Matthew Wolpert

A very good point John.

I propose that this is a good argument for why we, as a society should
consider putting an end to driving. It's extremely extremely uncommon
for cyclists to kill other cyclists or pedestrians, though it can
happen. If you remove the multi-thousand pound vehicle from the
equation - basically, people would stop dying from crashes.

This is divisive, I know. Sort of like the debate about whether "guns
kill people" or "people kill people". I think we could all agree that
guns and cars make it _easier_ for people to end up dead, irrespective
of how we want to assign moral responsibility.

If we, as a society, weren't driving cars, that child would still be alive.

We wouldn't be having this thread.

Each year roughly 40,000 people in our country die in automobile crashes.

Everyone on this list unfortunately probably knows someone whose life
has ended this way. Again, regardless of the specifics of who was at
fault, it is a dysfunctional system that relies upon the absence of
individual mistakes to keep people from getting killed. We, as humans,
will always make mistakes.

Collectively, we would be prudent to design our society so that these
mistakes do not result in fatalities.

And we could have our bike races closer to home to boot!

Be safe out there.
Respectfully,
Matthew

On 5/14/07, Raedeke, John wrote:
>
> While this may sound like a great solution you may want to think about
> what psychological impact this has on the people that may hit you on
> your bike while running a stop sign. Let's say you die or are crippled,
> how does a $8.25 ticket justify this. I have a friend that hit a child
> that ran out in front of his car (by you calculations 45 pounds x .05 =
> $2.25), he was well under the speed limit, yet there was nothing he
> could do to stop in time. The child died and the driver was so
> distraught that he could barely ride in a car, and couldn't drive for
> several years afterwards. We need to think about these situations, it
> doesn't just impact you it impacts many people. Maybe a person swerves
> to miss you and runs over someone else or into another car. Should you
> only be cited for a $8.25 fine for that??? We share these roads with
> the cars, pedestrians, cyclists and others we just all need to be
> responsible and cautious.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
> James Thomas wrote:
>
> > This is a belated response to the bike sting thread from May 3rd. I
> > also tried to respond to the Jonathan Maus's May 11th blog http://
> > bikeportland.org/2007/05/11/one-year-later-at-the-salmon-street-stop-
> > sign/, but the blog never accepts my responses on any topic (so
> > Jonathan, drop me an email).
> >
> > The root of the problem lies in the laws for traffic violations, which
>
> > should be changed. I would like to see cyclists take a legislative
> > approach.
> >
> > Fundamentally, we should accept the responsibility for the mass of the
>
> > vehicle we are controlling. I believe not only cyclists would support
> > it, but so would pedestrians and owners of smaller vehicles.
> > I am an owner and operator of various vehicles at various times,
> > including bicycles, a Mini Cooper and a full size van. When I make a
> > mistake in the van, I am taking on much more responsibility for
> > causing injury and damage. The penalty for an infraction should
> > represent that liability. A rather simple legislative solution would
> > be a rating multiplied by the mass of the vehicle.
> >
> > For example, let's start with running a stop sign. At present our
> > society has assigned a value of $242 to that infraction. For
> > simplicity, let us assume that the ideal car weighs 4840 pounds, then
> > the value 0.05 could be assigned to the infraction (eg. run the stop
> > sign, get a ticket for 0.05 x the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating of 4840
> > lbs, leads to a fine of $242). Now if I ran the stop sign in my van
> > and was ticketed, the 6600 lbs GVWR leads to a fine of $330 while in
> > my Mini at 3600 lbs it would lead to a fine of $180 and on my bike,
> > my gross vehicle weight might be 165 lbs leading to a fine of $8.25.
> > I think the risks of damage and my danger to my fellow members of
> > society are quite well reflected in this. After all, the laws of
> > physics apply very well to mass (as well as velocity). We could choose
>
> > net weight or gross weight or some other definition of weight, the
> > important thing is that the mass of the vehicle comes closest to
> > approximating responsibility.
> >
> > So, perhaps I should fire this email off to the BTA and my
> > legislators, but in the meantime I've cluttered your race email. Any
> > thoughts?
> >
> > James Thomas
> > _______________________________________________
> > OBRA mailing list
> > obra@list.obra.org
> > http://list.obra.org/mailman/listinfo/obra
> > Unsubscribe: obra-unsubscribe@list.obra.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> OBRA mailing list
> obra@list.obra.org
> http://list.obra.org/mailman/listinfo/obra
> Unsubscribe: obra-unsubscribe@list.obra.org
> _______________________________________________
> OBRA mailing list
> obra@list.obra.org
> http://list.obra.org/mailman/listinfo/obra
> Unsubscribe: obra-unsubscribe@list.obra.org
>