Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

We do this because people see themselves as drivers, and being faced with the reality that as a driver you may kill someone--be a killer--is difficult for people to face. I however, believe that this is a mistake, that leads to all sorts of negative outcomes.

I agree with the majority of your post, especially that the use of killer in this scenario is correct and the general point of it all, but I think the way you think people empathize with drivers who kill anyone in an accident might not be correct.

I think that we want to grant the absolution because humans make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes are tragic. These ones in particular are all the more tragic because we know how to significantly reduce their frequency but can't be arsed because of car culture.

I agree with this in the case of some people. The victims family clearly. Those who comment something to the effect of "what a terrible tragedy, two lives destroyed as a result of a mistake"...sure, that's what those people are thinking (although "two lives destroyed" rather glosses over the reality that one is dead, the other is not).

Those who I do not think this belief applies two are two groups, the first, is simply the people who exclaim "cyclists, they're all terrible whatever"...or something to that effect.  The other group is far more important, and that is of the media--who have a long track record of absolving the driver of responsibility even to the point of removing the driver from the story.  I am perhaps, unfair in assigning a motive to this, but the effect is clear.

That being said, in almost all of the public (not our, obviously) discussion on crashes, the real, "silent killer" is rarely mentioned, which is, of course dangerous road design--oops, I'm doing it too--I should say, engineers who design dangerous roads, those who write the dangerous design standards and the politicians who enable them. The rare case that it is mentioned, it's usually a complaint about lack of a stop sign or traffic signal..the least important road safety policy, I doubt there has ever been a news report so nerded out as to question why a turning radii onto a residential street is a 100 meters wide, and yet that may very well be in the top ten causes of injury on our roads.