- We discussed this on another forum, too. My personal opinion is the death (as far as human judgement can tell) is 100% the rider's fault. The crash was at least 70% the rider's fault.
- As has already been pointed out, if he hadn't been driving at an unsafe speed, it's very likely he would still be alive today. The speed limit is there because experts have determined that is the max speed the average driver can do and still have time to react to a possible but unexpected circumstance on that stretch of road. I like to go fast, too, but if I see a car waiting to turn my direction, I always at least roll off the throttle and prepare for the worst knowing it could happen. On top of that, there was just too much traffic on that little road for that speed to ever be safe, anyway. It was just complete foolishness on his part. He didn't DESERVE to die because of it, but he did cause it.
- The accident was caused by the car stealing the right of way, of course. Plus, the driver admitted he didn't see him or the next car, so obviously he was likely to cause an accident. However, bikes can be hard to see sometimes, anyway. Having one headlight also makes it much harder to judge distance (think about how a car's headlights appear to spread farther apart as it gets closer). If that bike is in front of a car that has its headlights on, it can be even easier to mistake his one headlight as the car's second. How much harder is it to spot that bike when it's travelling nearly twice as fast as you're expecting?
- Of course, the driver deserved the punishment since he admitted not seeing either; inexcusable to not at least see the car, let alone the bike. However, even if the driver had been paying attention, he still might not have seen the bike in time because of his speed. The driver caused the accident, but the rider created the possibility for it.