You never hear what colour was the car, whether driver had windows rolled up or down, wearing seatbelt, listening to music, or headlights on. But when the cyclist is the victim, suddenly everything can be used to blame them 🤔
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
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the taxi driver’s view may have been blocked by traffic signs.
Quick quiz, what do you do when you cannot see if it is safe to proceed on entering a roundabout?
Floor it!
anyone have that meme where the view of a driver of a cyclist with and without hi-viz and both are just the driver's cell phone?
The article lists four things about the cyclist.
- "not wearing a helmet"
Admittedly a no-go for me. There a lots of options for anyone.
- "was wearing “relatively” dark clothing"
"Relatively" already gives the impression that we aren't talking black, just that it wasn't a signal or hi-vis color.
- "using an earphone"
This wording makes me think the cyclist used one earbud and not both or full headphones. So he could hear his surroundings well.
- "his front light may not have been working"
Not even a fact, but a possibility.
To summarize, he was a traffic participant in a non-signal color, listening to music. That's it.
Of course cyclist are more vulnerable than cars, but anyone who sees fault in the cyclist behavior is often overlooking similar or worse behavior in drivers.
Nobody ever asks the owner of a black car if they have a death wish or ask someone to turn of the radio, because they can't hear the traffic as well.
I wish people would hold all traffic participants to the same standards.
More importantly the driver hit the cyclist from behind. The front light, helmet and earphones are all irrelevant to the accident. It doesn't matter if you hear that a car is behind you or not, if the car just slams into you. If you cycle somewhere except extremely rural areas you will hear cars all the time and you can't turn around to look at every car approaching form behing
What would be relevant instead are back lights and reflectors. The article mentions that the police had found a back light, which indicates it was broken off the bike by the hit.
areas you will hear cars all the time and you can't turn around to look at every car approaching form behing
I do that and cars significantly slow down because they think I will turn left.
In true carbrain fashion, not only they ignore the existence of turn lights, they also ignore the existence of turn signals.
"His front light may not have been working". Officer might as well have written "Cyclist might possibly be a pedophile".
For me, riding on the road without lights would be a good point for placing blame on the cyclist. I don't care what vehicle you are, you're on the road at night, you need lights.
But would need to be proven, of course. "May not have been working" means literally nothing, could be from the drivers testimony "I didn't see no lights" kind of thing
To be fair, I also fail to see how wearing a helmet would've prevented his leg from being broken as well
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It's a broken leg, not head injury. That should've been the end of that argument.
helmets provide a flat +5 armor value, if you wear 10 helmets you are impervious to most forms of damage.
tf2 was a documentary all along
But you still take full fall damage.
gotta make sure to punch yourself in the face as you're about to hit the ground, to give yourself some i-frames and thus cheekily negate the fall damage.
or just outright parry the ground approaching you, dealing massive damage to the planet and even giving you some health back
But if you enter Quill form, your helmet gets melded. On the plus side, the car will be struck by the quills.
Exactly, it's unironically the type of situation where an overly pedantic DM or player would be mocked if they tried to argue helmet armor in regards to something that only does leg damage.
There's always an excuse for drivers.
If a driver isn't paying attention, it doesn't matter what colour a cyclist's clothing are, or that they had a helmet on, or insanely bright lights.
And if excuses are being shifted onto cyclists, what about pedestrians and buildings that drivers smash into on a regular basis? What excuse do you have then?
As someone living in Sweden, I have seen pedestrians and bicyclists wearing dark coloured clothing during autumn nights, they just disappear in the background and VASTLY reduce the distance I can see them at, they just pops out from the background only when you are close to them.
This is not a simple driver issue, these are people who seems to deliberately dress in camo, and then complain that drivers don't pay enough attention.
I am not asking everyone to wear a high-viz vest all the time, but please get a reflector and show that you have some self preservation instinct
Riders should wear adequate gear to protect themselves, but drivers also must drive safely. If you aren't able to avoid dark object, you're driving above the safe limit for current visibility. What if there was a fallen tree on the road? Those don't wear hi-vis
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Of course, I've experienced this myself (pedestrians wearing all back on trails at night).
But the responsibility still rests with the driver.
In this case, it was argued that their view was obstructed, which should have meant they slowed down and paid attention even more. Nobody should be driving blindly.
The cyclist here did have a rear light, and was rear ended.
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In Sweden, it's illegal for bicyclists to not have lights and reflectors (both front and back) and the law is at least enforced to some degree by police.
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No one is commenting on the fact the driver was a taxi driver, around my area taxi drivers are some of the worst drivers I've ever seen.
I’m not really familiar with the laws over there. After this criminal ruling, does the cyclist now have grounds for a civil suit?
Man, after reading the article i feels like it's no good ending for everyone involved. The driver is at fault for not taking a glance, the city is at fault to have a road sign obstructing view, and the cyclist, while not at fault, but would totally turn out different if he wear a hi-vis vest.
At least the cyclist isn't fined.
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