Bekologist

no death, no bike lane......shouldn't this thread more appropriately called "fearmonger slams bicyclists not riding his way?"

SSP

Yeah, it would have been much better had they been riding centered in the lane...especially when the news article mentions the following:

Police reports show Zimmerman was not intoxicated when the collision occurred, but he admitted to stooping over to reach for a jacket and paperwork that fell to the floor. He said he did not see the cyclists until he struck them, police documents show.

Yet more HH wishful thinking.

SSP

I think "obsessive fearmongering ghoul" might be more appropriate.

Helmet Head

You missed my point.

To think that the reason the driver did not notice the cyclists is because he was focussed on stuff that fell to the floor requires taking the situation completely out of the 40 second long context that should be considered.

He stooped over to reach for a jacket and paperwork that fell to the floor moments before reaching the cyclists, yet he was unaware of their presence. Had they been riding centered in the lane, he would have been aware of their presence, and almost certainly not only have noticed them, but would have been slowing down and/or moving laterally to avoid hitting them, putting off the chore to reach for the stuff until after he had passed them.

Further, by riding centered and using mirrors to regularly monitor to the rear, the cyclists would be in a position to recognize whether the driver had not noticed them and take appropriate action in the highly unlikely event that he would not have noticed them had they been clearly in his intended path up ahead.

If they were going 15 and he was going 60, he was closing at 45 mph or 66 feet per second. That means he was only a half mile back 40 seconds prior to reach them. That's the point where they should have started trying to get his attention through lane position (most effective way to do that is to already be positioned "centerish" by default at that point). 20 seconds later he's still a quarter mile back and they might already be able to tell if he's going to slow down and/or move laterally to pass or not. That would be the time to continue moving laterally and maybe zig-zagging if confirmation of being noticed had not yet been obtained. 10 seconds later he's 10 seconds from reaching them and now about 660 feet back. That would be the time to turn around and look at him for a full second or two if confirmation of being noticed had not yet been obtained. Five seconds later , bailing into the dirt shoulder might be considered in the highly unlikely event that the driver now 330 feet back still was continuing at full speed without altering his course at all.

None of that is possible if you're just riding along in the shoulder or bike lane, because the normal behavior for the driver, whether he noticed the cyclists or not, is the same: continue at full speed without altering course.

I repeat, to think that the reason the driver did not notice the cyclists is because he was focussed on stuff that fell to the floor requires taking the situation completely out of the 40 second long context that should be considered.

From the point at which the driver was only a half-mile behind the cyclist, a significant percentage of the 40-second time span that elapsed before he reached them, the driver had to have focused on the road in front of him in order to keep from driving into the oncoming lane or onto the dirt shoulder. Yet he failed to notice the cyclists up ahead in the shoulder. This has nothing to do with the stuff that fell and he later had to reach for. This is quintessential inattentional blindness. The cyclists up ahead, because they were to the right of the fog line, were irrelevant to him. His subsconscious mind had no reason to bring their presence to his attention. It's like they weren't even there. That's the problem, though had that stuff not fallen it would never have been an issue, because he would have driven right past them. But because the stuff fell, and he reached for it, he momentarily drifted onto the paved shoulder into the unnoticed cyclists.

This is why I employ and advocate a default centerish position. If that's where the cyclists had been riding, odds are extremely high that all kinds of warning alarms would have been going off in the driver's mind, and he would have been fully aware of their presence up there, long before the stuff fell much less his decision to look away from the
apparently empty road to pick them up. It's not like a deer that suddenly appears out of nowhere into the driver's path. By riding this way, they would have been up there for a considerable time, long enough for it to have been almost impossible for him to not notice them, impossible for him to subconsciously dismiss their presence as irrelevant.

Bekologist

jeezus, that sounds a lot more prone to error than simply riding in a safe lane position, using high vis clothing and daytime visible blinkies and monitoring traffic with a mirror....

now, I do advocate riding visibly and taking the lane when necessary. I put a LOT of miles in on little travelled highways, unlike Head, and find that HH's patented wiggle-waggle, slow every overtaking car down or make them change lanes unecessary, unwise, and much more prone to cyclist error than simply shooting a consistently safe line while maintaining visibility with clothing, devices and blinkies.

do you do all those mental exercises for every approaching car, head?

SSP

Yet another of your baseless assertions...you offer no evidence that this is true in the real world. As has been pointed out to you many times before, the angular difference between "centered" and "near the shoulder" is minuscule at the distances and speeds we're talking about.

Or, they could have simply ridden in the normal way, and used their mirrors to notice that the truck was not moving over. In that scenario, they can: a) move left a bit to try and force the driver over, and/or b) bail out if they think the driver isn't going to move.

