I agree with this, and i said in the other thread that i wouldn’t be very surprised if the driver was guilty of failing to pay proper attention to the sidewalk as he exited the property. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times; some drivers are just oblivious to everything but their own needs.
My main irritation, like Rick’s, is that, even after being informed that he was riding illegally, Sir T-Cups refuses to accept any moral or behavioral blame for the accident at all. In the other thread, i asked him whether learning that riding a bike on the sidewalk was illegal had changed his mind about the incident. His response?
Some of his mincing, whining defenders have adopted the same attitude.
From both a moral and a legal standpoint, i believe that blame in this case should be distributed between the driver and the cyclist. The driver should pay better attention to what’s happening when he exits a property, but the cyclist also bears some responsibility to obey the law and, if he’s not going to obey the law, to at least be conscious that people might not expect him to be in a place where it’s illegal for him to ride. All of us who use the road, whether drivers, cyclists, or pedestrians, have a responsibility to be considerate and thoughtful and cautious; that burden does not fall on drivers alone.
As a pedestrian, i jaywalk all the time. I know it’s illegal, but i do it anyway. I do it in my relatively quiet neighborhood; i do it in cities like New York and San Francisco. But when i do it, i am extra vigilant about where the traffic is, and i make sure that i don’t impede cars that have the right of way. And if i ever get knocked down by a car while jaywalking, i hope i’ll have the principles to admit that it was at least partly my fault.