Originally Posted by Bekologist
A 'verify' requirement would lead to stimulus overload and stopping the bicycle, a lot, to attempt to achieve this 'verification' this other poster uses as a pet construct from the armchair.
how a rider 'verifies' they see you is pure conjecture. As I approach cars at intersections, I find drivers make pointedly obtuse attempts to NOT make eye contact with bicyclists.
First, as Joe and others have pointed out, eye contact has nothing to do with it. Eye contact means nothing in terms of verification that you've been noticed. What matters is what they are doing in terms of operating the vehicle in the context in which they are. In particular, it involves looking from something that they are doing that is peculiar to reacting to your presence.
Second, it's not about verifying whether any and every driver has noticed you. Doing that would indeed lead to stimulus overload. Fortunately, for the most part, it doesn't matter whether they've noticed you or not. So the first trick is to identify those few drivers whose attention your safety is about to depend on, before you put yourself into a situation where your safety does depend on their noticing you. If you can't verify that, you just avoid putting yourself in the situation where your safety depends on their noticing you, and that rarely requires coming to a complete stop. It may involve slowing (and, yes, yielding), but usually can be done by increasing your safety buffer. But I agree with Chip that it's mostly a matter of being prepared mentally. This is really nothing more than a rewording of one of Robert Hurst's main themes in
Urban Cycling.
Originally Posted by Bekologist
no, the 'trust, but verify' constructs is armchair riding. Its a make believe construct.
Verify drivers how? using two way radio? a cell phone? semaphore? smoke signals?
or how about trust, and plan for Murphy?
It all depends on the situation.
For example, say you're approaching an uncontrolled intersection and someone coming the other way is slowing and signalling left; there is no other traffic. In that situation, if you weren't there, the normal/expected behavior for the driver is to slow some, but not stop, as he enters the intersection and turns left. If the driver is looking in your direction and altering from this normal expected behavior (slowing way down or even stopping, not beginning to turn yet, for no plausible reason other than to yield to you) then I would count that as a verification that they've noticed you. My main point is that if you are not getting any clues like that, then you should not enter the intersection in their path, even though you have the right of way. In any case, whether you think they've noticed you or not, you should be ready to quick turn to the right.