unixpro

Not both mine, but both involved bike-on-bike action.

I ride down a road that runs along a waterfront. The road is intersected by a number of other roads that and up making T intersections. I ride across the top of the T. There are some intersections that have stoplights.

Last Friday I was stopped at one of these lights. A Spandex Warrior came blowing by me through the red. He very nearly took out a bike that had come up to the T on the green and was turning left. Only quick maneuvering by the lady who had the legal right to be in the intersection prevented what would have been a bicycle broadside.

Yesterday I was at an intersection again waiting for the light. This time I was actually up on the sidewalk waiting for the pedestrian light so I could cross from the top of the T to the spine road. I use a pedestrian signal there because the road is 6 lanes and very busy. Getting up on the sidewalk and hitting the pedestrian signal is actually the safest way to cross this road. Anyway, when I get the walk signal, I start into the intersection. Once again, a bike has decided to run the red on the top of the T and nearly knocks me over. Fortunately, I hadn't really gotten started and was able to pull up, and the rider who ran the red did a quick veer to his left to go around the front tire that had made it onto the road.

Why to people feel that just because they're on a bike they have the right to blow through intersections like this? Sure, most of the time you're going to be safe riding the right side of the road on the top of the T, but (1) it's illegal and (2) most of the time != all of the time.

lil brown bat

Oooooh, those mean bicyclists, don't they just make you want to stamp your feet********** It's ILLEGAL!!!

Andy_K 

There's something about T's like that that just seems to make it seem safe not to stop on a bike -- particularly if the top of the T has a bike lane. I've got one of those on my route, and I stop but I often feel silly doing it when other cyclists pass me and glare at me for having been in their way. The only thing I can figure is that they are only thinking about car traffic.

I make this guess because I was guilty of a similar error recently. Coming up to an intersection where I had a stop sign but was turning right from a bike lane into a bike lane, I was worrying about whether cars turning right were going to hug the curb and cut me off, so I made a hasty turn without stopping -- right in front of an oncoming cyclist! It's the first time in about six months that I've seen a cyclist coming from that direction, but obviously I should have known better.

geog_dash

If I get s/w on the ground, otherwise not worth it.

Bikepacker67

OK.. Sure.. There is a jackhole component in the cyclists subset.

But look around!

2000lb cars bend/break the rules all the F'n time.
Speeding thru residential streets.
Rolling thru stopsigns (crosswalks be damned).
Yakking on cellphones, texting on blackberries, reading the GD newspaper.

I'm sorry, but whenever I come across a post lamenting the lack of lawabiding courtesy amongst cyclists, I'm reminded of that old saying about being penny wise and pound foolish.

genec

Yup gotta agree with you... for a sobering experience on how many motorists are not obeying the laws, drive the speed limit anywhere and watch the cars that pass you.

DataJunkie

I have tried and tried to keep an open mind but I think it has gotten to the point that I full heartedly agree with an us versus them mindset.
Tired of the BS. Perhaps I should mount my ulock to an easily accessible location on my bike for mirror removal.

Buglady

I get madder when a cyclist does something dangerous near me than I do about drivers. Maybe I hold cyclists to a higher standard, maybe it just seems more personal somehow. I don't know.

Maybe in my mind cyclists = people while cars = moving obstacles only tangentially related to humanity?

unixpro

Sorry, I don't buy it. Just because some else is being a jerk doesn't mean that you have to as well. If you see someone robbing a house do you rob a house too? What about murder? The "they do it so we should too" argument just doesn't hold water.

The law is the law. Yeah, you can break it if you want to and you probably won't get caught, but that doesn't make it right. This post was about cyclists causing near misses with other cyclists because they chose to ignore the law. If you're going to break the law, that's your choice. However, please don't endanger others when you do it.

RubenX 

Not a bike on bike but a good scare... I almost got T-Boned a few days ago... here's what happened:

I'm going on the right sidewalk (road was very busy). Up ahead on the right also, there's a soccer park with 2 accesses. The first one is the park's entrance, with cars from the road making a right turn and passing in front of you, left to right. The second one is the park's exit, with cars getting out of the park, passing in front of you from right to left.

On my drawing, the 2 small red circles are "DO NOT ENTER" signs and the big red spot is a sign painted on the floor, about 6 feet big that says, "EXIT, DO NOT ENTER".

