White is not the only high-level cyclist to die in Colorado in recent years. In 2020, Clif Pro Team racer Ben Sonntag was killed by a driver while on a training ride outside Durango. That driver was sentenced to serve jail time in late 2021. In 2021, U.S. masters champion Gwen Inglis was killed by a driver outside Lakewood, Colorado.
“Rural roads, that is, farm roads with maybe a few cars an hour, like the roads that MANY cyclists use because they aren’t busy, can still kill cyclists because drivers are idiots.”
Exactly! If you don’t want to die from getting hit by a car THEN STAY OFF THE ROAD. Literally cycle anywhere else it isn’t that hard. I don’t have sympathy for people who refuse to understand this.
I also have zero empathy for people that die in sky diving incidents. I have zero sympathy for people who do stupid shit and die from doing stupid shit.
So, help me to understand.
Someone walks out of their home with a bike. Now what? Where do they ride if they already know the destination?
Ironically, you consider anything except driving to be “stupid shit”, even though driving is more likely to get someone killed.
And we won’t even get into the number of lives SAVED because of the health benefits that go along with cycling, or the health detriments that go along with driving – even if you aren’t the driver!
You know that there are other places to ride your bike than busy roads right?
You know there are other ways to exercise right?
Sounds like you’re just being stubborn. Go for it buddy. It’s only your life.
You failed to answer the question.
Someone is trying to get to work or pick up prescriptions. They walk of their house with a bike. Where do you suggest they ride?
No, you failed to answer my question. With all of the places in the world you can ride your bike for entertainment/exercise why do you select busy roads? Why is your first and only choice to ride around death machines?
We aren’t talking about people who are too poor to buy a car or can’t take public transportation.
We are literally talking about people who are joy riding and do so on dangerous roads.
Did you forget that we are responding to a post about a child who died because he decided to use a public busy road for training? He very easily could have chosen a safer place to do it. Sounds to me like you’re the type of person who refuses to take accountability for your own actions.
You’re so stubborn that you’d rather die by getting hit by a car then just finding a safer place.
Really there is no point using logic with you because you don’t use that part of your brain.
Bye.
Can you name all of these places in the world to ride a bike? If not the road and not the sidewalk, where?
And nobody purposely chooses to ride their bike around cars - they are forced to with no other alternatives.
Still, they have a legal right to be on those roads, and drivers have a legal and moral obligation to drive safely.
The kid was cycling in an area close to his own home! He was struck from behind while riding on the shoulder!
Maybe drivers should learn how to drive and not kill people. How does that sound?
You haven’t ONCE held a driver responsible for their actions in any of your replies, so you are arguing in bad faith. You simply don’t like cyclists.
Pick a park. Simple. No cars there. Ride on trails, etc. Use your imagination. Again you’re overlooking this and automatically selecting roads. There are state parks all over the place that have biking trails. You’re just refusing to go there because you’re lazy.
Wrong. No one is forcing you to ride your bike. No other alternative? Go to a park, go to some where with trails. Go running. Go hiking. Use a stationary bike. NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO CYCLE. If you’re cycling on a road, IT’S BECAUSE YOU MADE THE CHOICE TO DO SO. And if you made the choice to do so, you’ve done so by accepting the risk of getting hit by a car. Not getting hit by a car is as simple as making the choice to not cycle on a road with cars. It’s one thing if you have to go get your medication and don’t have a car. It’s another when you made a CHOICE to go exercise/train in a place where there are moving vehicles. So if you end up getting hit by a car, you need to accept accountability for your decision. You can’t just go do dangerous things, and put all blame on the person that hit you. You keep over looking the danger and you put all of the responsibility on the driver. The cyclist has responsibility too. Stop pretending they don’t. It would be no different if you decided to go sky diving, and your chute rips. If you die in that event, YOUR choice of going sky diving is a contribution to what led to that event, and you have to accept responsibility. If you decide to go skiing and you hit a tree, you can blame the tree all you want but YOU put yourself in that situation.
Can you stop with this already? Yes you have the right to ride your bike on the road. I am not saying you don’t have the right. Yes there is a moral obligation to be safe. What you clearly don’t understand is that even tho there is a moral obligation, IT IS STILL NOT SAFE AND IT NEVER WILL BE SAFE. Have you never taken a physics class? Why are you refusing to accept that THIS IS DANGEROUS. Your issue is you cannot separate that fact that moral obligation ALONE isn’t going to keep you from dying by getting hit by a car. You as a cyclist cannot control other people’s behaviors. If someone is going to get drunk and drive a car, then you are going to be cycling around people who are doing this. Why do you want to be cycling on a road where people are drunk, and there is nothing to protect you except for just a helmet?
