Biker convicted of Vehicular Manslaughter for running over pedestrian in crosswalk

[murphy1244]

You mess up your yield and get hit.

 

[joshuabardwell]

You mess up your yield and get hit.

Yeah. And then who do the cops give the ticket to?

 

[Don87]

Who would be held for liability for a accident for your yield getting hit?

if a truck driver hits a cyclist, he will most likely spend the rest of his natural life in prison, even if the cyclist is at fault. Truck drivers are considered 'professionals' and therefore should know that the cyclist will do something stupid.

 

[aczlan]

If we paid more attention to creating roads that were wide enough for bikes and cars to coexist better, this would be much less of an issue. It's asinine that local governments build roads that can't support all of the types of vehicles that are legally allowed to use them. But government has always been asinine, and I doubt it's going to stop. So in the mean time, we'll just have to get along as best we can.

Roads are paid for with fuel taxes which bikers dont pay... Less people driving on the roads, less road taxes to fix them with...
IMO, the biggest problem (around here anyways) is the 10% of bikers who want to play tour de france and ride 3-5 across going 25 (downhill) on the busy 55mph roads that wind up over and around the hills.
There is usually 3-6' shoulder where they could pull off (or ride on 2+ across) when cars start to back up (like I do when driving the tractor down the same roads doing 18MPH or less) but they almost never do.
Yes, bikers have the "same rights to the road as a car" but a little common curtsey and pulling over to ride single file and let the 15 cars behind them pass would do wonders for how they are viewed by others on the road.

Aaron Z

 

[murphy1244]

if a truck driver hits a cyclist, he will most likely spend the rest of his natural life in prison, even if the cyclist is at fault. Truck drivers are considered 'professionals' and therefore should know that the cyclist will do something stupid.

That's what I'm talking about. they treat the motorist at fault.

 

[Don87]

I hope you are a staunch supporter of bike lanes, then. Believe me, cyclists, for the most part, do not enjoy having huge trucks blow past them. If we paid more attention to creating roads that were wide enough for bikes and cars to coexist better, this would be much less of an issue. It's asinine that local governments build roads that can't support all of the types of vehicles that are legally allowed to use them. But government has always been asinine, and I doubt it's going to stop. So in the mean time, we'll just have to get along as best we can.

I'm actually a staunch supporter of any vehicle that cannot do the posted speed, be restricted from using said roadway. I'm out there on the road to do a job. That job is to deliver the goods that you and every person in the country(or world) needs to survive.

And even with a bike lane, if you are going 10mph joyriding in the bike lane, and I pass you doing 65mph, the wind pressure can knock you off your bike. Bikes are dangerous on the highways, they are built for vehicular traffic.

 

[joshuabardwell]

And even with a bike lane, if you are going 10mph joyriding in the bike lane, and I pass you doing 65mph, the wind pressure can knock you off your bike.

Not if you are the least bit competent as a rider. If you are so incompetent as to allow the wind from a passing truck to knock you over, or even cause you to deviate such that you might run into traffic or off the road, then I agree that you have no business on the road.

 

[joshuabardwell]

Roads are paid for with fuel taxes which bikers dont pay...

Oh, this old saw. I have a more detailed response below, but the simplest rebuttal is that 99% of cyclists are also drivers, so they pay just as much road tax as anybody else.

Roadway user fees imposed on motorists don't cover the costs of roads and the balance is covered by general tax funds. Because of the type of roads cyclists use and the funding that pays for them; as well as the low costs imposed by cyclists and pedestrians on the road network and society, it is actually they who subsidize motorists. And the roads they get are built to the needs of the subsidized.

There are several analyses that show that "user fees" - such as the gas tax, tolls and vehicle taxes and fees - cover only about 50-60% of road costs. [The Brookings Institute, 2003, 58.9%; Subsidy Scope, 2007, 51%; The FHWA, 1999, between 72% and 22%]. The remainder comes from other taxes and fees, property taxes and borrowing. So non-motorists do pay into the building of roads. In fact, a study by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute showed that motorists are heavily subsidized by non-motorists.

And, cyclists do pay taxes. They pay sales taxes on their bikes, bike supplies and even the calories they burn while cycling. Since there is often no sales tax on gasoline, the taxes cyclists pay per mile might in fact be very close to what drivers pay per mile. Bicyle sales alone is a $6B industry, meaning that cyclists have paid about $300M in sales taxes on their bicycles. This money is added to general tax revenue and general tax revenue is used....to build roads.

To add insult to injury, the roads that cyclists subsidize are not built for cyclists needs. On the one hand, they're overbuilt - wider and capable of carrying greater weight than cyclists need; and on the other hand they're not built or maintained to a standard that considers cyclist safety - with tire catching storm grates added and cyclist-throwing potholes allowed or temporary steel plates installed, for example.

 

[joshuabardwell]

That's what I'm talking about. they treat the motorist at fault.

Well, look, I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not an expert on the law, but the entire state of Idaho allows cyclists to treat a stop as a yield, and a red light as a stop sign. Are truckers getting sent to prison for life by the droves in the state of Idaho? What is the actual effect of this law being implemented in reality? We don't have to guess or speculate.

 

[joshuabardwell]

I'm actually a staunch supporter of any vehicle that cannot do the posted speed, be restricted from using said roadway.

Isn't this completely arbitrary? If the speed limit is 45, but a person feels more comfortable going 25, that's okay with you, as long as they're driving a car that could go 45 if they wanted to? No. You don't like being held up because you've got a job to do. But you're not advocating for minimum speed limits for all vehicles on surface streets. You're just picking on bicyclists.