On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 23:30:15 GMT,
[email protected] (Jim Ley) said in
<
[email protected]>:
>>>It is cyclists doing it, therefore to some in this group, it - by
>>>definition - cannot be wrong.
>>Is the wrong answer. But - and this is the bit we're trying to get
>>across - the fact that the cyclist is wrong does not mean they should
>>be killed for it.
>Yet you insist on claiming that it's them being killed for it, and not
>an accident, you don't seem to accept that people can have accidents,
>unless they are cyclists - you're happy to talk about cyclists who
>fall off their bicycles without decrying what they do, yet you do not
>extend the same courtesy to other road users.
At least 90% of road "accidents" are not accidents at all, but the
result of negligence. Where the injured party is a cyclist, the fault
lies with a driver in between 2/3 and 85% of cases. This compares
with about 50% where the injured party is a pedestrian.
When a cyclist falls off without the involvement of a motor vehicle,
they are rarely seriously injured. It doesn't require decrying.
Usually we laugh, unless it's serious (as Russ's accident was - and
that really /was/ an accident, although maybe not, if you accept James
Annan's view (and I have no reason to disbelieve him).
>Most road users can cope with other peoples abuse of the road, because
>they're driving sufficiently within what would be safe if everyone did
>properly, however that only means they can cope with one abuse, in a
>more complicated situation they can fail to recover from the other
>abuse of the road.
Nope. Most road users have real trouble with other people's abuse of
the road, because most road users are pedestrians. Drivers have less
of a problem, being isolated by steel cages from the surroundings and
largely protected from the consequences of their own carelessness
(which is more than can be said of their cyclist and pedestrian
victims). Where cyclists and pedestrians do clueless things, the risk
they pose is very low and largely to themselves. The same is not true
of drivers. These differences are well known and well documented.
>That is why it's every road users responsibility to act properly, keep
>their equipment maintained, to know the laws - because if the rules
>are perhaps not wholly rational, they are still what other users are
>most expecting - and to act safely.
Which is what we all - I think to a man and woman - do. And urge
others to do.
>Your posts continually deny to criticise cyclists if they do not
>fulfil that. Yes no-one deserves to die for anything, but no-one is
>trying to kill another road user.
Well, almost no-one. Carl Baxter could be argued as being an
exception. But you miss the point: motorists manage to kill a lot of
people while "not trying", cyclists manage to kill almost nobody. So
of course motorists will come in for more criticism, especially here
where we are among friends.
>>In the end a cyclist dressed from head to foot in black and riding an
>>unlit cycle is functionally identical to a black horse or a black tree
>>on the road
>A horse perhaps, it's certainly not the same as a tree, since it
>moves, and once you've seen it you have to watch it carefuly to see
>what other stupid things it's going to do.
And the tree is unlikely to be moving fast enough to significantly
reduce the closing speed.
>Any road user who has
>shown such disregard for the laws of the road is grossly unsafe and
>unpredicatable and all other users have to take excessive care over
>them, that is likely to cause an accident - for example the other user
>would be less likely to spot the 2nd idiot your so keen to defend.
So you say. And yet if the horse is killed, the driver is blamed; if
the tree is struck the driver is blamed; if the cyclist is struck, the
cyclist is blamed, even when using a light which is now legal (see
Pete Longbottom). Funny, that.
>> CTC speculated when
>>compulsory rear lights for cyclists were mooted that the result would
>>be that drivers would begin to blame the cyclists if they (the
>>drivers) failed to see them. Which is exactly what has happened (cf.
>>Pete Longbottom, whose light would now be legal, to cite but one case
>>of many).
>So what? what does it matter what excuse people use after the
>accident happens, it's about accidents prevented, and even if the law
>is not wholly grounded in sense (which I do dispute but I'll go along
>with your lights make no difference to safety because it's irrelevant
>to the point) then a cyclist who has shown their own contempt for the
>law is likely to violate other laws...
So you say. And one of these days someone is actually going to post
some verifiable evidence that using lights prevents accidents. Hasn't
happened yet. I've looked quite hard, as a long-time advocate of
lights (I spend more on lights for my bikes than most people spend on
the whole bike; the lights for my son's school bike cost over £100).
It would be rally nice to have some hard evidence rather than relying
on blind faith, if you'll excuse the pun.
But you are right that scofflaws tend to scoff at many laws. It's one
of the more important reasons why prosecuting speeding is a good idea.
I always encourage people to obey the law, as the link I posted makes
perfectly clear. But I am not prepared to join MattB, a known troll,
in using the fallacy of misleading vividness to call for a manifestly
disproportionate response to a problem which is, according to the
evidence, both small and reducing.
>Roads only work if everyone agrees, your continous defence of idiots
>who risk everyones lives makes it not surprising that the laws aren't
>the best, your strategy of cyclists can never be to blame makes all
>your arguments sound foolish, and your sensible arguments are lost in
>your less rational rhetoric.
That's a comment people have made before. It's funny how often
rhetoric is only rational when it coincides with people's preconceived
notions...
Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken
