from the unbelievable-inexcusable-unforgivable dept.
CBC is reporting
Witnesses told Radio-Canada that they saw the man in his 50s biking in the wrong direction and that officers in the car tried to intercept him. They said they saw the cruiser back up and trap the cyclist under the car. Beaulieu said he saw the officers get out of the car, saw the man caught under the wheels, then get back into the patrol car and roll over the victim a second time. Other witnesses corroborated his account.
Another witness, who gave his name as Daniel, said he heard police tell the cyclist that he was under arrest. “He was spitting blood,” the witness said. Police put him in the ambulance without putting him on a stretcher first, he continued.
Provincial police will also look into the fact that the patrol car and the bicycle were moved from the scene. The officers under investigation picked up the bike and put it in the trunk of their car, and later put it back at the scene.
This seems another example of complete ignorance of lethality of cars vs. pedestrians or cyclists. Can bicycles co-exist with car traffic on our roads, or are segregated bike lanes the only answer?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @08:58PM
As a cyclist myself, if there's one thing I hate more than the idea of a cyclist being run down by cager cops, it's those imbeciles who ride on the wrong side of the road (or the ones who ride after dark with no lights, but there's huge overlap between the groups), so...
(Score: 4, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Friday September 05 2014, @09:36PM
It doesn't matter whether you are on a bike or in a car. Both are wheeled vehicles and both have to follow the same laws. Cyclists riding around erratically, cutting off traffic, riding the wrong way, etc are just as bad as cars pulling the same dangerous stunts.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @09:47PM
> are just as bad as cars pulling the same dangerous stunts.
Come on. That's like saying breaking any law is equally bad whether it is shop-lifting or murder.
I'm not going to condone stupid bicycle tricks, so don't even go there. But basic physics make stupid bicycle tricks less dangerous than stupid car tricks because while the reactions of other drivers are going to be somewhat similar, mass x velocity means the damage the bicyclist can do directly is a lot less.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Friday September 05 2014, @10:22PM
Nitpick: it's mass x velocity^2, making it often a lot worse.
The other aggravating factor is who gets hurt more when colliding flesh vs metal/plastic/glass.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Friday September 05 2014, @10:24PM
I am not talking about the consequences. Both cars and bikes share the road and thus they need to follow the same rules. A bad cyclist is as bad as a bad motorist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @10:41PM
If consequences don't matter, how do you decide what is good and what is bad?
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:46AM
>Both cars and bikes share the road and thus they need to follow the same rules.
That's piss-poor logic. Cars and bikes have significant differences and need to have rules made based on their capabilities and limitations.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Pessime on Friday September 05 2014, @10:59PM
No its not. If you want to use that sort of analogy, its more like saying it's equally as bad for a man to murder someone as it is for a woman to murder someone under the same circumstances.
These laws are in place to protect people, and when they are regularly disregarded, it doesn't matter if its a car, or a bike, people will get hurt, and sometimes killed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @11:03PM
analogy fail, please try again
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday September 05 2014, @11:08PM
So a bike plowing into a fully loaded tanker truck of diesel fuel is just as much a problem as a car doing the same at a much higher velocity? The degree of harm (to people other than the lawbreaker) caused by the illegal activity should matter.
(Score: 1) by Username on Friday September 05 2014, @11:54PM
Yes. Well, maybe, if it was a car it might be less dangerous, there is more substance to cushion the impact. Less likelyhood of a fatality.
BTW Fuel doesn't explode in a collision.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:55AM
But fuel and air can. I suppose we shouldn't have our collisions in oxygen-rich atmospheres.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:05AM
Regardless of his apparent lack of respect for traffic law, the cops' behavior is the real story here. Had they acted appropriately, he would have been ticketed and got on with his night. Somebody further down in the comments linked to a local source that claims he wasn't even on his bike at the time, indicating further obstruction of justice by the police. Let's not focus the attention on people's frustration with cyclists and derail what the real issue is.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Saturday September 06 2014, @01:51AM
He may not be an idiot at all. He's just old enough that he MIGHT have been taught to ride opposite to traffic for safety.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @07:08PM
Whether he was taught to do that or not it seems a pretty stupid thing to do to me. Would you not call someone an idiot for jumping off a cliff just because they were told to?
