Originally Posted by
JonnyHK
This is not an unloading lane. It is a single lane of road traffic with a small area marked for bikes.
Yes, she could 'take the lane' - but the whole point of filtering is that you don't get stuck in traffic. I'm sure that if you rode this route everyday to work that you'd start filtering here when there was a red light.
Not in a door zone I wouldn't
Not possible - that's where the big tram stop is. Riding around the tram stop (they are raised) by going onto the tram tracks is both illegal and dangerous (every Melbourne cyclist has a tram track crash story).
A front seat passenger can lean forward and see through the wing mirror. A rear seat passenger can look over their shoulder. Or they could have asked the driver if the path was clear.
And on Planet Earth, who does that?
No one.
So why should you expect that to happen?
That was 50m earlier, not where the accident was. The road way is wider back near the hotel because the big tram stop hasn't started yet.
It is the result - mostly - of poor road design. The big 'super stops' for the trams don't need to be as wide as they are.
She's calm and knowledgable. That is exactly what you need after an incident.
The cab is past the hotel and
is simply stopped in traffic.
It is not parked or pulled over.[/quote]
The cab moves closer to the line on the pavement and is clearly the ONLY car actually on the line. It's by far the closest one to the curb.
Once again - cab with passengers in it moves close to the curb and stops.
Period.
Common sense says that cabs are always a risk (in the same way you don't trust dogs off the leash and small children playing with balls), but you wouldn't reasonably expect a car to throw open a door when stopped at a traffic light.
Why not? It's a door zone. With a passenger-laden cab that just pulled close to the curb and stopped.
As I said: It is the result - mostly - of poor road design and the compromises they have made. They've given the pedestrians at the tram stop about 2.5m of space to stand in where the old stops were lucky to have 1m - or were not in the road way, but on the curb side (with drivers expected to stop - but that was always a safety issue and continues to be so on most other tram routes).
So a poor road design is a reason to excuse riding into a door zone?
Should a poor road design make a cyclist MORE cautious?
She was mostly unlucky, but I expect that she'll think twice about filtering here again.
She should have thought once.
The cab has not pulled over
. That is the whole point.
Wrong.
It is stopped in traffic at the red light that is about 25m ahead of it and the passengers have probably though "ah, screw it - we'll walk from here" and jumped out.
Which passengers tend to do when a cab moves closer to a curb and then stops.
Yes it is a potential dangerous spot and she might have avoided it by waiting in line at the red light, but her chosen action (filtering slowly) is not as out of line or crazy as you suggest.
Yeah, it wasn't out of line or crazy.
If you like getting doored.
Technically speaking she was, even if the traffic had just come to a halt at a red light.
This is a high frequency accident area (according to other reports), probably due to the sub-standard lane squeeze. No one is looking for this to happen to them.
Umm, if it's a "high frequency accident area", maybe they should be looking for it?
So she knows her rights. Is that a crime? If she's a regular city rider she is acutely aware of the risks and the rules - she may even have had an incident before or knows someone else it happened to.
But to IMMEDIATELY jump up and say "Give me your details. You committed a traffic violation" the moment you get dumped onto the pavement? I'll say it again - were she trolling for a dooring, she couldn't have done it any better. She sure acted like that wasn't a surprise.
I say 'bravo' to her for being calm and for knowing what to do. What would you say about her if she started screaming abuse and obscenities?
I wouldn't care one way or the other.
If she had used her head, she wouldn't have been doored.
Filtering is dangerous enough. To do it between a curb and a passenger-laden cab that clearly moved closer to the curb right before stopping, while in a frequent accident area?
So what if the passenger was technically at fault for not looking.