ADRM
Senior Member
There are lots of frustrated, impatient commuters in Amsterdam.
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General cycling issues (Is Toronto bike friendly?)
- Thread starter rp07
- Start date
There are lots of frustrated, impatient commuters in Amsterdam.
steveintoronto
Superstar
There are also a lot of "frustrated, impatient commuters" in Guelph! Guelph is not a particularly cycle friendly city, I lived there for six years, just returned to Toronto a year ago. Guelph is good in that it places you closer to some magnificent rail trails, (Elora-Cataract, Cambridge to Paris etc, Kissing Bridge Trail, some great back roads to Milton and elsewhere...) but Guelph proper is a bit of a nightmare:
Dear Guelph, you stink at winter driving
Guelph police ask drivers to slow down in winter weather
Guelph police are once again urging drivers to be more careful during winter weather after...
News
Little improvement to bus service in city's 2017 budget
TrickyRicky
Senior Member
It will only get worse no matter what you do though. Listen, I've been hit, doored etc. as a cyclist too (never reported because I was never injured enough) but when we use language like "mowed down" and assume motor vehicle drivers are henchmen it serves no purpose. As I mentioned before I am primarily a driver now in the West end of Downtown and I can tell you as fact I have a cyclist doing crazy, bonkers, illegal maneuvers in my field of vision literally at all times as I drive through the city. I have never been in a vehicle accident in my life as a driver but I can see how easy it would be for a distracted, careless, sleepy, drunk, Mom with kid in the car, bad etc. driver to collide with one of the thousands of bonkers bad or even exception cyclists on the road at all times. The result of such a collision would of course mean asymmetric injury and so the cyclist / pedestrian should get the greater protection; however, why do cycling advocates resist any accountability on the cyclist behaviour side? If we are talking about safety it is just not OK for drunk cyclists using their phone with one hand on a bike with no functioning breaks, cycling on and off of sidewalks without making any effort to look in either direction, running red-lights, shouting obscenities, to be on the road (I see this on a regular basis).
steveintoronto
Superstar
Or ignore all the killing and raping in some nations? Or how about the destruction of the rainforests, and my giant hangnail too?
I've been taken to issue a number of times in these forums for taking cyclists to task. Believe me, in Summer, I out-cycle almost all here, but you appear to completely miss the point.
How many out of control cyclists cause motorist deaths and injuries? How many cyclists cause pedestrian deaths?
Oh, and not to ignore the giant pimple on my arse either....that's really deadly for motorists...
Getting back to gun control, and how chocolate ruins soap production...
Admiral Beez
Superstar
There's always a level of acceptable risk.
As pedestrian and cyclists, we're entering the road space, and in many cases entering or using it incorrectly or in a manner that puts us at greater risk. For example, as a car driver I am by law supposed to give a 1 metre space to a cyclist. However the cyclist doesn't respect this themselves, often passing within cms of cars, especially in slow traffic. If there isn't a bike lane, don't skim along the curb - you're legally entitled to a 1 metre bubble, so stick to it.
ADRM
Senior Member
Asserting that cyclists' behaviour is the most significant problem in the Toronto vulnerable road user safety debate (or, frankly, even in the top-20) is textbook victim blaming, and is one of the main reasons this debate is so insufferable.
steveintoronto
Superstar
I'm completely with ADRM on this. "Insufferable" is an excellent term.
Most cyclists, like pedestrians, who are victims in car accidents, aren't in the wrong.
Here again is the statement I'd responded to:
[why do cycling advocates resist any accountability on the cyclist behaviour side?]
Why do rape victims ask for it?
And don't get me wrong, Admiral, like you, I *do* hold cyclists to account, although a professional driver for years, I haven't had a driver's licence in Ontario for decades. I cycle everywhere I can, and in winter, reluctantly take transit. I can do over 150kms in a day weather and environment permitting. And I'm very critical of idiot cyclists, there's no shortage of them.
