Dash cam videos thread 3.4 (embedded car dash-cams only)

Hi,

Actually only posted it to show the idiotic cyclist belting straight through a red light on to a main road.

The truck driver would have had a clear view of his path, he had a right only arrow so provided nobody broke a light his way was clear.

Certainly as per the letter of the law he should have driven straight on a small bit further then made a hard right turn. But this would have taken considerably longer and I believe there is a certain leeway given to large trucks in relation to road markings.

There is a circular hatch marking in that junction which is designed to force drivers exiting and turning right to go more or less straight across and then turn right, but it is totally completely ignored by the vast majority of drivers, trucks and cars.

If the other car had also been turning right at that, or the next junction, it would not have been away over safely in the left lane. He was lucky there as well.

Cyclist shouldn't have broken the light but was only putting himself at risk.

That is shocking driving from the truck driver and anything could've been around that blind corner. There is no way he needed to cut the corner like that and was just trying to save some time putting others at risk

Sure, report him… but a few seconds earlier and the cyclists could have been seriously injured or killed by his own reckless cycling in conjunction with the truck drivers reckless driving!

It's clearly a difficult junction for large vehicles turning right, like that recycling truck, or a larger lorry, or a bus.

But fact remains that if the cyclist had arrived on the scene ten seconds earlier, he'd have been squashed under that truck because he (cyclist) didn't stop at the red light, and I think that's the main thing to take from the video.

And here's something else that occurs to me - cyclist must surely have seen the truck take the corner like that. If it had been me cycling along, I'd have been thinking "I'd better slow down and stop up here, in case there's another one coming and it does the same".

But he didn't. He just went straight through anyway. To me, extremely reckless and showing extreme disregard for his own safety.

Id say he (the cyclist) did see the truck and did slow down before going thru the red light (he's clearly not going very fast). Both reckless and illegal.

There is a world of difference between a truck driver navigating a tight corner, who has no choice but to slowly and intentionally cross into the wrong lane - and this truck driver who took the racing line through the corner.

It's reasonable to expect that someone may be stationary (or even moving) on their side of the road, despite the red light. It's totally unreasonable to expect a truck to almost touch the opposing kerb, next to a high wall, with no sightline through the corner.

Had the cyclist sailed through the light a few seconds later, it would have been both of their fault, but the truck driver has a major portion of responsibility here too.

I'm a firm believer that a large proportion of VRU deaths are A) totally their own fault and B) instigated by themselves, but a driver hasn't just reacted quickly enough to something entirely unreasonable.

I know the criminal justice system is light touch generally, and the same its true for road traffic offences, but we often hear about very minor punishments for drivers involved in VRU deaths, but rarely if ever, that the VRU had a major part to play in their own demise.

Wrong way…

It is a strange one alright….she came from Damastown over the N3 towards Clonee. Could catch you off guard if not familiar.

Why would you get out of his way? Surely it would be better to get him to reverse back?

The RSA never explained exactly what they meant by 'culpable'.

If it is based on typical Garda/RSA attitudes on culpability, then anyone cycling or walking at any time of day or night at any time of year without being wrapped head to toe in hiviz is probably deemed culpable for being smushed by the blacker-than-black SUV.

They're not reversing back into traffic though. If they go forward, they're going into traffic. If they go back to the last junction, they get themselves out of that mess without facing more traffic.

They probably turned right coming from Kepak direction.
I wouldn’t get involved with trying to right them either, putting yourself at risk from other traffic. It’s a low speed area. They can do a u turn or get themselves right at the next junction. Not ideal but not the end of the world either.

Well, look at you, actually reading a report instead of just being seduced by colourful graphics and headline figures. Well done. Perhaps the fact that it's basically just a PowerPoint presentation with easy-to-read bullet points and large text is what's made the difference.

You make a valid point that the RSA didn't define culpability, other than to say 'culpability in this context does not refer to judicial or criminal culpability'. Unfortunately however, you immediately let your bias get in the way of any reasoned rationale. Somebody of equal bias on the other side of the argument you love to provoke could equally claim that because the RSA 'demonise' motorists at each opportunity (as would be perceived by that other person of bias), they'd be looking for every reason possible to assign culpability to motorists in as many cases as possible.

Anyhoo, old chum, regular practice would be that where a term is not assigned a specific definition, it takes on its ordinary meaning. 'Deserving of reproach or blame' would therefore seem a reasonable interpretation of 'culpability' here.

Next, because they assign shared culpability in only 2% of cases, and because the numbers add up neatly to 100, seems reasonable to assume that in each case, they assigned culpability to the person believed to be the greater contributor to the fatality.

Perhaps they did assign culpability to some pedestrians or cyclists because they weren't swathed head to toe in high-viz clothing, as per your postulation. There's nothing stated in the report to rule that out as a possibility. However, that would seem unlikely to anyone who doesn't share your bias.

It would seem far more likely to a reasonable person that culpability was assigned to e.g. the 22 pedestrians who were lying in the road at the time of the fatality, or the 24 pedestrians who were between four and five times over the blood alcohol limit for driving, or the 28 who were more than five times over it.

Surely you'd accept that they just might have been at least 51% responsible for their own demise, or are we going to see your inherent bias in evidence in your reply here again?

Out of curiosity I cut and pasted a similar essay posted here into chat gpt to summarise it in a couple of sentences. The post, not surprisingly, turned out to be complete BS!

'RSA demonising motorists'? Are you for real?

Have you missed the reality that the RSA have done such an abominable job at managing the safety of motorists that they're being disbanded?

When did the RSA ever demonise motorists?

And here was I thinking there might be a dash cam video or two posted but instead it's endless bickering.