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@!Nhattattack!
Intrestingly enough, I logged on here to go for a paragraph by paragraph refute of what others were saying about the article, as it seems like I got a different message entirely. Then I saw what tiswas wrote, and I got angry. Ok, so 8 people is a small sample group, but surely there must be some kind of conclusion that can be drawn, or some added protection just in case, or...something. Enough people have died, and the fact that nearly all of them are female seems like it should mean something.
But I guess this is the problem. There isn't enough data (quite often because the only living witness to what happened is the driver) or enough statistics to make the law makers happy. So I thought I would do some googling, and so far nothing to support any theories about women, but I did find this:
More than 52,000 bicyclists have been killed in bicycle traffic accidents in the U.S. over the 80 years the federal government has been keeping records. When it comes to sharing the road with cars, many people seem to assume that such accidents are usually the cyclist’s fault — a result of reckless or aggressive riding. But an analysis of police reports on 2,752 bike-car accidents in Toronto found that clumsy or inattentive driving by motorists was the cause of 90 percent of these crashes. Among the leading causes: running a stop sign or traffic light, turning into a cyclist’s path, or opening a door on a biker. This shouldn’t come as too big a surprise: motorists cause roughly 75 percent of motorcycle crashes too.
The NY times, August 29, 2009