It makes sense for walking as most people walk at maybe 4 mph their speed isn't going to make much difference to the outcome of an impact, so the pedestrian being able to see the danger is much more important than a small reduction in speed difference if a vehicle hit them. A cyclist on the other hand might be going 20+ mph, but 15 mph is perhaps a more reasonable figure, now in the case of a collision between a car going 30 mph and a bicycle going 15 mph, if they are going the same direction that is a relative impact speed of 15 mph, if they are going in opposite directions that is a relative impact speed of 45 mph, that can make a hell of a difference to the outcome.
(Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Sunday September 07 2014, @03:39AM
As a cyclist myself, if there's one thing I hate more than the idea of a cyclist being run down by cager cops, it's those imbeciles who ride on the wrong side of the road (or the ones who ride after dark with no lights, but there's huge overlap between the groups), so...
FYI, that was me. And I'm... well rather disturbed by the +4, Insightful that got.
I posted it as AC because it was a joke (note, joke) in questionable taste, and I thought it better to let the community judge whether it was worth seeing. I figured if the folks with modpoints found it more funny than offensive, they could mod it Funny; if vice versa, they could leave it rot at 0, or mod it down like the other similar comment. [soylentnews.org] What I absolutely did not expect was for it to be modded Insightful.
Would anyone care to explain how making light of police brutality, or suggesting it's ok if the victim was a pet peeve, is "insightful"?
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Friday September 12 2014, @06:28AM
methinks your joke was far too subtle... jokes usually have some sort of absurdity as opposed to what you wrote which could be considered a relatively normal opinion.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @09:01PM
Of course that idiot got what was coming to him.
Bicycling in the wrong direction is a capital offense.
Police just doing their job, move along, nothing to see here.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @09:03PM
Depends on your question.
Are segregated bike lanes a solution to accidents between bikes and cars? Sure.
Will they protect against intentional ramming? Probably not.
Will they address in any way the idea that a simple traffic violation warrants a potentially/likely lethal response? Hello, no!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Friday September 05 2014, @09:06PM
The article appears to describe the police actively seeing a cyclist (who might admittedly have been violating traffic laws), then deliberately running him over with a car, then trying to arrest a fatally injured man instead of calling the paramedics, then running him over again, then disturbing the scene of a fatal "accident" deliberately.
And the main question you want to ask about this horrific story is "Can bicycles co-exist with car traffic on our roads, or are segregated bike lanes the only answer?"
Really? The only story you see here is "What a shame, another cyclist struck by a car! Let's talk about bike lanes!"
This is like hearing a story where a cop shoots a man for jaywalking, then walks over and shoots him twice in the head just to be sure, then gets caught destroying the gun, and wondering "why can't people use the crosswalks?"
(Score: 2) by jcross on Friday September 05 2014, @09:22PM
Well said!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by idetuxs on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:04AM
Thank god, I thought I was the only sane person around.
(Score: 1, Troll) by nukkel on Saturday September 06 2014, @09:07PM
You were, up to the moment you invoked superman-in-the-sky to thank him
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @01:18AM
I think the OP was trying to use this story to spur discussion of how some drivers treat people on bikes with hostility and severely underestimate the damage they will do. The OP probably assumed that the situation is so obvious that there wouldn't be much to discuss about it (i.e. Did the officers use excessive force?).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday September 06 2014, @06:12PM
Yes, this article isn't only about bicycle lanes. It's about why a man died. Or it should be. Maybe the thinking that lead to this death should be called the Mushroom Syndrome or the Redshirt Syndrome.
Movies show this kind of disregard all the time. The story follows the main characters, and no one pays much attention to the lackeys being dropped like flies. Just saw November Man and it was chock full of that kind of thing. Entire teams of special agents under the command of the main characters get wiped out. We never hear anything about those guys, because they aren't important. Did they have families? Interesting hobbies and opinions? Did they sometimes think for themselves, didn't blindly follow orders? Who knows, and who cares. Move on. Once the "clutter" is out of the way, with a few splatters and rivulets of blood, the opposing characters have a nice moment of eye contact or a little chat, a bit of bluster and drama. Then they go their separate ways to think things over, refresh their weapons, and meet up again later, perhaps next time for a grand final.
Seems the man on the bicycle got reduced to an object, a "cyclist", and this reduction somehow reduced his humanity in the eyes of those cops. What else can explain their appalling behavior, their total callousness towards a fellow human whose only crime was bicycling the wrong way on a street? The 2nd time they ran over him no longer had anything to do with bikes. He could have still been alive, and that could be murder, done to silence the victim of their reckless disregard of human life.
