Helmet Head

Scenario/setup:

• Four lane road with bike lanes (northbound Regents Rd north of La Jolla Village Drive, between Regents Park Row and Executive Drive).
• Because fstd (faster same-direction traffic) is present, and I'm between intersections, I'm riding in in the margin (which happens to be demarcated as a bike lane).
• Approaching a midblock intersection with a driveway to a large condo/apartment complex.
• The fstd passing me is comprised of a sedan, then a pickup, then a van. The sedan and pickup have already passed me, and the van has just started passing me.

Then the following happens:

1. I notice the sedan up ahead starting to slow. I stop pedaling.
2. I notice the pickup and van start to slow too, but the van is still going faster than me, and is continuing to pass me.
3. The sedan has now turned right across the bike lane into the apartment complex driveway (it never merged into the bike lane).
4. The pickup starts accelerating and the van stops slowing, but at this point I'm even with the back of the van and my coasting alone is causing me to pass it. Out of habit I resist a strong tempation to start pedaling, because I've habitualized myself to avoid passing on the right.
5. I feather the brakes just enough to keep from passing the van.
6. We're all still moving forward and by this time the van, which I am following a couple of feet back and off to the side, has reached the driveway where the sedan turned, and now it too suddenly and much to my surprise turns into it too.

Did my adoption of the VC best practice to avoid passing on the right as an ingrained habit save me from being right hooked? Maybe. Maybe not. If I had really accelerated I might have passed him before he turned right without him even noticing me. But then, I had no way of knowing the pickup was not turning, and if it had been, and I had passed on the right, that could have been bad too.

The way I stopped pedaling in (1) above, as soon as I noticed the sedan 3 cars ahead slowing, was totally subconscious. By that I mean I did it before I realized what I was doing and why. From what I observe in other cyclists, I don't think many others would have done that.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a first hand experience of avoiding a crash thanks to internalizing VC best practices into my traffic cycling habits.

Lesson reinforced:
When passing on the right, be slow and very careful, and avoid doing it altogether anywhere where there is some place for motorists to turn right, including a harmless looking apartment driveway.

I-Like-To-Bike

Who Wudda Thunk it?

Bekologist

we're very proud of you, helmet head.

Jalopy

Good advice. Well done. I would have done the same.

Jalopy

PS - for the record, I much prefer it when you focus on solid cyclings tips as above rather than your "wacky" pet theories.

Helmet Head

Given how often cyclists are right hooked, quite a few, apparently.

Reinforced lesson #2: it is your responsibility to avoid being right hooked.

chipcom 

But just how often are they right hooked?
https://www.bicyclinginfo.org/bc/types.cfm
It doesn't seem to be in the top 3 anyway.

Congratulations on using plain old common sense, rather than any ideology or methodology to avoid an accident.

Brian Ratliff

Interesting. You do realize that you should have merged into traffic, at least a foot or two out of the bike lane, once you started going faster than the line. This comes up regularly in the course of my commuting. What I do is, once I start catching up with the car ahead, I slow somewhat before I get there if my intention is to stay behind, and merge into the traffic lane. This usually means I leave the bike lane by just a few feet, so I am clearly behind the car, and stay there until the line starts speeding up again.

By staying off to the right and a few feet behind the van, you were in the van's blind spot; exactly where I would not be. I'd be either accelerating to get out of that blind spot, or getting in behind and in line with the van. All this by habit. I was taught that the absolute worst place in the world to be when driving or biking on the road is in a car's blind spot.

You should have faded in behind the van, if it be your desire to stay behind the van, or accelerate to put yourself in front of the van. If the van needs to pass you again, so be it, at least you were in a position to be seen by the driver and if the van's intent was to turn, it'd fall further behind you in slowing to make the turn.

You made a bad decision here.

{edited to put in quote}

Brian Ratliff

You avoided the crash due to luck and observation. You were hardly following best practices here, and you certainly didn't avoid the possiblity of a right hook by being positioned relative to the van as you were. For instance, as you were off to the side and behind, the van could have stopped more quickly than it did to make the turn, forcing you into a right hook position. You didn't pass, which is arguably good (I probably would have accelerated ahead of the van, but it is situational; I just tend toward the assertive side of life on a bike), but you should have gotten yourself in line with the van to avoid the possibility of a right hook.

Brian Ratliff

What's "BC"?

Is it "Bicycular Cycling", kind of like what Bek had in mind?

Helmet Head

LOL. It's a typo.

Should be VC!

Helmet Head

Actually, the blind spot is further up. I was behind him. I didn't verify this explicitly, but I'm pretty sure I could see him in his right rear view mirror. More importantly, we weren't going fast enough for it to matter much.

Just prior to this was an incline, and I was probably still going under 15 while I was being passed. With the slowing because of the turning sedan, I was going well under 10 while following the van in his blind spot. At that slow speed I can stop almost instantly.

Also, all this happened within a very small number of seconds, like 2 or 3. There really wasn't time to do anything other than slow down or speed up.

chipcom 

Please bear with me for a second...

