to take the case to a civil court."

    If we're going to be liberal pinheads here, why don't we go all the way? Make cyclists who use public roadways retain insurance coverage for the same necessary risks(pip, uninsured motorist, minimum liability insurance).

  • by vacri on 6/13/17, 11:12 PM

    How do you disprove guilt-by-default in a "he said/she said" legal case?

  • by garyrichardson on 6/14/17, 3:45 AM

    Dear world,

    Please stop writing articles that argue laws need to be changed to make cycling safer so that more people ride bikes. It immediately signals to me that the article is strongly biased towards cyclists.

    Cyclists do need to be protected and laws do probably need to be changed, but don't make it part of your agenda to convince everyone to cycle.