Helmet Head

Evidence: https://www.cyclistview.com/laneposition.htm


Why would they expect something to be wrong if the truck did not move over if they are riding to the right of the fog line. I can't remember if you claim to use a mirror or not, but you write as if you're ignorant of what anyone who regularly uses a mirror to monitor to the rear would know: when riding to the right of a stripe, the vast majority of motorists make no adjustments in speed or position prior to passing the cyclist (see the above clip for a brief demonstration of this even without a stripe).

genec

Nice time space analysis... how well can you determine that there is something of a narrow profile ahead of you 1/2 mile ahead? How fast are they going... is it a bicycle, or motorcycle or a shiny glare spot on the road? Even a quarter mile away and you may still not be able to tell anything... And the cyclists... looking down the road what every 10 seconds? Maybe they can't tell anything (tiny moving spot in your mirror 1/2 mile away) at the first glance... or the second... now you have 20 seconds to respond.

And that is if the motorist wasn't speeding.

SSP

I *always* ride with my Take-a-Look mirror. As for your assertion about "no adjustments in speed or position"...in my experience, that is completely untrue.

If I'm riding in a "standard" bike lane, I typically ride about 18" to the right of the line. In that position, I find that most cars will shift left in the lane, and many will put their wheels over the centerline when passing me.

Helmet Head

It might "sound" that way, but it's really easy and not prone to error at all. Nothing is full proof of course, but for an accident like this to occur while you're riding in the center of the road by default all of the following would have to occur:

1. Motorist never notices cyclist(s) up ahead in his path, never slows down or moves left. NOTE: in all my years of cycling I've never seen this happen, not once. Not even close. Always, without exception, long before they reach me they show a sign of noticing me.
2. Cyclist(s) despite being in the habit of regularly monitoring to the rear every few seconds never notices the approaching motorist or that he is not adjusting his speed/position in order to avoid collision.

For either one of those to occur is extremely unlikely. For both to occur simultaneously? Astronomical odds.

On the other hand, for an accident like this to occur while you're riding in the shoulder or bike lane of the road by default the following would have to occur:

1. Motorist never notices cyclist up ahead because cyclist is outside of motorist's intended path and so is subconsiously ignored.
2. Moments before reaching the cyclists, the motorist is distracted by something, and drifts as a result.

I can't prove it, but I honestly believe (1) is very common, and wouldn't be surprised if it is true more than 50% of the time. (2) is rare, but happens. Who hasn't seen a distracted driver momentarily drift into a shoulder or bike lane while driving? Regardless of what the actual probabilities are, this thread is replete with examples of situations where both were simultaneously true. That's empirical evidence, for anyone to whom that might matter.

SSP

That had to do with lane positioning in a situation in which there was no bike lane, and no shoulder. Sheesh.

That's a simple "take the lane" scenario...not a "Peek-a-Boo" scenario.

SSP

As has been pointed out to you many times, inattentive drivers routinely run into vehicles that are directly in front of them (e.g., school buses, police cruisers stopped in the roadway with their emergency lights flashing, construction equipment and workers, etc., etc.).

It's rare, but it does happen. To assert that it never happens because it's never happened to you is yet another example of wishful thinking.

SSP

On this, we can agree.

CommuterRun

Yep, absolutely.

Well over 1/2 mile under sunny conditions. I can see that far ahead and so can the dump truck driver that blew at me to get out of his way a couple months ago. I didn't change my lane position and he wound up passing as he would pass any other vehicle, except for being Moron Cager with the horn as he passed. When he first sounded his horn, he was almost a mile back. From that far back he could tell damn good and well I was on a bicycle.

Helmet Head

Another cyclist apparently killed by inadvertent drift (though while riding in a shoulder, not a bike lane).

Article:
https://www.canada.com/edmontonjourna...6-f0cff0a7a430

Thread:
https://www.bikeforums.net/advocacy-safety/345000-two-cyclists-killed-edmonton-last-3-days.html

Same incident, different article:
Article:
https://www.canada.com/edmontonjourna...6f0b84&k=38258

genec

If things were clear to him, why the moron cager bit with the horn?

And not everywhere has 1/2 mile straight visibility... there are several roads I ride on that have trees along the sides... from a 1/2 mile away "even on a bright sunny day," if you could see around the curves, you might not well see anything in the shadow of the trees, not even a cyclist in bright clothing.

There are many roads here that do not permit clear views of a mile, much less 1/2 mile. At 50 MPH a car covers 73 feet per second, if a sight line is only a 1/4 mile long, a driver will cover that distance in 18 seconds, or in well less than 1/2 a minute. That is providing of course that the motorist is at speed limit and not over, and is paying attention, not distracted by a cell phone, as they round the next curve.