But that doesn't get drivers off the hook of their responsibilities, not for a moment. There's no shortage of idiot drivers too. You tell me who's the most dangerous: An idiot cyclist or an idiot driver. How many people a year in Canada are killed by being hit by bikes? There'll be a few, doubtless...but I dare you to plum the stats.
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W. K. Lis
Superstar
When there are more cyclists, there would be more collisions with cyclists. If there were less motorists, there would be less collisions with motorists.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
I am not a only automobile driver, I am a cyclist, and a pedestrian. I see all three using the roadspace dangerously.
Is that fact or opinion?
Yes please, re. your assertion above.
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steveintoronto
Superstar
Last person killed by being hit by a bike in Canada was years back. An old man in his eighties, don't have the link handy, was reading it couple of hours back before posting what I did.
But for now:
I'll dig more later, but I'm sure others will beat me to posting the local stats. Even the police are admitting they tend to blame cyclists for accidents when in the majority of them, it's not their fault.
Getting back to rape victims asking for it...
http://www.slatergordon.co.uk/media...ccidents-and-presumed-liability-uk-vs-europe/21 August 2015
Cycling Accidents and Presumed Liability: UK vs Europe
By Paul KitsonPrincipal Lawyer, Personal Injury
It may come as a surprise to many to hear the UK is probably the worst place in Europe for a cyclist to be injured by a motorist.
Under both English and Scottish law, a claimant cyclist must prove, on the balance of probabilities, that a defendant driver was negligent. Many safety campaigners, including the UK’s national cycle charity, the CTC, have called for a new system of "presumed liability" - whereby the defendant driver would be presumed to be at fault unless they can prove otherwise.
In most European jurisdictions, an injured cyclist does not need to establish fault on the part of the motorist. The UK is one of only five countries in Europe, alongside Cyprus, Malta, Romania and Ireland, which have not adopted the presumed liability system.
As an English cycling accident lawyer, establishing liability is often a difficult challenge, especially if the cyclist is unable to give evidence due to the nature of their injuries and/or if there are no independent witnesses.
The presumed liability system recognises that the liability of one's actions should be proportionate to the degree of danger which they impose on other road users. Every year, around 19,000 cyclists are killed or injured in reported road accidents in the UK. The true figures are likely to be higher as the Department of Transport data excludes incidents which go unreported to the police, even if the cyclist’s injuries required a visit to hospital.[...]
http://sf.streetsblog.org/2016/09/12/are-san-francisco-cyclists-guilty-until-proven-innocent/Monday, September 12, 2016
83 Comments
Are San Francisco Cyclists Guilty Until Proven Innocent?
This post supported by
by Roger Rudick
Justin Liszanckie in the hospital after the crash. Photo: Liszanckie’s mother.
Justin Liszanckie was running an errand on the evening of July 20. “I was on Brannan and heading west, trying to turn south on Fourth towards the ballpark,” he said. And that’s the last thing he remembers until “waking up in the hospital hours later.”
Liszanckie ended up in San Francisco General for ten days. His injuries: “Three broken bones around the orbit of my right eye. Extensive lacerations on the right side of my face and ear. A fourth fracture in my right side nasal bone. Two broken vertebrae on the right side of neck, two broken ribs, a broken right pelvis.”
But all in all, he feels somewhat lucky to have avoided any surgeries. “Once I was out, I made sure I had follow up appointments…mostly I was concerned about the facial fractures around my eye.” Again, he was lucky. His eye is okay.
But something else happened in the hospital he hadn’t anticipated.
He got a traffic citation for $238.
The police never came to the hospital to interview him. The ticket is based on the testimony of a driver who was waiting to cross, the driver of the vehicle that struck Liszanckie, and her passenger.
Liszanckie, frustrated, and still in pain from his crash, reached out to Streetsblog:
I’ve been a daily cyclist in SF for about eight years and was recently severely injured when a car ran me over at 4th & Brannan. I spent 10 days in SF General and am in the midst of three months on disability, yet shockingly the police cited me…despite numerous inconsistencies from those involved/witnesses, clear driver negligence, and the basic laws of physics. The officer also showed a shocking lack of interest in trying to obtain additional evidence such as video footage which was mentioned in the police report but never sought out.
