Well obviously if your standard of who is at fault is "the driver is always at fault", obviously 100% of collisions are going to be the fault of the driver.
With that caveat, on access-controlled highways (motorways), you’re not allowed to walk, so any pedestrian would be in the wrong for being there. That said, even there a driver would be at fault for colliding with a human (policeman, fireman, people after a car accident, and other people who might have a very good reason to be there) regardless of what that human was doing. It’s not that different from crashing into a stopped car or any other kind of obstacle. Similarly, a driver is at fault for hitting an animal.
In non-access controlled highways, the driver would be at fault if their car collided with anything, be it another car, a human, or an animal. How legal it is for a pedestrian to cross in this case depends on local laws.
So in any case, yes, the driver is responsible, although that responsibility could be shared in some cases. If the accident results from deliberate action on the part of the pedestrian, there probably would not be any consequences for the driver in any lawsuit (unless the driver was also reckless or drunk), but for insurance purposes it does not matter.
This is not the case with bicycles - they drive with the traffic, as a part of traffic. So I don't think this rule is very applicable to real world.
That’s what I am trying to say: with kids, even if they are nowhere in your path, you want to slow down anyway, because who knows.
This rule does applies less to adult bicyclists. For example, if there is a separate, dedicated bike lane and there is an adult bicyclist there, I will pass him. Not so with kids.
See the difference?
For whatever it's worth, I would agree. I am confident that most cyclist/car accidents will be the car driver's fault. Would you even be surprised, if this turns out to be genuinely the case? I wouldn't! Do you even drive a car? I do! Car drivers are shits - or at least behave exactly like them - one for the philosphers, perhaps - and I cannot fathom how anybody that drives a car could think otherwise. Have you not noticed how these people behave? (Sure, lie to us all you like - but don't lie to yourself!) Car drivers would run your kids down, and you know it, if it would save them 5 seconds - then in court they'd cry about how things are so difficult for them now they're facing prison. Because they know they'd probably get away with it.
Out of the tiny number of times an accident is the cyclist's fault, the vast majority could be avoided if the driver was paying an appropriate amount of attention - and the 6-year-old rule of thumb is a good one, I think, when it comes to gauging how much attention is appropriate - given they're driving a 1500+ kg 200+ bhp murder machine, a major design goal of which is ensuring its occupants come out unscathed from any collision.
I am confident the remainder could be dealt with on a case by case basis.
So, to your "I'm confident that..." I also say: citation needed.
No, they are claiming that they have a belief (implicitly, often, a justified belief) that X has a high probability of being true, unlike stating merely “X” which denotatively is a claim that X is true without qualification.