Bekologist

I assume I'm seen, regardless of my road position - side, center, left bias, right bias, wherever -because I use high vis gear, day and night- but ride as if I've not been seen.

For those of us that ride a fair bit, it's not that tough to wrap ones' head around, helemt head...

joejack951

Erm, care to elaborate more? What do you do about your lane position, after assuming you've been seen, but still think that you haven't been seen? What adjustments do you make, if any, and what do you gain by making those adjustments? In a narrow lane, will you sit in front of traffic even though you still think you haven't been seen?

Bekologist

..its not that difficult, joejack. it IS a unique in time analysis every cyclist has to make while riding.

ride like you're being seen, but assume you haven't been.

In the example of a wide lane, and an 'as far right as practicable' steady as she goes, predictable lane positioning, a rider assumes they've been seen by traffic in both directions, and plans as if they haven't been. upcoming on cross traffic, asssume they've seen you, but plan as if they haven't. oncoming, assume you're being seen, plan that you're not. overtakers, assume you've been seen, plan that you haven't been.

aware, anticipate, adjust.

its a HECK of a lot more reliable that mr. head's swerving back and forth in the absense of faster traffic in vain attempts to get cars to slow down behind him- (how do you see the brake lights of cars behind you? how do you gauge every cars' speed differential in a 2 sq. in. mirror- consistently-before moving out of the way? answer is: you DON'T) .

aware, anticipate, adjust. Riding steady and visible is a lot more vehicular than mr heads' off-the-wall lane weavejobs. i think he's kidding himself and this forum, but that's my high mileage opinion.

Bekologist

i'm sorry for my last posts being off topic.

YES, narrow lane crashes do happen, helmie. proven and rare, because most cyclists move right in the face of overtaking traffic, even you. (not describing a 'narrow' lane there, just lane positioning as a general concept) and lanes are not always, often not always, strictly 'narrow' so as to be defined that way.

but cars get rearended, probably a LOT more likely than cyclists. how does a vehicle's mass and likelyhood of center of the road position modify the conspicuity variable?

Helmet Head

You are not distinguishing between sensory and cognitive conspicuity.

Bekologist

yep. i guess not, eh?


those are your ill-founded foundations for your pet theory about drivers ignoring cyclists up ahead of them, unless they ply the patended helmet head power swerve in the absense of traffic method, eh? see post #253.

this is all off topic, anyweay, mr head.

the consensus in this thread is YES, vehicles get hit from behind quite regularily on the roads, dude.

joejack951

Here's my question: why even bother assuming they have seen you if you are going to assume that they haven't? What advantage does that first assumption give you since it's completely negated by the second?

Can you try to give one specific example of you demonstrating this technique? From previous discussions, I'm almost positive you won't but I'm asking again anyway.

chipcom 

No sense even trying to explain, HH is playing his usual word games - when common sense calls the validity of one of his pet theories into question, the wall of words and semantic games are rolled out to cloud the issue so throughly that nobody even knows what it being discussed anymore. The record of his posts in BF display this pretty plainly. The best defense is to simply say what you mean and don't even bother responding to whatever goofiness he replies with. Let your words stand and trust that normal people can understand them just fine and let HH argue with himself.

chipcom 

Never ASSUME you are seen, while doing everything you can to be seen. Simple to anyone who is actually engaged in 'honest debate' rather than stupid games.

Bekologist

I think Chip sums it up pretty well, Joejack.

It IS pretty basic bicycling awareness, joe.

Isn't this thread about IF narrow lane crashes occur- consensus is definetly YES -

and not you failing to understand basic defensive cycling or helmet heads' psychological obstructionism?

SSP

To put HH's "theory of conspicuity" into perspective, assume the following scenario:

Mid-day, no cloud cover, on a straight, ruralish road, with a 6' wide designated bike lane.

A car is approaching two cyclists up ahead. The car is traveling 55 mph, while the cyclists are traveling 15 mph (thus, a 40 mph rate of closure).

Cyclist "RW" is riding in the roadway, 4 feet left of the white line. Cyclist "BL" is riding in the bike lane, 2 feet to the right of the white line.

The overtaking car is 10 seconds behind the cyclists. Based on the 40 mph closing speed, he is 587 feet from the cyclists.

Using a simple triangle calculator, and plugging in 587 feet for two sides, and 6 feet for the third side, we find that the angular difference between the two cyclists at that distance is only 0.59 degrees.

Now, hold up a #2 pencil at arms length and imagine you're driving a car in this scenario. At arm's length, the width of a #2 pencil is about equal to the lateral difference in the two cyclists, in terms of your field of view. Cyclist "RW" would be seen on the left edge of your pencil, and cyclist "BL" would be seen on the right edge of your pencil.

Despite this very narrow difference in position of the two cyclists, HH believes that the driver of the car will find cyclist "RW" "meaningful and relevant" and take appropriate action, while that same driver is is likely to overlook cyclist "BL" and "choose to attend to a distraction".

Based on years of driving and cycling, I find this theory FOS. In my experience, there would be no difference between how those two cyclists would be perceived by the overtaking driver. And the driver's decision to "attend to a distraction" would have much more to do with their mental state, age, and other factors.