YES BECAUSE HE WAS CYCLING ON A ROAD WHERE CARS DRIVE BY. When are you going to accept the reality that cycling on public roads is dangerous? People are literally dying and you still can’t see why it’s a bad idea…
Sounds excellent. How about you add this to the list of reasons why cycling around unpredictable drivers IS A BAD FUCKING IDEA. This is what we call judgement. You keep ignoring this point entirely and keep arguing bullshit points like “iTs My RiGhT”. You expect drivers to never hit you, which is a stupid expectation when you consider how shitty people are at driving and using their judgement. With how many car accidents there are on a yearly basis you have to be stupid to put yourself in this situation on a daily basis for the sole purposes of “training”.
Because we aren’t talking about the driver. We are talking about the person WHO PUT THEM SELF IN A POSITION WHERE IT’S EVEN POSSIBLE TO BE HIT BY A CAR. Throw the driver in jail and fuck him up. It isn’t the point tho. If you continue making the decision to cycle near unpredictable dangerous cars, then it’s just a matter of time and statistics before YOU are a statistic.
A park? Do you even ride a bike? Even a large park, like Central Park in NYC, would be extremely prohibitive for an athlete to cycle through. And what about smaller cities with populations less than a million people? What large park do they have?
State parks are common place for cyclists and cars, but how to do you suppose they get there? Drive a car, which puts people in more danger?
Trails? Not every place has them, and they are often poor quality, and have dogs/people to contend with. Not ideal for anyone who wants to ride their bike faster than 20km/h.
And what about commuters? Or teens? Screw them, they can’t ride their bike?
Do you go to work on a stationary bike? Do you train for a triathlon by going on a hike?
Why not drive a car at a racetrack instead of putting people near roads in danger? See how silly this is?
Roads belong to both car AND cyclist traffic.
And by getting behind the wheel of a car, you accept that you shouldn’t be running people over, right?
Someone choosing to take a bus to work shouldn’t have to be worried about a car slamming into the bus shelter, yet it happens. Are you blaming bus commuters for this?
No, because the use of a bike, or a road to get to your destination, doesn’t change. Whether someone is out to exercise or pick up meds, they shouldn’t be run over by inattentive drivers.
Yes!! Because it is the responsibility of the driver to not speed, not make dangerous passes, and not run cyclists or pedestrians over!
I’ve never said that they don’t. They have a responsibility to not run into pedestrians and to follow the rules of the road. If a cyclist hits a pedestrian, I do blame the cyclist. I don’t expect pedestrians to stay at home because sharing a multiuse path is “too dangerous”. I expect cyclists to not run into them!
Why not expect the same from a driver?
That’s a terrible analogy. If you decided to fly a plane, and some inattentive pilot decides to crash into your plane, are you to blame?
Do you blame kids for going to school and getting shot, rather than the person doing the shooting?
You seem to be blaming anyone but the person driving a metal machine of death. Why?
Driving is more dangerous than cycling. Why don’t you accept the fact that driving is extremely dangerous, killing tens of thousands of people a year and injuring many more?
And people choose to partake in an activity that is less dangerous than driving, yet you’re arguing that they are still “stupid” and “extreme”?
He was cycling on a shoulder where cars shouldn’t be driving! You are still blaming the victim for something that was 100% the fault of the driver.
Wouldn’t it be nice if drivers simply drove safely? It would save everyone a lot of time.
I will reiterate: you can be inside a store and a driver can crash through the storefront, putting everyone at risk. This happens over and over again, so you can stop trying to dictate what activities people do and where, and maybe start asking why drivers aren’t able to drive safely?
That would be ANYWHERE!
Have you ever been outside a car? Like downtown in a city, or at a local grocery store, or a dentist or post office? You can’t avoid cars.
Literally, cars have crashed through people’s houses, into bus stops, onto sidewalks, through public parks. And it doesn’t matter if they are in cities or on rural roads.
The only place you are safe from cars is probably in a boat or in a plane, but you’d probably blame the captain or pilot for being “stupid” by putting themselves at risk to fly or be on water…
As a society, we expect drivers to drive safely. That naturally means that everyone else is safe. You can walk across an intersection without fear of someone running a read light; you can have a bus drop your kids off at school without the fear of someone blowing past the bus; you can ride a bike in a bike lane or should (or, gasp, on the road) without worrying about someone crashing into you because they were checking social media instead of paying attention to the road.
There’s really no argument to be made in favor or drivers. If they are killing people, THEY are doing something wrong.
So then stay away from them. If you don’t have a solution to fix it that’s fine, but refusing to see the risk in continuing your behavior is just wrong. It’s clear you’re entire argument is around “cars are bad”. And my entire argument is “No shit, stay away from cars if you want to be safe, otherwise accept the detrimental risks of getting hit by a car”. It’s really that simple.
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Dude. People get killed cycling on cycle paths too. Most accidents happen in cities, at intersections, not on calm rural roads. It is not that dangerous.
You are promoting to not ride a bike at all really, i think a bicycling community is a strange place to do that.