Originally Posted by
rydabent
When a vehicle comes from behind and causes a collision, it is that vehicles fault, pure and simple..
Unless you count the cyclist as that "vehicle" this doesn't match the witness description which suggests contact was made with the side, rather than front of the truck.
Could the truck have come up quickly, turned into the intersection and then been hit on its side by a cyclist who
subsequently entered the intersection without reaction time to stop or avoid in a classic right hook? Indeed, yes. But that would require the cyclist to have disregarded the stop sign they had at the intersection, which is presumably there precisely to prevent entering the intersection at a speed where the cyclist could have "no time to react" to such an obstruction. Someone who stops at the stop sign, sees that things are clear, then enters the intersection still (like a pedestrian) risks being hit by the
front of a later-arriving turning vehicle, but they don't risk
their own momentum carrying them unavoidably into contact with the
side of one.
We don't have to
like the reality of the situation, but we do have to
acknowledge that reality for safety discussion to have any meaning at all.