FBinNY 

Let's be real here. This is a straightforward case of MC lane splitting and passing too close. Regardless of where the bicycle was, whether there's a lane or not, and whether the bicyclist was on a cell phone or not, it's not his responsibility to adjust to someone passing from his rear.

Common rules of the road apply, and it's the passing vehicle's responsibility to choose a safe passing opportunity, and to execute the pass safely. The motorcyclist had a simple choice, wait for room to move over and pass with decent separation, or try to slip by with an unreasonably close pass. Unfortunately he chose the latter.

In this case, I would only fault the bicyclist if the accident were caused by a police, fire or ambulance vehicle with lights and sirens going.

RoadTire 

I'm shocked at the comments below the videos. Amazing amount of hate out there. Maybe the punishment should fit the crime: make the biker ride a bicycle for a season on the same routes during the same time of the day. Lots and lots of hours. Might help his sensitivity what other people have to deal with.

Chris516

It is a 'buffer zone'. Grant you I lived in London for only 18mos., 38yrs. ago. This is common with road design there. I saw this all the time when I lived in London in the 1970's. It is beyond me. Also, Why wasn't the motorcyclist in the main travel lane. He could have killed the cyclist!!!

CB HI

You posted a video here in BFs of you hitting a pedestrian crossing from corner to corner at what is called an unmarked crosswalk right in front of you and you blamed the pedestrian who had the right of way.

Seems you matched those who also posted videos to scorn those who they thought were in the wrong.

atbman

Agreed, but, in this case, his use of the mobile had nothing whatsoever to do with the collision and not even the use of a mirror would have prepared the rider for being hit in such a monumentally stupid manoeuvre

atbman

Which way? Left or right?

If you'd moved to the left he'd have hit you directly from behind and would have claimed (however unjustly) that you had moved in front of him.

If you'd moved to the right you'd have been moving towards the oncoming traffic - ooops, not a good idea.

As for the mirror question, would you have been looking in it at the precise moment numptyman decided to squeeze past? Bearing in mind that rear impact collisions are about 5% of all collisions, they would have relatively little effect on overall deaths and injuries. I do grant you that they are disproportionately (IIRC) involved in fatalities because they're probably more likely to result in the rider going under the vehicle

JoeyBike

I have never posted a video of me hitting anyone or anything. I was not running a camera the night I hit some drunk who didn't notice 500 watts of NightSun lighting coming his way and stepped right in front of me at speed. He took a nice ride on my handlebars and I set him down on his feet a few seconds later. He freely admitted his fault and I freely agreed. I can't prevent someone from committing suicide on a public street. Ironically, I took a street I usually avoid due to the remoteness of it in order to AVOID all of the Meanderthol Drunks on the busier street I normally used.

I may have posted a Google Maps screen capture of that intersection in still format with some red arrows added in PhotoShop and a description of the event. Pedestrian crossing had a stop sign, my direction of travel did not. The pedestrian crossed without looking, then as I veered to his backside completely avoiding him he all of a sudden realized "I forgot my teeth at the bar" and reversed direction AGAIN without looking or seeing what looks like an Amtrak Train headlight on my bars coming at him. He went right into my lap stopped only by my straight bars, front wheel going right between his legs from behind.

I truly WISH I had that on video. It was too dark to run the camera effectively.

CB HI

Even with a stop sign (designed for motorist not pedestrians), the pedestrian had right of way between the curb corners and you decided to cut him too close.

With someone claiming amazing ninja skills for avoiding unpredictable motorcycles from behind, one would think you could avoid the pedestrian ahead.

JoeyBike

Well, that would depend on lots of things including how fast I was going compared to traffic on my left, what bike I was riding (I use cut down bars for splitting lanes in the city grid, this dude was apparently using Caribou antlers), my mood, and how far in advance I saw the guy. My gut reaction looking at the vid would be to squeeze left and put my left hand on one of the cars going my speed (see my avatar). Or I could stand on the pedals and accelerate up to a gap to my left, or just accelerate to the speed limit and center myself directly in front of the motor scooter and make him run over 100% of me (which I doubt he would do 'cause then he is going down with me).

