In the 80's and 90's much of the PSA crap about women being sexual harassed was geared towards showing uninformed women the risks they were taking by dressing provocatively. I was taught in school to watch out for men that may be "lured" by this sort of dress. There was never a sentence in any of the speeches we got like "these men that are so weak that they might be lured into rape should be shot on sight". In fact just recently there was a minicab campaign that was geared towards women showing them not to make the "wrong choice" and be assulted. Now fair enough, warning women that there are guys out there that pretend to be drivers is cool, but the phrasing was blaming the victim completely.
I think that's a pretty spot on comparison to what you guys are saying here. You are saying to teach cyclists what risks they are taking, without mentioning the other side of things. Dressing down is a great way to not get unwanted attention = avoiding the left side of a lorry is a great way to not get hit.
But there needs to be the other side of the argument presented if cyclists like myself don't just throw away the flyer swearing under their breath "fucking dicks, one more group supposedly advocating cycling while blaming cyclists, and cyclists only, for being killed by HGV's."
The heart is totally in the right place, it's just not quite right.
Just present both sides.
Separate but sort of related:
MHO is that the bigger the vehicle you choose to drive the more responsibility you choose to take on. If you don't want the responsibility get out of your car/HGV, etc.. If a cyclist and a pedestrian are involved in an accident, my belief is in inherent responsibility, that pedestrian may have made all the moves to create the accident, but I chose to ride a bike. Whereas, if a cyclist and an HGV are involved in an accident, no matter who caused the two to actually collide, the HGV driver already has chosen to take on much of the responsibility by choosing to drive that vehicle.
In the 80's and 90's much of the PSA crap about women being sexual harassed was geared towards showing uninformed women the risks they were taking by dressing provocatively. I was taught in school to watch out for men that may be "lured" by this sort of dress. There was never a sentence in any of the speeches we got like "these men that are so weak that they might be lured into rape should be shot on sight". In fact just recently there was a minicab campaign that was geared towards women showing them not to make the "wrong choice" and be assulted. Now fair enough, warning women that there are guys out there that pretend to be drivers is cool, but the phrasing was blaming the victim completely.
I think that's a pretty spot on comparison to what you guys are saying here. You are saying to teach cyclists what risks they are taking, without mentioning the other side of things. Dressing down is a great way to not get unwanted attention = avoiding the left side of a lorry is a great way to not get hit.
But there needs to be the other side of the argument presented if cyclists like myself don't just throw away the flyer swearing under their breath "fucking dicks, one more group supposedly advocating cycling while blaming cyclists, and cyclists only, for being killed by HGV's."
The heart is totally in the right place, it's just not quite right.
Just present both sides.
Separate but sort of related:
MHO is that the bigger the vehicle you choose to drive the more responsibility you choose to take on. If you don't want the responsibility get out of your car/HGV, etc.. If a cyclist and a pedestrian are involved in an accident, my belief is in inherent responsibility, that pedestrian may have made all the moves to create the accident, but I chose to ride a bike. Whereas, if a cyclist and an HGV are involved in an accident, no matter who caused the two to actually collide, the HGV driver already has chosen to take on much of the responsibility by choosing to drive that vehicle.