[jbl]

The problem is that "I didn't see the cyclist" becomes a catch-all excuse that law-enforcement takes at face value. This leads to an implicit (though not acknowledged or stated) assumption that a driver cannot be at fault in a driver/cyclist ahem interaction.

I commute to work by bike every day, and every day I watch drivers with their heads down texting, fiddling with the radio, spaced out, or just plain aggressive. If one of these people hit me due to their inattention or actions, I'm pretty sure most police officers (and juries) would just assume accident. In a lot of cases, the incident wouldn't even be investigated.

[tsotha]

I'm pretty sure if the cops knew someone was texting when he hit a cyclist he would get charged with something serious. But I'm not sure how you'd go about proving that's the case in the absence of witnesses. It's not unreasonable to take "I didn't see the cyclist" at face value if you don't have any evidence to the contrary - that's just a presumption of innocence.