Company Van - Close Shave Caught On Video

[Bingo]

One of the cycling bloggers that I follow on Facebook is based here in Clearwater Florida.

On his commute home a company van from Clearwater Disc Golf reallllly cut it close in passing him. He was clearly too close mostly due to it not being a safe place to pass due to the oncoming car.

Even worse though, when the rider caught up to the van a few moments later he (in my opinion) pretty calmly just tried to remind the driver about the 3 foot law and to try to be a little more courteous when the driver just started acting like an idiot.

The driver basically told him he should be on the sidewalk and that "it's dangerous out there".

The driver is (again in my opinion) totally out of line. Should have just owned up to it and apologized.

What do you think?

http://youtu.be/LoHO_e40Ick

Bunch of people have also posted on the Facebook page for the store as well
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Clearw...re/75358538982

[RonH]

I hope he is taking the video to the owner/manager of the company. Maybe those young guys will listen to their boss.

[Bingo]

Unfortunately, the business actually replied to a Facebook post about the incident and is placing all the blame on the cyclist - in fact saying the rider deliberately swerved into the path of the van. I'm really shocked that anyone would ever think a cyclist would swerve INTO traffic. I mean - come on - we will ALWAYS lose that battle, usually permanently.

Clearwater Disc Golf Store wrote: "It seems around here we have a lot of aggressive bicyclists with helmet cams that go out and try to antagonize drivers. We talked to the police about it and it seems its an ongoing issue. Too bad they want to take it out on a struggling mom-n-pop local business.

If you have an issue take it to the local police. Don`t slander hard working people on a public forum. I promise I won`t try to move my bike in front of your car and film it and blame it on you.

I have a teenager who rides his bike around here too, all the time. 3 feet is the rule and everyone I know tries there best to abide by it.

Now if you want to hate on us there isn`t much we can do about it.

Here is the comment thread. Also I fixed the url in the first post so it should work now as well and go to the main page for the business:
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.ph...f&notif_t=like

[gmt13]

Cyclist was a lot calmer than I would have been.

[ahsposo]

A Whole lot calmer than I would have been.

[zzOtherlandzz]

Yeah the link to the comment thread is not found now.... GRRRR!!! Wow did the person at the business that commented and said that the cyclist swerved towards the van.... Did they even look at the video?

[tmf2]

The driver basically told him he should be on the sidewalk and that "it's dangerous out there".

In many places in florida it is ILLEGAL to ride a bike on a sidewalk anyway...I got a ticket once for using a sidewalk on an insanely busy street (45+mph car traffic with no bike lane)