Helmet Head

Five years ago, based on years of driving and cycling, I too would find this theory FOS, and your argument above quite compelling. By the way, I appreciate your identifying a specific assumption that my theory is based on, and challenging it like this. Chipcom, this is what I'm looking for in these forums.

In this case the assumption you have identified and challenged is: there is a significant difference in how overtaking drivers perceive cyclists up ahead who are in bike lanes from cyclists who are up ahead in the motorist's lane/path. In particular, the presence of the cyclist in the motorist's lane is much more likely to be perceived as meaningful and relevant to the driver than is the presence of the cyclist in the shoulder.

Significance in lateral difference in the driver's field of vision has nothing to do with it. The cyclist's position relative to the driver's concept of what is the "edge of the road" is what matters here. Can a driver discern a 6-inch wide stripe running parallel to his path from right next to him to a point 587 feet ahead? That's less than 1/8th of a mile. More importantly,

1. Can a driver discern whether cyclist RW (4 feet to the left of that stripe an eighth of a mile ahead) is riding to the left of that stripe? Is the motorist likely to perceive RW as being "in the road", in the motorist's path/lane?
2. Can a driver discern whether cyclist BL (2 feet to the right of that stripe an eighth of a mile ahead) is riding to the right of that stripe? Is the motorist likely to perceive BL as being "in the road", in the motorist's path/lane?

To those of us like Kalliergo and JoeJack (correct me if I misspeak for you guys) who have a lot of experience riding up ahead in motorist's paths and observing their behavior in a mirror, the answer is obvious: even much earlier than an eighth of a mile back motorist's routinely perceive cyclists riding that far left of the lane as being "in the road", and in their path/lane, and take appropriate measure (change lanes or slow down). The video clips in the cyclist view video thread are also examples of this.

To those of you who apparently don't have much experience riding up ahead in motorist's paths and observing their behavior in a mirror, the answer apparently seems obvious too: that it can't make much of a difference.

Fortunately, it is easy enough to test this for yourself.

Helmet Head

It is disappointing that you consider this a stupid game, Chip. I don't. Yes, I obviously enjoy debate, but the debate is not the point for me, it is the means to discuss the underlying issues. In this case we are talking about the notion of "Never assume you are seen", and whether doing so makes sense when riding in traffic. The other popular ways to express this notion are, "ride as if you're invisible", or "assume you are invisible".

These are all manifestations of what Forester calls the cyclist-inferiority phobia, or what Goodridge calls the taboo. It is also exemplified by recent comments in another thread.

https://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.p...91&postcount=3

https://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.p...35&postcount=6

These comments are from cyclists who probably believe in the notion that you should never assume you are seen when riding in traffic. And, as their comments indicate, this leads to believe that you should not ride in traffic where it becomes impossible to ride using that assumption.

That's the real issue here, and why I object to the idea that cyclists should ride in traffic "never assuming they are seen": it makes riding in traffic impossible.

Bekologist

I ride expecting to be seen, and planning as if I'm not. I use high vis clothing and daytime visible blinkies to maximize the potential of being 'attended to' by the drivers, REGARDLESS of road position.

this thread is supossed to be about narrow lane crashes, mr head.

stop obscuring the consensus that YES, narrow lane crashes happen. just look at the cars getting rear ended in narrow lanes, dude.

ghettocruiser

I wasn't comparing those things. Why are you? Check your thread title. "Narrow lane crashes". These are lanes where there is not enough space for a large vehicle to pass a cyclist without entering an adjacent lane, are they not?

You stated, I think, that direct-rear-end crashes on these types of road may be less common than motorist drift-over to the side crashes, as you might have on wider roads.

If the road is so wide you can move over to let overtaking traffic pass without it moving left, I agree, but my examples dealt with accidents from cyclists taking narrow lanes, as the thread title suggests.


Why is that the point? Why is that relevant at all? The fact that there are tens of thousands of motorists who do not run into each other is a irrelevant given and a meaningless statement. Even if the rate of rear-end collisions is very low, which it is for a given traffic-slow scenario, the odds of it happening over the span of a couple of years grows enough to represent a concern. Almost everyone I know who drives has been in at least a minor hit-from-behind collision in traffic. And minor in a car is often major on a bike.

On this point on completely agree. Cyclists are rare enough that they garner extra attention. This is a good thing.

But not a solution. If motorists are willing to take their eyes off the car in front of them when they know it might stop, then a bicycle taking the lane ahead must gather some of the same risks.

SSP

I have tested this for myself, as have others (including noted cycling author Robert Hurst)...it's not like it's just a bunch of newbies who find your theory lacking, HH.

For years I've ridden with a Take a Look mirror, and observed driver behavior in a wide variety of cycling environments (urban, suburban, highway, NOL, WOL, BL, mountainous, flat, etc., etc.). Based on my experience and observations, I don't see any evidence that moving 0.59 degrees (6') to the left would alter driver perception or behavior in any significant way.

joejack951

So when you ride six feet to the left of the white line, you are saying that drivers don't slow down or change lanes before reaching you, just like they wouldn't if you were riding in a bike lane? What do they do then?

joejack951

Yup, perfectly clear that you two are in complete agreement.

