Cyclist hit on beach road this morning 29/3/2006

"vaudegiant" wrote:

>> In many professions, one can be charged with negligence when an
>> "accident" occurs.

Ah, yes, this will apply in any situation of negligent action.

>> Whilst you may not have "intended" for someone to
>> suffer from your "accident", you may be judged to have expected the
>> possibility of such an outcome as a result of your "negligent" act. No
>> intent.....and still no "accident".

This would make it an accident, resulting from negligent actions. Any
incident that was caused by deliberate actions is not negligence. It would
result in criminal prosecution for either assault, criminal damage to
proerty or murder. It surprises me how some people don't grasp the concept
here. Accidents are unintended incidents, negligent or otherwise (check the
dictionary, derived from the latin for 'happenings'); deliberate actions
step into the realm of crimes.

>> It could be argued that riding at
>> 20km/hr on a shared path around a corner is inadvisable and
>> innappropriate, and thus any incident that results may not be
>> considered accidental.

I actually said around a curve. Certainly a sharp corner requires a
different approach. Do you really find 20 kmh to be too fast on a shared
path? On the Dandenong Creek Trail I happily cruise at 30kmh along the
straighter sections.

>> IMHO, shared paths are more dangerous than most
>> roads.

Agreed, very much so. Was simply using it as an example.

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ [email protected]
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)

 

In aus.bicycle on Mon, 3 Apr 2006 08:42:17 +1000
Peter Signorini <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> This would make it an accident, resulting from negligent actions. Any
> incident that was caused by deliberate actions is not negligence. It would
> result in criminal prosecution for either assault, criminal damage to
> proerty or murder. It surprises me how some people don't grasp the concept
> here. Accidents are unintended incidents, negligent or otherwise (check the
> dictionary, derived from the latin for 'happenings'); deliberate actions
> step into the realm of crimes.

Most actions are deliberate.

I think it might be better expressed as "actions intended to produce
the result".

Which is why carelessly meandering into a lane is an accident,
deliberately sideswiping isn't.

But only a court can really determine which it was if the driver
doesn't claim intent.

"mens rea", the difference between manslaughter and murder as I understand
it. As wikipedia puts it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea )
"the act will not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty"

Which is why manslaughter exists as a crime. Can't just go around
killing people, but there's a really big difference between being a
careless twonk and deliberately setting out to kill.

The fun bit is working out where to draw the line. Is someone who gets
inside a ton or two of lethal weapon - such as a large bull-bar-equipped
4WD - and allows themselves to be distracted such that they give
steering inputs to that weapon and it collects a pedestrian standing
on the footpath, what are they guilty of? They must have known the
consquences of failing to steer correctly in an area where they can expect
a ped on the path, but they certainly didn't intend to steer incorrectly.

If they had been on a bicycle instead of in the tank, then the outcome
of the bad steering would have been different, must they be held to a
higher standard if the consequences of a bad action are worse? Do we
care more about culpable negligence in a nuclear plant compared to a
place that makes cardboard boxes?

Keeps lawyers and philosphers in business that does!

Of course the real intractable problem is the car culture. We, as a
society, accept situations concerning cars that we won't accept with
other things, and there's no way that will change without massive
societal upheaval, as massive as the introduction of the things in the
first place.


Zebee

 

"Peter Signorini" <[email protected]> writes:

>>> IMHO, shared paths are more dangerous than most roads.
>
> Agreed, very much so. Was simply using it as an example.

How many cyclist and pedestrian fatalities are there per year on
shared paths in this country?

David



--

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never
be moral.

-- Mohandas Gandhi

 

"David Trudgett" wrote:
>
> How many cyclist and pedestrian fatalities are there per year on
> shared paths in this country?

Virtually none AFAIK. Road riding involves the higher death risk (but then
it's probably less than lawn bowls). However I also understand that there
are a higher rate of injuries from accidents on shared paths. This is what I
experience any time I ride a heavily trafficked shared path - with oncoming
riders, overtakers, walkers, dogs, kids on bike or foot, bladers, drunks et
al. Give me a nice predictable main road any day.

