I think a more apt comparison would be assuming that the cars are all convicted rapists.
I don’t agree at all. In fact, it’s a pretty spot-on comparison. It’s certainly highly emotionally-charged, and I obviously used it because of that fact, but it doesn’t lose accuracy for that fact. Indeed, I think it’s a near-perfect analogy.
You are saying that the responsibility lies on the victim of a crime to go out of their way and not live their life the way they want to in order to avoid being victimised, rather than recognising the responsibility lies entirely on the person operating an incredibly dangerous piece of machinery which requires a licence (and the knowledge of laws and responsibilities that come with that licence) to operate.
Like, yes, a potential victim should certainly take reasonable precautions. If I were a women I probably wouldn’t go walking alone in secluded spots at night. Likewise, as a cyclist I always ensure visibility by using lights and I tend toward reasonably bright and/or reflective clothing. The uploader of the video demonstrates the reasoning behind another thing that knowledgeable cyclists do to keep the risk down—taking the lane. But taking the lane is mentally rather difficult. Many, many cyclists, even experienced ones, don’t even know it’s something they should be doing, and even those who do know they should be doing it can find themselves inadvertently drifting over to the left, especially at places where the road temporarily widens like at intersections. But to suggest cyclists should simply get off the road is more like insisting women stay inside entirely, and that’s just not on.
The “convicted rapists” angle doesn’t make any sense. That’s more like if women could avoid rape by avoiding going to places with known rapists. Which doesn’t even begin to make sense.
Perhaps another way to look at this is to consider a person walking out in front of a train and being hit, who is at fault?
The problem with this analogy is that trains go somewhere that pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers simply don’t. The only time you can get hit is at a level crossing—and barriers come down with flashing lights and a warning to say “hey, just for the moment, don’t go here”—or illegally crossing the rail at a platform rather than using the provided crossings. It’s not something that can happen without you doing anything wrong. It’s not something that happens when you’re just going about your business.
Yeah it does sound a bit like victim blaming but I think it is possible to agree with someone by taking a less extreme stance - which is what I was doing. Perhaps that is where we disagree?
It certainly is possible, but I really need to stress that in this case, the seemingly-extreme stance is very much warranted. Cyclists die from this. Just a couple of weeks ago a cyclist died on a road that cycling advocates had repeatedly called for safety upgrades to. Multiple cyclists have died in ways directly tied to poor visibility on trucks, including after a report came out recommending all trucks must be fitted with devices to eliminate their blindspots (a recommendation that went ignored). In recent memory, a cyclist died whilst being tracked by people from around the world on a circumnavigation of the country—hit squarely from behind by a vehicle that was likely speeding and unroadworthy; the driver faced no repercussions. Neither did the police who utterly botched the investigation into the matter and gave provably-false testimony to the inquest.
This isn’t some ridiculous overreach comparing rape to petty theft or something. People actually die because of this. Regularly. And neither our Councils nor our State Governments are doing anything about it, thanks to the extreme levels of motornormativity.
We have, as a society, generally agreed that victim blaming of this sort is inappropriate when it comes to rape cases. We should do the same for deaths on the road.
I don’t agree at all. In fact, it’s a pretty spot-on comparison. It’s certainly highly emotionally-charged, and I obviously used it because of that fact, but it doesn’t lose accuracy for that fact. Indeed, I think it’s a near-perfect analogy.
You are saying that the responsibility lies on the victim of a crime to go out of their way and not live their life the way they want to in order to avoid being victimised, rather than recognising the responsibility lies entirely on the person operating an incredibly dangerous piece of machinery which requires a licence (and the knowledge of laws and responsibilities that come with that licence) to operate.
Like, yes, a potential victim should certainly take reasonable precautions. If I were a women I probably wouldn’t go walking alone in secluded spots at night. Likewise, as a cyclist I always ensure visibility by using lights and I tend toward reasonably bright and/or reflective clothing. The uploader of the video demonstrates the reasoning behind another thing that knowledgeable cyclists do to keep the risk down—taking the lane. But taking the lane is mentally rather difficult. Many, many cyclists, even experienced ones, don’t even know it’s something they should be doing, and even those who do know they should be doing it can find themselves inadvertently drifting over to the left, especially at places where the road temporarily widens like at intersections. But to suggest cyclists should simply get off the road is more like insisting women stay inside entirely, and that’s just not on.
The “convicted rapists” angle doesn’t make any sense. That’s more like if women could avoid rape by avoiding going to places with known rapists. Which doesn’t even begin to make sense.
The problem with this analogy is that trains go somewhere that pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers simply don’t. The only time you can get hit is at a level crossing—and barriers come down with flashing lights and a warning to say “hey, just for the moment, don’t go here”—or illegally crossing the rail at a platform rather than using the provided crossings. It’s not something that can happen without you doing anything wrong. It’s not something that happens when you’re just going about your business.
Yeah it does sound a bit like victim blaming but I think it is possible to agree with someone by taking a less extreme stance - which is what I was doing. Perhaps that is where we disagree?
It certainly is possible, but I really need to stress that in this case, the seemingly-extreme stance is very much warranted. Cyclists die from this. Just a couple of weeks ago a cyclist died on a road that cycling advocates had repeatedly called for safety upgrades to. Multiple cyclists have died in ways directly tied to poor visibility on trucks, including after a report came out recommending all trucks must be fitted with devices to eliminate their blindspots (a recommendation that went ignored). In recent memory, a cyclist died whilst being tracked by people from around the world on a circumnavigation of the country—hit squarely from behind by a vehicle that was likely speeding and unroadworthy; the driver faced no repercussions. Neither did the police who utterly botched the investigation into the matter and gave provably-false testimony to the inquest.
This isn’t some ridiculous overreach comparing rape to petty theft or something. People actually die because of this. Regularly. And neither our Councils nor our State Governments are doing anything about it, thanks to the extreme levels of motornormativity.
We have, as a society, generally agreed that victim blaming of this sort is inappropriate when it comes to rape cases. We should do the same for deaths on the road.