Under the circumstances I listed above, had he STILL run over me, then HE would be the one calling the cops for reasons unrelated to the accident.

I probably would have been uninclined to move to the right.

99% chance I would have not only been looking when he made his move but would have seen him approaching from a block away and assumed that if he wasn't slowing down he was likely going around the cars to my left. I glance in my mirror every 10 to 15 seconds by habit. More frequently in grid traffic - like once every 4 - 5 seconds.

I don't want to give the impression that the Motorbike dude was not stupid, mean, and at fault for the crash. I am just adding that the cyclist did absolutely nothing to help his situation one bit - riding slower than jammed up traffic, inattentive, preoccupied, with extra-wide handlebars in tight quarters, and no rear-view mirror. A few gazelles on the Serengeti might live to a ripe old age but certainly never the slow, inattentive ones.

JoeyBike

It is a pedestrian's duty to:

1. Look both ways before crossing a street.

2. Obey traffic signals and signs when no pedestrian signal is provided.

3. Stay sober in public (yes, I know it's New Orleans but it IS STILL the law).

A Zombie cannot just meander across a busy 6-lane highway against a red light and expect to have right of way even if he/she is in a crosswalk, and no cop, judge, or jury is going to award damages to some drunk blithely staggering across such a street. Same goes for narrow one-way streets in the black of night.

There was ample time for any non-ninja - who was paying attention as they should be - to see the MC coming up behind them. It would then be the cyclist's choice to assume the MC is not going to just steam-roll them, or take evasive action. The cyclist in the video gave himself no chance to choose.

CB HI

Odd you missed your duty to not hit pedestrians crossing between corners.

Please do cite the law requiring pedestrians to treat stop signs light red red lights.

You sound so much like the motorcycle dude.

JoeyBike

10 second search with Google - this happens to be from Illinois and I think is fairly typical of US state law regarding this issue.

Illinois Legal Aid | Do Cars or Pedestrians Have the Right of Way at a Crosswalk?

Question:

Who has the right of way at a crosswalk—pedestrians or cars?

Answer:

It depends. Pedestrians in a crosswalk have the right of way, so drivers must yield. Pedestrians not yet in a crosswalk should yield to drivers until it’s safe to enter the crosswalk.

Pedestrians do not have an unlimited right to barge into a crosswalk whenever and however they like. They should wait until it’s safe.

FBinNY 

CB HI

Not a cite of actual law but interpretation. I thought you lived in New Orleans and you go to Illinois for your claim.
You quoted it and yet do not seem to understand.

JoeyBike making up his own rules again. You sound just like the motorcyclists in the OP.

Chris516

Regardless of the kind of lane the cyclist was riding in, there was no need for the motorcyclist to do what he did.

vol

Didn't the motorcycle have a horn? Why didn't he honk at the cyclist to at least warn him? "It's not my intention to cause any aggravation between myself and the cyclist"---methinks it was.

CB HI

The motorcyclist was incompetent. He judged his clearance from the cyclist body and did not account for the arm and bar that is out further.

keyven

The motorcyclist is a jerk and a good example of why the roads have become such a battleground. The cyclist is silly for using a cellphone in the first place, but not to the extent he deserves to be knocked down and potentially injured.

Possibly the only good thing out of this is that he would likely NOT be doing such a dangerous thing whilst in the middle of traffic again! Maybe the motorcyclist saved his life because if he had kept doing it without incident, one day a semi-trailer with a half-asleep driver might come along when he is staring at the screen.

