Commuting - Anyone else think this is outrageous?

I don't know if the video brings out the situation enough, but I found this on my morning commute this morning, really really outrageously stupid and dangerous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3D1IZAm7Kg

There was nobody guiding/watching for this guy. Not a soul. I was running about 50ft ahead of some big Canada Post trucks - I could easily see this guy starting to pull out and had no choice but to slow/stop (or face the streetcar tracks at 30mph/~50k and hope I don't get clipped - not a good plan on any day of the week).

Kingston Road is a major arterial heading into town, you can't see much of the traffic because I caught a good run from a light, and the aforementioned trucks held the cars up in the left lane, and I was taking the right lane.

Now that I have this clip cut, I'll be contacting the police to find out if there's anything they can do - or should I call the company first? Any advice as to how to report this behaviour? I find it incredibly dangerous and I'm really angry at it, I want a positive outcome.

All it takes is a guy in the road watching/flagging traffic down - this guy just seemed to aimlessly back onto the road though. Backing onto ANY road should be illegal, let alone a truck and this street.

Blech.

The guy had to back out....
He saw an opening (even though there was a slow cyclist coming) and he took it.

Share the road goes both ways, dude, and I don't know about you, but I like my trash picked up.

Chill. There's plenty of genuine assholishness to get pissed off about. Don't waste it on the sanitation workers.

To me it seemed like there was a garbage truck backing out and a bicyclist found it inconvenient, had to stop and got pissed off about it all. So nothing outrageous to me.

The truck was beeping and going slowly. You saw him and was forced to slow down to yield to let him back up.

While I would have liked to have seen someone watching from the back to make the whole situation safer, the truck had clearly made his intentions known. The truck didn't pull out hap-hazardly at all. Inconveniently timed sure, but not unsafely from what the video showed.

Actually on rewatching the video it seems the truck was backing out before you even got to a reasonable distance for him to see you.

Not ridiculous, just inconevnient.

Sorry, but I agree with the previous posters. Certainly from the video it just looks like a difficult but probably necessary maneuver on the part of a truck driver. Maybe there's something that doesn't translate in the video that made it feel worse in the moment than it appears on tape. But as far as having proof of outrageous behavior on the part of the truck driver I would say, "No way."

Nothing outrageous here.

Just part of bicycling in traffic...

Maybe I'm not as serious a cyclist, and I know what it's like to lose a good clip of speed, it sucks... but I don't see too much of a problem there, he has to back out it seems... A lot of cyclists seem to get easily angry at things that generally I shrug off as life. :p

What's the big deal? Happens to me all the time. Cyclists are not as visible as a bigger vehicle, which is why you need to be hyper aware. If this ticks you off that much, you're in for a lot more frustrating rides. Let it go.

The truck was beeping and going slowly. You saw him and was forced to slow down to yield to let him back up.

While I would have liked to have seen someone watching from the back to make the whole situation safer, the truck had clearly made his intentions known. The truck didn't pull out hap-hazardly at all. Inconveniently timed sure, but not unsafely from what the video showed.

Actually on rewatching the video it seems the truck was backing out before you even got to a reasonable distance for him to see you.

Not ridiculous, just inconevnient.

Agreed.

I haven't seen many videos of unsafe situations, but even this one hardly counts.

Sorry, man.

Legality, at least in Alberta, means you can't back out onto the lane opposite. That is, you can back out onto the neartest kerb lane in such a way as you end up facing the way you are supposed to be driving. I think there may be other factors to consider as well from a legal point of view.

So, it appears to be a legal maneuver. You would know how easy it would for him to wait for a better time. ( I have no idea)
I think its plain that he had no idea how fast you were going. (or didn't care, or just didn't see you)

I can't see from the video if he had the option of something other than reversing? Could he have driven thru the alley and round the block? If he had a helper I would bet its company policy for them to have a spotter, but some of those bin trucks are just the driver.

I think its rude behavior, possibly illegal, possibly against company policy, but I have seen and suffered from much worse. I have just re-read your comment, if he could not drive through, then it sounds that he pretty much has to do it when he can or sit there all day.(you say the traffic level is high)
It seems like you make a "firm" stop, but not that close to an emergency stop?

Is this our future? everyone filming every aspect of their life, then phoning the police and making posts about every minor event? This is the second 'video evidence' of supposed wrong doing that turned out was the filmers fault in as many days. I just dont get it.

Is this our future? everyone filming every aspect of their life, then phoning the police and making posts about every minor event? This is the second 'video evidence' of supposed wrong doing that turned out was the filmers fault in as many days. I just dont get it.

Just because it's perhaps not as ridiculous as I felt, didn't think that made me wrong :rolleyes: As for the big brother style paranoia, I think that's you being a tad daft. Reporting bad/dangerous/illegal driving to the police is a worthwhile action, IMO. The reason I didn't make that call already is because I already had doubt in my mind, which is why I posted it here for opinions/advice before anything else.

Anyways.. I don't care about stopping, and I realise the dude has to come out onto the road (though I think he could've swung through the forecourt of the petrol station) - I just really was amazed that I saw this guy just bimbling out onto the road, and turning right (left in reverse) meant he had no line of sight and no mirror sight to the area which he was backing into. Would've been nice to have someone out there watching his ass, is all I guess.

I guess I blew it out of proportion as I seem to have a deeper emotional response to this specific thing, perhaps the speed made it all the more stressful in that moment... I probably won't make any calls, after reading through and thinking a tad more - the only thing I could do is perhaps call the company and see to it that their drivers try to exercise a bit more caution (I realise they're in the cab alone sometimes, so finding someone to do that might be a task in itself).