There are three basic rules of firearm safety:

1. All guns are always loaded
2. Never point a firearm at anything you don't intend to destroy.
3. Never put your finger on the trigger until you intend to fire.

The beauty of these three simple rules is that even if you disobey any 2 of the 3, the third can prevent you from a bad mistake.

The same thing applies to HH here. Even if he didn't follow a VC best practice as you outlined, another best practice, common sense (resisting the urge to pass on the right when there was obvious right hook potential), saved him.

I mention this because my biggest beef with then endless VC debates and theories we get here is that they way overcomplicate things for most people. This was another of the things that prompted me to do the Adaptive Cycling thing...so that we could hopefully come up with a small number of very general rules that are easy to understand and also complement each other (like the gun rules) so that remembering just one can prevent bad things from happening. Does anyone think a thread with that goal in mind might be useful?

Brian Ratliff

So basically, you stayed alert and didn't allow the car to turn into you. Good: basic common sense.

The real problem is when you are going fast enough for it to matter. That's when the vehicular cycling techniques are useful. (The techniques, not the worldview)

Bekologist

why is this such a notable event you needed to post about it, mr. head? seems pretty ho-hum to me, actually.

call me less than impressed. you avoided a hook by slowing. WOW.

sbhikes

How is this not normal, everyday, ordinary Adaptive Cycling?

Helmet Head

The only thing notable about it is that it is a real world actual example of how avoiding the temptation to pass on the right in a bike lane can save your a$$.

It illustrates the benefits of applying the hypothetical armchair analysis in real world situations.

Brian Ratliff

Good enough. Even when I am driving and passing a line of stopped cars in a different lane, I am cautious of people doing odd things. I treat every car as if it is going to turn into me (again, driving or cycling). And when I am cycling in heavy, stop and go traffic where the line is alternating between my speed and faster, I join the line when the line slows, and go back to the bike lane as the line picks up. If the line is stopped, I pass in the bike lane on the right, but cautiously and at half speed.

For right hooks, I recommend, in the spirit of your three rules:

AC rules for right hooks in bike lanes:
1) be wary of decelerating cars coming up from behind.
2) stay out of the car's blind spot. Join the line of traffic as it slows to your speed.
3) never pass on the right unless sure the car has no intention of turning.

Rule one is my first defense against right hooks. Most right hooks are speed misjudgements by the driver regarding the cyclist. A car decelerating as it comes up behind me is my que to be wary of that car's intentions. I usually accelerate to get out of the situation and make the driver aware of my presence and stay in front of the decelerating car.

Jalopy

People, people! Work with me here. Is this tip, while maybe obvious to most seasoned cyclists, from an actual riding experience not an improvement from the typical hypothetical, loaded and cryptic poll? Should we not be encouraging this change of HH's MO?

Or are you trying reverse psychology?

Jalopy

sbhikes

You are right, Jalopy. We should encourage more real-world experience from HH. The theory stuff is tedious. Real world stuff might actually be helpful to someone.

N_C

HH, perhaps the one vehicle did not merge into the Bl because the driver saw you there, or perhaps because the driver knows it against the law to do so at a driveway entrance. Also I didn't know vehicles were allowed to merge into a BL to turn, didn't realize BL's were wide enough to accomidate a motorized vehicle. Wouldn't that make a BL a travel or turn lane?

sbhikes

In California, motor vehicles are required to merge into the bike lane to make a right turn. It's not like that everywhere. Not all motorists here know they are supposed to, either.

AlmostTrick

Even if many just consider it basic common sense, this thread still contains good information for staying safe that not all readers would have necessarily considered.

And HH lightening up a little...

Bekologist

well, I guess hearing of mr. head actually riding is pretty impressive.

Avoiding a hook by slowing as a car passes near an upcoming intersection is cycling 101. REGARDLESS how the road is striped.

Heck, sometimes the car is pulling up to park on the road or swing a wide U-turn, no intersection required.

Glad he could bring it to the table, i guess. i wasn't suitably impressed as a scenario that merited sitting in front of a computer and typing a few hundred word scenario, that stuff happens ALL THE TIME out on the streets, regardless of how the road is striped.

fordfasterr

most of you think that HH just armchairs his entire life ... but based on this post, apparently he does venture outside of the cave !!!!

=)

... to the OP, great info - I would have passed, and possibly been right hooked, thats the the way I roll homey.

LOL

Helmet Head

Well, it was an intersection with a driveway, not a full blown intersection per se.

It's hard to convey in words how tempting it was to speed up once the first car turned. There was no indicatin at all that the van would also turn.

It was a small section of motor traffic congestion with the velo transit facility urging me to use it to take full advantage of being on a bike and pass by that congestion. I'm lucky I had the strength and resolution to resist biting from the apple she was offering.

N_C - Diane is right. Motorists are required to merge (as much as they can) into a bike lane before any right turn. The majority of drivers don't seem to know this.