If a cyclist hits a pedestrian, they have failed in that duty.
If a car driver hits a cyclist, they too have failed.
But cyclists also do incredibly stupid things, and I witness this almost every time I ride. I’ve had to make extreme evasive maneuvers on my bike to avoid a serious accident caused by inattention or dangerous choices made by other cyclists.
One day, I was driving my car, and after stopping at a stop sign, began to make my way through the intersection.
A moment later, a cyclist landed on my hood. They had - at full speed - gone the wrong way around a roundabout covered by dense foliage in the middle, and exited the roundabout the wrong way down a one way street, where my car was just beginning to roll.
Maybe this circumstance doesn’t fit the “if a car driver hits a cyclist” criteria (the responding police officer and later, the insurance company agreed), but every collision is unique, and the cyclist plays a part.
Cars are overwhelmingly at fault in most cases. Cyclists often contribute to or directly cause extremely dangerous interactions.
I find I spend an inordinate amount of time looking for bicycles. They're small, fast, and often not where they are supposed to be.
Also there is a lot of talk about cars but in my extended friends groups I know of a number of non-car related accidents. And a couple of cyclist hitting other cyclists. And I think we don't keep statistics on those.
My take is the system wasn't set up for bicycles and it'll take a lot of time and money to fix that.
I’m probably not going to attempt to draw any policy or broader conclusions from this.
Even at, to guess, 10 mph, I don't recommend it. Wrote off my bicycle.
But yeah, small samples are bad to draw conclusions from.
It looks like there was one pedestrian death caused by a cyclist in around the last 10 years.
This reminds me of how every driver thinks they are at least above average and most people think they are even an excellent driver.
I guess the same applies to cyclists.