On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 12:20:02 PM UTC-7, Ralph Barone wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/28/2019 5:46 AM, Chalo wrote:
Thing is, a ped is wildly unlikely to hurt anyone by running into them.
So it's not the ped's ethical responsibility to mitigate the risk that's
being imposed unilaterally by a cyclist, the same way it's not a
cyclist's ethical duty to mitigate the lethal risks unilaterally imposed by car drivers.

The one who brings the hazard into a situation is the one responsible if
anybody gets hurt. That's basic golden-rule level stuff. Exporting
responsibility to the victims is just wrong.

I can appreciate that line of thinking; but you have to account for the
possibility of someone attempting suicide or self harm by jumping in
front of a moving vehicle.

For an extreme example, that happens fairly regularly with freight
trains, and it wouldn't be fair to blame the train engineer.



In the suicide by train scenario, I would think the train engineer could
possibly sue the next of kin of the deceased for the post traumatic stress
caused by killing someone with absolutely no way to prevent it.

I've got a suicide by truck case where the truck driver sued the estate for PTSD. It was a low dollar policy, and the estate's insurer paid. This was the second time I've seen this kind of case -- both involving trucks.

If I were going to commit suicide by truck, I'd want to leave my family with a plausible wrongful death case. No suicide notes -- maybe a note saying "going for a walk on the highway. I'll be super careful!"

-- Jay Beattie.