I would obviously love to help bring more pressure on the SFPD to rectify the anti-cyclist bias that I and countless others have felt in the last decade, especially as ridership has exploded.
Liszanckie sent a copy of the collision report to Streetsblog. The driver of the car that hit him, according to the report, said she “never saw the bicyclist until her vehicle made contact with him.” The officer cited Liszanckie for crossing the yellow line, but it’s difficult to see how he reached that conclusion.
Liszanckie went onto the hood of the car and hit the windshield, and then fell forward, landing in the crosswalk. But crossing the yellow line would have put Liszanckie behind the crosswalk at the time of the collision (see diagram below). For him to land where he did, Liszanckie’s momentum would have had to be sufficient to move the Silver Ford Eagle backwards. As Liszanckie said, “the police cited me…despite numerous inconsistencies from those involved/witnesses, clear driver negligence, and the basic laws of physics.”
Remember, the policeman didn’t see the crash. The only witnesses he spoke to were the driver who hit Liszanckie, the passenger, and a neutral witness in another car. The driver said she didn’t see him until she hit him. The passenger also wasn’t looking. [...]
Continues next pane
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steveintoronto
Superstar
https://ggwash.org/view/31600/it-must-have-been-your-fault-cmon-you-are-a-biker“It must have been your fault. C’mon. You are a biker.”
BicyclingBy Zach T. (Guest Contributor) June 27, 2013548
The crash about to happen. Photo captured from MPD surveillance video.
Getting in a crash is one of the scariest things that can happen to a cyclist. Even worse is when police assume that bicyclists are always at fault, even if they’ve got evidence to the contrary.
On a pleasant March morning in 2011, I was on my way to work, biking south on 14th St NW in the center of the right lane. As I approached W Street, I looked to make sure I had ample time to cross. The light was green. As I left the intersection, an SUV driver made a left turn across traffic, directly into my path. All I could do was hit the brakes hard.
The next thing I knew, I was on my back in the middle of the street. I tried to sit up, but failed pathetically and landed back on the road. My glasses were in a mangled heap nearby. Seconds later, some cyclists stopped by. None had seen the collision, but they locked my bike at the scene and helped me to a safe place. Someone called an ambulance, which showed up a few minutes later.
In the ambulance, Carlos Carter, a DC police officer, asked me what happened, and I told him. Once the EMTs realized I had hit my head, it was straight onto a backboard and off to the emergency room.
At George Washington University Hospital, an X-ray found that my shoulder was separated and several ligaments were torn. Doctors took me to a CAT scanner to check for broken bones.
During the test, Officer Carter entered the room. He asked me to sign a ticket for running a red light. I asked him to take a look at footage since I was certain I hadn’t. He wasn’t interested and asked me to sign the ticket and admit fault. I didn’t. He left.
Video proves that I was right
Often that would have been the end of the story, but, thankfully, not this one. I was confident that I was right, but after spending a day at the hospital, I began to doubt myself. When the police report was ready, I picked up a copy. Both the driver and another witness said I had run a red light.
Once I was mobile again, I returned to the scene of the collision. I tried to reconcile their version with mine. Was it possible that the light showed red in their direction but green in mine? I watched a few light cycles: the lights turned red at the same time. As I watched the cars roll through, I took a careful look around and noticed a camera with a Metropolitan Police Department label.[...]
http://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/w...ity-made-everybody-drive-safely-and-play-nice
Cycling Embassy of Great Britain
Making riding a bike as easy as riding a bike.
The Dutch cycle because strict liability made everybody drive safely and play nice
[...]
Summary of the claim
“The Netherlands and Denmark have a law of ‘strict liability’ to protect vulnerable road users from more powerful road users. Under this law, in crashes involving vulnerable road users, unless it can be clearly proven that the vulnerable road user was at fault, the more powerful road user is found liable by default. This makes Dutch and Danish drivers more cautious around cyclists and pedestrians and is responsible for their safe roads.”
