CrankyOne

Three very good reasons for a police report:

1- So that the crash is included in the statistics. This helps to get a message to LE & Politicos that there is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

2 - The OP may have far more serious injuries than they think and their bike may be damaged more than they realize.

3 - The driver may be good at saying they'll pay, not so good at actually doing so.

CB HI

Here is your link FBinNY:

https://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/raf-p...each-cyclists/

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...de%20Final.pdf

Google search = RAF vision safety, will bring it to the top of the list.

You said video, but this is what I think you are referring to.

OK there is an embedded video that you may be thinking of:

https://www.examiner.com/article/what...ty-on-the-road

Finally, the direct youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=YJbKieEC49M

FBinNY 

Yes, that's the one I was looking for, Thank you.

email or PM me your address so I can pay up.

Atophy

I always give the vehicles the right of way wherever they prowl. I've had a enough close calls myself even on foot. Needless to say I'm going to load my new trike up with flashing lights, flags, reflective tape, I'm thinking about an airzound, and nothing short of disc brakes on any bike I buy now or in the future.

Orvis

I have to agree with Peliot "I think what happens in cases like this is not that cars don't see us, but that most drivers register bikes as pedestrians and assume they are moving very slowly. "


First, I am so glad that you were not seriously hurt. Be careful though, stress fractures and other injuries may not show up for the first 24 - 36 hrs....I had a friend that walked in your shoes and the next morning ended up peeing blood....nothing super serious, but a little internal injury from the force of being knocked down by the car.


Second, back to Peliot's comment, some drivers just do not have either the concept of the speed of bicycles through traffic, the acceleration lag as they pull out (right in front of the cyclist), or just plain poor depth perception...small object moving through the field of larger objects...


in Missoula people are very bicycle aware, yet hood surfing is still a problem we have to face...


just be aware, you are your first line of safety...again, I am so happy you are alright.

FBinNY 

There might be some of that, but it doesn't explain why motorcyclists suffer from the same problems.

Fact is there are multiple reasons why drivers don't see, or more precisely, register us. They include, failure to correctly judge our speed or distance, our disappearing into the background, the effects of scanning vision, the perception effect of seeing what we're looking for, and missing what we're not looking for, and others.

But the specifics don't matter at all, because the net effect is the same --- Drivers don't see bicyclists. So it's up to us to see drivers, and get their attention, or otherwise make adjustments, because the alternative is to ride in traffic while invisible.

Leisesturm

Which is it? If you truly cede the right to use the road you are entitled to whenever a car comes along, I wonder why it is necessary to invest in a small fortune's worth of of safety gear... honestly now, if it scares you that much... why do you continue to ride???

H

Sharpshin

Ive been off motorcycles for a bit, mine has sat in the garage for a year now needing a carb rebuild, haven't got around to it. My motorcycle years ended rather abpruptly with marriage Jut wasn't able to haul wife AND child and dogs.

I did throw a leg over it a couple of year back and ride it to New York (2,000 miles), its like riding a bicycle, you never forget.

I do not feel anywhere near as vulnerable on a motorcycle as I do on a bicycle. On a motorcycle more wrecks, like yours, are from operator error. Much if not most of the time a twist of the wrist can get you out of a tight spot. Not so with bicycles, with bikes a whole lot more if the incident is in the car/truck/bus driver's court.

Mike

FBinNY 

I don't know if I feel more vulnerable one way or the other, but a major difference between bicycles and motorcycles on the road relates to speed. Motorcycles move at the same (roughly) speed as cars and so are part of the laminar flow. OTOH bicycles move at between 1/4 and half the speed of traffic and so are constantly being passed. That means on a trip of any length, bicyclists will be passed by many more cars than motorcyclists. Each of those passes represents an accident opportunity, or a chance of meeting a jerk. If 1 out of 100 drivers are jerks, and you're passed by 200 drivers an hour, that's 2 jerks (on average) per hour.

RubeRad

I like that analysis. And if you are fat and slow like me and have a lower mph, you can boast of a higher jph!

Atophy

They are much bigger than me, visibility and the ability to stop on a dime and then something to wake them up are what I see as the things that will save my ass. I was hit in a parking lot by a distracted driver once, I saw it coming, she was digging in her purse, but I couldn't stop. Caliper brakes with week old pads but already worn flat for some reason. when the brakes failed I turned out of it as much as I could before I got bounced. If I hadn't I'd have been on the hood or under the car. Both a loud horn and disc brakes would have prevented the incident that day.
I take the road when I need to, the only thing that bugs me really is when they don't respect that 10-15 ft clearance you're supposed to give other vehicles. I just never make the assumption that the bigger animal is gonna see me and give way, its the quickest way to end up pancaked.

I ride because its how I choose to get around. By foot, cycle or transit.

Dahon.Steve

I've been thinking about this statement for the past 3 days. I used to think cycling was not dangerous until my accident that changed my whole life. I will spend the remaining days in discomfort each day and to think it was only a 6 inch tree branch that sent me over the handlebars. Still, I feel lucky since I'm alive to write about unlike those poor souls who died so young in the OP's original post. I could have easily been one of them.

I still ride each weeek but nowhere near what I used to do in the past. I enjoy each ride as though it were my last.