snoop wrote:
GC, you may say "ALWAYS, but I like to say "never say never".

I'm usually pretty cautious that way myself.

Put your
lawyer hat back on for a second. What if, for the sake of discussion,
its 3 o'clock in the morning on a freeway, and you hit the guy on the
bike, having not seen him, until the last second? You the big car
driver have done everything right, but the bike did not make himself
seen, and he was on the freeway where he was not suppose to be. As
we've seen in all these threads, lots of variables to wade through.

All those may or may not be true but if the reason HE gives is that he
was in a big car travelling at a speed too high for him to reasonably be
expected to take any avoiding action, then I would say he has no defence.

That's the analogy with the power pilots on r.a.p. They say "How can WE
possibly be expected to avoid a glider at the speeds we're travelling
and with many other important things to occupy us". A sample quote is
"How can you avoid what you haven't seen?" I wanted to remind them that
the law REQUIRES them to travel at such a speed that they CAN see gliders.

There are two aspects here. First - how we need to fly to stay alive.
The discussion on ras has mostly been on this area and I'm in complete
agreement with its defensive tone.

Second - who's at fault if there is a collision. Here, I found the
defensive discourse (My wife taught me that word!) on ras a bit
puzzling. It assumed power aircraft held all the cards and this is
untrue. The glider had right of way. This isn't everything but it IS
the starting point. If you don't assert your rights every now and then,
they disappear. Nobody else is going to grant you rights which you
don't claim yourself. If YOU don't believe in your own case, why would
anybody else see it from your point of view?

I guess you have the same aggressive cycling lobby groups that we have
here. Think of how they never tire of asserting their rights to be on
the road, their right to hold up traffic, their green credentials. I
know soaring won't do it but a tenth of their self-assertion would be
nice to see here.

I entirely agree that being right won't bring you back to life and I
certainly try to fly on the basis that everyone else is out to kill me
but I was trying to inject a little reality into the group with which
this was originally cross-posted - rec.aviation.piloting. You'll notice
I've taken the x-posting out.

Finally, it will be interesting if the glider and the jet have different
underwriters.

GC