Listen, anyone that commutes in city traffic knows its not always possibile to stop and give lane to erratic and or otherwise unentitled cages wanting to merge. Nor would you want to. What's the guy supposed to stop dead in a moving lane to give way to somone that , by law, is supposed to be waiting? How do think traffic would flow if everyone did that? Your logic applies no differently to other cagers, assuming they dont want to be hit. Our traffic rules exist for a reason.
Its easy to say "gee, he should have done this or that" after a rider gets hit, but the fact for a rush hour commute in downtown torronto is that if you were to yield to every bully on the road you would not move. It took me about an hour twice this week to get from the west annex to East York - about 7 km, and I was almost taken out 3 times doing nothing but moving very slowly in a straight line for most of it. I doubt most people on this forum have to experience anything like that on a regular basis. And I'm next to certain that the ones that do are forced to drive aggressively from time to time, even if they would prefer not to. I agree, when its not busy and there happens to be an aggressive cager in your midst its best to drive defensively and give way, but its not always possible - all the more so in bumper to bumper congestion, where anyone and everyone is acting crazy just to get 5 feet further ahread. We have traffic laws for a reason. Im tried of people taking the emphasis off of the guilty in order to blame the victim. We have a set of laws which determine who is at fault very clearly. People that merge dangerously are in the wrong. They dont deserve a break, and if a rider gets hit because some idiot doesnt look before they direct their cage into them they deserve the focus - not a rider who gets hurt obeying the law.
Fact is there are many, on this forum and elsewhere, that see motorcycling as some sort of perfect process, and whenever some post hoc intepretation can be made about rider error that's all they focuss on, as if the cage doesnt even factor into the equation (just world phenomenon anyone?). Its nonsense, and there is a not an urban biker on this forum that doesnt make some sort of move on a daily basis that can't be abstractly criticized by people sitting behind computer screens. A guy almost gets his head chopped off by a kite string and sure enough there is some idiot stating that "he should have seen it". Its ludicrous.
Edit: Although, I'm just recalling that individual was not a forum member but a commenter on the star website. Suffice to say, the predjudice is there.
