A film of a cyclist being totalled by a car turning into a junction after he undertook a line of stationary traffic has divided Australia.
The video, posted on DashCamOwnersAustralia’s Facebook page, shows a cyclist in Bedford Park, Adelaide speeding up the inside of two rows of cars.
The page admins wrote: “Cyclist has a lucky escape from serious injury after t-boning a turning car. He was shaken up but appeared largely unhurt.”
Users were entirely divided, with fierce debate in the ensuing comments.
One wrote: “In my opinion, the cyclist brought that on himself.
“It seems it hasn’t clicked for cyclists yet. That you need to take responsibility for your own safety on the road.”
Another said: “Cyclist had right of way, but should he really be riding that fast though an intersection that is backed up? Surely he can look ahead, see theres a gap and think “hmmm maybe i should look out for people coming through”. It’s not like the car would of seen him anyway” [sic].
One was more sympathetic, saying: “I’m a cyclist and honestly this will happen without bike paths. The rider is going too fast and the car had no chance of seeing, even if he inched out. Its a 50/50. If I was riding id be slowing right down out of common sense.”
One more added: “Legally, car at fault, however, a little bit of common sense on the part of the cyclist would have been to slow down through that section.”
27 thoughts on “VIDEO: Undertaking cyclist collision divides Australia”
Must we have a motor vehicle
Must we have a motor vehicle takes out cyclist article every single day? The debates rage on, but the arguments within never change.
Hope the guy is ok, I’m glad < 5% of my rides are spent alongside heavy traffic.
I don’t know the road layout,
I don’t know the road layout, obviously, but I’d say the cyclist was ill-advised to just cruise on through.
Been there, done that, got
Been there, done that, got the bike fixed. Police prosecuted the driver; court found the driver guilty; driver paid his debt to society; his insurance paid the bill for my bike. No different from the video, only the jurisdiction has changed.
I am, however, a little bit more circumspect in similar conditions now.
ConcordeCX wrote:
me too , exactly the same incident ,exactly the same outcomes .except I flew over the roof of the car . I too take it a bit easier now around banked up traffic .
If the rules are the same as
If the rules are the same as the UK, the driver legally is in the wrong. Sense wise, the rider should of taken extra care approaching junctions for their own safety.
I always slow right down in towns for the fear of drivers doing unplanned manoeuvres
“It seems it hasn’t clicked
“It seems it hasn’t clicked for cyclists yet. That you need to take responsibility for your own safety on the road.”
By this logic drivers of thirty odd ton lorries can drive anyway they like as they are unlikely to be injured in the vast majority of collisions and any injuries inflicted on others isn’t their fault. What an idiot!
spen wrote:
well, I don’t think it’s clicked for truck drivers either. Or home-owners, come to that.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/viral-video/12159535/Dashcam-footage-shows-truck-crash-into-house-after-being-struck-by-another-vehicle.html
ConcordeCX wrote:
I’ll be honest in that I very rarely take my house out for a spin…
Sorry but it appears to me
Sorry but it appears to me that It is not a cyclist undertaking cars but a cyclist using the dedicated cycle lane
Surely cyclists aren’t expected to stop on a clear and flowing cycle lane just because the traffic lanes have stopped
The driver should have checked before crossing a cycle lane
I bet he wouldn’t have crossed a third traffic lane without checking if it was clear first
Sloppy driving IMO
KalBoy wrote:
Sorry but Youtube is rife with video of drivers doing exactly what you bet wouldn’t happen.
leqin wrote:
you’re so right…so this tells me the cyclist probably isn’t at fault
Dedicated cycle lane.
Dedicated cycle lane.
So expected to use them, but then not allowed to use them?
“I’m a cyclist and honestly
“The rider is going too fast and the car had no chance of seeing, even if he inched out.”
One more added: “Legally, car at fault, however, a little bit of common sense on the part of the cyclist would have been to slow down through that section.”
Both of these comments demonstrate how far we still have to go in drivers accepting responsibility for their actions; “…the car had no chance of seeing” and “Legally, car at fault…..”
