Re:Sharrows, the bicycle infrastructure that doesn’t work an...
by einpoklum on Saturday December 19, 2020 @01:06PM
(#25479549)
> I think the only way forward for cyclists is intense litigation
In my (non-cycling-related) experience, this is never true. That is, litigation gets you little, if anything. If there is no public, political way forward (inside or outside the political establishment), then you're stuck, and had better work on that.
Ideas:
* Promote use of public mass-transit instead of private cars (e.g. via infrastructure and mass transit investiment)
* De-motivate use of private cars (e.g. through taxation on car purchases and/or on gasoline, stricter pollution regulation, more expensive parking)
* Change the law so that in all cyclist-car-driver accidents, the car driver is at fault unless he proves otherwise.
This all requires a lot of public pressure, which in turn requires public opinion work through local advocacy.
---
Alternatively, some people could go the vigilante way. I'm not advocating this, but in theory, acquaintance of the cyclist victim of an attack by a car driver can retaliate either immediately or ex-post-facto, not within the bounds of the law. That could mean something like a scratching a rebuke on the car's paint, or pasting a piece of material with a written message to the front window in a way which doesn't come off easily, or blocking the car from leaving its parking spot with some kind of inconvenience, together with a rebuke that is easy to remove (e.g. page of paper under windshield); etc.
This route does not require mass active support across a country or legislative district; it only requires passive local support for cycling and disdain for car drivers hitting cyclists - enough to create multiple potential suspects while making it very difficult for law enforcement to pin the actions on any one of them. i.e. if people in the same neighborhood don't rat them out.
In my (non-cycling-related) experience, this is never true. That is, litigation gets you little, if anything. If there is no public, political way forward (inside or outside the political establishment), then you're stuck, and had better work on that.
Ideas:
* Promote use of public mass-transit instead of private cars (e.g. via infrastructure and mass transit investiment)
* De-motivate use of private cars (e.g. through taxation on car purchases and/or on gasoline, stricter pollution regulation, more expensive parking)
* Change the law so that in all cyclist-car-driver accidents, the car driver is at fault unless he proves otherwise.
This all requires a lot of public pressure, which in turn requires public opinion work through local advocacy.
---
Alternatively, some people could go the vigilante way. I'm not advocating this, but in theory, acquaintance of the cyclist victim of an attack by a car driver can retaliate either immediately or ex-post-facto, not within the bounds of the law. That could mean something like a scratching a rebuke on the car's paint, or pasting a piece of material with a written message to the front window in a way which doesn't come off easily, or blocking the car from leaving its parking spot with some kind of inconvenience, together with a rebuke that is easy to remove (e.g. page of paper under windshield); etc.
This route does not require mass active support across a country or legislative district; it only requires passive local support for cycling and disdain for car drivers hitting cyclists - enough to create multiple potential suspects while making it very difficult for law enforcement to pin the actions on any one of them. i.e. if people in the same neighborhood don't rat them out.