The Glade 4.0

A number of statements made in the above post show a failure to understand things that professional drivers understand. I have been a cab driver for 5 years, and a professional driver for 6. During that period of time I have been involved in a total of 3 accidents, while driving a number of miles approaching the number that the average person drives in their lifetime (the average person drives around 15,000 miles a year. I have driven 129,727 miles in the past seven months, according to my GPS). I have certifications from two separate driving safety organizations. Every day, I go onto our lot and see the consequences of poor driving, from hollowed out shells to vehicles that would have been better served having been cubed. Since, however, I hate it whenever anyone says something like "you don't X, so you don't understand," I'll explain.

The assumption that a safe driver anticipates all possible events when driving is laughable. Also, the assumption of a sort of critical mass of safe drivers exists is just as laughable. In 2010 there were an estimated 5,419,000 crashes, resulting in 32,885 deaths, and 2,239,000 injuries (from NHTSA). These numbers make driving a car significantly more dangerous than any other mode of transportation, both in gross numbers, as well as on a per-travel-hour basis. You are 8 times more likely to die driving than flying, assuming same distance travelled (from the NTSB).

Even the safest driver, of which my driving record would qualify me as one of, cannot avoid certain things, from the idiotic driving habits of other drivers, to animals crossing roads, to debris in the road, to yes, even cyclists on the road. The second greatest cause of traffic accidents is driving left of center (the first being following too close, again statistics from NHTSA), an incident often generated by cyclists. Not only are cyclists putting themselves at great risk, but the onus they're putting on drivers to protect the cyclist's safety increases the risk the drivers assume.

If I might inject personal experience, it is almost a daily occurrence that a passenger of mine gasps at the actions of another driver, whether he's cutting me off, passing at insane speeds, swerving ahead of me, or any of a number of other ridiculous things people do. More than all but a tiny portion of the driving populace, I see exactly what kinds of drivers are out there, and I don't even remotely feel safe being inside a former police interceptor. Assuming that anticipation and forethought will protect you from every possible threat while driving will lead you to never leave the house. For the benefit of those who don't have to worry about them, hitting a deer is about equivalent to hitting a brick wall. Most of the time, you won't see a deer until it's too late to effectively brake. If you're lucky, they don't jump out into the road. If you aren't, your safety is your reaction time. I dodge deer every day, often late at night, and haven't hit one yet.

If I didn't have to, both for work and to get basically anywhere, I wouldn't drive. Driving is an inherently dangerous prospect, and people die doing it. The purpose of pointing this out is not to say "don't drive," it is to point out that you are taking a risk. As a cyclist, you are taking this same risk with no safety equipment. In direct response, motorcyclists are doing the same thing. The only very slight increase in safety that they have is that they can match speed with other vehicles, which is often the safest thing you can do. In other words, you are taking the risk getting on the road in a vehicle which puts nothing between you and collision with a tractor trailer. There is no reason why I, as a driver, should have to pay for your risk.

The cyclists who complain so much about how awful drivers react to them are being completely ignorant of the risks they, themselves, are assuming by getting on the road with these vehicles. It is a shame, to me, that the law does not account for this risk. The law automatically assumes that striking someone not in a motor vehicle is your fault, unless proven otherwise, ignoring the fact that it is far easier for a cyclist to avoid hitting the car than the inverse. That is a serious problem, and as a professional driver, it adds a huge amount of risk to the course of doing my job. Much like all of the idiotic drivers out there, cyclists are taking the utterly selfish and ignorant view that the law will protect them on the road, ignoring the fact that their actions can get them killed, and can get other people killed as well, and not just in the theoretical, but as a matter of course every day, in every city, on every kind of road.

As someone who has to fear carjackings and robberies as a course of business, my greatest fear is the other drivers on the road. So don't try to tell me that driving is safe. It's not.

Some of you need to start putting a TL;DR version up to your posts. Just sayin'

I really don't care. Driving professionally, including high-speed driving is part of my job and my training, including pursuit and emergency driving. I have taken hundreds of accident reports and been trained in accident investigation and cause determination.

So, if you want to wave your cab-peen around, go ahead, but simply driving a lot does not mean you understand why accidents occur, or the factors that contribute to them.



No one said that a safe driver anticipates all events. A safe driver pays attention so that he can react to events when he becomes aware of them, and so that he will become aware of them as soon as possible. No one said anything about a critical mass of safe drivers either, and even if anyone had, simply showing the number of crashes does not somehow dispel that idea.

A traffic crash is an accident resulting in either damage, injury, or both. This means that out of that 5,419,000 crashes, the vast majority include very minor accidents that even safe drivers have because they make a momentary, or minor error. A safe driver is not one who is perfect; it is a person that, as a customary habit, tries to follow traffic laws and observe good driving habits. This makes them generally safe. Occasional errors, even those resulting in accidents, do not make drivers unsafe.



No kidding. I said this, in several different ways now. Furthermore, they are not putting the "onus" on drivers to protect the safety of cyclists; cyclists are expected to obey the law as well. If you mean that enforcement against cyclists needs to be more serious, then I would agree.

As for going left of enter, do you know why that is? Because most left of center accidents occur when the person left of center is drunk. The most common cause of accidents in this country is excessive speed, which is also why the youngest drivers have the highest insurance rates; they are the most likely to ignore speed limits. After that is drunk driving, and drunk drivers often go left of center, weaving back and forth. Recently, texting while driving contributes to this as well.

However, a person who goes left to avoid a cyclist and is not drunk or texting, is not anywhere near the hazard of these people. There is a vast difference between doing so in a controlled manner, while sober and paying attention, and drifting over the line due to inattention or intoxication. A driver passing a cyclist selects a safe place and carefully performs the maneuver; a drunk merely meanders across the line whenever he happens to do so.



No one said anything of the sort. I repeatedly pointed out that even if a driver is safe, some accidents occur too quickly for them to avoid. Others are not within the limits of the performance of their vehicle, or avoidance would require difficult maneuvers beyond their skill level. As for deer, I know all about them. I have taken dozens of accident reports on account of deer; I've shot quite a few of them as a result of an accident as well.



Yes, you are taking a risk. However, you are exaggerating that risk well beyond the reality, and yes, there is a reason you, as a driver should ahve to pay for the risk cyclists pose: It is a public street. It belongs to everyone, not merely people that need to use motor vehicles. It is the responsibility of government to work out a set of rules by which everyone can use it.

Your nonsense early on about "people are not equipped to go over 20mph" showed just how exaggerated your feelings are. This is nonsense; speed really has nothing to do with whether a person can control a machine. What has to do with it are the conditions under which the speed occurs. Fighter pilots can easily control their jets at 800mph, but they do not try to make the jet do things or go places that it can't do at that speed. People can drive perfectly well at 75mph on a freeway; in a residential street that is an outrageous speed.



I don't know what state you live in, but in every state I have ever learned anything about law in, the accident is the fault of whoever commits the violation. Whether that is a car, truck, motorcycle, pedestrian, cyclist, horse rider, farm tractor, lawnmower, roller-blader, or animal-wagon combination is irrelevant.

So yes, the law does in fact account for this risk. If it does not in your state, then you need to talk to your legislature. If the police are simply assuming the car driver was at fault, they are doing their jobs improperly; the mayor or governor should exercise oversight in this regard. You are, however, completely misinformed about how the law works in this country, and if any of your safety training has informed you otherwise, they are wrong too. This is not uncommon in training regarding safety and other safety-like things, such as prevention of sexual assault. It is not uncommon for sexual assault prevention trainers to use a totally incorrect definition of rape that would not hold up in court; either to scare people or because they simply don't know.



I'm going to continue to tell you that driving is a fundamentally safe activity - Because it is. It does not compare to flying, for example, because there are a lot fewer pilots and pilots are much, much better trained before being allowed to fly, and have far more mechanical and electronic aids.

Yes, there are a lot of accidents and a few thousand deaths every year. However, the simple fact is that there is only about 1.5 fatalities for 100 million vehicle-miles traveled and only about 2 accidents for every 100,000 miles. Seeing as the vast majority of those accidents are trivial, that latter statistic is almost meaningless anyhow.

Ok, you're horrified at how other people drive. I'm pretty annoyed with it too, but the fact remains that no one wants to get into an accident. Even crappy drivers manage to avoid more than they get in.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Statistically speaking, most accidents are a function of traffic density, experience, and most significantly WHEN you drive and WHERE you drive. The dirty little secret behind usage based insurance is that it really only monitors how often you hard brake, what time you do most of your driving and where you do most of your driving. You can predict accident frequency to a scarily accurate degree with just those three factors.

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Pretty sure it utilizes speed as well.

It captures it, but without gps it has no idea if you are travelling safely or speeding excessively.

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Do they charge people when people die in car crashes? Prosecuting someone for making a mistake makes no sense. Just because someone is riding a bike and therefore more vulnerable does not mean they should be more protected by the law.

If someone is grossly negligent (drunk, etc) ok. Otherwise, move on.

I've been wondering this myself in this conversation. I mean I know we have things like vehicular manslaughter and so forth, but I figured that was for vehicles that hit pedestrians.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I believe they do when the driver was reckless or negligent. (incapacitated, traveling at an unsafe speed, etc) In the event of a true accident, no.

Since there is only 1 road in the US where the speed limit is 80mph, we can pretty safely assume that anything over that speed is "bad".

Certainly without GPS you're doing a lot of inference but there are some pretty easy assumptions that would be possible to do. Plus I'm guessing they could probably compare the speeding with any police report of an accident to get additional data.

Anything over 80 yes, but is 65 a safe speed or are you doing 20 over in a 45 or 5 under in a 70? Is 45 the speed limit or are you doing 20, 10 over or 20 under?

Once an accident has happened any data you have tells might have been useful to determine what you should have been charging that individual. But that is true for all accidents so it is a moot point then.

