You'd think as often as you see bicyclists breaking the law and as big of a deal people make of it you'd see bicyclists at fault
more often in fatal accidents.
Do you have official data showing motor vehicles are largely at fault when cyclists are involved?
not just deaths, Im talking all road incidents involving motor vehicle vs cyclist.
it could be days or weeks before I see a car run a red light, but I see a good number of city cyclists doing it every single day,
morning, noon and night.
proportionally, city cyclists are by far [or overwhelmingly], the biggest road rule offenders I witness on a 7 daily and year round basis.
cyclists running red lights, riding on the sidewalk, riding/using pedestrian crossings, I see numerous instances of each such offence
committed every day of the week virtually without fail....yet,Its extraordinarily rare for me to see motor vehicles committing all those violations.
If you'd piddle around on Google, you'd find the same stuff I have read about who is most often at fault in car/bicycle collisions. I see cyclists do the same thing you see them do, and I agree that it happens more frequently in the city. Cyclists break different laws from motorists. I will never roll up to a red light in my car, slow and run it. Not because I don't think I can do it safely, after all we do take the same risk management measures at yield signs, but because I fear a ticket.
On my walk to my truck and on my drive home today I paid attention to motorists and other road users. As I walked the 4 blocks from the office to where I park, at the first crosswalk a small delivery van came flying up to the traffic light and stopped squarely in front of me, blocking the crosswalk. At the second intersection a box truck flat out ran the traffic light and made a right turn. He did give a turn signal. The overwhelming majority of turns and lane changes I saw went unsignalled. I saw several incomplete stops at right turn on reds and stops. I purposefully drove the speed limit and got passed by 90 % of the other motorists. surprisingly few had their phones in their faces. One guy was going 45 down the interstate. I stayed behind him for a bit and sure enough as I moved out to go around and I accelerated, guess what he did? Yep, he sped up. I continued to accelerate until I was doing about 5 over. He paced me. By this time another driver had driven up my ass. Probably mad because I was in the passing lane and not passing. I continued to slow and tuck back in behind the guy who didn't know how fast he wanted to go. A few minutes later he was back don to 45. Another driver shadowed me on the left and drifted into my lane while right beside me. All in all it was a normal drive home. On the drive in this morning there was a near collision just in front of me.
I break the law every damn time I drive or ride and so does every other person I know. If they aren't driving dumb, dangerously, discourteously, drunk or distracted, I don't care who breaks the law.
I suspect that since cyclists are are rarer that we tend to pay more attention to their actions. Next time you drive, pay attention to your own actions. Do you come to a complete stop? Signal every turn and lane change? Never break the speed limit? Pay attention to other drivers. I suspect you'll see what I see, and that is a lot of infractions coupled with some dangerous and discourteous driving that negatively affects you. Today one idiot that refused to turn onto a road despite a 1/4 mile of clear real estate caused me to get caught by a light. I lost 2 minutes of my life to that idiot and that is more than I have been delayed by all cyclists combined over the course of the past decade.
A couple of fruit loops lolly gagging in the crosswalk held me up. The didn't have any license plates strapped to their asses and they didn't pay road and gas tax, yet there they were using the road.
