Originally Posted by sggoodri
Since the driver shot out over the crosswalk before stopping in the bike lane, the crosswalk would not have been any safer a place to be than the roadway, and possibly less.
I believe the only ways for the cyclist to reduce the risk of this type of motorist-drive-out collision would be to reduce speed (providing more time for the motorist and cyclist to react) or to operate farther left, closer to the normal flow of traffic, where motorists about to enter the road expect and look for traffic. The former can be taken to the extreme by walking the bike through intersections as a pedestrian (but beware of walking on the left side of the road where there is right-turning traffic.) The latter approach is why I leave bike lanes to move into the normal travel lane when approaching intersections. However, it would be difficult to teach this to a child, since it requires disobeying the striping as well as making a safe lateral movement closer to overtaking traffic.
That's the trick - there is no bike lane on the bridge crossing the freeway - we were in the traffic lane where the bike lane was about to pick up again. Our only saving grace was that we were going slowly. It's an ugly intersection with construction on two of the four corners that I hate traversing even alone. We go through the intersection together when doing our shopping, but for now we go through it as pedestrians.