Originally Posted by
OnyxTiger
You have the scenario almost correct, except she was going to turn right, and I was on her passenger (far?) side trying to cross over. I was originally riding perpendicular to her, but on the other side of the residential wall. However, there's about 30 yards worth of sidewalk that opens up as we get to the corner.
Did you mean parallel instead of perpendicular? From the next quote it sounds like it.
Originally Posted by
OnyxTiger
For this specific situation, I was actually riding with traffic on the sidewalk, but was trying to turn left where the vehicle was turning right.
If I follow what you have said correctly, does it look something like this? With you riding up the sidewalk along the road, then cutting across to the left at the intersection?
Chances are pretty good that when the car hit the light, they looked right, and saw nothing coming down the sidewalk from that direction. Then they looked left, saw a gap, and while they SHOULD look right again, the driver went - having just looked and seen that the way was clear. A bicycle that was running parallel to them on the other side of a wall would not have been on their radar at all to suddenly cut left across the road directly in front of them.
I am not defending that the driver should have been more attentive and looked right again, however when you see nothing coming down the sidewalk the first time you look, you're definitely not expecting something to suddenly appear.