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.
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.