Originally Posted by
unterhausen
the rear wheel of a bicycle doesn't have a lot of authority over the steering. Pretty sure I could ride out a collision where someone taco'ed my rear wheel.
I had that happen once. Aggressive 18 year old driver tried to run me over. I was riding with four other cyclists on a four lane city street. I guess he didn't like us taking a lane as he refused to go around us in the perfectly empty lane next to us and kept honking his horn, flashing his high beams, and revving his engine. After this went on for a couple of blocks I swerved over to the empty lane and spread my arms open and yelled something about going around us in the empty lane. After I swung back into our lane he accelerated from at least a couple of car lengths back, at what I think was full throttle in a full size Cadillac sedan and smashed into me. Luckily he hit me square-on from the rear. Totally taco'd the rear wheel and transmitted so much energy through me that I was super sore the next day, but since the impact was from directly behind me I actually didn't go down.
The Seattle police officer that responded to our 911 call refused to put out an APB on him and his car, despite the fact that I had several witnesses in addition to us five cyclists and we had his license plate number. AND after hitting me with the car, he backed up, swung the car around us to park in front of us, and flew out of the car running at us on foot. He managed to punch two of us in the face as he ran past as we were stopped, straddling our bikes, stunned from him having tried to run me over. After that he ran back to his car, hopped in and sped away. Despite having the license plate number of the car all the police offered was for me to look through piles of mug shot photo albums. Part of the reason I don't have any respect for the police in this city.