buzzman

I was 40' from the intersection when the truck finally caught up to me. I was going to go straight across at the intersection (actually a little bit of a left diagonal) the truck intended to go right. Had I pulled to the right the truck would then had to have crossed in front of me anyway to make this right and I would have been crowded to the curb in order for him to do so. A reasonable, rational driver under these circumstances:

1. Would not have sped up when they saw me up ahead.

2. Would not have attempted to pass me with 40' of road before an intersection.

3. Would not have right hooked me and stopped with their vehicle in a diagonal across the lane.

Since the given circumstances justified my not moving aside- in my opinion- I should not then have considered moving aside, which is exactly what I did and you see the result- an unnecessary (IMO) and potentially dangerous confrontation with a motorist.

But my own intuition and experience were telling me screw the rules and the given circumstances and so I think that, ultimately, I would have been better off slowing down, moving to the right and letting the bozo beat me to the intersection.

I feel there are enough of these situations that occur for me on a regular basis that they render moot much of the VC purist advice that clog these threads and inhibit any open and real practical dialogue about how to interact with all drivers and all circumstances not just the ones in which everyone behaves predictably.

So now you are invited to discuss this incident further here or to discuss what happened when I tried the opposite tactic in a very similar situation in a sister thread titled "A Tale of Two Stop Signs."

trackhub

You know, I've had things like that yelled at me quite a bit. I have no idea what most of it means. The "F word" always comes across loud and clear though. Funny how that works. I had once had one yell at me something like this: "Put ya kablah on the foo ba ba!" Again, this was drunken pickup truck yelling. Really, I have no idea what he said.

It's not only yahoos in pickup trucks "down da lake". It's also young males in juiced up cars, and adult men in their forties and fifties in 60's muscle cars, out cruisin around "da lake" on warm summer nights. The older dudes are generally harmless though. Loud pipes, but other than that generally harmless. Needless to say, Friday and Saturday nights are the most volatile.

buzzman

I just got back from a Wayland/Concord road ride and who do I see turning onto Lincoln Street but the same guy. Now instead of being the Fred in the reflectorized tee-shirt and the grocery bags in the milk crate on the big old commuter with studded snow tires I am masquerading as an alpha-dog, steely eyed, lycra-spandex clad "serious cyclist". I've turned off Craft just ahead of him and get up out of the saddle and pound down Lincoln Street at about 23 mph holding the center of the road so that I cannot be passed. I even do as joejack suggested and signal a "turning left/slow down" hand signal as I approach the stop sign. Sure enough he complies exactly as predicted and just pulls up slowly behind me. I go across to the street on the opposite side of the intersecting road and he follows, doesn't pass and turns into his driveway a few hundred feet down the road.

As Trackhub suggests these are just local guys most of whom are firefighters, cops, contractors or tradesmen of some kind and are, for the most part, harmless and if you can't take their grief once in a while you're a bit of a wuss. But when these guys have knocked back a few you've got to watch out for them on the road.

My point in these threads is that no one way of riding serves all of us all of the time. And there's nothing wrong with moving out of the way of a driver that you feel might grow agitated, frustrated or become downright dangerous even if you have the law and right on your side.

If the only kind of riding that I did was like today I might be inclined to wonder why people want bike paths or bike lanes and why they move out of the way of automobiles rather than maintain their position on the road. And if the only kind of riding I did was like when I ride to the market and back I'd wonder why there weren't more bike paths and bike lanes and accomodations for cyclists.

And I'm only too willing to admit mistakes and that I definitely do not have all the answers. Today I moved right when I should have held the lane on one stretch and found myself headed into a morass of ice and road debris that wouldn't have caused me a second thought when riding with 26x1.9" studded snows but on 700x23c road wheels was not the easiest of maneuvers.


