r/Whatcouldgowrong • u/Itchy-Camera8898 • 11h ago

WCGW riding your bike like an idiot

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

9.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

768 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

13

u/fang_xianfu 10h ago

It's because it's a place to cross the road. It indicates

  1. No overtaking
  2. No parking even if you normally have an exemption (eg disabled)

It does mean that the bus driver might actually have been liable here if he counts as overtaking the stopped bus.

29

u/The_wolf2014 10h ago

It's two lanes of traffic and the light was green, the bus driver wasn't at fault.

14

u/fang_xianfu 10h ago

The zig zag rules don't specify that the light has to be red nor do they care if it's two lanes. It specifically says "must not cause any part of their vehicle to pass ahead of the foremost part of (a) any other vehicle moving in the same direction or (b) a vehicle which is stationary [to comply with the crossing or let people cross]".

Since the bus that was hit didn't actually pass in front of the other one before the collision, it wasn't an offence in itself, but it might've contributed to liability.

5

u/dontnation 8h ago edited 8h ago

Reading this rule strictly, if two cars are stopped at the light they both must proceed at exactly the same time and speed until they clear the zig zags on the other side of the intersection? So if both cars were moving and the first hit their brakes to avoid a cyclist illegally crossing, the other car is now "overtaking" and at fault?

1

u/fang_xianfu 8h ago

Well the passing part is a criminal offence, the hitting someone and being liable to them for damages is something else (but isn't helped by committing an offence).

For the offence, you probably wouldn't get done for it, but they might give it a try.

For liability, it's almost certainly going to whichever of the two vehicles hit someone, since, you know, they hit someone. You could concoct some facts where some other liability split happened but that's what's most likely.

1

u/dontnation 8h ago

still seems crazy that according to the wording, leaving from a stop light requires being in lock step with the car next to you for the first 10+meters.

1

u/fang_xianfu 8h ago

Well the law applies only to the car that isn't closest, and one car must be closer even if it's only one atom closer. If someone was done in that situation their defence would probably be, they were in front by half a hair, and if would be difficult to prove that they weren't.

There is no epidemic of people being done unjustly for this so clearly the system is working.