Advocacy & Safety - almost a victim

I come along this gravell driveway and see the pickup truck inching along. It was going so slow I figured they were waiting till I pass. I get closer I see the guy. Old farmer type that you see alot of around here pulling out of his farm road. Probably 80 yrs old I'd have to say. He does everything right. He looks left then right then left I saw the whole thing then he hits the gas and pulls out just as I was crossing the drive. Slow motion now I am like holy sheite so I look rite at him and yell, "HEY!" like a car horn. I think I scared the guy more then he scared me. He stopped immediatly looking astonished. I kept going and looking behind me a half mile down the road he was still sitting there. I hope he was allright.

I've read about stuff like this here in this forum I guess it's a little more real when you see it happen but I was completly invisible to this guy and I ride a brite red bike and was wearing blue and bright yellow.

Since you're smaller than a car, even with bright clothing, an old farmer type might have a hard time seeing you. Cataracts. Plus he could be color blind. Yes, a person who is color blind can drive. Scary thought.

Color blind does not mean the world is in black and white. It means you can't distinguish between certain specific colors. You can still see colors just fine. There is no reason a color blind person should not drive.

Scary -- glad you weren't hurt.

So someone physically incapable of distinguishing red from green should be issued a license to drive?

BTW, jfm, welcome to the club. Many of us are "regular" members. This happens about once a week to me just on my commute, which is only about 1.5 miles each way, in what is supposed to be one of the most bike-friendly cities in the US. Get a horn. Unless there's clear acknowledgement via eye contact that a person required to yield to you is going to do so, use the horn. This guy did the classic move; looked both ways and didn't see a car, so assumed it was safe to proceed. Make sure they see you.

So someone physically incapable of distinguishing red from green should be issued a license to drive?



Look up color blindness... its obvious you have no idea how it works. Oh and remember, the lights are always in the same order on every traffic light too... its not hard to know which is green, yellow, red, even if you see them as different colors...

Colour blindness, carried by a couple of recessive genes on the X chromosome, affects nearly 10 percent of the male population and perhaps 1 percent of the female population. Most of its victims cannot reliably distinguish red from green on a special test chart, others cannot distinguish blue from yellow, and a very small number have both problems. As seely notes, one can generally compensate for colour vision deficiencies in varous ways, such as responding to the relative position, rather than the hue, of a traffic lamp.

Thirty-five years ago, one of my coworkers, a ham radio operator who built and maintained his own electronic equipment, compensated for red-green colour blindness by asking his daughter to sort (colour-coded) resistors for him and by using an ohm meter when she was not around.

Next time you watch an old monochromatic movie on television, note that, for the most part, you can distinguish picture details quite well, without the benefit of chromatic boundaries. The greens and yellows, to which our eyes are most sensitive, look brighter than the reds, which in turn look brighter than the blues, which look almost black. Also, note that everyone's night vision is essentially monochromatic, since the retina's colour receptors are significantly less sensitive than its light-dark receptors.

I would far rather share the road with a conscientious colour-blind motorist than an inattentive, aggressive, or inebriated one.

I would far rather share the road with a conscientious colour-blind motorist than an inattentive, aggressive, or inebriated one.

Amen to that, brutha!

L8R

So someone physically incapable of distinguishing red from green should be issued a license to drive?


I have red-green color blindness and can distinguish between the red and green traffic lights without any difficulty, regardless of the light's orientation.

I must be having a bad week. Fortunatlly tomorrow is my rest day. I was comming down this hill at 35 - 40 mph. It's a bad intersection for some reason. Anyway this one was a case of 'I'm in a hurry so get out of my way'. I made eye contact. The person came to the stop sign which is a t-bone to my right as I was comming down the hill. No stop at all, eye contact was made the idiot pulls out and then stops! WTF!!! So as soon as I realized that I was'nt gonna die thanks to my powerful breaks and an escape route and the idiot starts moving again I simply could'nt help myself and yelled rite into her windo 'WTF are you doing you idiot'. She made a face like she knew she was being a jerk. It really was a case of I'm in a hurry you know what I mean. The friggin sign says stop for a reason cripes if I was a Mac Truck she'd been dead!

