Commuting - hit a car?

This morning a person pulled out of a parking lot right in front of me. She looked right at me, and then pulled out. I slammed on my brakes, my back wheel came off the ground, but I stopped in time to not hit her.

Afterwards, I started to wonder if maybe I shouldn't have hit her car. I was doing everything right, and if I had been a split second slower in my reaction, or if I had made the mistake of locking up my back wheel, I probably would have gone into her car. Most likely I would have hit the side and landed on her hood. It probably would have dented the car and scared her a bit. Am I a bad person for thinking about this? If I had it to do over again, I probably still would have stopped, because I understand that people make mistakes and I'm not a big fan of vigilante justice, but I wish I could have done something to register my displeasure, other than giving her the salute.

andy

Originally posted by aturley
Afterwards, I started to wonder if maybe I shouldn't have hit her car.
Most likely I would have hit the side and landed on her hood.

I think we all get these feelings when something like this happens. Sometimes I find myself chasing the motorist even though I know I won't catch them unless they must stop at the next light.

Don't even think about hitting the car. You know you don't want to screw up your bike and you don't want to get hurt.

I hit a car once. Low speed startup from a traffic light where the car in front started, then stopped. I bent my forks.
I try not to hit cars now.

About a year ago in (Bike Ugley) Houston TX, I was right hooked by a woman in the nice family van. I ended up shouldering the side of it, put a big beautiful dent :eek: in the side of it (not intentionally). My bike (fortunately) never touched the vehicle, just me.

Hitting a car is a silly thing to do because you're more likely to hurt yourself than the motoring primate. Generally, I ride wide enough of these sorts of places to allow for people to pull out without looking (something that always happens around here). Of course, some of the people behind me don't like it, but stiff sh*t. If they actually looked when pulling out, it probably wouldn't be an issue.

I have never hit (nor been hit by) a motorcar while riding a bicycle. I have, however had several close calls. The most common is getting 'squeezed' into the curb by tourists who are reading the neon signs and/or looking for their hotel. I usually slap the passenger-side window to get their attention and then keep going.

Originally posted by aturley
This morning a person pulled out of a parking lot right in front of me. She looked right at me, and then pulled out. I slammed on my brakes, my back wheel came off the ground, but I stopped in time to not hit her.

I notice this a lot where I ride, people will look right at you (they see you) and then are indecisive whether to wait for you to pass, or pull out. I the thing I dislike most is that they sometimes pull out a bit, then pull out more basically blocking your way, instead of going or stoping. Making you swerve to get by :( I guess it has to do with people just don't realized how fast you can go on a bike, and they think either they can pull out faster then you can get there, or they would rather save themselves 2 seconds in their commute to work :rolleyes:

somehow I think it is more of the latter :(

Hitting a car hurts! Don't do it. I ploughed into the side of a car at <30kph/18mph after he drove through a round-about without giving way. I smashed his drivers window, cracked his windscreen and dented the front fender. Even at a slow speed, I was sore and bruised for two weeks and my rear wheel needed straightening. So please avoid hitting cars, it HURTS.

CHEERS

Mark

but I wish I could have done something to register my displeasure, other than giving her the salute. aturley

i can relate with your thinking... once i college i was going like 35mph down a slight hill and a guy in a huge Pickup did a 3-point u-turn from a parking spot across the middle of the street without looking first. i locked both tires and skidded to a stop about 2 inches from his window and the guy had music so loud i could hear it clearly even though the windows were up - so he looks out and sees a bike stopped in front of his window and me with a red face and my mouth moving - he never even knew what he had done!!! since bike tires locked up (my road bike) don't make all the noise like a car skidding i then looked like an idoit standing with my bike in the middle of the street yelling at a pickup truck... nobody other than me had seen that i almost plowed 35mph into the side of a truck!

i've dreamed of some cool maneuver where i 'accidentally' kick the side of the car... or maybe install something big and heavy which causes damage (like those kife-spokes in 50s movies or James bond or Batman)... but they're all pretty much fantasy as far as i can come up with - it just plain hurts you and your bike more than the car when you collide -- i've gone over a hood once and had a car run over my front wheel (i had the right of way in an intersection but stopped anyway and the car didn't)

sucks, but cars are huge and heavy compared to a person and a bike... of course that's also why they're so dangerous but then no one wants to think about that because cars are 'necessary' in order to live... #1 killer of people under 40 years old (about) is automobiles

AT, it must have been the weekend for bike car incidents. Monday on my way home from work I ran into a car! I was angry at the stupid little teenage girl driving for running a stop sign coming across in front of me from the left and angry at myself for not seeing her. The EXTREMELY minor intersection is an entrance into a park. In the one year plus I have been taking that route almost every day, I bet a total of TWO cars have come from that direction to enter the park. It is a left turn (for the car) across a wide boulevard. There are often people pulling OUT of the park, usually doing as VegasCyclist describes - slowing for the stop sign, maybe stopping then pulling up, inching forward - you never know what they are going to do. I was watching such a joker and luckily going very slowly when suddenly I realized there was a car coming from the LEFT! I slammed on the brakes and ALMOST got stopped. The car stopped with its right front bumper right in front of me. I hit it just hard enough to lift the rear wheel off the ground and gently roll me onto the hood, never completely losing my grip on my bike. I wasn't hurt at all, but my brake was rubbing and I had to disconnect it to get home. I later realized that my new (since October) fork was BENT! To make matters worse the distributor is out of stock so my LBS can't even get me one for a month or so. Luckily I have two sweet bikes to ride, but this is Yorick, my primary ever-faithful, all-weather, load-bearing commuter battle steed. He won't like being pastured for so long. He's jealous of my road bikes as it is.