Helmet Head

I cannot improve on joejack's response. Please clarify by answering his question. Thanks.

Helmet Head

Okay, I'm confused. You wrote this:

How can you be talking about "cyclists off to the side of the lane" if you're talking exclusively about narrow lanes where being off to the side is not possible?

A better comparision would be: of all the motorcyclists you know, how many have been rear-ended?

Why is that a better comparison? Because if it is true, as I believe it to be, that motorists behind cageless cyclists generally pay more attention than motorists behind caged vehicles, then the fact that almost everyone you know who drives a car has been in at least a minor hit-from-behind collision is not relevant to this discussion.

It is a solution. There is no such thing as risk-free activity. At some point you have to realize the likelihood of harm is so small that it's worth doing. That's how I feel about bicycling in traffic using advanced vehicular cycling practices. I even do it with my 7 year old daughter in tow. See Honking JAM lesson-teacher learns a lesson.

SSP

Why would I want to force overtaking drivers to have to slow down and/or change lanes when it's not necessary? As for what they do...they typically shift left a foot or two in their lane and pass me without incident.

I generally ride 18"-24" right of the line (assuming a wide, debris-free BL). In that position, most overtaking vehicles will move left a bit as they approach me (sometimes with their left wheels over the center stripe). They pass me with an adequate amount of space, and they don't have to slow down or change lanes to do so. In the rare instances where the overtaking driver does not move left (or, when there's oncoming traffic and it wouldn't be safe for them to do so), I move right a foot or two as they get near. Thus, there's always a good amount of space between me and the overtaking traffic.

I don't see how positioning myself in the roadway, with its increased need for vigilance on my part, and increased need for drivers to maneuver to avoid me, does anything to enhance my safety.

Helmet Head

Earlier, in response to my statement, "fortunately, it is easy enough to test this for yourself.", you wrote:

What were you referring to by "this", and how exactly have you tested it?

What I was referring to was testing whether drivers discern between a cyclist an eighth of a mile ahead who is riding in the motorist's lane/path from a cyclist an eighth of a mile ahead who is riding in a bike lane. Have you tested for this, or not?

When JJ asked: "So when you ride six feet to the left of the white line, ...", you replied, "Why would I want to force overtaking drivers to have to slow down and/or change lanes when it's not necessary".

Whether you would want to force drivers to have to slow down and/or change is beside the point. The question is: would riding there force them to do it, implying they discern a difference.

Your response implies:

a) You have not actually tested it (because you wrote, "why would I ...").
b) You believe if you did test it, motorist's would discern the difference, despite all your finger-width differential statements to the contrary.

I believe that is your genuine impression. I don't believe you've actually tested this. I don't believe you've ridden 2' to the right of the stripe, and watched the paths of approaching motorists in your mirror, and actually counted how many adjusted laterally, and how many did not. I believe you have noticed some motorists adjusting once in a while, and have mistakenly concluded that "most" do this. I believe if you actually counted, you would find it is much less than "most". I believe what I believe based on your lack of specifics about the test you supposedly ran.

Again, it's easy enough to test. How about the handful of us still paying attention to this thread actually go out and do it, and report back with the specific results?

a) What road were you on (or link to maps.google.com).
b) date and time
c) Describe the road (# of lanes, bike lane or shoulder, how wide are each, etc, straight or curved, etc.)
d) what direction were you traveling.
e) When you tested BL riding, how far to the right were you riding?
f) when you tested riding in the lane during gaps, how far into the lane were you during the gaps?
g) what type of mirror did you use?
h) during each run, describe the type (all BL or in-lane during gaps, move into BL when motorist is 5-10 seconds back) how many cars approached in the outside lane, how many did not adjust at all, how many adjusted a few feet, and how many changed lanes.

We should all try to test on a fairly long intersectionless straight piece of road, with traffic moving 25-40 mph faster than the cyclist, at least 2 lanes in our direction, plus a bike lane or striped shoulder.

Make your observations/counts using the two methods:
a) stay in the bikelane/shoulder the entire time
b) riding in an assertive "centerish" lane position (near the grease mark) during gaps, and moving aside into BL/shoulder if approaching motorist/s is/are not changing lanes and is/are 5-10 seconds back.

SSP

Yet another HH splitting of hairs, Wall of Words(TM), and denigration of the experience of others.

Please define "this".

BTW - with a head as hard as yours, you don't need to wear a helmet.

FWIW, as I've said several times...I don't believe the 6 foot difference in lateral position that we're talking about (that is, 6 feet prior to your weave back to the right), has any significant impact on cyclist safety.

Helmet Head

Denigration of your experience? That was not my intent, sorry if it came off that way.

Are you agreeing to do the test, or not?

SSP

No, HardHead...the question is whether doing so would enhance cyclist safety. I don't think it does...and many folks agree with my position, including noted cycling author Robert Hurst.