You are reading a single comment by @Alex_B and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
-
No, I'm coming at it much more from the opposite end of the spectrum.
If these accidents are happening in full daylight then how is there any excuse for a driver not seeing a cyclist in the road, if it's literally the only thing in the road and if it's happening at night, how, with lights and reflectives are the drivers failing to observe cyclists.It's always going to be the driver's fault unless something odd happens like the cyclist crosses the carriageway unexpectedly - but why, on a flat straight road, would you not pass another human being with as much space as was possible?
Alex_B
skinny
I agree it would be good to know more. I never heard any details of Eric's death from last year. However, it mustn't become a road to victim blaming. A car hitting a bike from behind is to blame. Always.
It is funny that drivers automatically accept the convention that when a car runs into the back of another one, it is always the fault of the one that hits the other from behind. Somehow, when it is a bike, people are only too ready to abandon that principle and look for reasons to blame the victim.
The situation that I find particularly scary is sunrise on these west to east races, like this and IndyPac, where you are riding directly into the sun. The drivers still have total responsibility for not driving where they can't see, but their ability to do so is dangerously impaired. The European races, which don't head due east-west, and don't have such long straights, don't have this particular risk to the same degree.