Is this BBC report fair. Opinions wanted before I complain.

Gman59c wrote:Equating the

Gman59c wrote:

Equating the way cyclists are treated in the media to racism is really poor taste.

Prejudice is prejudice, it is judging a person based on their race, sex religion, disability, age, sexual type, etc.

All prejudices are wrong, I don’t think you understood the purpose of my post and I don’t see why it is in poor taste at all. Britain has a serious anti-cycling prejudices, this silly idea that cycling is for children or cyclists should only be mountain biking off-road, or all cyclists are law-breakers.

If you think my post is in bad taste then you need to explain why. The prejudices I have met on the road have been life-threatening at times, the behavior of some anti-cyclist drivers is scary, they have 2-ton weapons and when they are careless with them, they just get a slap on the wrist, if anything.

It’s an opinion piece, so I
It’s an opinion piece, so I reckon it’s fair enough. And from what I have observed on the roads, I can understand their point of view. There are some real kamikazis out there on bikes who are quite prepared to take on a bus.

AFAIK
“a bicycle collided
AFAIK

“a bicycle collided with a bus” is less neutral than “there was a collision involving a bus and bicycle”.

Granted, the former is a more engaging way of writing the copy and more interesting for the reader. It is also one commonly used.

I think we can argue semantics all day and not come to any conclusion or meeting of minds and that certainly seems to be the case here.

The “collided with” quote was from the BBC and it was one we were attempting to find a better use of language to describe so that, perhaps, ultimately we can suggest to the BBC and others (when their report p*ss us off) that they might attempt to alter the editorial to find a better way of expressing the incident without inference, through what might be lazy or populist journalism, that it was the cyclist who was the cause of the event. I guess if you think it’s neutral there’s no inference there. To me there is – even if it’s just a hint.

If you consider, for example, over these last few weeks that the headlines had been:

“tipper truck collides with cyclist”
“London bus collides with cyclist”
“HGV collides with cyclist”

rather than (for example)

“cyclist collides with tipper truck”
“cyclist collides with London bus”
“cyclist collides with HGV”

to me, at least, the inference is clear.

felixcat

felixcat wrote:

GoingRoundInCycles wrote:

Both the Earth and an asteroid are in motion. A wall isn’t ….. well relative to the cyclist although it is attached to a planet travelling at very high speed. … as is the cyclist ….

my head hurts. :B

It is because the wall is stationary that it becomes apparent that the word order does make a difference. If the positioning of the words in the sentence made no difference to its meaning it would be possible to reverse the sentence and still make sense, since the meaning would be the same whichever way round.

Because the wall is stationary it becomes apparent that ‘collision with’, is not appropriate at all in the sentence “wall collides with cyclist” as in the non-Physics sense, walls do not move. Most people would write that as “cyclist crashes into wall”.

But “bicycle in collision with car” and “car in collision with bicycle” mean exactly the same thing, if both were moving at the time of the collision. They came together ….. Not in that sense, obviously.

Words. :S

edit

or put more intelligently, wot Dave just said ^^^

GoingRoundInCycles wrote:Both

GoingRoundInCycles wrote:

Both the Earth and an asteroid are in motion. A wall isn’t ….. well relative to the cyclist although it is attached to a planet travelling at very high speed. … as is the cyclist ….

my head hurts. :B

It is because the wall is stationary that it becomes apparent that the word order does make a difference. If the positioning of the words in the sentence made no difference to its meaning it would be possible to reverse the sentence and still make sense, since the meaning would be the same whichever way round.

Both the Earth and an
Both the Earth and an asteroid are in motion. A wall isn’t ….. well relative to the cyclist although it is attached to a planet travelling at very high speed. … as is the cyclist ….

my head hurts. :B

Luminosity

Luminosity wrote:

Simon_MacMichael wrote:

Saying that a cyclist, car, whatever, was “in a collision” with another vehicle isn’t “factually inaccurate” – it’s neutral

Sorry to disagree but it’s not – and it all comes down to semantics.

“a bus today was in a collision with a bicycle”

“a cyclist today was in a collision with a bus”

In the first instance what people will generally glean is that is was the BUS that did the colliding; in the second that it was the CYCLIST.

“an accident involving” is neutral.

In both cases those people would be wrong. Collide simply means to come together which is why “collide with” makes sense and “collide into” does not.

“The Earth collides with an asteroid” and “an asteroid collides with the Earth” mean exactly the same thing. The only difference is which object you consider to be the most important when you structure your sentence.

A headline like,

Cyclist seriously injured in collision with bus

Is correct, IMO, as the injury to the cyclist is more important than the existence of a collision.

Bus in collision with seriously injured cyclist

Is misleading. Was the cyclist seriously injured before the collision?

Bus in collision with cyclist who suffers serious injuries

Is unwieldy and makes the collision the subject of the sentence with the serious injuries as just additional information, which is inappropriate IMO.

Accident? How do we know that it was an accident until the collision has been thoroughly investigated? Maybe it was no accident, a jealous partner paid someone to run the unfortunate cyclist down on the way home from work?

We know for sure that a collision has taken place. IMO it is the most appropriate word to use in these circumstances, but never ‘collide into’.

“Crash into” is only appropriate when a moving object hits a stationary one.

I think the whole point here
I think the whole point here was to discuss such use of language as:

“cyclist died after colliding with lorry”