Originally Posted by Helmet Head
Here we go
again, all the typical ingredients...
- Portland (Beaverton, close enough)
- intersection
- bike lane
- classic left hook, the most common type of car-bike collision.
- despite the fact that the cyclist did not leave the bike lane to use destination positioning when crossing an intersection, particularly with oncoming traffic that potentially could (and obviously did) turn left across his path, he is thought to be "a cautious and safe bicycle rider".
With all due respect to his loved ones, that's
bull ****!.
There is nothing SAFE or CAUTIOUS about staying in a bike lane in this situation, or in countless others. As we've said over and over, when motorists are turning left,
you can expect them to be looking where they expect traffic to be, even in "bike friendly" (yeah, right) towns like Beaverton,
NOT off to the side in line with the bike lane.
Yes, technically, it's the motorist's fault. But he did nothing different from what most motorists do all the time... look for oncoming traffic where one might expect oncoming traffic - in the traffic lane - before turning left.
Expecting that he also remember to look in a special area for cyclists off to the side is unrealistic. He's human, folks. Human.
Heck, as motorcyclists know all too well, you can't even rely on left-turners to see you if you're in the middle of the traffic lane. Distracted drivers hit even other
cars this way all too often. Effective Cycling and LAB's Road classes teach the
instant turn, and to be prepared to execute it, for this type of situation precisely. But by staying in the bike lane out of the left-turner's primary zone of attention, and not being prepared to be overlooked, the cyclist is really stacking the odds against himself.
A true tragedy, particularly when these types of collisions are known to be easy avoid through
minor alteration in the cyclist's behavior alone. Tragic.
What's possibly even more tragic is that Oregon cycling advocates are buying into this idea that the only solution here is to punish motorists until motorists change - that the cyclist was doing nothing wrong - that there should be no emphasis on getting cyclists to merge left out of the danger zone in these situations. That's a real tragedy too.
Your list is slightly in error, the RIGHT hook is the most common, LEFT hook is the most common auto-auto collision, and that's usually because someone is going faster then someone else expects. I disagree that altering cyclist behaviour to move into the next lane left, would do anything more then create even more accidents, as drivers would not expect a bicycle to be in that lane. Often right turn drivers are against the curb as well, and if your turning left, you want to know that someone might turn right into the same lane your going into.
Even if you see a cyclist, if your used to seeing grandma tooting along at 3MPH on a 50 year old 3 speed, you might not realise that a good rider can get over 25MPH on flat ground, and 40MPH on a steep decent.
So you might think you can sneak by, and not realise until too late, that you just hit him. The easy excuse is to say you didn't see him, because the officials seem to accept that. Saying that you saw him, and decided to make your turn anyway in front of traffic, would probably see you facing serious charges.