You鈥檝e heard it before:
Bicyclists have the same rights and responsibilities as drivers.
I'm calling bullshit.
First, as a cyclist, you don鈥檛 have the same rights as drivers. Not only are there thousands of miles of roadway to which you have zero聽access, but . (Though maybe the fast food industry is doing us a favor there.) Second, the idea that cyclists and drivers bear the same level of responsibility is absurd as it defies the laws of physics. The operator of a two-ton Chevy Tahoe damn well better be a lot more responsible than the rider on a 20-pound聽Trek, and suggesting otherwise is like saying the 鈥淓njoy Responsibly鈥 admonition you see in booze commercials applies equally to Jack Daniels and chamomile tea.
To be fair, we do acknowledge this disparity in responsibility by requiring motorists to obtain licenses and to register and insure (at least in most states) their vehicles. We don鈥檛 acknowledge it, however, once a motorist collides with a cyclist. Indeed, in practice, cyclists often bear more responsibility than drivers in these instances, due in part to the common misconceptions that bikes don鈥檛 belong on the roads in the first place and that people out riding are just thrill-seeking fitness freaks who get what鈥檚 coming to them. On top of that, cyclists must then deal with all the ensuing legal and medical issues that come with being hit, and generally speaking, people aren鈥檛 exactly at their sharpest after they鈥檝e been clobbered by聽an SUV. Forget standing up for your rights; you鈥檙e lucky if you can stand up at all.
Treating cars and bicycles as though they鈥檙e the same is like pitting a croquet player against an MMA fighter in a cage match: a sham with a foregone conclusion.
In Australia, Bicycle Queensland is currently pushing the government for presumed liability laws, under which drivers would be liable in the event of a collision with a cyclist unless they prove otherwise. No, that doesn鈥檛 mean drivers would be denied due process, automatically convicted of a crime, and thrown in jail. Not even close. What it does mean is that injured cyclists could receive their due compensation from drivers鈥 insurance companies more efficiently. Bicycle Queensland CEO Anne Savage points out that in such collisions, drivers are at fault at least 80 percent聽of the time.聽like this:
“In the event of an accident, the cyclist would submit a claim for compensation with the car driver's insurer,” she said. “Unless the driver can prove they were not at fault, the claim for compensation would be settled quickly and easily, avoiding the distress that both parties commonly experience.
Sounds simple, right? But Paul Stewart, spokesman for the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland, sees it differently:
“We believe determining fault should be based on facts,” he said. “(The new laws would say) if I ride I bike I am one person, then if I jump in the car, I'm a different person.”
Nice try, Paul, but not really. What it says is that you鈥檙e the same person, but you鈥檙e a hell of a lot more dangerous when you鈥檙e in a car. Think of it this way: you鈥檙e also the same person whether your eat dry white toast or day-old Brussels sprouts for breakfast, but you鈥檙e a lot more dangerous after the latter because of the ensuing flatulence. Therefore, when an ungodly stench fills the morning meeting at RACQ and somebody asks 鈥淲ho farted?”,聽it鈥檚 not unreasonable that the presumption of liability should fall upon you.
Also, while presumed liability may sound scary to motorists who imagine cyclists will start flinging themselves under cars all willy-nilly because they now fancy themselves invincible, it鈥檚 in no way an exotic or controversial concept. We already apply it in other driving situations. For example, in most cases, you鈥檙e presumed liable if you rear-end somebody while driving, since crashing into someone from behind is a prima facie case of you having your head up your ass鈥攁nd if it wasn鈥檛 up your ass then it鈥檚 up to you to prove otherwise. Certainly not hitting a cyclist is just as easy as not rear-ending another driver, so it seems perfectly reasonable to presume a driver who does so is liable鈥攗nless you believe that hitting cyclists is acceptable driving behavior, of course.
But perhaps the most seductive aspect of presumed liability is that it鈥檚 , and they certainly seem to have this whole cars-and-bikes thing figured out.
However,聽it鈥檚 worth noting that presumed liability alone isn鈥檛 even going to come close to turning Queensland into the Netherlands. For example, , that it鈥檚 only a minor factor in making streets safer, and that Dutch cycling culture was already well established before such laws went into effect. Furthermore, presumed liability is also the norm in many other places in Europe, yet plenty of these places remain abjectly lousy places to cycle. And while the idea of presumed liability is instantly attractive to anybody who鈥檚 been, say, harassed by the driver of a pickup truck, about a million cultural shifts have to take place before we start treating reckless pickup drivers .
Nevertheless, regardless of how we handle driver-on-cyclist collisions, we need to move away from the idea that drivers and cyclists have the same responsibilities leading up to them. We鈥檙e big on equality in this country, but treating cars and bicycles as though they鈥檙e the same is like pitting a croquet player against an MMA fighter in a cage match: it鈥檚 a sham with a foregone conclusion designed to keep the weaker party down.
It鈥檚 time for drivers to accept more responsibility, and if they don鈥檛 want it, then they should be willing to cede the power that comes with it. 聽