BTW- Trackhub- we'll have to track down Newbojeff and FMRBMXER and do a Boston BF ride some time soon.

joejack951

Who has argued against moving out of the way (when there is room) of an agitated motorist? Based on your story, it sounds like well before the stop sign you had realized he was trying to pass (you had time to notice your speed and accelerate towards the stop sign which doesn't happen instantaneously). Instead of cutting your losses, you tried to race towards the stop sign and got beat by the truck driver. You somehow confuse this story as being a point about why lane positioning doesn't work. This story has nothing to do with lane positioning. It's a story that makes a case for about defensive driving and how when you encounter an aggressive driver, the best tactic is to do what you can to avoid provoking them. You did the opposite but learned from it. Good job

Bekologist

bull, joejack. this post is about lane positioning, and the fallacies inherent in lane positioning as panacea for traffic ills.

your little disarming spiel, joe, is in direct opposition to the lane grabbing placebo you ordinarily foist on the forum otherwise. so now, in the face of a possible pass, even though an intersection is approaching, a cyclist is supposed to move right to allow a car to right hook them?

WHICH IS IT, Joe? move right before intersections, or control the lane? you can't have it both ways. HH describes how he wouldn't even think of moving over approaching an intersection like the OP describes the scenario playing out....

which tactic is it, joe? yield approaching a potential right hook as you move towards an intersection, or control the lane?

joejack951

Bek, if you go back and reread the original post, the intersection they were approaching was a stop sign. Unless the cyclist were to run the stop sign and assume the motorist was going straight when they really were turning right, there is no chance of a right hook even if the cyclist and motorist arrive at the same time (of course, I'm speaking about one cyclist and one motorist at an intersection which is how the situation was described). The cyclist had time to react to seeing the motorist attempt a pass and was able to increase his speed to try and beat the motorist to the stop sign. Both drivers here were playing a silly game. If the cyclist had as much time as he is saying he had, why not just move over and let the aggressive driver go on by? Even if he was clearly going to get there first, why play the stupid game and try to force someone out of a space that they've already committed to trying to take? Using a centerish lane position helps mitigate the chance that someone will pull a boneheaded stunt like a pass right before a stop sign but NO ONE (except you in your childish rants) has ever tried to say that it's supposed to work 100% of the time.

buzzman

You have completely misread my OP. I did not in anyway "try to race towards the stop sign" as I said in that post as I was loaded down with two bags of groceries. I may have slightly increased my pace to guarantee I would indeed get to the stop sign well before the approaching motorist but he chose to accelerate well above the speed limit, ride right up my a** and then cut around me to race me to the stop sign not the opposite as you imagine.

You seem to be suggesting what many of us have said in these forums before that sometimes the thing to do is not to provoke certain aggressive drivers and in that I agree with you completely. If you feel that by holding my position in the lane as I approached the intersection, which I had established long before the approaching motorist was even on the street, was not in this case the best option I would also wholeheartedly agree.

Given that aggressive driving is now cited as statistically involved in an estimated 2/3's of all automobile accidents cyclists must be prepared at any time to "move out of the way" of an agitated motorist.

buzzman

Sorry, I posted my above response as you were posting this and see now how much you have entirely misread my post and how you have imagined a scenario that supports your argument but is inaccurate.

#1. The speed limit on the street is: 20-25mph max. My speed 14-16 mph. The truck's speed 35-40.

#2. I had plenty of time to reach the intersection. Stop at the stop sign and go diagonally left across the intersecting road had the truck been observing the speed limit. Even with his excessive speed we still reached the intersection at roughly the same time.

#3. As he came around me and began to right hook me I slowed down and took an evasive move to the right. I did not, as implied in your post, try to race him to the stop sign!

I'm astounded that a fellow cyclist is equating my holding my lane position as a "silly game". I agree a little foolhardy to test out some of the theories and techniques I so frequently see espoused here in A&S but hardly a "silly game" on my part.

chipcom 

Glad you didn't get tagged, Buzz, you didn't do anything wrong. This just goes to show that lane positioning isn't a cure for stupid.

buzzman

thanks for seeing what I thought was a simple point, and, hopefully, worth making.

Garandman

You chose to live in PRM.

Bekologist

joejacks just trying to backpedal from the insistent, overwhelming 'take the lane and you will be golden' fallacies that get bandied about in A&S ALL TOO OFTEN.

buzzman

At least I'm not still living in PRC!- I actually got arrested there for walking a dog without a leash but that's another story.

joejack951

If you had not mentioned increasing your speed, I would not have made my "silly game" comment. The way I read what you described was similar to what some motorists do when someone is trying to pass them. They speed up to make it more difficult. You knew the guy was going to try and pass according to your story. Why not signal to him to not pass (but prepare for him to ignore it) or just let him go by slowing a bit and/or moving right since you had space to do so? You seem to ignore the fact that you realized the driver was pulling a boneheaded move even with your lane controlling position yet you did nothing more to try and stop him (except speed up).

