Reply to post: Re: Cyclists who treat pedestrians as a slalom course are idiots

Re: Cyclists who treat pedestrians as a slalom course are idiots

Links:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-08-08/hell-ride-cyclist-fined-400-over-mans-death/2525134

http://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/216390/muarc285.pdf (see Sect 1.1.3)

And it occurs in UKLand:

http://metro.co.uk/2016/03/09/pedestrian-died-following-collision-with-cyclist-on-old-street-5742315/

I suspect that many will believe as do I that $AU400 fine for killing a pedestrian is anything but designating cyclists as an outgroup.

Cyclists claim that the speed and mass differential between a car and a cyclist are substantially greater than that between a cyclist and a pedestrian. This is bullshit.

The kinetic energy of a 1500 kg an ordinary sedan in a 50 km/hr zone compared to a cyclist’s kinetic energy of a riding at 30 km/hr in the same direction is a ratio of around 44 to 1 in favour of the car. On the other hand, the kinetic energy ratio between the same cyclist still travelling at 30 km/hr and a pedestrian walking at normal speed of say 5 km/hr is around 48 to 1 in favour of the cyclist. That is the car-cyclist kinetic energy differential is similar to that of the cyclist-pedestrian ratio. This is high school physics, not my "misinformed opinions".

Councils and road authorities have moved the responsibility from the car driver over to the cyclists by moving the cyclist onto the pedestrian footpath in order to reduce cyclist fatalities and injuries. The belief is that cyclists are supposedly travelling at a slower speed on the shared footpath in contrast to a car travelling on a road. In other words, it is assumed cyclists are in a better position to avoid harmful impacts with pedestrians and any impact therefore is necessarily of a lower severity.

The potential for conflict on shared paths is exacerbated by the differences in type, abilities and movements of users. Shared use pathways are frequented by pedestrians, cyclists, joggers, in-line skaters, skate-boarders, dogs, babies in prams, riders of powered recreational devices and many others. Particularly vulnerable users are the disabled (the visual, hearing and cognitively impaired), the elderly and children. Users have differing degrees of ability and experience, health and fitness, reaction and perception time, age and purpose. Generally, walkers will travel at significantly less speed than cyclists who can travel at over 50 km/hr or ten times the speed of the average pedestrian.

German research indicates that although fatal collisions are rare, cyclists are more likely to cause collisions but pedestrians usually suffer more severe injuries. They found younger bike riders were often at fault and the victims were often frail elderly people.

Graw,M., König, H.G., 2002. Fatal pedestrian–bicycle collisions. Forensic Sci. Int. 126, 241–247.

While you claim I am "uninformed" I am elderly and the literature, sparse as it is, supports my belief that cyclists on pedestrian footpaths are an existential threat to pedestrians. Despite finding several pedestrian deaths, I have been unable to find record of any cyclist dying from impact with a pedestrian. Sounds like weapons are definitely called for!