-
- Ideas, let's talk safety... and who's to blame.
- By:admin
- Recently on A&S several ideas have been thrown about, ranging from the need to be more obvious on the road, to some need to have turn signals and lights, to the ever popular take on mirrors.
At one point a poster even stated "why don't we just drive motorcycles."
Well, the fact is that even with mirrors, even centered in the lane, even with lights (turnsignals and stoplights) and even making a bunch of noise and it being on a flat road in the middle of the day... 5 motorcyclists were killed yesterday on an Imperial County Highway by an impatient driver who attempted to pass... the unharmed driver left the scene.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2...cles-and-two-/
...an eastbound gold Honda Civic went into the westbound lane to pass a dozen motorcyclists also going east. A westbound Dodge Avenger driver saw the Honda in his lane and swerved onto the sandy shoulder to avoid a collision. The Dodge then veered out of control back onto the pavement and collided with some of the motorcyclists.
The sedan driver suffered major injuries and his female passenger was killed. Both were from Mexico.
The Honda that caused the incident by trying to pass did not stop, and authorities were looking for the driver. Folks as much as you want to try to ride safely, and are, in some cases, willing to even emulate motorcycle riders with loads of lights and helmets et. al., the bottom line is that as long as some drivers act like idiots... your best efforts may be for naught.
What can be done to get such idiots off the road... Why is it that it is so easy to get a driver's license and so hard to suspend one?
(锕侊箒)~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------
Pics:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/14/cal...ent/index.html
(锕侊箒)~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's terrible. RIP.
(锕侊箒)~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------
As long as we live in a culture that absolves automobile drivers of responsible behavior, things will never change. To add insult to injury, read the following story:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...8S48.DTL&tsp=1
(锕侊箒)~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yup, amazing ain't it. ^^^^^ you try to do the right thing... But all it takes is some idiot motorist to ruin your whole life, and then the "system" looks the other way.
Sure there are idiot cyclists out there... but society doesn't give them a "reset button" or a "get out of jail free" card. Nope, you pretty much have to be a motorist for those special exemptions.
(锕侊箒)~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------
It really seems like society has just collectively "decided" that driving is an irrevocable entitlement. We don't permanently ban people from driving even when they've demonstrated over and over again that they are terrible drivers (witness all the people with multiple DUI convictions, etc who still have licenses or just ignore their suspended license). We simply don't require any meaningful test of driver competence. Nowadays it often feel like we should be doing some sort of psychological profiling for suitable temperament for driving in addition to tests of competence.
I guess America has just decided that a certain number of traffic deaths per year is acceptable and that we don't want to do anything meaningful about it. Hence the reason that while traffic deaths have declined a great deal in most other developed countries, they have declined by a much lesser amount here: either we just don't care, or we've somehow collectively been brainwashed into thinking there are no practical solutions to the problem. It's always interesting to me that if you post about this sort of thing on any non-bike forum on the Internet, there is massive resistance to any sort of mention of greater regulation of driver behavior. Aren't non-cyclists also afraid of all the jackasses they share the road with? Or are they convinced that all the high-tech protections in their car will protect them should one of these people hit them? I just don't understand "car culture" mentality, and I don't think I ever will (even though I do drive regularly).
(锕侊箒)~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------