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ [email protected]
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)

 

Gidday, Peter,

"Peter Signorini" <[email protected]> writes:

> "David Trudgett" wrote:
>>
>> How many cyclist and pedestrian fatalities are there per year on
>> shared paths in this country?
>
> Virtually none AFAIK.

Q.E.D. So, riding on shared paths has nowhere near the level of
danger as riding on roads populated by big heavy vehicles driven by
a race of alienated human beings .


> Road riding involves the higher death risk (but then it's probably
> less than lawn bowls).

Just being alive at 80 or 90 presents a high death risk, doesn't it?
;-) And it's funny how they don't read out the holiday lawn bowl toll
like they do the road toll... Makes you wonder what they're thinking!



> However I also understand that there are a higher rate of injuries
> from accidents on shared paths.

Couple of points: 1. source? 2. Even if that were so, I would much
rather prefer a very occasional case of gravel rash or grass burn than
a single case of death. That's just a prejudice of mine, though... ;-)

From the pedestrians' point of view, having to share a path with
bicycle riders presents a slightly higher (but still *extremely* low)
risk of minor injury, compared to having to share with only other
pedestrians. Dogs, of course, since you mention them later on, are
probably a greater risk to pedestrians than bicyclists. And I've seen
some vicious ankle biters in my time, I can tell you!

Now, of course, the "shared paths" of your experience and the "shared
paths" of my experience are two entirely different beasts. My
experience of shared paths is that of probably hundreds of kilometres
of relatively trouble-free cycling, tempered by the fact that one must
actually share the path on occasion! I've even had to use, yes!, the
grass. Oh, the ignominy! ;-)

On the other hand, your experience of "shared paths" may have been a
nightmare. Still, it would seem to be a slight exaggeration (and a
classic rationalisation) to claim that riding on shared paths (a
general and all-inclusive statement) is actually more *dangerous* than
riding on most roads (and most roads are in cities, too, we must
recall).

In other words, I don't think a hypothetical (no source given)
increased incidence of minor bumps and bruises even remotely compares
to the death and serious injury toll on the roads (and, in my opinion,
riding a bicycle on the roads is not safer than driving a car on
them).


> This is what I experience any time I ride a heavily trafficked
> shared path - with oncoming riders, overtakers, walkers, dogs, kids
> on bike or foot, bladers, drunks et al. Give me a nice predictable
> main road any day.

I don't have your experience with "heavily trafficked" shared paths,
for sufficiently high values of 'heavily', and nor do I have your
experience with nice predictable main roads...

Oh well, c'est la vie, or as the French say, that's life.

David


--

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

One of the clearest lessons of history, including recent history, is
that rights are not granted; they are won. The rest is up to us.

-- Noam Chomsky
<http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20041217.htm>

 

think of it in 4 levels:

1. the pure accident (eg a normally heathly person has heart attack at wheel of car and hits cyclist);
2. the negligent accident (eg a driver is driving into the sun, does not see cyclist and hits cyclist);
3. the criminally negligent accident (eg a driver is pissed and hits cyclist);
4. the deliberate event (eg a driver deliberately hits a cyclist);

(You might divide accidents/events into more or less catagories - 4 works for me on a Monday morning.)

Only in the last category is the injury to the cyclist deliberate (ie the driver had the mens rea, to use some legal latin). But in the 2 middle categories, the driver is clearly responsible, even if there is no mens rea.

The law deals with these events on a sliding scale - from a finding of accidental death in the Coroners Court for a pure accident up to a murder conviction in the Supreme Court for the deliberate running down of a cyclist.

Where does a speeding driver fall in the above categorisation? - probably in category 2 or 3 depending on the speed and any other relevant factors.

Where does a drunk driver fall in the above categorisation? Probably in category 3. If the drunk driver kills someone, is he a murderer? Legally, no. Unless he intended to.

SteveA

 

I grant that the statistics don't bare the comparison, but the only cycling accidents (Uh Oh!....lets just call them eventualities) that my kids have had, apart from the usual stacks, have occurred on shared bike paths. On the main paths around my area (Eastern Freeway, Gardners Ck and Dandenong Ck around Box Hill and Vermont areas). Especially in the tighter sections, plenty of cyclists ride too fast considering that kids, dogs and granny's are to be expected on the track also. I now ride 'point-guard' for them whenever we are on these paths. There's something a bit perverse about a fully decked out roadie mixing it with the kids instead of the cars.


Pat

 

Which, unfortunately illustrates the main point. Safety for pedestrians
and cyclists cannot be ensured by legislation, or education, or silly
tv advertising campaigns.

It can only be ensured by taking control of cars away from drivers when
they are going to cause an accident.

Consider: the car deviates from the roadway at high speed. Since it has
onboard position tracking which is linked to the roadway map, and
roadway edge detection, the car computer knows that it is in trouble.
So the brakes are automatically applied and the car stops.

The only way to make the roads safe is to take control away from the
drivers.

I'm starting a research project to create this technology. I'll be
chasing funding and ways to raise funds. Any ideas gratefully received.

 

On 2006-04-03, AndrewJ (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> Which, unfortunately illustrates the main point. Safety for pedestrians
> and cyclists cannot be ensured by legislation, or education, or silly
> tv advertising campaigns.
>
> It can only be ensured by taking control of cars away from drivers when
> they are going to cause an accident.
>
> Consider: the car deviates from the roadway at high speed. Since it has
> onboard position tracking which is linked to the roadway map, and
> roadway edge detection, the car computer knows that it is in trouble.
> So the brakes are automatically applied and the car stops.

Good thing there is never equipment failure then, eh?

Or, alternatively, what happens when a truck in front brakes and
swerves, the car you are driving is in the line of fire, and you
decide to head for the barrier and accelarate to get out of trouble?
Oh, the brakes applied automatically. Damn, looks like the truck will
get me afterall.

Contrived situation true, but humans (some of us anyway) were blessed
with more intelligence than that possessed by control systems of the
current time.

> The only way to make the roads safe is to take control away from the
> drivers.

In other words, I think yanking control away from a driver in critical
sitations is a stupid idea, worthy of mention in the RISKS digest.

--
TimC
Probably best see a real doctor and not take too much diagnostic advice
from a bunch of sysadmins who consider the body a meat computer that
needs debugging. -- Anthony de Boer on possible nerve damage in ASR

 

On 2006-04-03, TimC (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> On 2006-04-03, AndrewJ (aka Bruce)
> was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
>> It can only be ensured by taking control of cars away from drivers when
>> they are going to cause an accident.
>>
>> Consider: the car deviates from the roadway at high speed. Since it has
>> onboard position tracking which is linked to the roadway map, and
>> roadway edge detection, the car computer knows that it is in trouble.
>> So the brakes are automatically applied and the car stops.
>
> Good thing there is never equipment failure then, eh?
....
> In other words, I think yanking control away from a driver in critical
> sitations is a stupid idea, worthy of mention in the RISKS digest.

Tee hee hee. See april 1 version of risks here (in particular, look
at item number 1):

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24.22.html

--
TimC
I hereby declare that from now on, the singular of "people" is "peopum".
-- Kibo

 

giantvaude wrote:

> On the main paths around my area (Eastern Freeway,
> Gardners Ck and Dandenong Ck around Box Hill and Vermont areas).
> Especially in the tighter sections, plenty of cyclists ride too fast
> considering that kids, dogs and granny's are to be expected on the
> track also.

I'm sure the gov't response to that problem would be a Multinova.

Theo

 

AndrewJ wrote:
> Which, unfortunately illustrates the main point. Safety for
> pedestrians and cyclists cannot be ensured by legislation, or
> education, or silly tv advertising campaigns.
>
> It can only be ensured by taking control of cars away from drivers
> when they are going to cause an accident.
>
> Consider: the car deviates from the roadway at high speed. Since it
> has onboard position tracking which is linked to the roadway map, and
> roadway edge detection, the car computer knows that it is in trouble.
> So the brakes are automatically applied and the car stops.

I suppose the onboard computer is aware there is an out of control B-double
heading towards the car on the wrong side of the road, and the driver is
taking drastic avoidance action?