Thanks for letting this be my personal vent thread.

if I was a Mac Truck she'd been dead!

Even if they see us, we're still invisible. No respect.

I simply could'nt help myself and yelled rite into her windo 'WTF are you doing you idiot'. She made a face like she knew she was being a jerk. It really was a case of I'm in a hurry you know what I mean.

Last time I was in that situation (a bit of Tweed trailer trash), my reply was a visit to the cops. They gave her a bit of a lecture about it. Haven't seen her since.

Very bad. If were me, I would yell
Вы являетесь ли слепыми или только старческими??
at him.

But you would be polite enough to call him "вы" instead of "ты"? Good for ya.

--J

I come along this gravel driveway and see the pickup truck inching along. It was going so slow I figured they were waiting till I pass....


Unfortunately very common. Motorcyclists make the same comment to me alot as well. I agee eye contact is not enough; sometimes people think eye contact means YOU are aware of THEM, and take it as a carte blanche to zip into the road. Some others, with malice and forethought, make nudging motions into the road to rattle you into going slower; and then they fully cut you off when you DO slow down! If I am well back from the driveway I usually wave the guy into the road and get the whole thing over with...rather than have your situation arise.

Whenever a driver acts responsibly and courteously to me (say, by letting me slide thru a 4 way stop sign even though I WASN'T really there first, just to save me the hassle of a dismount yadda yadda) I always give them a thumbs and a vertical hand salute. Similarly, they often give me a happy honk when i wave them by me on a narrow road. I figure the more positive feedback between bikes and others, the better off we both will be.

roughstuff

I must be having a bad week. Fortunatlly tomorrow is my rest day. I was comming down this hill at 35 - 40 mph. It's a bad intersection for some reason. Anyway this one was a case of 'I'm in a hurry so get out of my way'. I made eye contact. The person came to the stop sign which is a t-bone to my right as I was comming down the hill. No stop at all, eye contact was made the idiot pulls out and then stops! WTF!!! So as soon as I realized that I was'nt gonna die thanks to my powerful breaks and an escape route and the idiot starts moving again I simply could'nt help myself and yelled rite into her windo 'WTF are you doing you idiot'. She made a face like she knew she was being a jerk. It really was a case of I'm in a hurry you know what I mean. The friggin sign says stop for a reason cripes if I was a Mac Truck she'd been dead!

Thanks for letting this be my personal vent thread.

I have had this problem too. Some drivers seem to take eye contact with a cyclist as yielding to them the right of way. They see you and GO because they know you see them. I avoid making direct eye contact with motorists who are in that situation from having a few too many cases like you describe. I think the notion is that "well that cyclist sees me so I can go and he can slow and let me out". They usually underestimate a cyclist's speed and they seem to think a cyclist can go from 30 mph to a complete stop in about 3".

I heard they put some blue into green traffic lights for the benefit of color-blind people.


Look up color blindness... its obvious you have no idea how it works. Oh and remember, the lights are always in the same order on every traffic light too... its not hard to know which is green, yellow, red, even if you see them as different colors...

So someone physically incapable of distinguishing red from green should be issued a license to drive? Look up color blindness... its obvious you have no idea how it works. Oh and remember, the lights are always in the same order on every traffic light too... its not hard to know which is green, yellow, red, even if you see them as different colors... Re-read my statement. It wasn't about color blindness. My father loses his color perception at distances, but he sees red and green as different "shades". Thus he is not physically incapable of distinguishing red from green. There are people who are. I don't profess to know whether it's because of sensation or perception. And horizontally-oriented traffic lights are NOT standardized as to green-yellow-red position.

Also, note that everyone's night vision is essentially monochromatic, since the retina's colour receptors are significantly less sensitive than its light-dark receptors. That applies to objects reflecting external light, of which there is much less at night. It doesn't apply to object with emit light. Traffic lights emit the same amount of light day or night. On a sufficiently straight road, I can see the colors of traffic lights the better part of a mile ahead.

But you would be polite enough to call him "вы" instead of "ты"? Good for ya

да-should always be proper, even when yelling at идиот