(Score: 1) by fritsd on Saturday September 06 2014, @06:39PM
The dehumanization of the common henchman / redshirt is one of the very many things I liked about "Austin Powers: the Spy who Shagged me".
It wasn't clear from the story why the police officers murdered the cyclist.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Friday September 05 2014, @09:15PM
Can bicycles co-exist with car traffic on our roads, or are segregated bike lanes the only answer?
I can't speak for Canada, but in the United States? No. I used to live near a place where it WAS designed with bicycles in mind and basically they got their own path where most of the time they weren't near any cars. However, outside of that small area of town, it's just a collision waiting to happen. If I had my way I'd toss the law banning bicycles from sidewalks and have them ride there. I'm about 50/50 between being a driver and a pedestrian and I'd 10x rather get hit by a cyclist on foot than bump one with my car.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @09:50PM
> I'm about 50/50 between being a driver and a pedestrian and I'd 10x rather get hit by a cyclist on foot than bump one with my car.
You might, but anyone who isn't quite so able-bodied, like a child or an old lady, isn't going to have the same opinion.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday September 05 2014, @10:43PM
"You might, but anyone who isn't quite so able-bodied, like a child or an old lady, isn't going to have the same opinion."
My response to that should sound familiar to any cyclist who has gotten shouty in this debate: "Slow down, other people have to share the ro^H^H^Hsidewalk!"
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @11:01PM
> My response to that should sound familiar to any cyclist who has gotten shouty in this debate
You seem to be really turned around. Bicyclists would love to make sidewalk riding legal, they aren't the ones who have a problem with it. Just witness all the bad bikers who do ride on the sidewalk anyway. I get the impression that logic isn't what's driving you here, but rather a personal grudge against bike riders.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pnkwarhall on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:19AM
BS. No bicyclist who is seriously trying to get somewhere, you know, **commuting**, wants to ride on the sidewalk. Keep your comments to something you actually have a clue about.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @03:19AM
BS. You are doing that no true scottsman fallacy. In Los Angeles I've seen plenty of cyclists who riding on sidewalks and even more who ride in crosswalks. Maybe they don't qualify as "serious" but nevertheless there they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @09:57PM
Wrong. He did not say "any serious bicyclist", which would be "No True Scotsman", he said "any bicyclist who is seriously trying to get somewhere". There's a difference between people who are just casually riding along and people who are trying to get somewhere as fast as possible. People who are in a hurry (seriously trying to get somewhere) do not want to deal with going up and down curbs, dodging pedestrians, and dealing with all the holes and bumps in sidewalks; roads are straight-shot on smooth terrain, which allow you to gain and maintain more speed more easily. Anyone who is in a hurry will take the optimal path, which more often than not is the road. By definition, people who are not riding as fast as they can are not trying to get somewhere as fast possible.
Like usual, your incessant pedantry has caused you to fail to understand what was actually being said, leading you to claim your misunderstanding as what they said in order for you to attack it; I believe that is called a strawman.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:49AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 05 2014, @10:00PM
I can't speak to your area but the reason bicyclists were banned from the sidewalks in my area was because of the number of bike/pedestrian collisions that occurred, many resulting in injures to both parties, some quite serious. Broken bones, concussions, lacerations requiring stitches. Since then the sidewalks have gotten more crowded. You might prefer getting hit by a cyclist, I would prefer not having my mother spend 6 months recovering from a broken hip because some dickwad on a bike hit her as she left the corner market.
I'm all for biking, used to use one extensively for local errands before it was stolen, and I fully support bike lanes and paths but one thing I have noticed that pisses me off about bicyclists is the complete disregard to the traffic laws.
If cyclists want to use the road and want the same rights as other vehicles then they need to follow the same laws that govern the other vehicles. If your feet are up and you are on two wheels you are a vehicle, if you want the right of way as a pedestrian then walk your bike in the crosswalk.
I see cyclists blow through stop signs and lights without even looking at potential oncoming traffic. I've been flipped off by cyclists who blew through the stop sign on their side of the intersection and then got mad because I didn't slam on the brakes when they zipped out in front of me, even though I had right of way. Another thing I've seen is a cyclist using the cross walk to cross a street after blowing off a stop sign. Or as seems to have happened in this case going against traffic.