The weak version of this claim goes on to state that strict liability is a necessary component of the Dutch model and of growing cycling rates. The strong version of the claim states that strict liability alone is sufficient to create civilised streets and grow cycling rates.
Sub-claims
Example sources
Strict liability laws are widely supported by British cyclists and cycling campaigns, though the strength of the claims that are made for them varies. Through Chinese whispers, exaggerations and misunderstandings, there are several different ideas in circulation for what strict liability actually is.
“Strict liability: why it’s a life-saver” (link is external), at the I Pay Road Tax campaign, is typical of the strong claims made for the power of strict liability, and this Brighton newspaper article (link is external) typical of the coverage of those claims. The CTC’s claims about strict liability (link is external) are more muted. This blog post (link is external) includes a typical example of the misunderstandings and incorrect definitions of strict liability that are common, and the claims that are associated with those definitions.
Summary of responses [...]
I'll have local stats later...
steveintoronto
Superstar
Vancouver drivers at fault in 93% of collisions with bicycles: city report
http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancou...-of-collisions-with-bicycles-city-report.htmlBy: Emily Jackson Metro, Metro Published on Tue May 12 2015
Cyclists came off looking like angels in the latest report on collisions between bikes and vehicles in Vancouver.
The cycling safety report presented to city council Tuesday found that cyclists had the right-of-way in 93 per cent of vehicle-bicycle collisions where it could be determined.
Even though the right-of-way could only be determined in 54 per cent of cases – the data is based on 3,000 ICBC collisions in between 2007 and 2012 – the statistic presents a twist in the city’s endless car versus bike debate, where the common narrative involves reckless cyclists frustrating drivers to the point of road rage.
“As someone who drives, bikes and walks, I can tell you if you choose to watch for bad behavior in any given mode you can see it,” Coun. Heather Deal said to reporters after the meeting.
“But we know from that data, and this is hard data, that the actual fault lies most frequently with the car where we can determine the fault.”
Collisions between cyclists and motor vehicles tend to occur at night in the winter when it’s raining, according to the study completed in 2014 by Urban Systems, in association with UBC, SFU and ICBC.
More than half of cyclist collisions involve cars. Cars driving through two-way stops on local streets, doorings – sometimes dubbed the “door prize,” when a driver opens a car door into the path of an unsuspecting cyclist – and vehicles making left turns resulted in the largest proportion of collisions.
The law blames drivers for doorings because they legally must check to see if their course is clear. The high percentage of doorings could help explain why cyclists had the right-of-way in most collisions.
But general clumsiness is still responsible for a large chunk of collisions. No vehicles are involved in collisions about 21 per cent of the time.
Map: Cyclist collision hot spots
Admiral Beez
Superstar
So far you've posted no stats to support your earlier comment. Instead you've posted a bunch of international articles in support of the below preconceived position.
It would not surprise me if most traffic-cyclist-pedestrian collisions have multiple people at fault; a car driver who does not check behind before turning right while not stopping at a red (a common occurrence I see), combined with a cyclist passing on the right or a inattentive pedestrian crossing when the crossing signal is flashing red. The difference is that I am not claiming these observations as fact or as evidence to support an absolute claim like yours above.
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steveintoronto
Superstar
What do you think this might mean?
This is incorrect. You obviously haven't taken the time to read the law:
[Q2: Will cyclists also be required to leave a minimum one-metre distance when passing a vehicle?
Cyclists are not required to leave a specific one-metre space; however, they are required to obey all the rules of the road. Cyclists who are being overtaken should turn out to the right to allow the vehicle to pass.]
http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/safety/bicycle-safety.shtml
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...ules-as-motorists-in-ontario/article30856909/
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/sites/default/files/content/mcscs/docs/ec159773.pdf
Attachments
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steveintoronto
Superstar
A dangerous month on the roads led to 70 collisions with pedestrians, cyclists
By Sammy Hudes
TorStar Staff Reporter
Sun., Dec. 11, 2016
By Sammy Hudes
TorStar Staff Reporter
Sun., Dec. 11, 2016
https://www.thestar.com/news/pedest...-70-collisions-with-pedestrians-cyclists.html