Thanks for your honest feedback so far everyone.

J As for the big brother style paranoia, I think that's you being a tad daft..

Your commuting with a camera strapped to your noggin, so you can film any wrong doing such as a guy who had the nerve to back up in your field of vision, and im a tad daft? OoooooK.

meh. He's got a huge truck to back out, that's difficult enough and it's bound to inconvenience someone. Save your anger for real *******s.

Funny that on the supplemental videos there were clips for "bike idiot".:D

I do agree with most people here that this was a non incident... the truck was backing out slowly and was visible, he might have inconvenienced any traffic going through, but didn't put anyone in danger, which is the important part. Funny thing about traffic, I observe when coming back to the US from time to time is that there are a lots of drivers with the reaction: "what!? that guy is in my way! BEEEEEEEEEP!" People need to pull out of driveways or from parking spaces, so slow down and dont get hot and bothered when some one has to go some where!

As for the videos on cameras, I kinda like them, they do give an extra visual aspect to the forum discussions. This is going to be the way of the future... of course with so many videos out there, only the good ones will be discussed. The last video of the guy that was hit by the tail end of the truck showed a great example why filtering on the right is to be avoided.

Just an inconvenience. Something we should all get used to. There are a lot of dumbasses out there and we shouldn't be one of them.

Is this our future? everyone filming every aspect of their life, then phoning the police and making posts about every minor event? This is the second 'video evidence' of supposed wrong doing that turned out was the filmers fault in as many days. I just dont get it.

Yeah, I've seen two of these posts today. Unfortunately it's the present, not the future.
30 mph seems like a huge exaggeration, as do the severity of these posts with video "evidence".

Given the speeds and distances as they appear on the video, I probably would have swerved left, around behind him, and taken the lane on the approach to the intersection. Although, stopping, as you did, was likely the safer course of action.

If I were going to submit this video to anyone, I would first edit the potty mouth. It makes you sound like a road raging hothead.

To me it seemed like there was a garbage truck backing out and a bicyclist found it inconvenient, had to stop and got pissed off about it all. So nothing outrageous to me.

+1

The trash truck driver was just doing his job. The reason for that big yellow strobe light on the back is to make the back of the vehicle more visible when it's backing out of a driveway onto a roadway, which is a necessary maneuver for these vehicles to make sometimes.

FWIW, the new trash trucks around here are equipped with rear facing cameras for the driver to see the blind spot immediately behind the truck, but there's still a big visibility issue to the sides, and it's always smart to yield to one when you hear or see it backing out.

The cyclist's reaction seemed pretty outrageous to me. It's no better than a motorist yelling and screaming when he has to slow down for a cyclist. I hope nobody saw/heard that temper tantrum.

I dont know about the cities you guys live in, but in Philadelphia city vehicles (Police, Fire, Sanitation and such) are to be supervised when backing up, everyone but the driver (of course) guides the driver back every time the vehicle reverses, so although I think this guy did nothing wrong in my eyes as a cyclist, he may have, in fact, over looked a very important rule of his employer/city :( and I must say this, Ive been in that situation a hundred times, both as a driver, and a cyclist, if you cant hear that back up tone, and you dont see that big strobe light, not to mention that huge truck SLOWLY backing up, in my opinion your either blind or just a spoiled cyclist, you did mention that slowing down didnt bother you, so whats the problem? Spoiled cyclist perhaps? :D ;) :)

I doubt he even saw you, you were too far to the right and obscured by that parked car.

What would the OP view of the situation be if he read his own posting with "bike" substituted for "truck" and "car" for "bike". Sounds a lot like the typical cager complaint in reverse.

Wow...every time a police car backs up another officer has to guide the first officer back? Not being trusted to back a car out of a parking space without assistance seems pretty degrading.

As for trash trucks, it's been years since I've seen one with more than one city employee present (the driver), so I'd say they're following the Philadelphia rule just fine.


in Philadelphia city vehicles (Police, Fire, Sanitation and such) are to be supervised when backing up, everyone but the driver (of course) guides the driver back every time the vehicle reverses

This kind of thing happens all the time. Like others have said, the guy had to back out at some point. And I've noticed that any vehicle that's on a route schedule (bus, delivery vehicle, sanitation truck, mail, etc.) is pretty much going to take whatever kind of opening they can get. After all, if they waited for a 1/2 mile gap every time they needed to get back on the road, they'd be two hours behind schedule by the end of they day. I don't really see a problem with what the truck driver did. If I got as worked up as you did every time something like this happened to me, I'd be perpetually pissed-off when riding my bike. Lighten up a bit maybe?

Wow...every time a police car backs up another officer has to guide the first officer back? Not being trusted to back a car out of a parking space without assistance seems pretty degrading.

As for trash trucks, it's been years since I've seen one with more than one city employee present (the driver), so I'd say they're following the Philadelphia rule just fine.

Yeah, didnt say they followed the rules :) just stated the rule, Police are supposed to do it too, not their fault their understaffed, "Not being trusted to back a car out of a parking space without assistance seems pretty degrading" well you and I both know its got nothing to do with "degrading" anyone, its all about the money, city doesnt want to pay for some employees mistake, not only that, if the employee doesnt follow the rule then the city has someone to blame besides themselves ;) not to mention that no one can see everything behind them while backing up, small children, animals, baby carriages/strollers, bicycles, motorcycles and such ;)