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Are Left Turn Collisions Unavoidable?

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Advocacy & Safety Cyclists should expect and demand safe accommodation on every public road, just as do all other users. Discuss your bicycle advocacy and safety concerns here.
View Poll Results: Are Left Turn Collisions Unavoidable?
Yes. If you get hit, there was absolutely nothing you could have done to avoid it.
1
1.96%
It’s more of a 50/50 proposition.
12
23.53%
No. You can identify conditions; make adjustments & prepare to take effective actions.
38
74.51%
Voters: 51. You may not vote on this poll

Are Left Turn Collisions Unavoidable?

Old 12-20-06, 01:05 PM
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Originally Posted by SingingSabre
"Hi Pot, I'm Kettle"
"Nice to meet you, Pot!"
"Kettle, you're black!"
"So are you, Pot!"

Get it?
No, I don't get it. Is there something I tried to convey that you feel I couldn't explain?


The only difference is that Bek has a good idea.
If it's a good idea, then I'd like to understand what it is and why it works. Perhaps you can explain it.

He's presenting a target which says "you'll get past me faster" rather than "go faster and you might hit me."

Of course, you should know a few things about moving left in a lane, HH. See, it supposedly makes you more visible to other drivers.
I think you've at least attempted to explain why Bek's technique might work, which is more than he has done. But, frankly, it's still not a very good explanation. Are you saying that moving left is presenting a target which says "you'll get past me faster"? What does that mean? Are you thinking of the cyclist as a "target"? I don't understand the use of that language here. And are you implying that not moving left in a lane can mean "go faster and you might hit me."?

And what's with the pedantry expressed in phrases like, Of course, you should know a few things about moving left in a lane, HH? A few things like what? "It supposedly makes you more visible to other drivers."? What does that have to do with communicating yielding to the driver?

If another driver notices you, then you can let them go first so you're guaranteed to not get run down, smooshed, flattened, etc. by them.
Are you saying that it helps to move left so that the driver notices you to know that you're yielding because if he doesn't notice you he might think you're not yielding to him? Pardon me for not being able to make sense of this. If you're trying get him to go, why would you bother trying to get him to notice you?


Of course, Bek also mentioned that it's not the technique of choice for all chances of left hooks, just a few.
I understand that. I'm just trying to understand how and why it works in the situations where it does work. In particular, I'm still trying to understand how the move left itself and alone communicates yielding, or whether there are other factors involved that Bek (and you?) are not aware of that actually communicate the yielding.

Something that someone here doesn't practice.
Are you referring to me? If so, what is it that you think I don't practice? And, whatever it is, how would you know?
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Old 12-20-06, 01:08 PM
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Originally Posted by joejack951
I've seen cyclists (mostly kids) move over to the left side of the road when approached from behind to allow same direction traffic to pass without changing lanes. I've also seen plenty of roadies (and kids and cyclists in Philly) switch to the left side of the road to make a left turn further down the road. Is it possible that these motorists think you are going to move to the opposite side of the road to let them turn faster? I don't see what else they could be thinking when a cyclist starts moving left. A simple foot or two left in the lane though certainly would be hard to mistake for someone moving to the left side of the road. I don't get it either.
That makes three of us (Al, JoeJack, me), and countless lurkers, who don't get it.

SingingSabre seems to think he gets it, but his "explanation" suggests otherwise.
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Old 12-20-06, 01:42 PM
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Perhaps this poll will help us get to the bottom of this conundrum.
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Old 12-20-06, 11:52 PM
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Al, Joejack, and helmet head. excellent groupings, head. nice representatives of bike forum posters that just 'don't get it'.

Last edited by Bekologist; 12-21-06 at 12:17 AM.
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Old 12-21-06, 12:12 PM
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Originally Posted by Bekologist
Al, Joejack, and helmet head. excellent groupings, head. nice representatives of bike forum posters that just 'don't get it'.
Bek, I think the problem is that you don't understand right-of-way and yielding.

Yielding is giving the right-of-way to other traffic. You have to have it before you can yield it. You can't give something that you don't have.

If you're approaching an intersection and are still so far from entering that the left-turner can safely make his left turn, then no matter what you do, you're not yielding, since you don't havethe ROW to begin with, by definition. At most, you're letting him know he already has and has had the right-of-way, but you're not yielding the right-of-way to him - because you have to have it before you can yield it.

In order to yield, you have to have the right-of-way, and then choose to slow or even stop to give it to someone else. There is no way that moving left without slowing down can constitute yielding, no matter what the situation is.

That's traffic 101.
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Old 12-21-06, 02:51 PM
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i guess you fail to understand more nuanced and advanced bicycling technique, head, because I yield right of way by moving left approaching potential left hook situations on a regular basis.

its not all helmet head in a peloton moving 20 miles an hour thru textbook intersections.

so you think there is no way; I do it almost every day.
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Old 12-21-06, 02:57 PM
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Originally Posted by Bekologist
i guess you fail to understand more nuanced and advanced bicycling technique, head, because I yield right of way by moving left approaching potential left hook situations on a regular basis.

its not all helmet head in a peloton moving 20 miles an hour thru textbook intersections.

so you think there is no way; I do it almost every day.
I don't doubt that you use a technique which you refer to as yield right of way by moving left approaching potential left hook situations, it's just not yielding.

I've explained why it can't be yielding. You've ignored that.

No one else, not even Sabre, thinks whatever you're doing is actually yielding. But in Bekworld you can call it yielding. But in the real world, that's not what anyone else calls it.
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Old 12-21-06, 10:45 PM
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hilarious. helemt head "explains" how something that I do on a weekly basis just can't be done.

Maybe from helmet heads armchair, pouring over textbook analysis of right of way, it isn't in HIS book of techniques, but it's one of the ways to yield right of way while riding a bike in traffic.

helemt head must never encounter ambiguous right of way situations, which are actually quite common for the transportational bicyclist in urban settings.
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Old 12-22-06, 01:35 PM
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Originally Posted by sam83
Edit: You are going straight and an oncoming car is turning left.

If a car violates your ROW, what do you think?
I've been in a similar situation before. The left turner was coming from the road on my left though, but still crossing in front of me (I was in the middle lane preparing for a left turn). I escaped through a fluke in timing, not through any intentional evasive action on my own.

Left hooks and crosses are more difficult, because evasive action requires an escape to outside the turning radius of the vehicle, which, unlike in a right hook or cross, involves crossing into oncoming traffic or hooking across same direction traffic, or an acceleration across the vehicle's path. This makes avoiding left hooks and crosses much more difficult than avoiding right hooks or crosses.

With my incident, I was all set up to hit the car broadside just behind the rear wheelwell. I was probably 10 feet away on a collision course when I let go of the brakes in preparation for the collision, and that restoration of steering control enabled me to swerve (as a reaction, not a planned maneuver) around behind the vehicle. I missed it by probably 2-3 feet.

Best is to avoid the problem all together, but the scary thing is, with my incident, I tracked the car as it made its move across 4 lanes of traffic. I was aware of the developing situation for a full 2 or 3 seconds and still only just barely missed the collision.
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Old 12-22-06, 03:56 PM
  #60  
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Originally Posted by Bekologist
hilarious. helemt head "explains" how something that I do on a weekly basis just can't be done.

Maybe from helmet heads armchair, pouring over textbook analysis of right of way, it isn't in HIS book of techniques, but it's one of the ways to yield right of way while riding a bike in traffic.

helemt head must never encounter ambiguous right of way situations, which are actually quite common for the transportational bicyclist in urban settings.
I think actually he just doesn't understand what you are doing exactly... and neither do I... so perhaps for some of us a better explaination might help.
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