White is not the only high-level cyclist to die in Colorado in recent years. In 2020, Clif Pro Team racer Ben Sonntag was killed by a driver while on a training ride outside Durango. That driver was sentenced to serve jail time in late 2021. In 2021, U.S. masters champion Gwen Inglis was killed by a driver outside Lakewood, Colorado.
A park? Do you even ride a bike? Even a large park, like Central Park in NYC, would be extremely prohibitive for an athlete to cycle through. And what about smaller cities with populations less than a million people? What large park do they have?
State parks are common place for cyclists and cars, but how to do you suppose they get there? Drive a car, which puts people in more danger?
Trails? Not every place has them, and they are often poor quality, and have dogs/people to contend with. Not ideal for anyone who wants to ride their bike faster than 20km/h.
And what about commuters? Or teens? Screw them, they can’t ride their bike?
Do you go to work on a stationary bike? Do you train for a triathlon by going on a hike?
Why not drive a car at a racetrack instead of putting people near roads in danger? See how silly this is?
Roads belong to both car AND cyclist traffic.
And by getting behind the wheel of a car, you accept that you shouldn’t be running people over, right?
Someone choosing to take a bus to work shouldn’t have to be worried about a car slamming into the bus shelter, yet it happens. Are you blaming bus commuters for this?
No, because the use of a bike, or a road to get to your destination, doesn’t change. Whether someone is out to exercise or pick up meds, they shouldn’t be run over by inattentive drivers.
Yes!! Because it is the responsibility of the driver to not speed, not make dangerous passes, and not run cyclists or pedestrians over!
I’ve never said that they don’t. They have a responsibility to not run into pedestrians and to follow the rules of the road. If a cyclist hits a pedestrian, I do blame the cyclist. I don’t expect pedestrians to stay at home because sharing a multiuse path is “too dangerous”. I expect cyclists to not run into them!
Why not expect the same from a driver?
That’s a terrible analogy. If you decided to fly a plane, and some inattentive pilot decides to crash into your plane, are you to blame?
Do you blame kids for going to school and getting shot, rather than the person doing the shooting?
You seem to be blaming anyone but the person driving a metal machine of death. Why?
Driving is more dangerous than cycling. Why don’t you accept the fact that driving is extremely dangerous, killing tens of thousands of people a year and injuring many more?
And people choose to partake in an activity that is less dangerous than driving, yet you’re arguing that they are still “stupid” and “extreme”?
He was cycling on a shoulder where cars shouldn’t be driving! You are still blaming the victim for something that was 100% the fault of the driver.
Wouldn’t it be nice if drivers simply drove safely? It would save everyone a lot of time.
I will reiterate: you can be inside a store and a driver can crash through the storefront, putting everyone at risk. This happens over and over again, so you can stop trying to dictate what activities people do and where, and maybe start asking why drivers aren’t able to drive safely?
That would be ANYWHERE!
Have you ever been outside a car? Like downtown in a city, or at a local grocery store, or a dentist or post office? You can’t avoid cars.
Literally, cars have crashed through people’s houses, into bus stops, onto sidewalks, through public parks. And it doesn’t matter if they are in cities or on rural roads.
The only place you are safe from cars is probably in a boat or in a plane, but you’d probably blame the captain or pilot for being “stupid” by putting themselves at risk to fly or be on water…
As a society, we expect drivers to drive safely. That naturally means that everyone else is safe. You can walk across an intersection without fear of someone running a read light; you can have a bus drop your kids off at school without the fear of someone blowing past the bus; you can ride a bike in a bike lane or should (or, gasp, on the road) without worrying about someone crashing into you because they were checking social media instead of paying attention to the road.
There’s really no argument to be made in favor or drivers. If they are killing people, THEY are doing something wrong.
So then stay away from them. If you don’t have a solution to fix it that’s fine, but refusing to see the risk in continuing your behavior is just wrong. It’s clear you’re entire argument is around “cars are bad”. And my entire argument is “No shit, stay away from cars if you want to be safe, otherwise accept the detrimental risks of getting hit by a car”. It’s really that simple.
Name me a few places with no cars that also have no cars around to get to those places.
Then let me know which one of those places are schools, stores, hospitals, community centers, convenience stores, veterinarians, work places, residential housing, or really anywhere where people of all ages are typically expected to be.
I guess I won’t put my recycling out to the curb this week. Too dangerous!
Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. If you want to exercise you can avoid riding your bike along a busy road. I guess that’s just way too hard for you to understand.
Apply that same logic to riding your bicycle along busy roads and your chances of death go down significantly. It’s basic math.
You’re suggesting that if people want to be safe, they should avoid cars.
I’m asking you to tell me which places are car free and have no cars on the way to get there.
You can’t “avoid cars” is what I’m saying, so your advice makes no sense.
The expectation that we all have is that car drivers know what they are doing.
Do you even know what you’re arguing about?
I’ll restart this thread where it started. It’s poor judgement to ride your bike along roads where cars are driving by.
Keep digging you’re never going to manage to figure out how to twist things into you being right.
I’ll restate the obvious: there are no public places where cars aren’t.
You claim “poor judgment” while ignoring that even driving a car is more dangerous than cycling. I guess everyone, in your world, is stupid for doing dangerous things, even if that means simply standing on grass that happens to be close enough for a car to plow them over.
I’m not trying to twist anything. There is no conspiracy here. Plain as day, you are blaming victims when you should be blaming careless driving.
In Toronto, we have WALLS protecting bike lanes, and drivers STILL manage to drive over them.. In Vancouver (and Toronto), protected, separated bike paths are invaded by cars, causing injury to cyclists.
Are you still going to argue that it’s the cyclist’s fault for any of this?
I can blame both, because both parties made a decision to do something dangerous. Be accountable for your actions. Clearly you don’t want to be. Sounds familiar.
Nonsense. Cycling isn’t dangerous, including cycling on the road, unless it’s a poorly maintained road.
People who don’t know how to drive their motor vehicle are dangerous, and consistently so. The only difference is that their inability to drive kills tens of thousands of people a year, including themselves and their family.
And there’s no way to predict whether someone in a car is going to cross a lane, drive off a road, maybe crash into the front of your home, or through a bus stop, or drive through a barber shop.
By sheer matter of fact, ANYWHERE you find drivers, you have danger.
The question is, why blame the victims of these drivers? You want so badly to shift the blame onto anyone but the person actually responsible for causing an accident.
I go above and beyond my duty as a driver, cyclist, and pedestrian. Having this perspective gives me every right to criticize drivers, because drivers are the problem most of the time. And when cyclists are at fault for causing an accident, I blame them, too.