From: slb@heidi.acc.Virginia.EDU (sandy)
Subject: Re: Punishment for the Driver!
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 18:36:56 GMT

In article <1jmi26INNt1a@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, kipper@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Kip Ingram) writes:
|> I agree totally that this driver should be thoroughly punished, and that 
|> drivers in general should be penalized more heavily for not respecting the 
|> rights of cyclists.  However, there's an old saw that says there's two sides
|> to every story, so let's look for the other one.
|> 
...

|> The real solution here is bike lanes and bike paths.  One would think that in
|> this age of environmental awareness that at the very least a good bike *lane*
|> that would take the bikes out of the traffic would be feasible in most places,
|> and certainly where any new roads are going in.
|> 
|> Anyway, I understand the monetary issues associated with this.  But I just don't
|> ride my bike in heavy traffic areas; I get to the well-shouldered highway just
|> as quickly as I can and do my training.  There's just no way we're going to 
|> change the attitude of the entire driving public.  There are too many of them
|> and too few of us.  And I'm too interested in making sure that my children
|> (the first is due July 28!) have an intact father to risk my life making some
|> kind of stupid political point.
|> 


The cyclists were IN a bike lane.  Listen, Kip, do you drive in
high traffic areas?  If you do, people who can't or won't drive
well are still a big threat to you.  There was an accident here
a couple of years ago.  One cyclist traveling north on a four-lane
divided highway (speed limit 55mph) with a shoulder.  Nice wide
lanes, almost totally straight road, nice clear day about 4pm -
good visibility, traffic moderate.  The cyclist was riding slightly
outside the white lane marker on the right hand side of the road
(judging from tire marks) when she was struck from behind by a
driver who later stated that she never saw the cyclist until 
she (the cyclist) was through the windshield.   The cyclist was
DOA at a local hospital.   The driver was charged with reckless
driving and fined.  There was a hue and cry in the community 
about how unsafe it was to cycle on that road, about what a 
reckless act the cyclist had commited by riding there, about how
we needed to pass a law against cycling there.  What I couldn't
understand was why no one was alarmed about sharing the road with
another driver who was so incompetent or negligent that she was
unable to perceive an object in the roadway as large as a cyclist
until impact and unable to steer the car within a very large 
straight lane.  This person, as far as I know, still holds a 
license to drive.  People who drive this badly are a threat to
other drivers - and in fact you only have to check out highway
fatality statistics in this country to see that driving with 
these people is very dangerous indeed.  And it will continue to 
be as long as we allow anybody, sane or insane,  alert or not
alert, competent or incompetent, to drive and accept their 
incompetence and irresponsibility as "just an accident".
It seems to me that some progress has been lately in realizing
that no one has the "right" to drive while drinking.  Now if 
we could just work on the "right" to drive while stupid.

-- 
sandy bryant
slb@virginia.edu
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc