Would you support an assumed liability rule in Ireland?

Have you tried keeping count of this kind of incident?

You're right in that many cyclists aren't angels. Neither are they in control of a tonne or two of metal going at speeds of 20-150 kmph. It is a complete false equivalence to compare the dangers arising from non-angelic cyclists and the dangers arising from non-angelic motorists.

The idea that people need training to stop at red lights is slightly flawed too. Everyone on the road knows what red lights are for and how they work. Some cyclists make decisions to break lights, with generally a slight danger to themselves and no-one else. Many motorists make decisions to break lights, break speed limits, drive on the phone, with a very substantial danger arising to others.

We need some decent enforcement, and we need training especially for those drivers who haven't opened ROTR in living memory.

What has a speed limit got to do with stopping for a red light?? And no I generally stick to the limits because a) I'm not a **** driver and b) my daughter is with me on most journeys.

Weren't you the one talking about learning the rules? Is that just the rules that suit you? Speeding by motorists is one of top three causes of road deaths. Cyclists breaking red lights isn't one of the top 100 causes of road deaths.

Your 'generally' is doing a lot of work there. If you break the speed limit, you're really in now position to be jumping up and down about cyclists breaking red lights.

ICYMI I'm not the one jumping up and down about cyclists breaking red lights.

Boomerang all you like, it doesn't change the facts.

I'm not actually having a go at someone for breaking speed limits.

I'm having a go at someone for making a big song and dance about cyclists breaking red lights while breaking speed limits.

See the difference?

I would 100% support it, but I would 100% support a simultaneous campaign, from the likes of the insurance federation or RSA, that every vehicle be fitted with a dashcam, to negate the risk of opportunistic scammers.

As an aside:

For the second time in as many months, I have just completed a formal damage assessment report on a customer's bike, for insurance purposes.

Wthout breaching any confidentiality, both cases had the following similarities:

Both riders were struck from behind, travelling up and over the vehicle that struck them.

Both were hospitalised with catastrophic (but thankfully not fatal) injuries.

Both drivers claimed at the scene ''I didn't see him/her/they as I was blinded by the low sun'' (one kept driving and only turned back after realising they had been spotted by onlookers!!). Now, if i remember my old Rules of the Road book from the eighties when I was learning to drive, it said ''Drivers should slow down or stop if they are dazzled or vision is impaired by oncoming headlights or low sun in wintertime. Fair enough, but surely you'd noticed the lad breaking your fu(king windscreen with his pelvis/head as he clatters over your car like a thrown rag doll??!!

Time and again, I hear the following on the news: ''Today a cyclist died on road XYZ, when they were in a collision with a motor vehicle''. Sorry, Eamon or Mary McNewsreader, your autocue is faulty...it should be reading ''Today a cyclist was killed by the driver of a van/car/bus/truck when they were hit by the motor vehicle.

Whatever happened to slowing down, expecting the unexpected (including cyclists flouting traffic rules), and assuming everyone else is a fu(king eejit (as my aul lad taught me, on my first ever driving lesson)??

Moral of both stories? Don't cycle west in Ireland on a clear day after 12 noon!

It's interesting that it's only the Common Law (or heavily Common Law Influenced) jurisdictions that have not gone this route, which likely means there's an incompatibility with Common Law. It's not applicable in the UK, Ireland, Malta or Cyprus, all of which have either full Common Law or hybrid/derived systems.

There are very significant differences in Common Law and Civil Law (Civil Code) jurisdictions in both criminal and civil law particularly around assumptions like this.

Romania's likely to be an outlier for other reasons.

Ireland would also have an issue with absolutely massive civil payouts which could make something like this extremely problematic.

There are possibly other approaches to this in an Irish legal context, but I'm not sure you could just directly implement the system the same way as Germany or NL etc.

Shocking incident, people aren't nearly as competent at driving a car as they think and in this example a moment of rage behind the wheel could have meant 5 people being brought to hospital with serious injuries or death and that driver spending many years locked up behind bars...all for nothing more than slowing down for a minute.....

I was turning right off Carysfort Ave into Stillorgan Park today. The green filter light for bikes turned amber before I even got into the main 'car lane' part of the junction.

I've cycled the length and breadth of Europe, probably close on 20,000 km. From the Atlantic coast of France to the Belarussian border and from Monaco to Helsinki. I've cycled round the back of the Airbus factory and past farmers using oxen to plough their fields.

With the possible exceptions of south-eastern England and the south of France, nowhere did I see the ignorant driving that is so common in this country.

It's never going to change. Not in our lifetimes. The hand of Time will have effaced our great-grandchildren's gravestones, and Irish drivers will still be boorish and ignorant.