gsa103

Having the right just means that you can sue from the hospital. In a situation like that, the prudent thing to do is slow down until the motorist makes his decision clear. When I'm driving and I see someone roll out like that, I worry about them pulling in front of me.

I think a lot of it has to do with closing speeds. I've nearly hit pedestrians once or twice because I was doing a short sprint and they didn't expect a cyclist moving at 30 mph. They didn't realize how fast I was going until they were already in front of me.

As for light pairs, I think the relevant comparison is motorcycles with dual beam lights. The danger of two light is that other drivers might think you're a distant car, rather than a cyclist with narrow light spacing.

MarkusPrime

I agree with you completely. I've learned (the hard way) it's best to ride defensively and assume that a driver will not see me. I've found another thing to be careful of are pedestrians jay walking across a street with stopped traffic. I may have what looks like a clear lane to the stop light, but too many times I've had someone just pop out from in front of a car.

Markus

cthenn

Cops are no better than all the other drivers on the road. Total disdain for cyclists. The fat and lazy (which most cops are) could never understand anything from a cyclist's perspective. To me, cops are just a nuisance when I ride. I never feel like they will be there for my safety, or concern. In fact, I believe the opposite.

AndreyT

I'm not sure what you are a trying to say with this video. Judging by the comments, many participants here somehow concluded that the car driver failed to notice the cyclist. But what if the driver did notice the cyclist, yet decided that there's still enough time to enter the road safely?

In this video the time separation between the moment the car starts moving and the moment the cyclist passes through the same spot is about 5 seconds. This is a perfectly safe amount of temporal separation. So, again, where is the problem in the above video?

bikingshearer 

Just to be clear here - unless the reports on the news are completely wrong (which I grant you is possible), the scene depicted in the video is not the situation that got the woman killed in the crash referred to by the OP. The car did not pull out of the side street in front of her, but rather the car was coming from the opposite direction and started to turn left in front of her to go into the side street, the classic left cross.

The video is scary, and serves as another good reminder for us to be careful, but it is not what happened here.

B. Carfree

I get more like a three second temporal separation between when the car clears the right half of the road and when the bike enters that space. That's really not an adequate safety buffer and would generally cause any vehicle to take evasive action of some sort.

I have seen motorists push that envelope only to have a U-joint fail while accelerating. This sort of behavior in which one relies on everything and everyone else working perfectly is really not a safe way to operate a potentially deadly machine.

SClaraPokeman

I'm with Carfree's analysis of the video. If it was me on the bike I would had been furious that someone would have been willing at a minimum to scare me witless rather than pausing for five seconds before turning. Also, what if the car had stalled, or had its tires spin on wet pavement etc.--things like that can happen. If I was a cop witnessing that turn, I'd have ticketed the driver for making an unsafe turn.

gsa103

Drivers will do the same thing regardless if its a bike or car coming. I make comments all the time like "Really? Just couldn't wait 5 seconds....", while I'm driving when someone turns out like that. I would argue that there's general poor driving practices and poor driving specifically relevant to bikes (such as a right-hook, which doesn't happen with cars). Yes, sometimes these categories blur a little. But getting drivers used to driving with cyclists still doesn't fix the fact that many of them drive badly regardless of what kind of vehicle is oncoming.

genejockey 

On yesterday's ride, I noticed a whole lot more riders with blinkies, including me. That just may be the one tiny bit of good to come out of this tragedy.

I also rode past the site. Heading north, Elk Tree Rd. comes after a high-speed S turn. You have only a few seconds after coming around the last corner and there it is. And yes, you're coming out of the shadows into the open.

rumrunn6

re: "coming out of the shadows into the open"

this is why daytime riders need strobes (not just blinkies)

genejockey 

One man's blinkie is another man's strobe. Not sure how many lumens it has to be to be a strobe instead of a blinkie.

The important thing about either is that a flashing light draws the eye in a way that a steady light doesn't. I find that a flashing light in the full light of day will catch my eye long before I'd have noted a cyclist.

rumrunn6

sorry, right, the brighter the better. I only loosely and badly tried to make a distinction cuz I've seen some darn week blinkers or whatever. this past Saturday I noticed some brightly clad riders virtually disappear on a bright sunny day as they rode under the shade of a line of trees, no lights. add to that drivers with sunglasses and you got a real visibility issue. now that the sun is lower too there is more sun-in-the-eyes.

Brodie01

There have been interesting studies about what people see and don't see based on what they are looking for. I come from the motorcycle world and it is a well known practice to ride like you are invisible, no one sees you. Never trust that car waiting at the intersection or driveway. I learned this lesson when I was 18. A lady cross turned in front of me on my motorcycle. I hit her front fender and flew over her car's hood and safely landed on the other side. She continued to attempt the left turn without success due to my motorcycle wedged under her front wheel. She truly never saw me and couldn't figure out why her car stopped.
It would serve us all well to ride with this frame of mind. If I was that lady approaching that car, my hand would have been on the brake and slowing down until I was comfortable that she sees me and will not pull out.