DiabloScott

Riding a little different route to a clinic for a vaccine.

Just as I'm approaching the driveway on the right, a car passes on my left and I see the right turn signal from behind and emergency brake to avoid being hit or squeezed... we're both intending to turn into the same driveway. She stopped after realizing she shouldn't hit me but I went around the left side of her and went in the next driveway down. Then we had a shouting match in the parking lot... she claimed she was behind me the whole time - which if it were true we wouldn't have anything to talk about. Told me I should learn to ride in traffic... I give presentations on safe cycling in traffic. I stopped the shouting fearing that she might work at the clinic and be the one to give me the shot! (wasn't).

Just got my adrenaline up... they didn't take my blood pressure.

acidfast7

What's a right hook (says the guy riding in the UK).

kuroba

I think it's when a car passes you only to turn right (or left, in the UK), blocking your way.

KD5NRH

It's what happens when people understand why it's called the right side of the road, but still let stupid people drive anyway.

mcours2006

These things rarely end well. All we're asking is a bit acknowledgement that she/he made a misjudgment and a sincere apology, because that would mean that perhaps she won't do it again.

rec

A few years ago, had a jerk car driver speed up to pass me and right hooked me as it went into a driveway parking lot. I was going about 20 mph and had to come to a complete stop to avoid getting hit. The a-hole continued to speed away into the huge parking lot so I couldn't follow it as my dumb road rage would have liked me to do. Fortunately, a cop saw the whole thing as he/she was waiting to make a left into the same driveway and I was amazed and satisfied to see the cop car turn on it's siren and lights and chase the jerk driver down.

Bike Gremlin

I prefer drivers being oblivious of their mistakes, to realizing them while they are apologizing for hitting me.
It's good that you could calm down. No use in arguing - I'm sure for many even a 45 minute class with a video wouldn't be enough.

RubeRad

And if she "stopped after realizing she shouldn't hit me" then she must have come forward of you, for you to be able to go around.

RubeRad

I got left-hooked in London once. Bounced off the passenger door of a left-turning New Beetle. It was a long time ago (2001), before I 'knew' anything about bike commuting, and at the time I had the impression it was largely my fault, that I should not have hit her in the door -- this despite her stopping, getting out, being very concerned I was ok, and being very apologetic. With my more experience now, I might think differently, but it was so long ago I can't be sure of the details.

Anyways, fortunately in that case I wasn't hurt at all. At worst a scraped knee and a bruised ego.

acidfast7

I can imagine this interaction from a British perspective. A lot of apologies

Probably much better than when I lived in Texas.

JohnJ80

Most drivers (and cyclists) don't know that the proper way for a car to make a right turn over a bike lane is to "take the lane" of the bike lane as they turn right. In other words, the driver should occupy the bike lane by merging into it prior to making the turn. The driver should not turn across the lane. This, in effect, pretty much would eliminate right hooks.

Cyclists in many cases don't understand this either and get upset when drivers do just that.

J.

rumrunn6

RubeRad

True, I have an intersection without a dedicated right-turn lane, where right-turners move to the right. I always get very very slightly annoyed when they are so tight to the curb that I have to wait or get up on the sidewalk. But usually, even though they are right, I can still squeeze by them in the gutter (if they are not moving)

phughes

I left work one day on my fully loaded Surly LHT, and quickly accelerated to 22mph on the slight downhill before a dam. A car passed me and immediately turned right in front of me. I braked hard and turned off the road, onto the shoulder, slamming myself onto the stem, but I stayed upright and got stopped before hitting him. He stopped and stared, and the passengers in the car knew he had screwed up. I decided to simply ride away, a confrontation wasn't worth it, and because of my job, they all may have known who I was and I didn't want to have angry reviews showing up on tripadvisor.

I went back later and measured the skid mark. The mark is 20 feet long. (6 meters.)

mcours2006

You, sir, are my hero!

Abe_Froman

I think most of these things do not arise from ignorance so much as just a complete lack of caring. Even without cyclists involved, there is a very sizeable percentage of motorists I see in Chicago that demonstrate a total lack of respect for human life.

mcours2006

This isn't exactly a right hook, but I ride briefly on a very three-lane highway with a bike lane where there's are on-ramps to a highway. What gets me is cars who are well back of the on-ramp going onto the bike lane, blocking it because it's bumper-to-bumper traffic, think that they could get to the highway faster. WTF?

phughes

acidfast7

I'm usually not going fast enough for a right (left) hook to be honest ...

good thing I'm rolling with a front brake only.

not much traffic either ...


There you go ... in 2 mins ... I deal with another bike, cars, a lorry, a pedestrian and a motorbike using "my" lane.

Darth Lefty 

For some reason this made me look up the punch in boxing. For a righty, the punch is done with the left hand, the left arm is held fairly level and the body twists clockwise. The power comes from the turning body. All in all, it's a pretty good analogy to what the car is doing, except they are cutting you off and not trying to run into you. It's just called a hook, but there's a direction, it's a left hook since it's the left hand. Which makes @acidfast7 seem pithy!

Abe_Froman

Why do some of the lane markers look like they were painted by a drunk cubism painter?

acidfast7

I dunno watcha on about mate?

JohnJ80

My formative driving years were in Chicago. I learned a lot about car handling. Chicago drivers are better than many others in the country in skill in managing their vehicle. But given that, you're right, they don't care and often the only laws they care about are the laws of physics - if you can make your car do it, then it's legal. Fortunately that is not true in a lot of other places.

J.

ItsJustMe

Much of that video, the pavement markings look almost completely random. Like someone told the workers to go use up all the paint in the truck and they just laid down lines anywhere.

acidfast7

To us over here, they all make perfect sense. Seriously.