Originally Posted by
kingston
Yes. That's my conclusion. The driver was 100% at fault. There was nothing I could have done to avoid that collision, and I rode away from that crash in the back of an ambulance. My wrists and hands will never be the same, and I have no idea when I'll be able to ride a bike again. Nothing happened to the guys in the truck. I'm sure they went back to work as soon as they were done talking to the police.
I'm not the decider of what is and is not acceptable. The driver pled guilty to failure to yield. $50 fine and $200 court costs. He was carrying the minimum insurance which won't even cover the emergency room visit. Me whining about safe driving doesn't change the fact that a dump truck crushes a bike in a head-on collision.
If you suddenly stop cycling on roads but instead in trails, would you still consider cycling to be dangerous if those bad drivers continue to smash into each other as well as into pedestrians and structures?
You don't get a lot of drivers quitting driving and complaining that driving is dangerous after being in collisions themselves.
You also don't get a lot of drivers advocating for safer streets. But there are lots of cyclists and pedestrians who are doing that.