Cleared of killing a cyclist

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Kizibu

Well-Known Member

This headline (Report into DfT casualty stats says cyclists not to blame in 93 per cent of cases)
is rubbish. The 7% of accidents attributable to cyclists refers to those mentioned in the first sentence only, those involving "​
Bike riders tearing through red lights, wearing dark clothing or riding at night without lights"
not all accidents involving cyclists. .​

Neither the headline nor the article accurately represent the findings of the TRL report it is supposed to be based on in my view.

The TRL report states in several places that responsibility for causing reported accidents in which cyclists are killed or injured is split "fairly equally" between cyclists and drivers by the police investigating the accidents.

The claim that the police attribute "blame to the driver in up to three quarters of collisions between a bicycle and other vehicle " is technically true but so highly misleading that its nonsense. Its based on the fact that cyclists of different age groups were more or less likely to be blamed for accidents. Overall for cyclists of all age groups blame is roughly equally apportioned between bikers and motorists though it says children might be blamed unfairly when its their word against an adult driver.

The only accidents where drivers were blamed 75% of the time were slight accidents involving the oldest riders aged 40-99. Where cyclists are killed, cyclists are blamed more often than motorists. But that may be a case of deadmen tell no tales. In serious accidents (where the cyclist survives to give their version) slightly more are blamed on motorists than cyclists - but only slightly more. In about 10% of cases both cyclist and motorist are held to have contributed to the accident. Edited to correct attribution of article and headline at 2312.
 

steveindenmark

Legendary Member
It is very sad that this cyclist has died in this way. Apparently, of no fault of her own.

But members of the forum have decided that the jury were not cyclists and in fact they were too fat to be cyclists. How this has been decided is beyond me but it is obviously been decided just to put weight on our end of the arguement. It does not add anything to our credibility as far as I am concerned.

I have looked at that road and it is not a place I would like to ride at any time, never mind rush hour traffic.

I don`t know how the van driver got away with it. But we cannot complain every time a decision goes against a cyclist. Especially when the whole story is not known to us.

Steve
 
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