Theo

 

AndrewJ wrote:
>
> Which, unfortunately illustrates the main point. Safety for pedestrians
> and cyclists cannot be ensured by legislation, or education, or silly
> tv advertising campaigns.
>
> It can only be ensured by taking control of cars away from drivers when
> they are going to cause an accident.
>
> Consider: the car deviates from the roadway at high speed. Since it has
> onboard position tracking which is linked to the roadway map, and
> roadway edge detection, the car computer knows that it is in trouble.
> So the brakes are automatically applied and the car stops.
>
> The only way to make the roads safe is to take control away from the
> drivers.
>
> I'm starting a research project to create this technology. I'll be
> chasing funding and ways to raise funds. Any ideas gratefully received.

I believe there is already research in the face-recognition area where
they are looking at what happens to people's facial expression when they
lose concentration on driving. The idea is that an alarm will sound to
alert the driver and if no action is taken/response is seen, the car
will stop or something.

This is more likely to be used in fleet vehicles rather than personal
use vehicles (unless legislation is passed to make it compulsory)
because if only x% of the population will have a car accident because
they lost focus, an individual is likely to say "it won't be me" and not
pay the extra expense, whereas a corporation is likely to realise that
it means x vehicles per 100 of their fleet will be involved in an
accident over a period of time, and they will likely benefit.

Er, so not sure how your funding would go, unless you had a much more
solid idea.

Tam

 

No technical system can be perfect, but it can do a better job than a
high proportion of drivers.

Can such a system be aware of the truck ? Yes.

 

AndrewJ wrote:
> No technical system can be perfect, but it can do a better job than a
> high proportion of drivers.

Not really. You are relying that the people who *programmed the system*
have better judgement on how to handle one (of an infinite number of
potential scenarios) better than the driver.

> Can such a system be aware of the truck ? Yes.

I dunno, sounds like using face recognition software to terrorists out
of planes/schoosls/etc. Might work. Probably wont. Has a high
probability of false positives (Very nasty), and the consequences of
failure are catastrophic.

Not a very good trade off.

--
daveL

 

Theo Bekkers wrote:
> giantvaude wrote:
>
> > On the main paths around my area (Eastern Freeway,
> > Gardners Ck and Dandenong Ck around Box Hill and Vermont areas).
> > Especially in the tighter sections, plenty of cyclists ride too fast
> > considering that kids, dogs and granny's are to be expected on the
> > track also.
>
> I'm sure the gov't response to that problem would be a Multinova.

For the viewers at home, Theo means a speed camera. In WA they call
them by the brand name of the camera.

 

Bleve wrote:
> Theo Bekkers wrote:

>> I'm sure the gov't response to that problem would be a Multinova.

> For the viewers at home, Theo means a speed camera. In WA they call
> them by the brand name of the camera.

Oops, how parochial of me. When I went to England in 1967 we called clear
adhesive tape Durex in Oz. In England they only sold Durex in pharmacies.


Theo

 

"Theo Bekkers" wrote:

> I suppose the onboard computer is aware there is an out of control
> B-double heading towards the car on the wrong side of the road, and the
> driver is taking drastic avoidance action?

There is a lot of high-tech transport research going on into just this
field. Who knows if it will prove to be of any benefit before petrol gets to
be more money than us mear mortals can afford to spend on travel.

http://www.netspeed.com.au/cr/bicycle/its.htm

Still not sure just what is meant by mirror symmetry. And can all these
processes happen quicker than I can see and act?

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ [email protected]
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)

 

On 2006-04-03, Bleve (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
>
> Theo Bekkers wrote:
>> giantvaude wrote:
>>
>> > On the main paths around my area (Eastern Freeway,
>> > Gardners Ck and Dandenong Ck around Box Hill and Vermont areas).
>> > Especially in the tighter sections, plenty of cyclists ride too fast
>> > considering that kids, dogs and granny's are to be expected on the
>> > track also.
>>
>> I'm sure the gov't response to that problem would be a Multinova.
>
> For the viewers at home, Theo means a speed camera. In WA they call
> them by the brand name of the camera.

Here I was, thinking of multiple stars undergoing deflagration. I
would consider that a valid solution to many a problem.

--
TimC
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan