|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#101
|
|||
|
|||
Zoot Katz wrote:
Sat, 19 Mar 2005 06:42:54 -0600, , Tom Sherman wrote: The fact remains that in all these cases it is the motor vehicle which inflicts the injuries, and the driver, to a good first approximation anyway, suffers no injury as a result. I think that there is nothing unreasonable about placing the burden of care on those who bring the bulk of the danger. According to the figures Guy presents, 30% of the time the cyclist is at fault. This is a rather high rate of innocent people that we would be punishing if we accepted Frank's proposition the motor vehicle operator is always at fault in any accident. If a motor vehicle driver is waiting in the queue at a red light, within the lane markers, with the vehicle in proper order (all lights and reflectors operating) and is rear ended by an inattentive cyclist, who then dies from a head or spinal injury, should that driver have his/her license permanently revoked? According to Frank's proposal, the answer is yes. Had that car been left parked somewhere safely off the road it wouldn't have contributed to the cyclist's injury or death. By driving it in public you're exposing others to risk. My advice: Lose the keys and forget where you parked. Your conscious and willful choice of transportation modes predictably created a hazard for other road users. Pay the piper. OK, I'll bite. What if the cyclist runs into a full city bus? Or a train? Is the driver/conductor still guilty? Is the municipality? Frank's (and now your) argument is just plain silly, and you know it. Among the trolled Bill |
Ads |
#102
|
|||
|
|||
S o r n i wrote:
Zoot Katz wrote: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 06:42:54 -0600, , Tom Sherman wrote: The fact remains that in all these cases it is the motor vehicle which inflicts the injuries, and the driver, to a good first approximation anyway, suffers no injury as a result. I think that there is nothing unreasonable about placing the burden of care on those who bring the bulk of the danger. According to the figures Guy presents, 30% of the time the cyclist is at fault. This is a rather high rate of innocent people that we would be punishing if we accepted Frank's proposition the motor vehicle operator is always at fault in any accident. If a motor vehicle driver is waiting in the queue at a red light, within the lane markers, with the vehicle in proper order (all lights and reflectors operating) and is rear ended by an inattentive cyclist, who then dies from a head or spinal injury, should that driver have his/her license permanently revoked? According to Frank's proposal, the answer is yes. Had that car been left parked somewhere safely off the road it wouldn't have contributed to the cyclist's injury or death. By driving it in public you're exposing others to risk. My advice: Lose the keys and forget where you parked. Your conscious and willful choice of transportation modes predictably created a hazard for other road users. Pay the piper. OK, I'll bite. What if the cyclist runs into a full city bus? Or a train? Is the driver/conductor still guilty? Is the municipality? Frank's (and now your) argument is just plain silly, and you know it. Among the trolled Bill I'll take the bait too. When I ride alone in traffic I mix with the cars for left turns at lights. On green I go fast and nearly rear end the car in front of me, but not quite. If I lost it and went down then got run over by the driver behind me would it be his fault for not having fast enough reflexes? Yesterday I 'raced' 3 big gravel trucks from a light and caught the draft of all 3 getting up to maybe 35 MPH before getting RPM'd out and losing the draft and my breath. Fun, but a slip could be fatal with a large truck, or 3. About 130 RPM * (44/11) * 26" x 1.75" = ??MPH. Bill Baka, dangerous only to myself. |
#103
|
|||
|
|||
Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:36:56 GMT,
, trolled and tossed back, "S o r n i" wrote: OK, I'll bite. What if the cyclist runs into a full city bus? Or a train? Is the driver/conductor still guilty? Is the municipality? No more so than if the cyclist ran into a clearly marked bridge abutment or retaining wall. I regard them as infrastructure. Cars are a gratuitous exercise in self aggrandisement. -- zk |
#104
|
|||
|
|||
Tom Sherman wrote: Guy Chapman wrote: But I think Frank is fundamentally right, for this reason: I did a back-of-an-envelope calculation based on the numbers of cyclists killed and seriously injured and the apportionment of blame in accidents involving them according to police, our Transport Research Laboratory and even our Automobile Association. The results we * Number of cyclists injured or killed in car crashes where cyclist is to blame: 700 * Number of drivers injured or killed in these crashes: 0 * Number of cyclists injured or killed in car crashes where driver is to blame: 1,700 * Number of drivers injured or killed in these crashes: 0 According to the figures Guy presents, 30% of the time the cyclist is at fault. This is a rather high rate of innocent people that we would be punishing if we accepted Frank's proposition the motor vehicle operator is always at fault in any accident. Before I'd accept that "30% of the time, the cyclist is at fault," I'd like to see details on how that was determined. We're talking about cyclist fatalities here. How many ghosts of cyclists are silently moaning "He's lying! That's not at all how it happened!" ? Go back to my experience the other night, walking across that five-lane street with my wife. IF we'd seen a gap in traffic and decided to scamper across the five lanes; and IF a driver zoomed up from the side street, saw the same gap, and also decided to jump for it, and IF he didn't pull a hit and run after killing us, the story would have been "They ran right in front of me; there was nothing I could do." Even if we were in motion before he was. Would he have noticed us at all? It was dark. There are streetlights, and I was carrying and using a flashlight. Still, he might not have, because watching for pedestrians (or cyclists) is not a priority for motorists. The priority, as always, is to shave 15 seconds off any auto trip. That priority exists whether you're the driver, or you're the transportation engineer who decided to add a five-lane highway to this otherwise walkable village. Compared to that priority, pedestrian safety - let alone convenience - is off the bottom of the scale. If we _could_ get automatic assumption of guilt, things would change. Speeds in this village would drop an average of five miles per hour, I'd bet. And since collision speed is extremely influential in pedestrian and bike fatalities, safety would significantly increase. The world would literally be a much better place. I know we won't have this happen in the forseeable future. However, that does not mean it's unreasonable. As others have said, cars are as dangerous as weapons; yet we treat them entirely differently. We do not allow people to travel in public shooting guns or swinging swords at random while talking on phones, fishing for CDs, putting on makeup, etc. If someone did that and killed someone accidentally, the outrage would be endless. But we do allow people to drive with similar carelessness, and when they kill someone, we say "Oh, but it was an accident. Taking away his license for life won't bring anyone back. We can't wrongly convict anyone." I say, presumption of innocence is fine regarding jail time. I say presumption of guilt is appropriate when you're giving away the PRIVILEGE of a license to operate deadly machinery in public. Incidentally, those who disagree because of intentional bicyclist suicides and other extreme possibilities: Please try moving away from that extreme, to real incidents. Can you agree with me for the case where a motorist drive the 35 mph speed limit, despite a crowd of schoolkids jostling each other, trying to hurry across the street to get home? Can you agree for the case where the ball bounced down the drive, followed by a kid chasing it? Can you agree for the case of the elderly lady hobbling across the street after the crosswalk turned to "Don't Walk" because she's too slow to make it all the way on the "Walk" light? In other words, how much slack _are_ you willing to give the motorists? At present, their "slack" is essentially 100%. Kill someone, you get a slap on the wrist, and you drive home after paying your penalty. I think that's an atrocity. |
#105
|
|||
|
|||
|
#106
|
|||
|
|||
Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:03:17 -0600, ,
Tom Sherman wrote: It is still a presumption of guilt, regardless of the evidence. That is not and will never be acceptable. Well it apparently is acceptable to some Americans. Where's the evidence condemning the presumed guilty persons locked up at Guantanamo, Diego Garcia, Abu Ghurayb, Shibarghan etc.? -- zk |
#107
|
|||
|
|||
Zoot Katz wrote:
Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:03:17 -0600, , Tom Sherman wrote: It is still a presumption of guilt, regardless of the evidence. That is not and will never be acceptable. Well it apparently is acceptable to some Americans. Where's the evidence condemning the presumed guilty persons locked up at Guantanamo, Diego Garcia, Abu Ghurayb, Shibarghan etc.? They did not vote for Bush II - what more evidence of their criminality is needed? -- Tom Sherman - Earth (Downstate Illinois, North of Forgottonia) |
#108
|
|||
|
|||
Sat, 19 Mar 2005 21:12:39 -0600, ,
Tom Sherman wrote: Where's the evidence condemning the presumed guilty persons locked up at Guantanamo, Diego Garcia, Abu Ghurayb, Shibarghan etc.? They did not vote for Bush II - what more evidence of their criminality is needed? That's proof that they're not criminally insane anyway. -- zk |
#109
|
|||
|
|||
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message ... wrote: In other words, how much slack _are_ you willing to give the motorists? At present, their "slack" is essentially 100%. Kill someone, you get a slap on the wrist, and you drive home after paying your penalty. I think that's an atrocity. It is still a presumption of guilt, regardless of the evidence. That is not and will never be acceptable. Nonsense. In a case of car vs bike, the cyclist is almost always presumed guilty It's only motorists who can expect to be presumed innocent. Ban personal use of motor vehicles if you believe them to be so evil, but do not make a mockery of justice by conducting a lottery. You don't consider 1-3 years for a repeat offender who killed somebody with his car to be a mockery of justice? RichC |
#110
|
|||
|
|||
Rich Clark wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message ... wrote: In other words, how much slack _are_ you willing to give the motorists? At present, their "slack" is essentially 100%. Kill someone, you get a slap on the wrist, and you drive home after paying your penalty. I think that's an atrocity. It is still a presumption of guilt, regardless of the evidence. That is not and will never be acceptable. Nonsense. In a case of car vs bike, the cyclist is almost always presumed guilty It's only motorists who can expect to be presumed innocent. This is obviously not true, or anytime there was a cyclist/motor vehicle accident, the cyclist would automatically be assessed for any damage to the motor vehicle. Ban personal use of motor vehicles if you believe them to be so evil, but do not make a mockery of justice by conducting a lottery. You don't consider 1-3 years for a repeat offender who killed somebody with his car to be a mockery of justice? I never said anything about that, and it is bad form to try to imply that I did. -- Tom Sherman - Earth (Downstate Illinois, North of Forgottonia) |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
The number of years - too short? Sometimes! | Maggie | General | 2 | January 29th 05 11:37 PM |
New Years Day century | David Kerber | Rides | 6 | January 8th 05 12:35 PM |
Dmitri Neliubin killed on New Year's Day | Carl Sundquist | Racing | 7 | January 5th 05 05:24 PM |
New Year's Day 2005 Ride | Carol McLean | Unicycling | 13 | January 4th 05 03:21 AM |
"Actually you are the first person to bring up this issue" | James Annan | Techniques | 848 | April 6th 04 08:49 PM |