Comment 104429

By mikeonthemountain (registered) | Posted September 11, 2014 at 06:29:02

While few details are ever released when these incidents happen, I've said this before and I'll say it again. Whether human error or consequence of bad design, vehicles WILL run you over. Walking, cycling, it is imperative for a person to be proactive, to the extent possible. Turns in particular - when I'm stepping out onto the street on foot, I'm glancing around for carelessly turning vehicles. When I'm biking, if it even looks like a car will right-hook across the bike lane, it will. If a car is pulling out of a driveway, and eye contact with the driver fails, I'm already braking.

While a few of these incidents were impatience and aggression, most were accidental on the driver's part. But like many, I too have been crossing on foot, with the light, and had a car continue its turn inappropriately. Like many, I've done everything correctly, only for a car to suddenly pull across the bike lane, and my hardest possible squeeze of the disc brakes stops me an inch away from collision.

This stuff happens all the time.

What actually makes me angry, is the probable leniency. This pedestrian, despite a green light, will be found at fault for wearing a navy blue sweater. Or perhaps there was a raindrop on the windshield. Driver will get a new paint job for the truck, their license back, maybe a small fine. Zoom Zoom, keep motorin' and murderin'. In an hour or two, the next fatality will likely show up on the spec website.

It is a damn same we have to treat the insides of our cities, the same as industrial factory floors with unguarded heavy machinery. But that's how it's built, so we pretty much do.

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