ericcc65

Another reason I hate bike lanes. I have a bike lane on my commute with manhole covers and other junk that I just can't traverse on a road bike. When I go out into the "car" lane you'd think by the drivers reactions that I broke into their homes and did unspeakable things. Man I wish we'd get rid of bike lanes. I prefer sharrows or, honestly, just a road that's wide enough for 4 lanes but only has two, for instance. The corollary to the above is that whenever there is a bike lane that means drivers feel they can totally ignore what goes on there. Which is fine, until they need to turn or there's an intersection.

Okay, preaching to the choir, I know.

corvuscorvax

People will go on saying it anyway, over and over again, with increasing shrillness, despite the fact that there is little or nothing to debate. I mean, honestly. I watched the video too. The driver made a clumsy, ill-considered maneuver. Drivers do that. But passing on the right next to a truck which is well ahead of you, slowing down, and signaling a right turn is sheer stupidity, as even the OP admits.

The thread should have been over after five posts. But given the cast of characters which has showed up, I predict a rapid descent into personal recrimination, Godwin's Law, and a locked thread. As usual.


P.S. to the OP: Glad you're ok!

spare_wheel

If I am travelling close to the prevailing traffic speed I tend to ride on the left side of the lane so that it's impossible for motorists to pass "in lane".

noglider 

I just watched the video for my second and third times. I have changed my mind. FBinNY is right that joeybike made a couple of errors. joeybike, whenever I get in a close or scary situation, I ask myself if I might have been at fault or could have handled it differently. It's pretty spooky to have close calls as you did in the video, and that makes us quick to blame, but to be safe, we have to learn from what we've done. My careful consideration has led me to believe that I was at fault in some cases. In other cases, I wasn't at fault but I played a role in what happened.

I see that the second driver who cut you off really was acting properly. He did not occupy the bike lane until the line was dashed. You were far behind him when he put on his turn signal. A right turn signal should be seen as "don't pass me on the right!" and a left turn signal should be seen as "don't pass me on the left." These messages are more useful than "I'm about to make a turn."

Passing on the right of a vehicle with a right turn signal on is suicidal. For your own survival, I would advise never doing that. Once you're slowing down, his move won't surprise you.

If the lane to his right had been a motor vehicle lane, he should have moved into it. It is a bicycle-only lane, and he is not allowed to use it, so he has to cross the bike lane to make his turn. Is he legally required to stop and prevent you from needing to slow or stop? I don't know. But given that survival requires you to distrust that he will do this, I'd say stop for him or go around his left. It is truly stupid to pass a vehicle on the right when the vehicle has its right turn signal on, even when there is no difference in mass between your vehicles and whether or not it is legal.

In this case, whether or not the law and the best way to survive conflict, you made a bad choice. Don't get surprised. Expect this type of behavior, and try not to let it upset you. I try to forget stupid things people did to me unless I can learn how to prevent it from happening to me again.

If you get angry, you've lost the game!

ericcc65

You sound more defeatist than the French waiting for the Nazi's to overrun them.

Now that THAT'S over...

mr_pedro

Well yes, but in this case the regular lane is wide enough for cars to pass me safely and if they can't understand why I am riding on the edge of "their" lane it would be even more difficult for them to grasp why I would be in the middle of the lane and it could lead to even more aggressive reactions..

JoeyBike

Agreed on everything, although I prefer inattentive to stupid. Due to whatever phenomenon - sun directly over the SUV, eyes looking too far ahead, weak-assed turn signal bulbs, combo of all those things - whatever - I never saw the turn signal or I would have merged left and passed on the driver's side like I do ten time every day regardless of bike lanes.

No offense taken. It does look incredibly stupid in the video.

spare_wheel

Close passes are quite dangerous. My safety trumps a hypothetical emotional response from a motorist.

corvuscorvax

No offense intended, thanks for understanding. I know I could have made the same mistake on an off day -- and had that been my own video, I would have looked at what happened and thought "Well, that was a stupid move!" Whenever I screw up, I try to make a point of sitting down afterward and looking at the incident with clear eyes, and learning from it. Often, I make mistakes with no consequences, but they were still mistakes. You get complacent if you're not self-critical.

Ride safe.

noglider 

corvuscorvax, you and I are of the same mind. Nice to meet you.

FBinNY 

Joey, one factor may be that your strobe was lighting all the reflectors on cars ahead of you, so you got in the habit of discounting blinking lights. I like a strobing daytime headlight because it's amazingly visible, but stopped using one because it gave me migraines.

Since you're probably going to continue with the strobe, you'll need to be attentive to lights that blink at a different frequency, or otherwise sort out reflected blinking from turn signals.

JoeyBike

Yep. Cars manufactured during this century have really bright blinkers and THREE brake lights - one of which does not reflect light in or near the center of the rear window. It takes two organs to see something - an eye and a brain. Had I not recorded the incident I would have gone to my grave believing that woman did not use a turn indicator. Sun directly behind her vehicle, dark sun glasses on me, and my flasher up front all contributed I believe.

What I plan to do about the flashing light is undetermined at this time.

spare_wheel

You also develop learned helplessness if you internalize the mistakes of others.

Cyclists and pedestrians should not have to be hypervigilant. Enforcement and penalties with real bite (automatic license suspension and/or jail time) would transform the way we drive in this nation.

