As a cyclist, cyclist road deaths just hit in such a different way than car road deaths hit - even though a driver too. The 💔 feels viscerally real because of the vulnerability we have on roads not designed with our safety centred.
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Me #phd around carers was inspired in part by my experience of caring for my lovely husband, who has an acquired brain injury as a result of a collision between a car and his bike. Yes, he should have been wearing a helmet but it wouldn't have happened if there had been a safe route for him to take
Your chance of dying while driving a car is genuinely limitable to some degree (don't drive while impaired, don't speed, wear a seatbelt, etc) whereas most cyclist deaths are not the result of things within the cyclist's control and that's much scarier.
I've had drivers very nearly kill me and then do punishment passes afterwards because nearly killing someone really ruined their day I guess 🙃 the level of entitlement from a small minority is mind-boggling
Or the punishment close-pass when I'm cycling a metre or so out from a row of parked cars because it would be too much bother to look, let alone do a Dutch reach, in NZ when we open our car door.
I'm amazed at the people who yell out their window that I need to learn the road code, while they commit any number of offences:
* driving while using a cell phone
* roll through a stop sign
* fail to give way
* stop over the white/yellow line
* wrong way up a 1-way road
* no seatbelt
Yeah... it's so (chillingly) familiar... Mind you, I have only been on by bike once since my partner had a bad accident 3.5 months ago, so it's probably feeling a lot more real right now.
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As a cyclist you can mitigate every possible risk and it still might not be enough.
* driving while using a cell phone
* roll through a stop sign
* fail to give way
* stop over the white/yellow line
* wrong way up a 1-way road
* no seatbelt
it took over four months for the driver to be charged with reckless homicide vehicular