LittleBigMan

Being the devil's advocate, I have to ask this question:

If a cyclist can be hit from behind in a bike lane by something we call "inadvertent drift," then how is the white line so magical that it tends to produce this effect?

I submit that the white line is irrelevant to "inadvertent drift," but that driver inattention will occur regardless.

Some will say the the white line causes drivers to ignore everything to the right of that line. But I've also heard about the "magical powers of the white line" to protect a cyclist to the right of it.

How is it that a white line has no power to protect a cyclist, but at the same time, it has the power to lure motorists across it? I'm not buying it.

That said, I suggest that bike lane or not, driver inattention is the culprit. Let's put the problem where it belongs, in the lap of inattentive motorists. Whether you're in a bike lane or not, motorists have to pay attention to cyclists.

I'm not warring VC, I think vehicular cycling, properly understood, garners respect from motorists when they see we follow an easily-understandable pattern. Isn't that what bike lanes are supposed to do, show motorists we are predictable, and we ride in our own space? Predictability is our friend, in any case.

But let's not get bugaboo and spooky-do about bike lanes and shoulders, they have no special "sleepy-time" effect on motorists. If we accept that they did, every motorist in the US would have a license to cross into any lane willy-nilly, without responsibility.

That's my honest opinion, folks. The guy was 68 years old, for cryin' out loud, and was squinting to look for signs while he was supposed to be paying attention to the roadway.

Hay'll, I'm not even 50, and that could happen to me, too, if I was just as careless.

SSP

Did you happen to notice the time of the accident? Between 1 and 5 AM. And, no word on whether or not the cyclist had lights or reflectors, or was himself intoxicated.

FWIW, just like with auto accidents, many nighttime cyclist deaths are the result of biking while intoxicated. Where I live, we have one or two of these incidents per year - typically, the "cyclist" has lost their motor vehicle license due to previous problems with alcohol/drugs, and they're struck while riding on a darkened highway, with no lights or reflectors.

As with many of your posts, until the facts come in, this incident does nothing to confirm your theory of "inadvertent drift". And, you're a ghoul for posting it.

joejack951

What makes you think HH believes in the "magical powers of the white line?" He's about as far outside of that camp as you can get.

Helmet Head

Here is another apparent example. As usual we'll never know all the facts, but it looks like the usual ingredients for inadvertent drift into cyclists riding too far to the right.

• Rural road
• Light traffic
• Cyclists riding far to the right in shoulder of wide lane (not confirmed, but reasonable assumption give that deputies "... say that even roads with wide shoulders can be dangerous.)

https://kob.com/article/stories/S196119.shtml?cat=516

Helmet Head

I think the white bike lane or shoulder stripe makes it more likely that the motorist won't be paying any attention to what is in the space to the right of the stripe as compared to the attention he might give it if the stripe is not there.

I don't believe the stripe lures motorists. When there is no cyclist in the road and the shoulder is empty, then I believe the motorist is just as likely to drift into the shoulder, whether it is demarcated with a stripe or not. In that sense, the stripe makes no difference.

But, here's the key. If a cyclist is in the shoulder, then I do believe whether the cyclist is noticed is a significant factor in whether the motorist drifts into the shoulder. In particular, if he notices the cyclist, then he is much less likely to choose to pay attention to something else, and drift because he is distracted.

Combine that with the higher probability that a cyclist will be overlooked if he is riding in space separated by a stripe, and you have a higher probability that a cyclist in a marked shoulder (or bike lane) will be inadvertently drifted into than a cyclist riding in a shoulder that is not demarcated with a stripe.

I agree driver inattention is the problem - that's why I ride in a manner, and advocate riding in a manner, that utilizes techniques and practices designed to grab the attention of drivers. And a key part of that is to ride in the drivers "zone of maximum surveillance" (John Franklin, Cyclecraft, p. 58) -- up ahead in his intended path -- to dissuade him for choosing to pay attention to something other than the road ahead.

Bekologist

and Heads' soapbox continues to froth uncontrollably...

SSP

Yep...that's why I ride on the left side of the yellow line, directly into oncoming traffic. I find it increases my "relevance" to oncoming drivers, as well as my "cognitive conspicuity".

I've yet to suffer from "inadvertent drift", so my theory must be correct, eh?

LCI_Brian

So how does one demonstrate whether this is true or not?

If I'm further left, motorists will react earlier to my presence, often slowing down and moving over earlier compared to when I'm further right. I feel that this observed driver behavior justifies me riding further left in certain circumstances.

But all this doesn't necessarily mean that I am noticed sooner by being further left. It could be that cyclists in both positions are noticed at the same time, but the motorist seeing the cyclist further left instantly knows that he has to slow down or make a lateral movement, while the motorist seeing the cyclist further right has a little delay time because he's trying to figure out whether or not he should keep the same course.

Allister

Is that what you do when you drive?