I digress.
Lets try and stay focused on what happened.
The real issue here is that a police office took inappropriate action against a person which resulted in the death of said person, then the cop ignored SOP for a crime scene and moved evidence, tampering with the crime scene. As to the cops loading the guy into the ambulance without him being on a stretcher that raises the question of what the fuck the EMTs in the ambulance were doing? Did they not have a chance to respond before the cop plunked the victim in the back or did the cop wave them off? Either way somebody did not follow procedures for a traffic accident and it caused/contributed to a fatality.
Many questions remain unanswered.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @10:20PM
> one thing I have noticed that pisses me off about bicyclists is the complete disregard to the traffic laws.
I can't find any numbers to back it up, buy my belief is that the number who are bad bikers is pretty small. You totally notice it when they act up, but all the other ones who do bike safely tend to become invisible. Cases of bad biking are vivid, but good good biking is a non-event. I say this as someone who hasn't owned a bike since grade-school.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @03:02AM
In that case, if you're ever in Dunedin, New Zealand, stand in the intersection by the Railway Station for a couple of hours, and watch. You'll see maybe a single car in a day run the red light, but you'll see dozens of cyclists.
We have some of the worst drivers in the country, but the cyclists are worse. They'll run their bikes into the middle of an intersection (on foot, so they're legally pedestrians) and then abuse people with the right-of-way. If there are two vehicles they can't ride between, the owners will find scratches on their vehicles because the cyclist forces his (usually) way between vehicles.
Stop and give way (or yield, I imagine?) signs are for motorists not cyclists, a good portion of them seem to feel. I ended up narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a vehicle coming in the other direction because a cyclist shot through the sign at the bottom of the hill.
One of our interview guests at work told me how she found a cyclist hanging onto her car for a free ride, one day.
I was nearly hit by a cyclist moving at more than 50km/h on a footpath, who cut corners. That would have put me in hospital.
Queue of traffic? Watch out, cyclists will move between vehicles (even when there is insufficient space to do so safely) to get to the head of the queue, and then they'll delay everyone by fucking around when taking off. On a hill? There's one cyclist who insists on riding up my rather steep hill every night at 6pm. The hill is too steep for him to ride in a straight line, so he weaves his way up in a single lane, at a top speed of around 5km/h. That's walking speed, and it's also illegal to move at that speed on the road without allowing vehicles to pass, but he's a cyclist! He can do what he likes.
One way streets are for cars, bikes can do what they like. If crossing lights are going and the intersection has a red light, the cyclist has a chance to go before the cars! If other cars are turning, they can get the hell out of the way!
A friend drives a bus, and he told me how two buses were parked side-by-side, waiting for the lights to change. The cyclist got off, and squeezed between them - just enough room for him to sneak along there, but he was touching both of them. The lights changed, and just by chance he'd been spotted by the drivers - if they'd moved, the cyclist would have been crushed to death.
I see cyclists breaking the law every day, in much greater numbers than drivers in the city with the worst drivers in my country. Quite honestly, it's terrifying.
(Score: 1) by boltronics on Sunday September 07 2014, @06:18AM
In that case, if you're ever in Dunedin, New Zealand, stand in the intersection by the Railway Station for a couple of hours, and watch. You'll see maybe a single car in a day run the red light, but you'll see dozens of cyclists.
I don't know about Dunedin (never visited NZ), but in Melbourne we have lots of traffic lights that have sensors to detect vehicles before changing. The only problem is they almost never detect bicycles! So if riding at night (as I do) where there is low traffic, you have the option of waiting maybe 15+ minutes waiting for a car to come along and be detected by the motion sensor, or running a red light.
Melbourne is supposed to be a bicycle-friendly city too - we have many dedicated bike lanes on our roads. But despite this, it's clear the people working to make the city bicycle-friendly do not ride bikes themselves.
I have to ride past the Melbourne Cricket Ground to get home as it actually has a shared bike path, whereas other nearby roads going the same direction have none - and are far too busy and dangerous for bicycles, at least unless you're able to average around 45km/h uphill. However when there's a football match on and there's a crowd, it's a challenge avoiding people. They put food trailers directly in the bike lanes. They put food trailers right on a sharp corner, and then have poles sticking out of the road just behind it - as if they want cyclists to get hurt. It could also easily result in a cyclist head-on collision as nobody can see around the sharp corner. Parking so close to a corder is normally illegal, but it's okay if it's a bike lane.