Neither assign blame to the driver, but both blame the car. The car doesn’t make decisions, cars don’t just pull across a junction, cars don’t do anything, drivers do.
The assumption that the car is at fault, not the driver, is so common in today’s society that it doesn’t raise an eyebrow, but it implicity excuses the driver from fault. Any report, any article, any quote, that blames the car not the driver, should be challenged and corrected, otherwise drivers will continue to mow down other road users and escape responsibility for their actions.
burtthebike wrote:
It’s called ‘metonymy’. It’s not an assumption that the car is at fault, it’s a figure of speech, a type of metaphor. You’re being overly literal in your reading.
ConcordeCX wrote:
No he’s not, otherwise it would also be “the bike was clearly at fault” or the cycle was legally in the wrong” to redress the balance but those comments are never made, it’s always “the cyclist.” With drivers it’s always their vehicle. The human element is removed subconsciously to depersonalise it and deflect blame and accountability. Because it’s everyone’s birthright to control a lump of metal and nobody better get in the way.
ConcordeCX wrote:
And ‘figures of speech’ become such for what reason, exactly? The trouble is you aren’t explaining anything here, you are just restating the problem. You need to then ask why that form has become a ‘figure of speech’ while the equivalent for cycle and pedestrian collisions and crashes have not.
Last time this came up someone claimed we get things like ‘the car lost control, mounted the pavement and flipped over, trapping the motorist’ because to say ‘the driver lost control, drove onto the pavement, and flipped the car’ would be legally bad for journalists because it would imply blaming the driver before it was legally proven. Which I agree sounds plausible.
But then within a day I saw a headline saying something like ‘cyclist hits pedestrian and seriously injures them’ to describe a collision between….er… a bike and…er…I suppose one is obliged to say ‘a pair of shoes’, to continue this form of language.
So I’m not convinced by the case for this driver-erasing language.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
It’s called ‘metonymy’. It’s not an assumption that the car is at fault, it’s a figure of speech, a type of metaphor. You’re being overly literal in your reading.
— ConcordeCX And ‘figures of speech’ become such for what reason, exactly? The trouble is you aren’t explaining anything here, you are just restating the problem. You need to then ask why that form has become a ‘figure of speech’ while the equivalent for cycle and pedestrian collisions and crashes have not. Last time this came up someone claimed we get things like ‘the car lost control, mounted the pavement and flipped over, trapping the motorist’ because to say ‘the driver lost control, drove onto the pavement, and flipped the car’ would be legally bad for journalists because it would imply blaming the driver before it was legally proven. Which I agree sounds plausible. But then within a day I saw a headline saying something like ‘cyclist hits pedestrian and seriously injures them’ to describe a collision between….er… a bike and…er…I suppose one is obliged to say ‘a pair of shoes’, to continue this form of language. So I’m not convinced by the case for this driver-erasing language.[/quote]
they become figures of speech for any number of reasons, not just one, and are then used for multiple purposes.
The important point is that normal adults do not take them literally.
So for example, if you read that the Vatican has fired a broadside at Washington for using the term “Mother of all bombs”. The White House has responded by bla, bla, you do not believe that
and you assume that other normal adults do not believe that either, and do not need the metonymic character to be explained to them.
If an adult takes this driver one literally then they have some sort of mental or psychological problem; if they think other adults take it literally and need to be told that it’s not really the cars doing it, then they’re not granting to others the same intelligence they credit themselves with.
ConcordeCX wrote:
You seem to be deliberately failing to grasp the point. It’s not necessary for anyone to ‘take something literally’ for a constant use of language to influence how people think about something. There’s a continuum between ‘taking something literally’ and not being affected by it at all – why pretend there isn’t?
And none of your examples address the point – that motorists get erased from the picture in a way that other modes of travel are not. Cars tend to be seen as inanimate forces of nature with no moral agency, something which clearly influences the way juries and other parts of the justice system thinks about things.
Also, come to think of it, your examples are silly, because ‘The White House’ or ‘The Vatican’ are institutions, with a legal definition far beyond that of just their current boss – neither is remotely analogous to a car with a single driver.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
If an adult takes this driver one literally then they have some sort of mental or psychological problem; if they think other adults take it literally and need to be told that it’s not really the cars doing it, then they’re not granting to others the same intelligence they credit themselves with.
— FluffyKittenofTindalos You seem to be deliberately failing to grasp the point. It’s not necessary for anyone to ‘take something literally’ for a constant use of language to influence how people think about something.— ConcordeCX
I think FluffyKittenofTindalos is correct (racism and misogyny being two leading examples of this kind of thing), but ConcordeCX used the “metonymic character” in a sentence, which is like using Z on a triple letter score in scrabble as far as I am concerned.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
It’s called ‘metonymy’. It’s not an assumption that the car is at fault, it’s a figure of speech, a type of metaphor. You’re being overly literal in your reading.
— ConcordeCX And ‘figures of speech’ become such for what reason, exactly? The trouble is you aren’t explaining anything here, you are just restating the problem. You need to then ask why that form has become a ‘figure of speech’ while the equivalent for cycle and pedestrian collisions and crashes have not. Last time this came up someone claimed we get things like ‘the car lost control, mounted the pavement and flipped over, trapping the motorist’ because to say ‘the driver lost control, drove onto the pavement, and flipped the car’ would be legally bad for journalists because it would imply blaming the driver before it was legally proven. Which I agree sounds plausible. But then within a day I saw a headline saying something like ‘cyclist hits pedestrian and seriously injures them’ to describe a collision between….er… a bike and…er…I suppose one is obliged to say ‘a pair of shoes’, to continue this form of language. So I’m not convinced by the case for this driver-erasing language.— burtthebike
this is consisent with other language and perceptions – the cyclist is active, aggressive, terorrizing the poor motorists – the driver is by contrast the passive, emasculated, victim of the “war on motorists”
despite the obvious rhetoric – there’s a nugget of truth there – the driver is physically passive, sedentary, and also in some ways identified with the car (eg. an audi driver, or someone who drives a jag!), the protective box doubles as a prison cell – no wonder there is frustration there
the cyclist is on the other hand somewhat naked from not being “clothed” in a metal box and therefore exposed and vulnerable, has nothing to hide behind – and so is placed in the contadictory position of being both more threatening and more vulnerable at the same time!
ConcordeCX wrote:
This isn’t a metonym: bolox.
According to Wikipedia, the definition of a metonym is “A metonym is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept.” Now call me pedantic, but a car is not a driver, and a driver is not a car, and using one for the other is not metonymy, it is a socially acceptable way to deflect blame from the driver.
Both.
Both.
“Undertaking cyclist
“Undertaking cyclist collision divides Australia”
… into those who despise cyclists and those who merely want them dead.
Good time to sign the Turning
Good time to sign the Turning the Corner petition and write to your MP to ask them if they will support it in Parliament if they are elected.
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/campaigning/article/20170315-Petition-with-27-000-signatures-handed-in-to-DfT–as-Chris-Boardman-launches-next-stage-of-Turning-the-Corner-campaign
Perhaps motorists shouldn’t
Perhaps motorists shouldn’t turn across active lanes that are backed up since they wouldn’t be able to ensure that all of them (including the bike lane) are clear.
That’s no different than saying that perhaps the cyclist shouldn’t have been going so fast near stopped traffic.
There is no way that the turning vehicle could have seen all lanes in order to make that turn safely.
It’s clear cut. The driver is
It’s clear cut. The driver is 100% at fault. He is turning across a line of traffic; it it his responsibility, and his alone, to check his path is totally clear. That means taking the turn very slowly.
having said that, I rode as a bike courier for 10 years in London, and never once crashed despite many near misses, as you learn to check absolutely everything, all the time.
Cyclists are visibly human
Cyclists are visibly human beings (who have somehow acquired wheels), and so are regarded as such when it comes to moral responsibility. Drivers are not so much, and there seems to be a resultant tendency to view them and their cars as forces of nature.. And hence not to be subjected to moral judgement – it being other people’s responsibility to stay out of their way, much as with hurricanes and avalanches.
When cycling I’ve been flagged down by a pedestrian asking for money for the proverbial ‘cup of tea’. I doubt that happens to drivers.