FWIW, Yorick still insists he could have taken that car in a fair fight and hadn't been caught off guard with a sucker punch. I'll never hear the end of this. "I coulda been somebody!" Sheesh.
Rainman

I hope Yorick recovers from his wounds soon :eek:

Richard

Wow Rainman, that's quite a tale of woe. Did you get the young lady's info so you can charge her for the fork?

andy

No, I didn't. I should have, but I was already running late and didn't really think anything was wrong at the time. I was OK so I told her to go on. It's history. I learned another lesson without much pain. Time to move on. Just glad I have other bikes to move on on. :D
Regards,
Raymond

I had a woman pull out of a parking lot in front of me a few years ago. I was moving quite fast, hit the brakes but it was too late. I ended up with a buckled wheel, bent forks and lost my glasses as I landed on the hood, luckily no broken bones or cuts, just some bruises. Her car received three dents, side, hood, side as the bike and I cartwheeled across the hood. She admitted fault right away and fixed the bike (it was a cheep bike) and replaced my reading glasses and never mentioned the car damage.

I am sure that until today she still doublechecks both ways before entering the street. I did some riding in Chicago a few weeks back and that felt pretty dangerous at times with all the parked and moving cars. I sure wouldn't wanna be a bike messenger.

Dave

There is a book out there about being a bike messanger, in Chicago. "The Immortal Class" by Travis Hugh Culley. Worth a read! :beer:

We all make mistakes. It's ok. Your not stupid. But I think you did good for telling us. Hoped I helped. Bye.:)

Hitting cars with a body or a bike hurts.

I simply have a policy of getting even, here in London the average speed of a car is 11mph, so catching them is often possible.

Depending on the situation I do the following.

Stupidity:
Bang on window or block car until they discuss the situation - object is to delay them and the cars behind for as long as possible and not to loose temper before they do.

Minor infractions:
A bang on the roof, from the inside it sounds like the entire roof is coming in

Blocking cycling lanes:
Knocking the passenger mirror out of place, meaning they have to stop to correct it

Major Infractions:
Stamp on exaust. Usually some damage, in one case entire exaust system fell on the ground, very spectacular.

Main thing is to ensure you a fast exit in advance.

I have a strict non-agression policy. Since ride basically the same route every day, I don't want some bozo remembering that I'm the guy who hit his precious truck one day after he did something stupid. Besides, as I mentioned elsewhere in the thread on retribution, life is too short for me to waste mental energy on idiots.

Sometimes a sense of humor is valuable.

Originally posted by aturley
This morning a person pulled out of a parking lot right in front of me. She looked right at me, and then pulled out. I slammed on my brakes, my back wheel came off the ground, but I stopped in time to not hit her.
Remember this, Andy: think for everyone.

:)

last year a woman made a left turn in front of me and i hit her fender, went over the hood and landed basically on my feet. I was not hurt.
My wheel and fork were totaled but there was no visible damage to the frame. (the frame turned out ok) Well, I was in the right but none of the witnesses sitting at the sidewalk cafe would make a statement to the cops.

what made matters worse was that the lady in the car and her husband are both lawyers and they went after me for the scratch in the paint and the dent my *** put in the hood!

anyway...in order to avoid a long drawn out court case I had to settle for the amount it would cost to replace the fork and wheel so I could get riding again. (which is all that I wanted to begin with!)

Hit a car once, It Hurts! Not advisable. Wrecked my bike. The car was a renault five. His bumper was bashed and a window. The police said we were both at fault. He rolled his stop and I was riding againsed traffic. Young and foolish (both of us).

Originally posted by urban_assault
last year a woman made a left turn in front of me and i hit her fender, went over the hood and landed basically on my feet. I was not hurt.

what made matters worse was that the lady in the car and her husband are both lawyers and they went after me for the scratch in the paint and the dent my *** put in the hood!
Some folks don't like to lose.

If it were me, with all that cash, I would have taken good care of you...

Sounds like you were 100% in the right, since you had control of the lane and they were entering the lane. By law, they should have yielded right of way.

(Being lawyers, they knew this. The suit against you for the scratch was probably a paranoid ploy to intimidate you. Good thing the judge saw through it.)

what made matters worse was that the lady in the car and her husband are both lawyers and they went after me for the scratch in the paint and the dent my *** put in the hood!

I would have said : Fine see you in court! Then it would be possible for the driver to get a driving conviction recorded against them. I spoke to a police officer recently and he said the only real way for drivers (in Australia) to get booked in a one on one situation (no witnesses) is to take them to court. He said it isn't easy but judges are quite considerate of cyclists and their rights so the cyclist would probably win. He was a cyclist himself. Normally the best the police can do is go and have a chat to the driver and make him feel bad, that's about it.

He told me a story from when he was a country cop, in a one cop town: If he was riding and got buzzed or abused by a car he would get the Rego number, and on his next shift he would look up the drivers details and go and give him a visit in his patrol car. That would be very cool.:) He said that now he works in the city he can't do this any more as it has to be processed through the correct channels. Bummer.:(

CHEERS.

Mark

Originally posted by aturley
...She looked right at me, and then pulled out. ...
andy

More likely, she looked right through you. She was looking for oncoming cars. Her eyes saw you, but not her brain. Remember this. Always assume that you're invisible.

Jim

Gus said
My bike (fortunately) never touched the vehicle, just me.


Spoken like a TRUE bike lover!