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Er, why would a pedestrian fatality be treated differently from a fatality in a car?

One thing I consistently see brought up when people talk about bicycles on roads is the argument that "lots of bikers" don't follow the laws, so they should all be off the road.

Lots of people driving cars don't follow the laws, should we ban cars as well?

If I'm riding properly inside a lane, doing a nice steady 25 miles per hour, I have just as much right to be there as anyone else. You might want to go faster, but I wouldn't be a "problem" if I was a car going that speed, nor would it be illegal (other than on interstates, where there's a min. speed limit, and bikes are banned anyway).

Similarly, a bike in a lane doesn't make you drive to the left of center. Just like any other vehicle, it *should* make you slow down until you can safely pass them. Most states have a 3 foot law- you shouldn't be sharing a lane with a bike, you should pass it properly.

I bike a lot. I follow laws when I do. I also drive a lot, and I follow the laws when I do that as well.

Brining up people that don't follow the laws in either case to make an argument is superfluous.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Oh, if you were in a car, you'd still be a problem. /roadrage

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Because legally pedestrians always have the right of way, so if you hit one, you **** up?

Not exactly true:




As a motorist in Civil Court, you're still gonna get ****, as "due care" is wildly vague in the eyes of a jury.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Thanks for the education. I guess they just teach pedestrians always having the right-of-way as a safety thing, I just figured it was also law. Good to know for the next time I wanna play Carmageddon.

That's almost word-for-word what the Ohio code says as well. Plus, this part is also critically important:



Which is another way of saying "When there's a good chance the driver can't avoid you."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Also vague: what constitutes an "unmarked crosswalk?" I mean, if I perceive there to be an unmarked crosswalk in the middle of my block due to the junction with an alley (it's a junction!) am I in an unmarked crosswalk?

Just sayin'.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Generally, an unarked crosswalk is understood to exist at street corners, or any obvious crossing point. In practice, it means street corners because "obvious crossing points" anywhere where there's substantial traffic are usually marked, and almost anywhere else there's not a lot of traffic.

A good example would be your favorite country honky-tonk with the parking lot across the street. It's understood that people cross from the lot to the honky tonk. However, that's also the reason why you can't just run in front of an approaching car and expect legal immunity.

If you ever witness an accident one of the best things you can do for those involved is stay and give a statement. This is one of the reasons. If, for example, a pedestrian darts in front of a car and gets hit it's going to be hesaidshesaid without good 3rd party witness statements.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Which gets back to my earlier point. Let's assume for this discussion that any "accident" we are discussing has a clear individual who "**** up". There are those odd crashes where everyone scratches their head, but let's ignore those.

I **** up by:

1) Hitting another car.
2) Hitting a bicyclist.
3) Hitting a pedestrian.

In each scenario, my "**** up" was simply "I didn't see him." Nothing more heinous than that. In each scenario, someone was killed on the other end.

Should these situations be treated any differently by the law? Why? And what is the point in prosecuting me for "**** up?" What value does society gain by doing so?

In my view, I should be responsible on the civil side, but left unprosecuted. Each of the situations should be treated identically.

As I understand it, usually people don't get cited for hitting a pedestrian. They get cited for something else (failure to yeild at a crosswalk, illegal turn, etc) which leads to a pedestrian getting hit. They broke the traffic flow laws we all implicitly agree (by apply for a license to operate a vehicle on public roadways) to abide by. If the laws need to be changed, then we can address that.

Also if your illegal actions (be it robbing a gas station or failure to follow the traffic rules) lead to someone's death we can look at that on a case by case basis system known as a jury trial to see if another statute (such as manslaughter, murder, etc) applies. Which is incidentally what happened here. I'm not a lawyer, nor am I even familiar enough with the facts of this specific case to say if I agree or disagree with the Grand Jury's findings in this case. However I am a firm believer that no one case means anything outside the merits of itself. It doesn't mean no one cares about cyclists, it just means that a group of (admittedly fallible, but who isn't) people who examined the facts of the case didn't feel that whatever statue the driver was being tried under applied to him/her.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

In those situations, you will be treated equally on the traffic/criminal side. As for the civil side, civil law is far more dependent on lawyer skill and exact circumstances because of the different burden of proof.

However, there is no reason you should remain un-prosecuted. You violated the law, and a death resulted. The appropriate charge would be vehicular manslaughter in Ohio, which would be a misdemeanor of the first or second degree, not a felony, assuming you simply "**** up". Exactly which would depend on the exact ****.

There is no reason it would be unreasonable to prosecute a person for a misdemeanor for causing the death of another becuase of **** up while driving. People should perfectly well understand that driving **** can be fatal.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's amazingly retarded. Prosecuting someone for an accident is beyond stupidity.

Because if we didn't do that, people who were willfully negligent (texting or watching a movie while driving) would just have to say, "I didn't see them" and they would be off scott free.

ALL accidents are preventable by someone. In some cases it's the driver, in some cases it's the victim. Prosecuting them is our way of finding out who was responsible for the accident and then punishing them.