Cautionary Tale????

[Steve G.]

   We all know stuff happens in our life adventures. Life locking yourself in a concrete box for safety in not life, it’s simply existing.  Motorcycling has an inherent risk that many people find somewhat attractive and I completely understand.
  I’m also into pedal biking, mostly suburban street biking with single track dirt thrown in. Full rural riding or remote bush riding bores the crap out of me. One tree looks the same  to me, a bunch of trees, then another bunch of trees, yawn.  Non interaction observation of street vermin cranks up my senses and my 37yrs working in the glass business sub contracting for “poverty pimp”  companies that house the street vermin that naturally collect  around east  Van.

  Anyways, my usual Sunday 30-35 km pedal bike involves a usual route around Stanley Park, via Coal Harbour and Gastown, and takes me past the cruise ship place. Today no different, reserve cops all around Canada Place hand gesturing traffic, pedal bicyclists riding past and intermingling around  mostly stationary cars. Police freely signal bikes to pedal in between cars to the front for the turn right towards the cruise ships. I was directly behind a model 3 Tesla with Oregon plates, the police lady signalled the car forward and then to quickly stop which he did. They’ve got good brakes , my 1990 Marin does not, I rear ended him to the extent that I glanced the bumper which flipped me   Against the trunk lid and flipped me upside down onto 1/2 the 14” sidewalk. 2 cops saw everything. Banged up a bit. Bike ok, Tesla lost. Cops instantly said the Tesla was at fault, but that even if it was my fault the damage must go through the car insurance under ICBC policy. Don’t know how this would play out  in another jurisdiction. For sure there’s $5K damage to the Tesla.  Very thin aluminium doesn’t react well to 255ib dude even at maybe 6mph.
  Not gonna stop doing what I’m doing.  Lesson learned? Teslas have good brakes.

[Galactica]

Ok, so here’s the thing.  When a vehicle rear-ends another, it’s the rearmost vehicle that’s at fault, regardless.  Should be your insurance that pays.  The whole lack of accountability on the part of cyclists, e-cyclists, scooters/e-scooters, etc is baffling to me.  If you’d been in a car, you’d have been at fault.

[hardrockminer]

I agree Ross. 

[Steve G.]

  I agree as well.

  BC is an upside down insurance utopia, it seems.

  Avoid pedal bikers I think is my new plan, when on or in a powered device.

[Bucko]

When a vehicle rear-ends another, it’s the rearmost vehicle that’s at fault, regardless.  

I believe in BC, the onus is on the rear vehicle operator to prove it wasn't their fault (which it typically is -  but not always).  Here's a motorcycle example where the fault was split.  https://richtertriallaw.com/2017/05/25/rear-end-collisions-liability-fault/

Hanging a 'brake job' on somebody is a good example of when the front vehicle operator could be found 100% at fault, although proving that would be another matter entirely).

PS: Utilizing any legal advice from me is liable to result in being incarcerated for a lengthy period of time.