BoSoxYacht

Ed, you can't be serious. Please never assume you are being given the right of way. Call me if you need to be reminded of what it feels like to be hit from behind.

BoSoxYacht

Ed, the cyclist wasn't changing lanes. He got sideswiped by a truck that invaded his area.

K.Katso

In Soviet Russia, interstate rides you!

All kidding aside, I think they probably would have preferred to ride somewhere else but probably didn't have another option to get where they were going.

FBinNY 

I don't get the debate about the rider changing lanes. He wasn't. He was in the rightmost through lane, with an exit lane to his right. The road widened creating a new lane and he was moving into it immediately, essentially following the fog line. He never changed lanes to his right at all, and there would have been no accident if the truck hadn't illegally moved left over the barrier stripes to move from the exit lane to a through lane.

As for the signaling and not looking, he might have been letting his buddies know he was moving, but as he was riding the fog line, he didn't expect anything to pass on his right.

CliffordK

We don't have a lot of footage before the accident indicating the group's full path, or what the lanes were doing to be created and disappearing.

It appears to be a 3-lane portion of the highway where the right most lane turned, then was re-created immediately, so that a vehicle could continue straight in the 3rd lane (illegally). A curb, or something might discourage that practice, but might be dangerous to the traffic.

They clearly aren't on the "fog line" in the initial feet of the video, and I certainly would not want to be in a place on the interstate where I was riding the line with traffic on both sides. It is bad enough to do that in stop & go city traffic.



His turn signal is odd. It looks a bit anemic, so perhaps it was meant to be seen by the companions and not the vehicles. Nonetheless, he has passed the point of creation of the lane, and is not hugging to the shoulder or "fog line".

Of course, that is fortunate because had he been 2 feet further right, he would have been flattened.



I still think that had one not expected traffic in that zone, then one would have ridden down the white line into the "safety zone" without any hand signals (and doom).

Velo Vol 

How much time are you spending analyzing this accident? And why? Are you preparing a case against the driver?

SpeshulEd 

I was joking in the first comment, as in, he should have looked over his shoulder.

Personally, I would have ridden this situation completely different. I would have stayed right of the turn lane. As I approached the turn, I would have looked over my left shoulder for oncoming traffic, signaled, and then crossed the turn lane. Once I reached the left of the turn lane, I would have stayed in the extreme right of that lane. I would imagine doing this would have allowed me to see a tanker trailer approaching me at a high rate of speed and slowed down. This is the same thing I do when I need to cross 3 lanes of traffic to make a left hand turn...stay right until everything has cleared and then cut across. This cyclist appears to be riding in the middle of the lane, and then signals that he's moving to the right without looking back and just goes for it.

Lazyass

Man, what a buddy that guy on the DeRosa was

CliffordK

I hear a little chirp before impact... perhaps brakes chirping (which would also make sense with the dust).

The photos aren't clear, but I think that is the truck stopped in front of the second lamp post. Not close, but nonetheless stopped. This came fairly late in the video, and the blotch can be seen in the same place for quite some time.

CliffordK

I just find it curious.. plus I've figured out how to slow down YouTube, and capture screen shots

Oh... missed the "Safety" sub-forum, but I also believe it is interesting to look at the ways that an accident went wrong.

Yes, the truck cut across the turn lane, and didn't slow before impact. But.. What type of "defensive riding" could the riders have done to prevent the accident? "Share the road" means both cars and bikes... and learning what it takes to stay in one piece.

Yep... exactly as I said on the first page.... Green path... might have meant slowing down or stopping to wait for traffic to clear, but the accident would not have occurred.



Green - Safe
Blue - Bikes
Red - Truck
Red X - Accident

bikepro

With a truck that large, the driver probably didn't notice.

ussprinceton

I'm sure the driver didn't feel anything due to the size of the tanker and kept on trucking

bt

that's what i was wondering also.

willydstyle

He didn't cross a lane of traffic, he was merging into the new right lane. The previous right lane was a turn-only lane, and the truck was completely illegally merging left across an area that traffic was not allowed to be in.

Stucky

The video should serve as a lesson to all cyclists: Stay the hell out of the way of fast-moving traffic. Regardless of who may be right or wrong, a motor vehicle going 60MPH takes a LOOOOOOONG time to stop. Even if you're in the right, it's not much consolation if you're seriously injured or dead.

Ride with a mirror, and always know what's going on behind you.

In places where vehicles will be criss-crossing lanes (like ramp exits and entrances) wait till it is absolutely clear, before crossing said area- Do not expect drivers to expect you to be there; much less see you, or give you the rtight of way, even if it is legally yours.

Ride as if you are invisible. You often are.

And......DON'T ride in the middle lane of a highway where there may be a 40 or 50MPH differential between you and the traffic!!!!