CB HI

And since the motorcyclist does not believe he did anything wrong, he may kill the next person he runs into.

modelmartin

The motorcyclist knew he was passing too close. I am calling it assault and battery.

atbman

[QUOTE=JoeyBike;16791327]Well, that would depend on lots of things including how fast I was going compared to traffic on my left, what bike I was riding Having seen one or two of your videos Joeybike, I understand why you use narrow bars. However, he was riding a perfectly normal mtb/hybrid and I doubt that they were more than 28/30" wide, judging by the rearview - unlike caribou antlers which can be up to 39" in width and 53 in beam length. The m/cyclist apparently caught the cyclists elbow, which he wouldn't have done had he been obeying the UK Highway Code:

2. Overtaking (162 to 169)
162
Before overtaking you should make sure
• the road is sufficiently clear ahead - including cyclists?
• road users are not beginning to overtake you
• there is a suitable gap in front of the road user you plan to overtake - he was overtaking the taxi to his left and there wasn't enough room in front, which is why he was trying to squeeze past the cyclist and not move i front of the taxi.
163
Overtake only when it is safe and legal to do so. You should
• not get too close to the vehicle you intend to overtake - otherwise you might hit them
• use your mirrors, signal when it is safe to do so, take a quick sideways glance if necessary into the blind spot area and then start to move out
• not assume that you can simply follow a vehicle ahead which is overtaking; there may only be enough room for one vehicle
• move quickly past the vehicle you are overtaking, once you have started to overtake. Allow plenty of room - Ooops!. Move back to the left as soon as you can but do not cut in
• take extra care at night and in poor visibility when it is harder to judge speed and distance
• give way to oncoming vehicles before passing parked vehicles or other obstructions on your side of the road
• only overtake on the left if the vehicle in front is signalling to turn right - actually he wasn't, so he was breaking this rule, and there is room to do so - or you may hit them
• stay in your lane if traffic is moving slowly in queues - oh dear. If the queue on your right is moving more slowly than you are, you may pass on the left - not try and squeeze between the LH and RH queue
• give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car (see Rules 211 to 213 and 214 to 215). - If this is the amount he gives to other road users, logically (a bit of a stretch, I know) he must hit cars on a regular basis

Basically, apart from being on his mobile, the rider was riding in a straight line, in what appears to be a cycle lane (not entirely clear from the video) and otherwise being a law abiding cyclist, unlike the biker

wphamilton

I agree. If motorcyclist's judgement and skills were really that poor I don't see him surviving for long, unless he's a very occasional rider. I didn't get that impression from the video. I think it was deliberate.

dynodonn 

As I posted earlier, this is an insight to many motorized road users psyche when they are the cause of a collision with non motorized road user, with usually the first thing out of many motorized road users mouth is that the non motorized road user was at fault for being in/on the roadway in the first place.

JoeyBike

===================
Quoted from: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/i...5174006AAoSEMo

Yes, it's different in New Orleans. Pedestrians do NOT have an automatic right of way in New Orleans when crossing a street, even at a crosswalk. The officer apparently believed you stepped into the path of a moving vehicle (his car) in an unsafe manner.

Note that most of the USA is like New Orleans. The idea that pedestrians have an absolute right-of-way is a west coast thing, and my CA police friends tell me the idea is mostly a misperception by the public even there.

This is from the City of New Orleans Traffic Code:

"But no pedestrian shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle which is so close that it is impossible for the driver to yield."
===================

I can find this^^ stuff all day and I have nothing better to do.

It is hilarious how you know who is at fault better than I do given that you weren't there and I was there. Even the drunk was apologetic 'cause he knew he ambushed me and had no problem, even while inebriated, grasping the concept. But YOU know better than the two people who were actually involved.

BF is so entertaining. Well worth the price of an Internet connection.

dynodonn 

The bad part, such as in my locale, a number of thoroughfares are 3 to 5 lanes wide, with controlled intersections 1/4 to 1/2 mile apart with traffic moving at 10 to 15 mph over the speed limit. As seen in the video in the OP, a good number of motorists will find fault in the non motorized road users actions, claiming that the non motorized user ran or walked into their path, and should have not been in the roadway.