And I say all this as someone who does obey the road laws. I do always make a point to stop right before the line at a red light, whereas cars will more often than not drive past the line in their lane, and even past the pedestrian path! Presumably because they either like to pretend cyclists don't exist, or believe cyclists want to breath in exhaust fumes.
So in short, it's no wonder some cyclists don't always obey road rules. When cyclists are given the same considerations as cars in terms of rules and road infrastructure, cyclists should be punished (in the same way that laws for cars should be stricter). Until the people planning bike infrastructure actually use what they create, this isn't going to happen any time soon.
They'll run their bikes into the middle of an intersection (on foot, so they're legally pedestrians) and then abuse people with the right-of-way.
Unlike cars, bikes regularly have parking on a corner. So yeah, they need to get onto the road somehow, and that's likely the safest way to do it - even if it's an inconvenience to you! Also, I (like many city cyclists) regularly do hook-turns where riding on the inside turning lane is too dangerous due to traffic moving too fast (and cars would be pissed off at me if I tried riding on the inside lane anyway). Even the Melbourne council implies cyclists should do this, based on the green sections on the road reserved for bikes - where there is always a section right up the front at intersections for bicycles (and bike lanes usually extend closer to the actual intersection than car lanes). This also helps make drivers (with limited vision) more aware of nearby cyclists.
As for cars getting scratched, I'm not amazed - the amount of times cars take up most of a bike lane (in addition to their car lane) leaving almost no room been them and parked cars - I have no sympathy for those people. This is especially true when cars do it right in front of cyclists and almost hit them, which has happened to me on a number of occasions. If they did it to a car lane, they would have an accident on their hands - so they should consider themselves lucky if the vehicle was only scratched and nobody was hurt. If you can't stay in your lane, you shouldn't be on the road. This goes for bikes as well - when they actually have lanes.
Stop and give way (or yield, I imagine?) signs are for motorists not cyclists, a good portion of them seem to feel. I ended up narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a vehicle coming in the other direction because a cyclist shot through the sign at the bottom of the hill.
There are some real dickhead cyclists on the roads, that I cannot deny. The same can also be said about drivers and pedestrians. They all have their share of idiots. When riding slowly past the MCG when a game is on, the traffic is crazy, I have the right of way, but people tend to forget that they're crowding around a shared footpath (with bike signs), some people will just walk right in front of you and not care if you have to stop. Extremely selfish people who don't care about road rules or other people in general. Other people who accidentally walk in the way will take a step back and are real apologetic and extremely nice about it, and I do my best to show them the same level of politeness in return - mistakes happen (and crowds can be hard to navigate). All transport options have their share of good and bad people.
I was nearly hit by a cyclist moving at more than 50km/h on a footpath, who cut corners. That would have put me in hospital.
That's an impressive feat. I consider myself quite fit when it comes to cycling. According to my GPS, I've been able to almost hit 60km/h going down a steep hill on my mountain bike, when road conditions (wind, traffic, road surface, etc.) are favourable. Sounds like you might be exaggerating just a bit, but I see where you're coming from. But it's important to recognise that it's not a problem with all cyclists. Let me counter this with some of the problems I have had (as a cyclist) with cars in my recent past:
These are my most memorable accidents and near-misses over the last ~2 years, and incidentally each time the car was at fault. And don't even get me started on the number of times I've almost been "doored" from people getting out of parked cars. Does that mean that I think all drivers are maniacs? Of course not - there are some really great drivers out there. While it may be convenient, you can't group everyone together and judge them the same. This goes for anything - #gamergate, free software supporters, different kinds of religions... anything really.
There was also one time I was in the wrong and almost got hit where after unlocking my bike I was moving out onto the road but waited for a car before doing so. Unfortunately I didn't check the bike lane again (which was difficult due to all the parked cars near the bike racks) and came out nearly in front of a fast-moving cyclist. We didn't hit or anything but I'll never forget it because it was the one time were I was in the wrong. Since this was all brought up to counter your example, you could say it's also noteworthy that it was with another cyclist, and not a car. However I personally don't think it matters. Mistakes happen to everyone. The only difference is that when a car is involved, it's often lethal.
FWIW, I don't drive because:
I have a car driver license (both automatic and manual transmission) and could easily afford a car if I wanted one, but I absolutely do not want to go down that road (pun intended). :)
That's walking speed, and it's also illegal to move at that speed on the road without allowing vehicles to pass, but he's a cyclist!
It's actually really hard to ride at 5km/s. When I go up the steepest hill in my area, the slowest I go (in worst conditions) is around 15km/h. Probably NZ has steeper hills, but everyone is entitled to ride on the road. Not everyone is entitled to drive (eg. people under a certain age, people who cannot afford a vehicle, etc). So bicycle lanes shouldn't be an option - they should be mandatory! At least for any new road. I understand that many old roads weren't necessarily built with cars in mind (or at least the kind of traffic conditions we have today) either. This is a good reason why even people who do not cycle should voice support to their local council to better support bike infrastructure.
Having said all of that, I actually have a similar problem with cars! The street I live on has recently had the council add three large speed humps along the road, and the whole street has been much quieter as a result. Great. Now as a cyclist on a mountain bike, I can go over these with almost no loss in speed (~35km/h). But cars will race to overtake me before the first hump, and then will drive at around 20km/h or slower all along the street. It has no bicycle lane, and each side of the road only has one lane. That means I can only overtake if there is no oncoming traffic... but the cars are so slow and so often they just overtook me! It's as if cars have this expectation that just because I'm a cyclist, I'm going to be slower than they are. That may sometimes be true, but it's certainly not always true and you can't just make that assumption. I used to race road bikes when I was in school, and I regularly do overtake cars even on the mountain bike I ride now.
Another reason this is a concern is that cars often turn into a side-street past the bike lane, without checking for bike traffic. One of these days I'm going to get hit because they didn't bother to check, thinking "I'm a car, cyclists are slow, therefore I don't need to check for them". Gah!
One way streets are for cars, bikes can do what they like.
Not in my experience. Sounds like something your local police department aren't bothering to enforce. That can probably be attributed to many of the complaints we both seem to have.
If crossing lights are going and the intersection has a red light, the cyclist has a chance to go before the cars! If other cars are turning, they can get the hell out of the way!
As discussed above, that is indeed correct. At least in Victoria - have a look at the green sections of the road reserved for bicycles. It's for human safety - bikes need to be out in front. Bike lanes do not extend to the middle lanes as the traffic is often too slow for cars - some cyclists cannot keep pace with vehicle traffic. So what happens when a car wants to turn in front of a cycling lane and a cyclist wants to go straight (or turn in the opposite direction to the side of the road that the bike lane is on)? Obviously the safest thing is for the bikes to be up front where they are clearly visible, because cars do not have the same level of vision as a cyclist has, and bikes are generally slower to accelerate from a stop position.
I see cyclists breaking the law every day, in much greater numbers than drivers in the city with the worst drivers in my country.
I have to say I see drivers breaking the law far more often. Cyclists should break the law more often because road infrastructure does not cater to them as well, and there are more dangers. However, cars still win out because there are simply so many more of them. If you just count the number of cars who fail to stop behind the line at an intersection, and nothing else, you would see cars break the law far more often than cyclists do. You only notice cyclists more because they stand out more when they do something wrong, largely because the things they can do are impossible for a car to get away with.
A friend drives a bus, and he told me how two buses were parked side-by-side, waiting for the lights to change. The cyclist got off, and squeezed between them - just enough room for him to sneak along there
People squeezing in places on the road where they are not supposed to go. Hmm, yes, that sounds familiar. Here's a photo [systemsaviour.com] I took at an intersection last year. :)
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday September 06 2014, @06:37AM
Around where I live you notice the one who DO follow the law more than the ones who don't. And I'm not the only person I know who has commented on it, including a friend who used to bike to work every day. He confirmed that most of the other bicyclists he had seen didn't follow the laws. Though I'm glad to hear that it is different in other places, gives me some hope there might be a local outbreak of sanity someday.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @08:24AM
How do you know what you don't notice?
(Score: 3, Informative) by iwoloschin on Saturday September 06 2014, @01:36PM
I think the problem is bad cyclists are more egregious in their infractions. I commute by bicycle year round near Boston, MA, and I make sure to follow all of the rules of the road. If I'm at the front of the line for a red light and a cyclists squeezes past and runs the red, it's very visible and obvious and pisses everyone else off. On the flip side, if a driver tries to right hook me (I'm going straight, and they try to turn right across the bicycle lane without checking for cyclists) most other drivers do not see it or realize that something dangerous just occurred. Yet most of the time, that right hook is far more dangerous than the idiot cyclist running a red.