SpeshulEd 

He is crossing a lane of traffic. The right turn lane goes to the right. The cyclist is essentially in the middle lane, he crosses to the right, just as a new lane is starting to the right of him. The truck could have also been in the center lane, same as the cyclist...the truck was going the same place the cyclist was going, to the new right lane. They essentially merged at the same time. For all we know, the truck went far right to try to avoid the guy.


Count 'em, 1-2-3 lanes...the guy should be happy the truck was far right, because if the truck was where he was supposed to be in the lane, that guy wouldn't be alive today.


I don't care how you slice it, the cyclist should have looked over his shoulder before moving right.

Stucky

This is why most places have laws which stipulate that cyclists must keep as far right as possible. Being out there in the middle of that high-speed road, a cyclist is a hazard to traffic....and this is what happens.

Carbonfiberboy 

The cyclist did not cross a lane of traffic He was trying to move onto the shoulder when it reappeared after the exit. The truck was in the left exit lane, but didn't get off, instead crossed the exit delimiter marker onto the shoulder and hit the cyclist, more or less on purpose. It would have been very easy for the truck to anticipate the hit and to carry it out. The alternative to hitting the cyclist would have been to hit the curb of the island, blow a tire, and maybe wreck the truck. The driver thought he'd rather take a chance on killing a cyclist. Of course he could also have just continued down the exit, but evidently didn't like that choice. The cyclist didn't look back because one doesn't normally anticipate trucks coming at one on the right from the direction of the shoulder. He was just signalling for his buddies.

I've ridden roads like this many times. It's very simple: I stay on the shoulder and follow the shoulder into the exit at every exit. I then stop on the shoulder and wait for a break in traffic, crossing the exit at a 90° angle and returning to the main road shoulder. Doing that, I've never had a problem. Not that I enjoy it, but sometimes there are no other choices. Our civilization is not built for the convenience or safety of either pedestrians or cyclists.

CliffordK

There was no "intent to hit"... like many things it was an accident. The truck got past the two rear bicycles who only went down when the lead cyclist went down.

Assuming the truck saw the bicycles, (late?) he probably expected them to stay left continuing in the lane they were in, and expected to pass on the right. That, of course, would be a bad assumption, but those guys were already riding in the middle of a highway.

The bikes, of course, didn't expect a vehicle to be passing on the right where the one lane ended and the other one began.

It can also be difficult for a vehicle to judge the speed and distance of a fast moving bicyclist. If he had passed a few seconds earlier, they would have still been next to the turn lane and wouldn't have been cutting across in front of him.

SpeshulEd 

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who is at fault or what happened. If you expect all motorist to obey the rules of the road, you're going to end up ****ed sooner or later.

Stucky

Two possibilities: The truck was in the off-ramp only right lane, and decided to go straight, crossing the striped lines and just going straight ahead into what would become the new right lane (If you at the video at [I think] 00:57, you can see the layout of the road behind them); or the truck was in the same lane as the cyclist, and came up upon him too fast and didn't see him in time; swerved to the right to avoid plowing him- but it wasn't enough/the cyclist was merging to the right at the same time to be in the newly appearing new right lane.

I woulde guess that the latter would be the more likely scenario.

Either way, that is a very dangerous place for bikes; and even more so without a mirror, to see what is going on behind you. (Turning your head in that situation isn't good enough- you want to constantly be apprised of the changing conditions behind you; and if the truck was going c. 60MPH- which is 88 feet per second, the cyclist would have need to see him when he was still several hundred feet back in order to b e able to take any evasive actions- a mere glance over the shoulder would not have given sufficient information.)

Joe Minton

There is a traffic engineering problem too; this accident, or one like it, was inevitable.

I'm sure most of you see it:
The lane markings did not extend far enough down the road and, given the speeds involved, a moment's distraction would be enough to put the truck driver in an impossible situation.

If the painted line that temporarily redefines the right lane had been long, wide, broken and and then solid as they are here in California, the accident would likely not have happened. The abruptness (in length and therefore time) of the warning lines are more appropriate for much slower traffic, say 60 kmh rather than 100 or more. That truck was moving very fast and trucks can take 300 meters of more to stop from 100 kmh. Remember: stopping distance increases with the square of the speed; double the speed and stopping distance goes up four times.

ClifforK gave the best advice and his way is how I do it when I cannot be sure of how clear the road is behind me. I always assume that overtaking drivers are going to do really stupid things.

Joe

CliffordK

As far as lane markings, "turn only" lanes in the USA are now marked with short dashes which gives the vehicles extra warning about needing to merge left.

Stucky

You have no way of knowing that. From the speed at which the truck appears to be going, I'd say it's more likely that he was in the correct lane, and came up too fast on the cyclist; didn't see him till it was too late; and chose to go to the right, thinking the cyclist would maintain his position.

Exactly. That's the way to do it. Merges were designed for vehicles which are traveling at similar speeds; they don't work so good when there is a 40 or 50MPH differential between you and traffic. At that point, crossing it like a pedestrian would, is the only safe thing to do.

bt