Look, it's not that you did anything wrong so much as you could have done more to make the situation safer. That's all I've been getting at. Not issuing a signal and speeding up to try and beat a motorist who's grossly exceeding the speed limit is not a defensive manuever.

rule

Note to self...never bluff a pick-up driver with lane positioning.

bryanp

Don't hate on pick up trucks. I'm a pick up truck driver for the sole reason that I can bring my bike places with me no problem and get around in the deep snow. Don't really drive the damn thing though. I've seen how cyclist cower towards me approaching figuring I'm some crazy yokal.

mparker326

Maybe he realized he did something wrong before and wised up. He might have had a what did I do wrong discussion with himself.

buzzman

I'll try one more time.

When I heard the truck behind me I looked back and he was a 2-300 feet behind me and I moved a little more to the left as I was already pretty close to the center of the road- it's a narrow road. I also at that time slightly increased my speed and after I made those two adjustments that's when he really began to speed up. Despite the fact that I could tell he was a bozo from the way he was driving I really did not think he would attempt to pass me because we were so close to the end of the road. When he chose to pass me I moved right and slowed down very rapidly to avoid hitting him when he right hooked to the stop sign. I was prepared to make an evasive maneuver but, again, it was a pretty wild move on his part to pass me where he did and I didn't think he was that crazy.

and bryanp I do not hate on pick up trucks but must admit I am cautious around some of them.

chipcom 

I drive a pickup...and don't have a problem admiting that I'm a crazy yokel - that don't mean I feel the urge to drive like one.

joejack951

Sounds like no matter what you did (stayed left or moved right) this guy would have hooked you. By staying left, you gave yourself some room to evade his antics. Again, good job I've found a mirror invaluable in situations such as these for tipping me off that someone is doing something completely ridiculous such as the stunt this guy pulled. Being able to issue a slow signal even a second sooner and having that extra time to prepare for evasive action is a huge help for dealing with impatient drivers, especially when I don't want to fully take my eyes off the road in front of me (such as when riding on poor pavement or snow and ice).

Bekologist

which one is it joe, claim the lane or yield to hookers?

joe, you're doing a remarkable job backpedaling from the fallacy that lane position is a traffic cyclists' panacea.

Buzzman, keep on keeping on. traffic is loaded with whacks that don't respect bikes regardless of lane position.

joejack951

I've already answered your question. Claim the lane, signal your intentions (especially if they appear to be aggressive), and be prepared for someone to be an idiot (which a mirror can help you discern earlier than with hearing alone). The only back pedalling that would need to be done on this thread is if you suggested that bike lanes would have somehow solved all of Buzzman's problems with this driver.

How would a bike lane have changed the situation here, Bek? You've got a lot more experience riding in them than I do so you should have no problems answering this.

noisebeam

In similar road situations I merge from center lane to left lane bias and prior to merge use left turn and/or slow signal, glance over shoulder. If an agressive right turner, they will often pass on my right and turn.

If I just stay in center and don't communicate in any other way, it may further provoke an already aggitated driver, and if it does because I didn't communicate anything, I laugh it off as while the behavior is agressive, loud, etc. its not really dangerous, they saw me and acted like the idiots I picked them out to be.

Al

AlmostTrick

Oftentimes speeding up and moving left (like you did) will help a driver realize that there will not be enough room for them to safely pass you. I have heard (and watched) revving vehicles back off in this situation. You just have to be prepared to protect yourself once it is clear that they intend to get there first... and you were.

I agree that a hand signal / look back and also use of a mirror can help.

genec

Sometimes the answer is not another bike lane... such as on my neighborhood 25MPH residential streets. Sometimes the answer is beating the idiot driver with a 2X4 across the head and making sure they know the darn rules of the road.

Or perhaps we should simply start signaling "I am going straight, idiot..." with a flare right across their hood.

I know I have been nearly right hooked while riding well in the left tire track on a typical residental street... and that was by a motorist that went all the way into the opposite lane so he could eventually wait to make a RIGHT turn! (I was going straight BTW, and rolled up to the red stop light)