Originally Posted by
Digital_Cowboy
Hagen,
That is good to hear. As I said, had the motorist been acting in a safe and presumably legal manner then s/he would have waited until it was safe before attempting to pass another road user. What I don’t understand is how you can put any of the blame on the female cyclist. How was she to “blame” in even the smallest way for her death? She was minding her own business riding her bike on a public road.
You say that you know the road in question, and I will accept that. But unless you were actually there and witnessed the crash you cannot say that had she been riding FRAP that day that she would still be alive. That is speculation on your part. She might still be alive today or even if she had been riding FRAP she might have been hit.
If not by the car that passed in an unsafe and presumably illegal manner then by the car that the first driver was attempting to pass. But for you to set back and “armchair Monday morning/quarterback” (as we say here in The States) and say that had she been riding FRAP she’d still be alive is pure speculation on your part.
The driver who hit and killed her is the only one who is responsible for her death. And hopefully if in your country one is able to file a wrongful death suite te family of the deceased cyclist is or has done so.
And I do understand your confusion. You are used to riding FRAP on all but the narrowest of roads so to you riding anything other than FRAP doesn’t make sense and is something to be “feared.”
Using your “logic” then given all of the new stories that I have read and heard about here in Florida (my home state) I can “logically” presume that riding in the bike lane, or the shoulder or FRAP is dangerous and unsafe. As it would appear that more cyclists are hit and killed or at least injured every year who were riding in bike lanes, or on the shoulder, or who were riding FRAP vs. those who were taking the lane.
Let me ask you this question, if the woman in your account had been riding a motorcycle, or a scooter, or a moped would she have been hit? Had she been driving a car would she have been hit? I think that you know full well that in all of those cases that she would have been hit.
And I agree with you that the vast majority of motorists do NOT want to hit anyone be it another car or a person walking down the street or a person riding a bicycle. If for no other reason then they don’t want to risk damaging their “precious” little car, or having to wait around for the police to show up and take their statement.
If one cannot implement something, then how can it work? It won’t work because as I’ve said motorists do not want to give up any of “their” roads to bicycles, nor do home/property owners want to give up any of their yard to have bicycle specific infrastructure built/installed. So as I’ve asked given that there are clear obstacles to impending it how can it possibly work?
A couple of years ago I attended both of the “town hall meetings” on what to do with the Friendship Trail Bridge connecting Tampa with St. Petersburg. A number of people stood up and said how important it is/was to them as well as how much it meant to them. But then not to surprisingly when the treasurer announced how much it took in, in donations it was only a couple of hundred per month.
It appears it was only “important” to them as long as they didn’t actually have to pay to use it. Yet, they want, expect the cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg to pay for it, or for the Military to help pay to rehab it. Anything so that they themselves do not have to pay for something that some had claimed to use on a daily basis.
The bottom line is that while I’m sure that “everyone” in America wants to see infrastructure built “just” for bicycles, they are not willing to give up any of either “their” roads or their yards to do so.
That is why the infrastructure that you are used to would not work here in America. No one would be willing to actually pay for it. That and as has been said in other threads even when it is clear that it is dedicated to the use of bicycles only we still have to contend with pedestrians wanting to use it. As after all they did pay for it as well, so why shouldn’t they be able to use it?
Again, I feel that I've allready answered most of your points...
With FRAP laws (that allow you "take a lane if absolutely necessary"), the cycklis in question should have been close to the roadside in that place. So she may be seen as having a smaller portion of the guilt. The driver who hit her, though, will have the full ("strict") liability, and that's fine with me! The possibility that she might have been hit even FRAP is extremely much lower, but can't be ruled out, of course.
The difference between mopeds and bikes on the one side, and motorcyclists and cars on the other, is that we have the privilege of keeping out of the way of the cars. A car or a motorcycle would certainly have been hit if they had been in the cyclist's place at that time.
I will not reject your experience or your impression that cyclists riding FRAP are more likely to be hit in Florida. However, Walker's investigation in GB seems to indicate otherwise:
http://www.bhsi.org/walkerfigs.pdf. As British and American conditions for cyclists are largely similar in respect to the attitudes of drivers to cyclists, I would say that it's likely that it would count for Florida (and most of the world), too.
Bike infrastructure implementation is bound to be varying locally (as it does in the USA) as long as it's not a national issue as in Holland. That's what we see in Denmark, Sweden etc. That pedestrians will be found using it (and that you'll find parked cars, trash bins etc. on the bike paths) is a phenomenon that is rare here, where most people are accustomed to bikes, and a lot less rare in Sweden, where fewer people bike. Seems to vary with the mode share. The trouble is not in "making it work", or making people use it, but in implementing it. But most experience seems to point to the "build it and it will be used" if it is in any way build sensibly (and that it can be used for going from A to B seems to be more important than it being top class). Not from one day to the other, of course, in traffic cultures that are very car centered. Further, it's a process that can't stand alone but must be followed by other actions like "shared streets", lower speed limits in city centres, etc.
I think the important thing to remember is that it's not a sudden revolution. It's a process. And you can't deny that in some places in the USA this process has started, and in some of those seems quite succesfull.