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I took it as the rider shouted as there was simply not enough time to stop, not that he had no intention of stopping. Didn't Alliston do this too, in a last second attempt to alert the ped in the hope of avoiding an accident?
I thought it was Allison's lack of brakes (and lack of remorse or any acceptance of blame) that did for him, not that he had no intention of braking and expected everyone to just get out of his way. All the braking distance stuff and comparisons with MTB's etc in that case was utter bollocks and should have been challenged and ripped apart much more than it was.
It doesn't matter if you are brakeless or run full disc brakes, if someone steps off the kerb directly into your front wheel without looking, you're going to crash unless maybe you are going at less than walking pace, and there's no point in having a bike if you have to go everywhere at walking pace or less. Would drivers accept having to go everywhere at walking pace just in case any peds step into the road?
Reaction times are key. The point that seems to have been missed in both these cases, is the courts seem unable to accept a situation where a pedestrian suddenly steps off the kerb without looking and gets injured or killed, and its not the cyclists fault. It seems that whenever a cyclist is in an accident there is always an assumption they were going too fast as they did not stop in time, yet drivers of much more deadly vehicles are not subject to the same criteria. I would totally accept the verdict in this case if it meant presumed liability was applied to drivers in the same way, but it doesn't and it won't, so it just smacks of double standards.
I don't think its going to do much to encourage Londoners and other city or town dwellers to take up cycling either, there's enough perceived danger already, without adding in being financially fucked over into the mix.
Its almost as if the logical conclusion is if you're a cyclist involved in an accident to fuck off away from the scene ASAP giving no details, or better still sack off cycling completely and buy a big fuck off 4x4, cos at least you're less likely to get hurt. What a shit state of affairs that is.
user75204-
Well, I think it's probably not a good idea to reopen the debate about the Alliston case. I don't quite understand it. However, it is clear that he expected her to get out of the way. I also don't think he couldn't have stopped if he hadn't wanted to--IF he could skid. Obviously, if he couldn't skid, he had a problem. Giving him the benefit of the doubt on that, however, I've long found it more probable that the problem wasn't that he couldn't have stopped, but that he could have stopped. Let's also not forget that the circumstances really were extremely unfortunate, with the key mistakes I listed above all being committed within a short space of time.
Oliver Schick
It's not so much that as the assumption that he should not have to stop. That was the main mistake Charlie Alliston made.