As I approached the soccer park, I looked back and see a few cars with the right-turn signal, I stopped and waited for them to enter the park. Then, as I approached the park's exit, I looked right and there are no cars getting out of the park. I also looked back, there was a woman approaching with no turn signal and going pretty darn fast. Given her speed, her lack of turn signal, and the fact that there were multiple signs warning not to enter the park trough it's exit, I never imagined... That darn crazy woman made a right turn going at an incredible speed and hit the breaks just a few feet away from me. I felt my shorts touching her bumper, that close it was.

Trying to avoid her, I missed the side walk and ended up falling on the ditch on the spot marked by the red X. I got up quickly but she made a U-turn and disappeared back into the road, plates blocked by traffic.

A small group of roadies that I had never seen before, watched the whole thing and they all stopped and ran to me to see if I was ok. They also tried to take her plates but she fled way too quickly. The roadies told me to walk around for a few minutes before getting on the bike again. And when I continued my ride, they even slowed down theirs to stay with me for around 3 miles to make sure I was fine. I made 3 new friends that day.

lil brown bat

And just because someone else is being a jerk doesn't mean that it's anything you need to concern yourself with.

unixpro

It does if your being a jerk causes me to hit, or be hit by, you.

Buglady

Exactly... as my dad says, your right to swing your fist around ENDS at my nose.

buzzman

I had a cyclist cut so close on my inside right as I was stopped at a light as he ran it he almost took me out. Ticked me off ! Least he could have done is say, "hello!"

At this point the close calls don't bother me so much. It's the ones that actually make impact that are worth freaking out about.

SDBluefish

I've been wondering about the T-intersection thing. When I'm going along the top of the T and there are no pedestrians crossing, I will sometimes go on through a red light after stopping. (I think of it as something like turning right-on-red). I don't quite feel right about it - but I also feel kind of silly sitting there waiting for the light to change.

What do most of you do in this situation?

stevage

Good question. We don't have the "right on red" (well, it would left on red) here, but I know what you mean. I tend to slow down a lot and sort of shuffle through. If there's a bike lane, it's even more borderline, because any turning cars should never even enter that space.

Boy I wish that legislators would put some time and effort into coming up with proper rules for cyclists. Sure, it was convenient back in the day to say "all bicycles are just vehicles and must obey the same rules", but there are dozens of situations where the reasons that certain laws were made just don't apply to bikes.

A similar one would be your "right on red" rule - although we don't have the law, I'm technically within my rights to dismount, walk on the footpath, around the corner, and get back on. Given that, it seems dumb that it's illegal to ride around the corner instead...

Steve

Longfemur

Cyclists being hazards to other cyclists by not following the rules of the road is a growing problem, in my opinion... and one which is pretty much being ignored by both the cycling community in general, and the authorities. I have close calls with other cyclists almost every day. Cars, trucks and buses I can see. But goofs and pedestrians on bikes are both difficult to see and unpredictable, especially at intersections when they barrel through a red light at high speed, or when suddenly appearing the wrong way from a one-way street or on the wrong side of the street, or suddenly coming off a sidewalk.

Bikes can go pretty fast, and collisions between bikes are very dangerous. It's not going to help to adopt a bikes versus only motor vehicles mentality, or to retreat into bike "community" newspeak about it. A lot of nice, decent people are riding bikes, but there are a lot of yahoos and goofs on them too. Way too many of them seem to be using a bike as a means of living out an anarchist fantasy that they aren't able to in other ways. An urban setting in which there are more and more bikes is not a good place to be playing out visions of non-conformism when it comes to traffic rules.

That doesn't mean I won't personally go through a red light if there is no risk and nobody around. I'm not talking about people who slow before they go, but rather the idiots who are more concerned about not losing their momentum than about other people's personal safety.

And let me say, I strongly disagree with the previous poster that more bikes means that there are traffic laws from which bicycles should be exempt. If anything, the opposite is true.

Mr. Underbridge

OK, how about it's stupid and dangerous?

nelson249

You'd have another opinion if you had been broadsided by some cretin on a bike who decided to run a light.

Gonzo Bob

+1 I was riding home from work one night a couple of years ago on a street with a bike lane. All the cross streets have stop signs and many of the intersections also have partially obstructed views - i.e. trees, hedges, fences, etc. Some a-hole on a bike blew a stop sign right in front of me and I had no time to react and plowed into his rear wheel. We both went down but I think he got the worse of it and may have even broken his collar bone. I didn't even get a chance to talk to him, though, as he took off as I was collecting up all the parts of my headlights that had come off my bike and separated into many pieces.

As for the T-intersection, there is one on a route that I ride a few times per month and I generally stop if the light is red. I 'spose I might roll through if there were no other vehicles.