Bicycles and cars can easily coexist on the same roads. It just requires both parties actually follow the rules of the road. As a cyclist I do my best to be knowledgeable of the rules and operate within them, I just wish more drivers took as much interest in understanding the rules of the road (which, oh, by the way, is a requirement of possessing a driver's license...).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @08:41PM
Here in the U.S., I can assure you that's not at all the case. I ride regularly, and when I was working, commuted on my bicycle. As a result, I am probably more aware of other cyclists than drivers are. The ratio of legal (follows the rules of the road) to illegal (any other) cyclists is a minimum of 10 to 1, and I'm being very conservative. I'm in the first camp (I'm pickier about the RotR than most drivers; for instance, I come to a full stop at every stop sign [which requires putting one foot down] so others can see that I'm playing fair.) Any week in which I encounter more than one other cyclist doing likewise is an unusual one, and I see dozens of bozos in that time span. On one never-to-be-forgotten day, I was taking an organized cycle tour of historical places in town, and was almost run over by the others when I came to the first stop sign. Even sadder, later we came to a light just turned red, and all stopped, but the crossing driver (with the green light) waved us through, and wouldn't continue until we had persuaded her that we weren't budging. You know its bad when even the motorists believe the cyclists should break the law.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday September 05 2014, @10:37PM
"I can't speak to your area but the reason bicyclists were banned from the sidewalks in my area was because of the number of bike/pedestrian collisions that occurred, many resulting in injures to both parties, some quite serious."
If that's true it's kind of funny. The first thing cyclists do when they get into this debate is put 100% of the blame of all accidents on drivers. But if they actually did get booted off of sidewalks for providing an endless supply of collisions...
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @10:08PM
Great job at intentionally ignoring context to feel smug! When they blame all accidents on drivers, its generally understood that they're talking about accidents between cars and bicycles; why would pedestrians be relevant in that discussion?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday September 06 2014, @10:27PM
"...why would pedestrians be relevant in that discussion?"
... umm... because we were talking about cyclists being banned from riding on sidewalks because they were colliding with pedestrians?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Insightful) by strength_of_10_men on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:44AM
While bikes sharing the road with cars seems dangerous due to the speed and momentum differential, it is mitigated by the fact that (ideally) both should follow the same rules, meaning that anticipation of each others' movements are possible.
I am a biker and I make it a point to come to a stop at all lights and stop signs just to provide a counter-point to motorists that not all bikers are rule flaunting pricks. You'd be surprised at how confused this makes some motorists, which in itself is a sad state of affairs. I also try to kindly suggest to bikers who break the road rules that they should make more of an effort to follow the rules, at least when cars are around and have gotten very hostile responses. Sigh. I hate bikers sometimes.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Friday September 05 2014, @09:26PM
Thank goodness they have free health care in Quebec!
Seriously though, people that protect and serve like this should be shit-canned on the spot. They could have just beat his ass to near death with their retractable batons (ASP 21"). Who knows, maybe they already had a long hard day of drinking and beating the fuck out of people... those batons don't swing themselves you know.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @10:10PM
FTFY
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @09:58PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @10:47PM
Seems that the only reasonable thing to do is to stay very far away from police there. Running someone over twice, killing them and corrupting evidence just for that. For your sake I hope you will never be in sight of a police officer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @02:17AM
And they wonder why even the innocent runs from the cops.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:04PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @01:33PM
the corrupting evidence on a crime they did, is a confession of guilt as far as I'm concerned
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @03:05AM
Sounds a little bit like he did something stupid - a misdemeanor, but they are criminally negligent, guilty of all sorts of crimes.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 08 2014, @06:14AM
Cops in NYC treat cyclists as not-human, too. They overlook any number of vehicular infractions, double-parking, parking in a bike lane, failing to yield to pedestrians in a cross walk, running red lights, illegal u-turns, speeding, failing to signal, and on and on, but the moment a cyclist begins to move through an intersection before the light turns green, instant citation! And if a cyclist or pedestrian should be run down by a driver operating his vehicle recklessly, it's not even a ticket and summons, but "mistakes were made."
Washington DC delenda est.