It's official, car drivers kill cyclists. (Peter Chambers and Tom Andrews for the Conversation)

[Thoglette]

A rather strongly worded article in The Conversation Republished in The Guardian wit the title "If cars are much safer than 25 years ago, why are cyclist deaths increasing?"

These stats highlight a clear pattern of deadly harm: drivers hitting people, because of how they’re driving, is 90% of the problem on our roads.

More deeply, calls for technical saviours are essentially wrongheaded because they disregard the root cause of the problems: driver behaviour – specifically, aggression and inattention.

Calls are made for strict liability; lower speed limits in urban areas and for fixing public transport (nothing quite like removing the root cause )

[human909]

Yes. I read that earlier today and thought it very well written.

I particularly liked the comparison with other forms of violence:

"This starts by acknowledging the root cause of systemic instances of deadly violence is banal, routine and excused and explained away because of its alignment with dominant cultural values."

For cyclists, the root cause of deadly harm is aggression and inattention. Drivers should be held to account and be pushed to change their behaviour and attitudes.

[RobertL]

I've said this in other places, but the cause of road deaths is drivers driving into stuff that they shouldn't - bikes, pedestrians, buildings, each other etc.

Maybe we need a simple advertising campaign like: "Drivers! Stop driving into stuff!"

Emphasise the point that the most important thing when you set out on your car trip is not to get to work on time, or drop the kids off, or whatever. It's to not drive into something that you shouldn't drive into. And part of the campaign is to shame those drivers who do drive into something that they shouldn't.

[human909]

I've said this in other places, but the cause of road deaths is drivers driving into stuff that they shouldn't - bikes, pedestrians, buildings, each other etc.

Maybe we need a simple advertising campaign like: "Drivers! Stop driving into stuff!"

Emphasise the point that the most important thing when you set out on your car trip is not to get to work on time, or drop the kids off, or whatever. It's to not drive into something that you shouldn't drive into. And part of the campaign is to shame those drivers who do drive into something that they shouldn't.

But then what will all the car insurance companies do with their 'oops' sorry just an accident advertisements....

[Ancientflatulence]

I've said this in other places, but the cause of road deaths is drivers driving into stuff that they shouldn't - bikes, pedestrians, buildings, each other etc.

Maybe we need a simple advertising campaign like: "Drivers! Stop driving into stuff!"

Emphasise the point that the most important thing when you set out on your car trip is not to get to work on time, or drop the kids off, or whatever. It's to not drive into something that you shouldn't drive into. And part of the campaign is to shame those drivers who do drive into something that they shouldn't.

We really do need a like button on this forum ..........

[RobertL]

I've said this in other places, but the cause of road deaths is drivers driving into stuff that they shouldn't - bikes, pedestrians, buildings, each other etc.

Maybe we need a simple advertising campaign like: "Drivers! Stop driving into stuff!"

Emphasise the point that the most important thing when you set out on your car trip is not to get to work on time, or drop the kids off, or whatever. It's to not drive into something that you shouldn't drive into. And part of the campaign is to shame those drivers who do drive into something that they shouldn't.

But then what will all the car insurance companies do with their 'oops' sorry just an accident advertisements....

Won't somebody think of the insurance companies!?!?!?!?!?

[Jmuzz]

Won't somebody think of the insurance companies!?!?!?!?!?

Oh don't worry, if this was Facebook there would already be 10 people claiming the cyclists would still be alive if they had insurance.

[Thoglette]

Oh don't worry, if this was Facebook there would already be 10 people claiming the cyclists would still be alive if they had insurancerego and numberplates.

Fixed it for you

[fat and old]

I saw a bad example of this last night. Big black pretend 4wd wanting to turn off a major road left into a side st. Only problem...woman riding her bicycle home just in front of her. Serious...at the point of the intersection, the cyclist was a bike length in front. So what does pretend 4wd do? Move ahead, and turn in in front of cyclist. Slowly, but with no intention of losing. Then down the wrong way of the street. Cyclist just stopped and let her....what else could she do? I personally dealt with the pretend 4wd with my real 4wd down there. Worst I’ve ever seen.

[Mububban]

I saw a bad example of this last night. Big black pretend 4wd wanting to turn off a major road left into a side st. Only problem...woman riding her bicycle home just in front of her. Serious...at the point of the intersection, the cyclist was a bike length in front. So what does pretend 4wd do? Move ahead, and turn in in front of cyclist. Slowly, but with no intention of losing. Then down the wrong way of the street. Cyclist just stopped and let her....what else could she do? I personally dealt with the pretend 4wd with my real 4wd down there. Worst I’ve ever seen.

Shocking, but we've all been there. That "dive in front then turn immediately" trick at roundabouts and intersections - always a good way to test your reflexes

whether you’re a driver, occupant, pedestrian or cyclist, roughly 90% of what causes death on Australia’s roads is driver behaviour.

I'm going to add that little fact to the fact that drivers at at fault in almost 80% of car vs bike incidents.

[antigee]

time to roll this one out again - study of video recordings of experienced commuter cyclists in ACT

https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pd ... arc322.pdf

from the Executive Summary:

"No collision events were recorded. A total of 91 potentially unsafe cyclist-interactions were
identified. In the majority of events (93.4%), the behaviour of the driver led to the event. The most
common event type was left turn (37.3%) which involved a driver turning left across the path of the
cyclist, drivers turning across cyclists’ path from the adjacent direction (32.9%). Unexpectedly
opened vehicle doors accounted for 17.6% of cyclist-driver interactions. In the majority of all
events, a crash was avoided due to the evasive actions taken by cyclists."

lets repeat that last bit " In the majority of all
events, a crash was avoided due to the evasive actions taken by cyclists."

meanwhile I did read thru the comments in TheAge (know your enemy) and all the usual got mentioned but no comment from what I could see on "presumed liability" either too difficult to comprehend or maybe the average cyclist hater is in favour of it

[fat and old]

I saw a bad example of this last night. Big black pretend 4wd wanting to turn off a major road left into a side st. Only problem...woman riding her bicycle home just in front of her. Serious...at the point of the intersection, the cyclist was a bike length in front. So what does pretend 4wd do? Move ahead, and turn in in front of cyclist. Slowly, but with no intention of losing. Then down the wrong way of the street. Cyclist just stopped and let her....what else could she do? I personally dealt with the pretend 4wd with my real 4wd down there. Worst I’ve ever seen.

Shocking, but we've all been there. That "dive in front then turn immediately" trick at roundabouts and intersections - always a good way to test your reflexes

Nah, what made this stand out was that there was no “dive in front” sorta thing. More like “pull up next to bike, let bike see me then just turn into bike, all in slo-mo”. Was really bizarre.