I don't like being in the match off on these country roads in my vehicle and the dump trucks flying. NOOOO way would I want to greet one on a bike! I am a very defensive and careful driver (mainly because I pay enough in insurance thank ya' to cause an accident), but I have come around a blind curve going the speed limit and run up on a flock of bikes that dang near made me turn myself inside out to not hit them.
If you are going around blind curves at a speed that exceeds your ability to safely react to something in the road then you are driving recklessly. Speed limits are the maximum one is supposed to drive. All drivers are required to maintain a safe speed for the conditions. Quite often, a safe speed is somewhat less than the speed limit. Slow down and save a few lives.
In theory, you're correct. Again, a legal point you can win from a hospital bed...
However, a slow moving farm tractor or a disabled vehicle or other such occupied vehicular obstacle that anyone might otherwise expect to come upon from behind while doing the speed limit still offers the parties to a potential collision some form of buffer from bodily impact.
A person on a slow moving bicycle has no such buffer. I am still quite amazed that anyone would even gamble with their life in such a situation...but then again I don't have a need to prove a point to the world about it and it certainly won't be the cause of my ultimate demise to worry about!
Carry on!
And I'm still quite amazed at how easy it is for some people to ignore the real problem, reckless driving. It seems that car drivers will do anything they can to get cyclists off the road, including intentionally running them off the road and in one of the cases, actually hitting them with their car. Rather than focus on educating drivers to be more careful, you're more interested in telling cyclists they don't belong on the road.
According to your reasoning, a person shouldn't do anything that might include the slightest bit of risk. So, let's analyze that philosophy a bit...
Somewhere around 100 people die in car deaths each day. This sounds pretty darn risky to me. Following your example, I should stay home because driving a car is too risky.
NC has a high number of lightning deaths. Since it's so risky, I better stay inside when there's any threat of a thunder storm.
There could be some crazy hunter in the woods. I better stop taking my daughter for walks.
There are lots of communicable diseases going around. OMG, one of my kids could catch one and die! I better tell my wife to stop taking them to the mall, end their play dates, and begin home schooling them to reduce the chances of getting some bad disease.
The point I made several posts back is that some people drive way too fast for the conditions. More and more people are treating the roads like a closed race track. As is all too common in discussions about cars hitting cyclists, you are trying to perpetuate the view held by many cagers that bikes don't belong on the road. The vast majority of these accidents is the fault of the car, not the cyclist. The problem is inattentive and reckless driving by people who are distracted, or in too much of a hurry. Rather than telling cyclists we shouldn't use the roads, wouldn't it be better to focus on making the roads safer for everyone by working to convince car drivers that they should slow down and pay more attention to driving?
Sorry, the issue was bicycles so I'll stick to that.
Look, I used to ride a Harley years and years ago. Even for all my love of a bike on the open road, the way people drive today, there is NO WAY I'd ever get back on a motorcycle. Times have changed too much for the worse...
In fact, I am grateful every time I hear a set of loud pipes because I know they've at least got one measure of safety going for them, but otherwise, nope, it's not worth the risk.
Again, my friend, you may win all the legal and philosophical points you wish. The vast evidence for today's stressed out, distracted-by-technology driving behaviours and the risky conditions under which most bicyclists insist on riding give me all the logic and common sense I need regarding this issue.
We will have to agree to disagree on this one.
