Originally Posted by
Orvis
I have to agree with Peliot "I think what happens in cases like this is not that cars don't see us, but that most drivers register bikes as pedestrians and assume they are moving very slowly. " .
There might be some of that, but it doesn't explain why motorcyclists suffer from the same problems.
Fact is there are multiple reasons why drivers don't see, or more precisely, register us. They include, failure to correctly judge our speed or distance, our disappearing into the background, the effects of scanning vision, the perception effect of seeing what we're looking for, and missing what we're not looking for, and others.
But the specifics don't matter at all, because the net effect is the same --- Drivers don't see bicyclists. So it's up to us to see drivers, and get their attention, or otherwise make adjustments, because the alternative is to ride in traffic while invisible.