For those who don’t know that area, there are multi-use paths (north and south side) separated from the road on Victoria St, where this cyclist was hit.
For a car to hit someone, they would need to be turning in or out of the business entrances without stopping/looking, which would mean they were at fault 100%.
No charges have been laid, but hopefully this will change.
Far too many cyclists being killed in Ontario. When are we going to take things seriously?
IMO, even if the cyclist wasn’t “riding safely”, the onus of ensuring safe roads should be on the people driving tons of steel at high speeds, as well as the various levels of governments involved in a city’s infrastructure. I’m not familiar with the area, but the comment you originally replied to indicates that the infra where the incident happened was bike-friendly (at least for Canadian standards, which are admittedly quite low).
I agree with not jumping to conclusions, but I find odd your decision to jump to the defense of the motorist. No amount of “safe cycling” can protect you from over a ton of metal ramming into you at speed.
(Also, I’m curious as to why you seem to dislike /r/fuckcars. I have a hard time imagining anyone who cycles not being on the fuckcars-bandwagon. I guess people who see cycling purely as a hobby/sport and not a utilitarian means of transportation, because in my experience anyone who cycles around cars long enough usually isn’t a fan of them.)
What world do you live in where I jumped to the defense of anyone? I merely made an opposite assumption, to prove either assumption could be right and that we shouldn’t assume anything unless we get all the facts.
I hate /r/fuckcars but it’s pure reactionary garbage where people who seem to not have cars, shit on people who do. Saying guys with large trucks have small penises or no one should ever own a car for any reason etc. It’s childish pure and simple.
I live in a city where we have bike paths nowhere near roads so when I cycle in, or scooter in, it’s a non-issue. When I drive, I often see cyclists in the middle of the road as if they were a car so they end up blocking traffic. I can see why people hate on both sides, but I don’t subscribe to hating someone for doing something different than me. /r/fuckcars embodies that hate.
Suggesting that the victim riding “unsafely” was the cause for their death and not the person driving the very dangerous vehicle around other humans kinda is defending the motorist, though. Unless the victim suicidally leaped in front of a moving car (which I doubt, but could happen I guess), saying the manner in which the cyclist was riding is relevant at all is a defense of the driver. I agree we shouldn’t necessarily say the motorist was driving recklessly without more context, but even if they weren’t being reckless you’re still defending them.
I agree that some people take the fuckcars rhetoric too far, but have you seen or heard the kinds of things motorists say about cyclists? Check around FB pages local to you for any posts relating to cyclists, and you’ll see people unironically wishing they could murder people with their vehicles. Does this justify shitting on everyone who ever uses a car? Of course not, but I think it explains it a bit. It takes a lot of effort to not make it into an “us vs them” thing when the a lot of motorists see a cyclist simply existing as an attack on their person and their lifestyle.
This is an infrastructure issue, not an individual issue. If people are opting to be in the middle of the road rather than a bike lane, then what you have is a bad bike lane, not bad cyclists.
This I completely agree with, the amount of body-shaming I saw on /r/fuckcars was pretty disgusting. I’ve always been one to shame people for their idiotic actions and decisions (like driving a truck in an urban area) rather than the imagined size of a body part.