FBinNY 

Everybody has to be hypervigilant. Even in an ideal world, with nothing but law abiding, conscientious, attentive drivers things happen. Sudden road hazards may make someone swerve or stop suddenly, a bee flying into the car or sudden glare can distract a driver, or even an airplane landing on the road.

Stuff happens, folks make mistakes and errors in judgement. Using a shared road requires being attentive. We even have collisions on the open seas, and wide open skies, so to expect absolute safety, or think you can enforce your way to that goal is patently ridiculous.

I agree that it would be nice if I didn't have to be as attentive, but as long as I'm not the proverbial last man on earth I'll keep my eyes open in case the 2nd to the last man on earth is on a collision course.

spare_wheel

Peds and cyclists make mistakes all the time and the majority of motorists react accordingly. IMO, expecting vulnerable road users to be the hypervigilant ones is precisely ass-backwards. But then again we live in society where 70% reportedly admit to talking on a cell phone while operating a lethal machine.

TomCat_Ford

Before I forget to comment on this again, help me get this straight. You're actually concerned with rules and etiquette? Really? Because I seem to recall you being the one posting videos where you count your moving violations (e.g. running lights, etc.). Why the sudden change of heart? You've never been one to care about the rules before. From my point of view, you only care about the rules when someone does something that slows you down; otherwise, everything is fair game as far as you're concerned.

Great point, that seems more likely than my reason. Of course, that seems to be his motivation for posting just about every video he posts.

I'd rather you not ride if you're going to ride with your head in the clouds; you'd be better off taking mass transit (as you suggested someone else do). You can be inattentive all you want on a bus, but don't be inattentive when you're operating a vehicle on the road.

Okay, call it inattentive. In my mind, riding a bike while being "inattentive" is stupid.

FBinNY 

I intended "everybody" to mean just that - everybody. However, regardless of the justice of it, cyclists need to be more hypervigilant than motorists for the simple reason that they have more at stake.

In this vein, cyclistcs could learn from the dive community. In the diving world, the prevailing culture is that you don't depend on ANYBODY for your safety for the simple reason that you're the one at risk.

I'm not any happier than anyone else with the amount of distracted driving, but I'm also aware that I live in the world that is, not the world that could be.

JoeyBike

To answer the rules question: the video is a good example of why I don't follow them blindly. I tilt the situation in my favor whenever I can. Like someone else noted, I would have been better off waiting for the light to turn red, then run it and ride the empty gap, than to cross the green with a stream of motor vehicles and trusting them.

As for the rest of your tirade...I hope you feel better now. Maybe go re-read some of the dozens of ghost bike posts here that really don't do anyone any good.

I bet a few A&S posters ride a tad more carefully for a few days after reading this thread. Perhaps I prevented a ghost bike from sprouting up.

TomCat_Ford

You didn't answer my question; all you did was come up with an excuse for your lawless behavior. What I take away from this is that you really don't care about the rules and etiquette of bike lanes--let alone cycling in general--so that obviously cannot be a reason for this thread.Whatever helps you sleep at night, I suppose. I would, however, argue that your general disregard for the law simply serves to promote lawless actions. Imagine a scenario where a young teen sees one of your "look at me, I'm cool, I run red lights and I don't care" videos and then goes out for a similar ride. With their lack of cycling experience, the ride probably will not end too well for them when they don't properly clear an intersection while running a red light and end up on the hood of an SUV.

spare_wheel

What laws?
Ohhhhhh...you mean...traffic statutes that are not enforced for cyclists, are largely irrelevant to cyclist safety, and were specifically written to address multi-ton metal machinery.

PS: I have never met a motorist who does not habitually and casually violate traffic statutes.
PPS: Violation of traffic statutes by motorists does many orders of magnitude more damage than violation of statutes by cyclists.

howsteepisit

Sigh, more rationalization of why the law doesn't apply to me.

JoeyBike

From the first line of the original post:

Like a dog with a bone.

(I hate when they make me quote myself)

JoeyBike

Were the laws you speak of designed with cyclists in mind, or were cyclists just tossed on top of the heap because lawmakers are lazy and don't ride bikes (for the most part).

Although, I see changes for the better all the time. I am considering following some rules myself, again due to laziness (tired of sprinting 30 mph to stay ahead of traffic for one) assuming my new mindset doesn't generate too many near death experiences in the same day.

spare_wheel

Even in the USA, cycling for transportation is about as dangerous as taking a walk. And yet, I have never heard someone compare walking with scuba diving.
When I am cycling to the far mar with the better half I am hypovigilant.
When I am taking the lane at 25, I am mesovigilant.
When I am cornering at 40, I am in the freaking hypervigilant zone.

TomCat_Ford

You should come take a ride with me sometime; it might be a little boring though, as I follow the posted limits, signal all of my turns, come to complete stops at intersections, don't text while driving (or even touch my phone for that matter), etc. If I do anything habitually and casually, it would be trying to abide by the rules of the road; doing so makes me predictable (and it also helps my insurance premiums).So because other people break the law in worse/more harmful ways, you're allowed to break the law in a similar but less harmful way? I'm not sure how to even respond to that line of reasoning because it simply does not make sense to me.The better question is: does that matter?