[pclmulqdq]

As a non-cyclist, a lot of us don't particularly care what keeps you safe if you behave erratically and not according to the written rules. We want you to behave in a way that keeps everyone safe. A lot of cyclists - and a lot of drivers - do not.

The right thing to do is to follow the rules as written and lobby for change rather than to go about doing things that the rest of us don't understand because you perceive them as safer.

I think the Idaho stop is actually a good rule as long as you have to slow down to 10 mph/15 kph as you go through the stop sign - I have lived in NYC and nearly been on the receiving end of an asshole on a 20 mph bike several times.

[btbuildem]

As a non-cyclist, it would behoove you to listen to someone with first-hand experience, and decline the opportunity to make yourself look like a dunce by speaking your mind.

[pclmulqdq]

Hold on, I have no firsthand experience of cyclists because I don't ride a bike through the street? So all those times I have walked (and driven) around cyclists mean nothing at all because I'm not the one on the bike?

Right now, we have car-centric rules that apply to cyclists, and that is pretty unsafe for cyclists and drivers, but pedestrians are often the ones on the receiving end of cyclists' bad/unpredictable behavior today.

I agree that cyclists need different rules, but I also think that cyclists need to have those rules written down and follow them. If you have walked around NYC for any length of time, you will experience an area that has: (1) a lot of cyclists, (2) decent infrastructure and well-defined rules for cyclists, and (3) a lot of cyclists who break those rules when it is convenient. That is completely untenable.

[avianlyric]

> We want you to behave in a way that keeps everyone safe.

What evidence do you have that their behaviour significantly impacts the safety of others?

The statistics clearly show the drivers are largest cause of injury and fatalities on the road, and bikes cause so few injuries and fatalities that the stats are basically just noise.

Additionally if you look at UK police reports of incidents between bikes and cars, the police almost never attribute blame to cyclist behaviour. Only something like 10% of cases are cyclist found to be partially at fault, and never fully at fault.

[pclmulqdq]

Police in those cases are not trying to root-cause the accident. They are assigning legal blame. Here in the US, if you are driving a car and a child suddenly runs out into the road in front of you, you are at fault regardless the circumstances. The child's behavior was the root cause, but the car was at fault.

I have been involved in two pedestrian-cyclist crashes (never seriously hurt) and witnessed another ~5, and in all cases, it wasn't reported to the police. These were in NYC, where the police won't pay attention to anything short of a homicide, so people rarely report things. I suspect that a lot of pedestrian-cyclist incidents don't get reported, even when one of them ends up in the ER.

Where I live now there aren't many road cyclists, but like the child, if a cyclist does something unpredictable and a driver doesn't notice, I assume the driver would still legally be at fault.

[avianlyric]

> Police in those cases are not trying to root-cause the accident. They are assigning legal blame. Here in the US, if you are driving a car and a child suddenly runs out into the road in front of you, you are at fault regardless the circumstances. The child's behaviour was the root cause, but the car was at fault.

That might be true in the US, not so much in the UK. The police reports try to determine root-cause, including any mitigating circumstances for any party involved. Insurance might consider that as “legal-fault”, but the courts don’t. They’ll use it as part of their evaluation, but judges and magistrates also include other information that might be pertinent when trying to divvy up fault.

> Where I live now there aren't many road cyclists, but like the child, if a cyclist does something unpredictable and a driver doesn't notice, I assume the driver would still legally be at fault.

Has it occurred to you that if a cyclist making a minor error results in a car hitting them, it might be that the driver was far too close to the cyclist? It not like a bike can accelerate or change direction extremely quickly, giving a bike a couple of meters of space is usually all you need to ensure that a collision doesn’t happen if either parties do something unexpectedly.

Finally the most common cause of bike-car incidents is driver doing stupid things like pulling out in front of bikes, or more likely, turning across them unexpectedly. Cars can behave just as erratically and unpredictably as bikes, difference is, car occupants rarely suffer serious consequences.

[mynegation]

You should care about other people safety no matter what. As a driver - if I can prevent an accident - it is my moral responsibility to do so - even if the other party is blatantly breaking the rules.

[pclmulqdq]

I mean this only in that bicyclists like to use "I am just doing what keeps me safe" as justification for behaving like an asshole and endangering others. I still suggest trying to avoid accidents no matter how much of an asshole the other party is.

[bombcar]

It's like "loud pipes save lives" - it may be true in some way, but it's a post-facto justification for 90% of the people using it.