Cork SRR - Cyclist in Middle Lane

Anan1

Swanner wrote: »

Small risk means small premium but it doesn't negate the need for insurance. I haven't claimed once in 23 years driving. My risk is obviously miniscule so on that basis I shouldn't need insurance either. I accept that I do however because no matter how small the perceived chance, mistakes, accidents and collisions can happen to any of us.

Out of interest, how far would you go with that? Should insurance be compulsory for skaters? Joggers? Pedestrians? Kids?

The Bishop Basher

Anan1 wrote: »

Out of interest, how far would you go with that? Should insurance be compulsory for skaters? Joggers? Pedestrians? Kids?

They're usually covered by the property owner wherever they are. Skate parks, schools, gymnasiums etc all pay hefty insurance to cover any accidents that may occur. In my kids school they aren't even allowed run anymore due to a couple of big claims that went in. As far as I'm aware, none if these activities are carried out exclusively on a public road.

Anan1

Swanner wrote: »

They're usually covered by the property owner wherever they are. Skate parks, schools, gymnasiums etc all pay hefty insurance to cover any accidents that may occur. In my kids school they aren't even allowed run anymore due to a couple of big claims that went in. As far as I'm aware, none if these activities are carried out exclusively on a public road.

OK, i'll rephrase the question. Should skaters/joggers/pedestrians/kids all require compulsory insurance while on public roads? Or would this rule only apply to cyclists?

Iwannahurl

Swanner wrote: »

Naturally cars are the biggest source of danger on the road. There's a lot of them and they move at speed. If bicycles were as numerous, heavy and fast as cars they'd be right up there in the stats.

And if they had wings, propellers and engines they'd be aeroplanes, and regulated by the Irish Aviation Authority.

The Bishop Basher

Anan1 wrote: »

OK, i'll rephrase the question. Should skaters/joggers/pedestrians/kids all require compulsory insurance while on public roads? Or would this rule only apply to cyclists?

Cyclists use the roads exclusively. None of the above do.

dr.fuzzenstein

Anan1 wrote: »

Out of interest, how far would you go with that? Should insurance be compulsory for skaters? Joggers? Pedestrians? Kids?

Interesting one, that. I remember my parent's insurance paying out for me on a couple of occasions when I was a kid. Was called Haftpflichtversicherung and it covered the usual breakages the average kid will cause (breaking windows and so on) and I'm sure that would cover running someone down on a bike. But don't quote me on that.
So yes, in Germany you as the person is insured wherever you go and potentially cause damage.
I'm amazed that someone as compo oriented as the Irish don't have such a thing. Especially when the average claim for a owie is an eye-watering €20k and the sky is the limit for actual injuries.
In Germany you will have to have real injuries to even get €2k and not just "My neck hurts! Gimme money!"

Anan1

Swanner wrote: »

Cyclists use the roads exclusively.

This is both untrue and irrelevant. I'll ask you again - should skaters/joggers/pedestrians/kids all require compulsory insurance while on public roads? Or would this rule only apply to cyclists?

Anan1

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Interesting one, that. I remember my parent's insurance paying out for me on a couple of occasions when I was a kid. Was called Haftpflichtversicherung and it covered the usual breakages the average kid will cause (breaking windows and so on) and I'm sure that would cover running someone down on a bike. But don't quote me on that.
So yes, in Germany you as the person is insured wherever you go and potentially cause damage.
I'm amazed that someone as compo oriented as the Irish don't have such a thing. Especially when the average claim for a owie is an eye-watering €20k and the sky is the limit for actual injuries.
In Germany you will have to have real injuries to even get €2k and not just "My neck hurts! Gimme money!"

I wonder would home insurance cover it?

The Bishop Basher

Anan1 wrote: »

This is both untrue and irrelevant. I'll ask you again - should skaters/joggers/pedestrians/kids all require compulsory insurance while on public roads? Or would this rule only apply to cyclists?

Explain why it's untrue and irrelevant and I might be able to respond. It's absolutely true in my book so please explain

Anan1

Swanner wrote: »

Explain why it's untrue and irrelevant and I might be able to respond. It's absolutely true in my book so please explain

i.) Cyclists do not use the roads exclusively, bikes are ridden in plenty of other places too.

ii.) Cars do not use the roads exclusively, and yet they require insurance while using them.

Now, are you ready to answer the question?

The Bishop Basher

Anan1 wrote: »

i.) Cyclists do not use the roads exclusively, bikes are ridden in plenty of other places too.

ii.) Cars do not use the roads exclusively, and yet they require insurance while using them.

Now, are you ready to answer the question?

Ok. I was hoping for a better response and actually thought maybe we can engage here. Not only is it disappointing but It's clear now that your just being obtuse for the sake of it.

When skateboards, kids, joggers, pedestrians, your granny, Jesus and Elvis can be found making their merry way down the SRR on a busy night in lane 2 of rush hour traffic, come back and we can talk.

Anan1

Swanner wrote: »

Ok. I was hoping for a better response and actually thought maybe we can engage here. Not only is it disappointing but It's clear now that your just being obtuse for the sake of it.

When skateboards, kids, joggers, pedestrians, your granny, Jesus and Elvis can be found making their merry way down the SRR on a busy night in lane 2 of rush hour traffic, come back and we can talk.

No you weren't. You have it in for cyclists and can't justify your antipathy, that's all.

Anan1

Anan1 wrote: »

This is both untrue and irrelevant. I'll ask you again - should skaters/joggers/pedestrians/kids all require compulsory insurance while on public roads? Or would this rule only apply to cyclists?

I'm undecided myself if cyclists should require insurance or not. On the above argument cyclists in my opinion would fall under the same bracket as cars, motorbikes etc much more than the list you have above.

Leaving that aside how can cyclists be pursued for damage without insurance. They could easily do 1000's of euro of damage to a car, especially new cars. How is a person to find 1000's of euro to cover this, never mind a person with limited means, students etc?

I'm not necessarily directing this at you more a general question.

Red Nissan

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Just because some Cyclists ignore the rules doesn’t change the law, which says that Cyclists may use the road.

Running Red Lights, with a few obvious exceptions, I believe cyclists should run red lights. Having cyclists gang up at traffic lights really does slow down motor traffic.

IMO, cyclists running red lights in say stalled traffic actually improves traffic flow.

Mucco

Salvatore Sharp Woodpecker wrote: »

I'm undecided myself if cyclists should require insurance or not. On the above argument cyclists in my opinion would fall under the same bracket as cars, motorbikes etc much more than the list you have above.

Leaving that aside how can cyclists be pursued for damage without insurance. They could easily do 1000's of euro of damage to a car, especially new cars. How is a person to find 1000's of euro to cover this, never mind a person with limited means, students etc?

I'm not necessarily directing this at you more a general question.

Any idea how much a premium for a cyclist would be if it was compulsory for all cyclists to be insured? The admin cost of the insurance may exceed the actuarially calculated premium.

The Bishop Basher

Mucco wrote: »

Any idea how much a premium for a cyclist would be if it was compulsory for all cyclists to be insured? The admin cost of the insurance may exceed the actuarially calculated premium.

Insurance companies build the admin cost into the premium.

gizmo555

Anan1 wrote: »

I wonder would home insurance cover it?

It usually does, but then not everyone's a homeowner.

The Bishop Basher

gizmo555 wrote: »

It usually does, but then not everyone's a homeowner.

Someone owns it and pays insurance.

gizmo555

Swanner wrote: »

Someone owns it and pays insurance.

Someone owns what? I thought the reference was to liability for damage or injury caused by a child. Like I said, not everyone, including not every parent, is a homeowner.

The Bishop Basher

gizmo555 wrote: »

Someone owns what? I thought the reference was to liability for damage or injury caused by a child. Like I said, not everyone, including not every parent, is a homeowner.

If you're renting a house, chances are, the owner is paying the insurance. This will cover someone falling and breaking a leg on the property.

gizmo555

Swanner wrote: »

If you're renting a house, chances are, the owner is paying the insurance. This will cover someone falling and breaking a leg on the property.

But it won't cover the tenants or their children while they're off the property.

My house insurance gives me pretty good cover for property damage and personal injuries for which I'm liable - including cycling - anywhere on or off my property.

The Bishop Basher

gizmo555 wrote: »

But it won't cover the tenants or their children while they're off the property.

My house insurance gives me pretty good cover for property damage and personal injuries for which I'm liable - including cycling - anywhere on or off my property.

Agreed. But elsewhere, they're either covered by someone else's home insurance or public liability.

dr.fuzzenstein

gizmo555 wrote: »

But it won't cover the tenants or their children while they're off the property.

My house insurance gives me pretty good cover for property damage and personal injuries for which I'm liable - including cycling - anywhere on or off my property.

Now there's something I haven't heard of (at least in Ireland).

gizmo555

Swanner wrote: »

Agreed. But elsewhere, they're either covered by someone else's home insurance or public liability.

This makes no sense to me. What "someone else's" insurance will pay for the damage if, say, an uninsured cyclist collides with a car on a public road and the cyclist is shown to be liable?

Tenzor07

Salvatore Sharp Woodpecker wrote: »

They could easily do 1000's of euro of damage to a car, especially new cars. How is a person to find 1000's of euro to cover this, never mind a person with limited means, students etc?

Hilarious! Well If I'm ever out on a bike and happen to spontaneously and suddenly lose balance and fall onto Bill Cullen's Bentley Continental then I'm sure i'll be ****ting myself!

Then again if some little fecker in a ****box motor bumps into me cracking my Carbon fibre bike that's worth much more than his car then he better have deep pockets!

Padraig Mor

And the dangers of vulnerable road users on busy high speed roads laid bare tonight. Elderly man killed tonight walking on the N25 dual carriageway at Carrigtwohill, a road with a comparable traffic load to the SRR (and connected to it). RIP. Lest anyone thinking I'm capitalising on this to 'make a point' - I'm not; just demonstrating the original rationale behind this thread - this is a serious safety issue, not a pointless debate about insurance for cyclists.

Red Nissan

Padraig Mor wrote: »

And the dangers of vulnerable road users.

Comparable, but not really comparable, in a dual carriageway situation a pedestrian is not accommodated for at all at all.

There have been traffic warnings in that area of women jogging this week and the Gardai asked to take action.

Iwannahurl

Padraig Mor wrote: »

And the dangers of vulnerable road users on busy high speed roads laid bare tonight. Elderly man killed tonight walking on the N25 dual carriageway at Carrigtwohill, a road with a comparable traffic load to the SRR (and connected to it). RIP. Lest anyone thinking I'm capitalising on this to 'make a point' - I'm not; just demonstrating the original rationale behind this thread - this is a serious safety issue, not a pointless debate about insurance for cyclists.

Another tragedy in a bad year for road deaths.

Again the question must be asked: why would anyone, including and perhaps especially an elderly person, choose to walk on such a road?



EDIT: just found this by chance in the Cycling forum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euu2QRIuEPk

Padraig Mor

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Another tragedy in a bad year for road deaths.

Again the question must be asked: why would anyone, including and perhaps especially an elderly person, choose to walk on such a road?

This particular road has a ridiculously unsafe layout. Peak hours sees a constant stream of 100 km/h traffic (incident happened slightly after peak). But, unlike the SRR, this road has houses exiting directly onto it, and crossing points traversing the carriageway. And to top it off, a poor surface and a layout that blocks sightlines (although not where this happened). Lunacy. The incident happened at a series of houses immediately adjacent to the eastbound carriageway, separated by a fence. I have no idea why the person involved went to the other side of the fence in the dark, so I won't speculate.

Iwannahurl

Padraig Mor wrote: »

This particular road has a ridiculously unsafe layout. Peak hours sees a constant stream of 100 km/h traffic (incident happened slightly after peak). But, unlike the SRR, this road has houses exiting directly onto it, and crossing points traversing the carriageway. And to top it off, a poor surface and a layout that blocks sightlines (although not where this happened). Lunacy. The incident happened at a series of houses immediately adjacent to the eastbound carriageway, separated by a fence. I have no idea why the person involved went to the other side of the fence in the dark, so I won't speculate.

Can you post a StreetView or similar link to the spot, if you are fairly sure where it is?

Padraig Mor

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Can you post a StreetView or similar link to the spot, if you are fairly sure where it is?

Hopefully this works (on mobile):
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Carrigtohill,+Cork,+Ireland&hl=en&ll=51.911244,-8.236624&spn=0.000013,0.010568&sll=56.218923,-8.261719&sspn=3.983816,30.014648&oq=carrigt&t=h&hnear=Carrigtohill,+County+Cork,+Ireland&z=17&layer=c&cbll=51.911245,-8.238669&panoid=whDjixVEKVqcoK3qP7P-gw&cbp=12,56.61,,0,5.07

Dodgy, dodgy road (moreso further on).

Tenzor07

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Hilarious! Well If I'm ever out on a bike and happen to spontaneously and suddenly lose balance and fall onto Bill Cullen's Bentley Continental then I'm sure i'll be ****ting myself!

Then again if some little fecker in a ****box motor bumps into me cracking my Carbon fibre bike that's worth much more than his car then he better have deep pockets!

You haven't a clue. If a cyclist happened to break a red light and I hit them. The bike would most likely ruin my bumper and engine under tray. Cyclist would would have a high possibility of smashing my windscreen and denting my bonnet.

Between new bumper, new bonnet, new under tray, spraying new bonnet, spraying new bumper, new windscreen and replacement car while work was being done then you are well into the 1000's very fast for even a normal car.

Also as you mention a lot of people have very expensive bikes which if they get damaged or stolen could be replaced with insurance if cyclists had insurance.

Iwannahurl

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Hopefully this works (on mobile):
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Carrigtohill,+Cork,+Ireland&hl=en&ll=51.911244,-8.236624&spn=0.000013,0.010568&sll=56.218923,-8.261719&sspn=3.983816,30.014648&oq=carrigt&t=h&hnear=Carrigtohill,+County+Cork,+Ireland&z=17&layer=c&cbll=51.911245,-8.238669&panoid=whDjixVEKVqcoK3qP7P-gw&cbp=12,56.61,,0,5.07

Dodgy, dodgy road (moreso further on).

The road layout at that point looks pretty awful to me. I certainly wouldn't fancy living beside it, never mind walking along it or even driving onto it from a side road.

What's the speed limit on that particular stretch?

Google Maps doesn't give me any clues as to why a pedestrian might be walking there. The group of houses are all linked by a local road running parallel to the N25 behind a wall. Are there any public facilities in the area? What about social care facilities, such as a nursing home or sheltered housing?

RainyDay

Salvatore Sharp Woodpecker wrote: »

You haven't a clue. If a cyclist happened to break a red light and I hit them. The bike would most likely ruin my bumper and engine under tray. Cyclist would would have a high possibility of smashing my windscreen and denting my bonnet.

Between new bumper, new bonnet, new under tray, spraying new bonnet, spraying new bumper, new windscreen and replacement car while work was being done then you are well into the 1000's very fast for even a normal car.

How often does it happen that cyclists cause serious damage to cars in this way?

Idleater

RainyDay wrote: »

How often does it happen that cyclists cause serious damage to cars in this way?

... And survive that the worst part is the damage caused to the car.

SpaceTime

Iwannahurl wrote: »

The road layout at that point looks pretty awful to me. I certainly wouldn't fancy living beside it, never mind walking along it or even driving onto it from a side road.

What's the speed limit on that particular stretch?

Google Maps doesn't give me any clues as to why a pedestrian might be walking there. The group of houses are all linked by a local road running parallel to the N25 behind a wall. Are there any public facilities in the area? What about social care facilities, such as a nursing home or sheltered housing?

100km/h the previous newer section is 120km/h

I'm not aware of any facilities located directly on that road. Its a very old DC with some very weird junctions though on the stretch from there to Midleton.

I've seen pedestrians walking and cyclists on the M8 Glanmire bypass too.
You see the odd pedestrian on the South Link (busy DC without hard shoulders and steep walls in places built on a former railway cutting)

I also encountered an old man walking along the median barrier of the N40 SRR one night! My passenger immediately called the Gardai.

Unfortunately, it's just an urban / suburban area and you can get people with cognitive problems who either don't know where they are or who don't appreciate how dangerous that is.

The Bishop Basher

Idleater wrote: »

... And survive that the worst part is the damage caused to the car.

Personally I have seen it happen twice while marshalling triathlons. On both occasions the cyclist was injured and significant enough damage to the car. Thankfully on both occasions the cyclists were covered as the organisers had taken out Public liability insurance.

I suspect no one has real figures for this though as without insurance to claim off in normal circumstances it would go unreported.

Padraig Mor

Iwannahurl wrote: »

The road layout at that point looks pretty awful to me. I certainly wouldn't fancy living beside it, never mind walking along it or even driving onto it from a side road.

What's the speed limit on that particular stretch?

Google Maps doesn't give me any clues as to why a pedestrian might be walking there. The group of houses are all linked by a local road running parallel to the N25 behind a wall. Are there any public facilities in the area? What about social care facilities, such as a nursing home or sheltered housing?

As SpaceTime says, no particular facilities in the area. It's possible the man was walking between Carrigtohill village and the houses off the road and perhaps got confused. I understand he was a retired priest, which would suggest an age older than the 60s being reported.

Witness description:
"The man walked out In front of the car In front of us. I was the first person to get to him and unfortunately he was dead at that stage. He wasn't hit on purpose he walked into the middle of the on coming traffic. Nothing could have been done to stop this accident unfortunately. Also there was no footpath where he was walking it had ended at least 100meters back the road so it was just the hard shoulder. It happened right before the cottage on the left"

Tenzor07

Salvatore Sharp Woodpecker wrote: »

You haven't a clue. If a cyclist happened to break a red light and I hit them. The bike would most likely ruin my bumper and engine under tray. Cyclist would would have a high possibility of smashing my windscreen and denting my bonnet.

Between new bumper, new bonnet, new under tray, spraying new bonnet, spraying new bumper, new windscreen and replacement car while work was being done then you are well into the 1000's very fast for even a normal car.

Also as you mention a lot of people have very expensive bikes which if they get damaged or stolen could be replaced with insurance if cyclists had insurance.

If you hit someone in your car with enough force to cause the level of damage you have described then that person would most likely be dead or disabled for life..

And your main concern is for a repairable hunk of metal and glass, not for the person you just hit/killed?
Just shows you what sort of person you are really doesn't it?

SpaceTime

The N25 Midleton Bypass (old part) and also parts of the road that runs and the old part of the N18 that runs past Bunratty on the way into Limerick City have to be two of the most dangerous bits of old-type dual carriageway left in Ireland.

There are entrances straight out on to the DC and in both cases they come off motorway or high quality dual carriageway that's moving at 120km/h so drivers are often still in 'fast driving mode' and the quality suddenly deteriorates.

That stretch of DC is of similar era to the old Naas Dual carriageway but has not received anything like the levels of upgrading. There was some work done to eliminate dangerous junctions, but it has house entrances onto it!

The N18 stretch near Bunratty's even worse as there are far more house entrances as I think the planning must have been laxer for longer.

In the case of the N25, there are actually parallel roads gathering up most of the houses but they need slipways onto the N25 itself to make it much safer.

That stretch of the N25 could still do with a lot of work on completely eliminating weird junctions. There are roads entering it without slipways and various other rather odd junction arrangements that just are just a legacy of a very obsolete road design.

From what I've read it 'officially opened in the 1980s' but it's on maps that date from 1975, so I think it's pretty ancient. I suspect the uncomplicated parts of the dual carriageway in the countryside may have been built quite early on but the more complicated Midleton town bypass may have only been completed by 1986 as it involved some more expensive exits.

Projects like that in those days used to drag on for ridiculous amounts of time due to lack of funds and no use of private contractors. It wasn't unusual for a county council to actually do the project themselves with their own crews.

It looks like they just took a single carriageway and added a median divider and an extra set of lanes without any modification to the original single carriageway road.

In the case of the N18, there are literally houses with driveways onto a Dual Carriageway! Again, I would suspect the same great design philosophy was used there. DC on the cheap county council style, decades before the NRA.

The N18 : http://goo.gl/maps/kUIkp (Google Street View)

The Bishop Basher

Tenzor07 wrote: »

And your main concern is for a repairable hunk of metal and glass, not for the person you just hit/killed?
Just shows you what sort of person you are really doesn't it?

You do realise we're talking "what if's" here yeah ? It's not real life.

_Kaiser_

SpaceTime wrote: »

In the case of the N18, there are literally houses with driveways onto a Dual Carriageway!

The N18 : http://goo.gl/maps/kUIkp (Google Street View)

That's insanity. Whoever granted planning for those houses should be jailed!

Seweryn

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

That's insanity. Whoever granted planning for those houses should be jailed!

Yeah, madness. In any other country there would be a 50 km/h speed limit on that road, as it would be classified as residential area.

SpaceTime

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

That's insanity. Whoever granted planning for those houses should be jailed!

You'll probably find the house predates the dual-carriageway and that's just a remodelling job going on there.

The DC shouldn't have been built like that in the first place.

It looks like they took an existing single carriageway and just doubled it with an extra one on the other side of a median barrier. Turning the old single carriageway route into the southbound lanes of the N18 DC.

Unfortunately, I suspect it's just a project that was done on a tiny budget in the days when we didn't have a bulls notion what we were doing when it came to road design.

The only solution to that would be to do some kind of a road behind the houses and re-orientate their entrances and put in a proper slipway.
Retrofitting that isn't easy!

If the road had been built properly in the first place, it would have been a new DC parallel to the old road, leaving the houses with their old access route. That's what happened on any later DC builds.

At least on the N25 that has sort of been done even if it's not done to a very high spec. Each individual house is not just running its driveway into the hard shoulder !

There was a really odd attitude to motorways here until quite recently. I read debates where people were discussing not classifying the entire long-distance motorway network as motorway and instead using this HQDC classification which would have been hugely problematic as it would have allowed road-side development.

Had they got their way there wouldn't have been any official motorway classifications outside the pale really. Just a hodgepodge mess of HQDCs with 100km/h limits probably.

However, Ireland being Ireland and at the time there was no understanding of the concept of long distance motorway (this is in the early 2000s) there were people arguing in favour of that!

You have to remember we had awful roads until even a decade ago and almost zero concept of anything other than using motorways as short bypasses.

The change in attitudes towards roads and road safety is actually one of the most visible changes in Ireland over the last decade or so. If you go back to even the 1990s there was a total lack of consistency in signage, surfaces, layouts etc etc.
I mean, Cork City Council had speed limits warnings up in km/h on the Lower Glanmire Road and in Mahon in the 1990s !!

RainyDay

Swanner wrote: »

Personally I have seen it happen twice while marshalling triathlons. On both occasions the cyclist was injured and significant enough damage to the car. Thankfully on both occasions the cyclists were covered as the organisers had taken out Public liability insurance.

If it's a triathlon problem, let the triathlon folks fix it. We don't penalise ordinary drivers because of the crashes that happen in F1 races.

Swanner wrote: »

I suspect no one has real figures for this though as without insurance to claim off in normal circumstances it would go unreported.

It is very unlikely that any incident that involved serious damage to a car would go unreported. If the car was seriously damaged, the cyclist was almost certainly seriously damaged. Also, the car owner may well have claimed off their own comprehensive insurance.

The reason why this issue doesn't get much publicity is not down the lack of reporting. It's down to a lack of the situations actually happening.

Insurance for cyclists is a solution looking for a problem.

SpaceTime

Seweryn wrote: »

Yeah, madness. In any other country there would be a 50 km/h speed limit on that road, as it would be classified as residential area.

Well, we've plenty of other housing that opens out on to 100km/h single carriageway. So, it wouldn't be that unusual in an Irish context and it certainly isn't unusual in rural housing in other countries either. Although, they usually don't have entrances directly onto any kind of national primary routes, it'll usually be onto an access road and that kind of ribbon development is very much an Irish (and sometimes North American) thing. It's rare in Europe to be perfectly honest.

It's ultra low density rural ribbon development rather than a 'residential area' per se.

However, the road simply shouldn't have ever been built like that in the first place. It's a very bad design and by the looks of the arial view there was plenty of space for a full DC running parallel to any existing road.

I doubt you'd get planning permission for anything new with a direct entrance onto it though

Sadly, Irish local authorities allowed all this kind of chaotic ribbon development to occur over the decades. Maybe things have improved to some degree now but, the legacy is something we're stuck with for probably a couple of centuries at least.

The Bishop Basher

RainyDay wrote: »

If it's a triathlon problem, let the triathlon folks fix it. We don't penalise ordinary drivers because of the crashes that happen in F1 races.

F1 cars race on tracks. They don't share the roads with ordinary cars in the way bikes do. If you're going to use analogies at least make them relevant.

RainyDay wrote: »

It is very unlikely that any incident that involved serious damage to a car would go unreported. If the car was seriously damaged, the cyclist was almost certainly seriously damaged. Also, the car owner may well have claimed off their own comprehensive insurance.

Both were shaken and bruised. One had a broken collar bone. In both cases it was the cyclists fault so why would the motorist claim from their own insurance ? I know in one if the incidents the race organisers paid for the damage to the car to avoid the claim as it was an annual event and they didn't want the insurance to become prohibitive the following year.

RainyDay wrote: »

The reason why this issue doesn't get much publicity is not down the lack of reporting. It's down to a lack of the situations actually happening.

Is this another assumption on your part ? If not, data please.

SpaceTime

That old N18 DC route also went WAY too close to Bunratty Castle leading to jokes about American tourists saying things like "Gee Honey they built the Castle very close to the highway"

I mean, effectively it turned Bunratty into some kind of motorway services facility!

As viewed from the N18 DC : http://goo.gl/maps/IwhxS

But, in general that whole era of 1970s/early 80s road building in Ireland leaves a lot to be desired. There are a few DCs that could do with some serious remedial upgrading and that short stretch of the N25 is one of them.

Tenzor07

Tenzor07 wrote: »

If you hit someone in your car with enough force to cause the level of damage you have described then that person would most likely be dead or disabled for life..

And your main concern is for a repairable hunk of metal and glass, not for the person you just hit/killed?
Just shows you what sort of person you are really doesn't it?

Aside from breaking the windscreen it wouldn't take much force to damage the rest. The cyclist falling onto the bonnet at a standstill would so plenty of damage. Driving over the bike would damage the bumper and under tray even at slow speed. Its very easy to do a lot of damage to modern cars.

Of course I would be concerned for the person I hit but I would also be concerned for my car and what it was going to cost me to fix it.

blackwhite

Tenzor07 wrote: »

If you hit someone in your car with enough force to cause the level of damage you have described then that person would most likely be dead or disabled for life..

And your main concern is for a repairable hunk of metal and glass, not for the person you just hit/killed?
Just shows you what sort of person you are really doesn't it?

In the hypothetical scenario described the motorist would have injured/killed nobody. The cyclist who ran the red light into traffic would have killed/injured themselves.
But this does show the prevalent mindset among some that, no matter what, the cyclist is never responsible for anything. :rolleyes:

As for the damage described, it would be quite possible for a cyclist to cause major damage to the front of the car, and still walk away with no more than bumps and bruises. Modern cars have crumple zones that are designed to 1) project the driver from head on impacts with heavier objects and 2) to absorb as much of the impact as possible if there is a collision with a pedestrian/cyclist. The bumper is normally plastic and doesn't take much to damage it, and the bonnet is designed to crumple quite easily.