Commuting - The ebb and flow...

Hi all:

I posted a few months ago about being a kamikaze cyclist and getting hit by a car at a stop sign... I have since stopped doing that...

But it looks like, cars want to hit me even when I am not doing anything dumb. I had a teenager go the wrong way on a roundabout and nearly hit me Sunday afternoon (on a designated bike route). My wife who was riding about 15 feet behind me said that the kid was laughing her head off when she passed my wife.

I wonder how people can be so mean?

OTOH, I am waiting for my new Trek 520 to be finished (I made a _few_ config changes, new rims (T530), lower chainrings(28/38/48) , new cassette (12-34) etc etc.)

Narayan.

Originally posted by thv
But it looks like, cars want to hit me even when I am not doing anything dumb. I had a teenager go the wrong way on a roundabout and nearly hit me Sunday afternoon (on a designated bike route). My wife who was riding about 15 feet behind me said that the kid was laughing her head off when she passed my wife.

I wonder how people can be so mean?

You have to be careful not to confuse mean with just plain stupid. Unfortunately, there are many people in this world who, to put it bluntly, should have been culled out at birth. We must always be vigilant in case we encounter these people. In most traffic situations, I generally assume automatically that motorists will do the stupidest thing possible (I'm right more often than not, incidentally) so that I can be prepared for when it happens.

We should also be aware of the false sense of security that 'designated bike routes' can often provide. Again, they offer no protection against idiots. Having said that, our activity is still statistically safer than driving, so we shouldn't be too scared either.

I've noticed that as I cross interections (legally) if there is a car coming from down the street I am crossing about 40% of the time I will hear the sound of the cars engine speeding up. Change that to 80% of the time if the vehical is an SUV or pickemup truck. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by KrisA
I've noticed that as I cross interections (legally) if there is a car coming from down the street I am crossing about 40% of the time I will hear the sound of the cars engine speeding up. Change that to 80% of the time if the vehical is an SUV or pickemup truck. :rolleyes:

Oh! Why IS that!?! I ride about 6 blocks along a street where all the cross streets have to stop. A couple of times I've had cars stop for me (probably because it's broad daylight and someone would see them if they didn't). Then, as soon as I'm across, they pull right out in front of a CAR! It's like they get so annoyed at having to actually yield to a bicycle that they just go without looking!:confused: