Hypno Toad

I ride with a GoPro, for this ride, the GoPro was rear facing under my saddle. I shared this video with the local PD with a complaint about the minivan violating Minnesota's 3 foot passing law. The police responded that it was too hard to know how close this van was. I think it's easy to figure it out, however, I'd like BF opinions prior to sharing my thoughts/measurements. How close do you think this minivan is to the rider? (define if you are measuring/estimating at the tire, or mirror-to-shoulder).


And for anybody that would like to simply criticize me for:

• over reacting
• riding the wrong place
• ...

Please save the effort, it's not the point of the thread and I will simply ignore those posts.

TenSpeedV2

I would say that it was about 3 feet or so but it is hard to tell as you are moving at a pretty good rate of speed. That being said, you are too far to the right. You gave the van driver an opportunity to pass within the lane, and they took it. Not your fault, just move a bit left and this almost eliminates that from happening.

Hypno Toad

Follow up question: 3 feet at the tires (from the van's tire to the bike's tire)?

OK, so I'll make myself a liar with my first response to the position issue.... The police response told me that I need to ride as far as right as practicable; I responded that with the narrow road, the vehicle needed to change lanes to pass, no matter my lane position. Minnesota law states bikes are exempt from riding far right when the road it too narrow (and other obstructions). I have not heard back after that last response.

Funny enough, the town where this happened continues to teach me to ride further left. Poor road design and no support from the local PD make it clear that I need to protect myself. That said, I've had too many punish passes to believe lane position protects me from all the people that would use their vehicle to threaten/intimate a person using a bike on the road.

TenSpeedV2

After further review, they were closer, maybe 2 feet to be honest. GoPro's make it hard to judge actual distance, but it was too close.

Wilfred Laurier

Can't watch the video, but from your description I think there is not much to complain about. Here in Ontario we just got the 'one metre rule', and IMO worrying about if the cars are 95 cm or 92 cm vs. the full 100cm is pointless. If it is anywhere near one metre I don't bother worrying about it, as there will usually be someone passing much much closer very soon.

Also, I agree that in situations where a driver might take a chance and pass without crossing the centre lane and that wouldn't leave a whole metre, you should move further toward the centre, or just take the lane. Make it so that if someone hits you, it wasn't an accident.

Hypno Toad

kingston 

Normal minivan is about 6 feet wide, normal lane is about 11 feet wide. That one looks a little wider. Let's call it 12. The minivan just barely goes over the yellow line so let's call that 13 from the driver's side to the curb, so the passenger side of the van is 7 feet from the curb. Looks like you're about 4 feet from the curb, and your bike's about a foot-and-a-half wide, so I'd estimate the van passes with about a foot-and-a-half clearance, maybe a little more. You might not be a full 4 feet from the curb.

On a busy road that wide, I might consider getting to the right like the cop suggested. There's plenty of room for cars to pass without completely changing lanes and still give you 3 feet (13-6=7). Your position is inviting close passes IMO. You have to really take the lane if you don't want cars to try to pass without getting over. Your call. The downside of taking the lane is the punish pass, which is a very real thing.

Complaining about drivers to the cops has been a gigantic waste of time in my experience as they are much more likely to side with the driver, and what are they going to do anyway. I've never heard of a driver getting a ticket for passing a cyclist too closely.

Wilfred Laurier

Awww.... widdle bitty baby didn't get the answer he wanted? You can't control what people post on the internets any more than you can control van drivers' distance from you.

Hypno Toad

Oh! For cute! Somebody who can't read, gets disrespectful. Everything I expect from A&S forum.

LMAO

mr_bill

It's a 10 foot wide lane, 11 foot including the gutter pan.

The fifth generation Chrysler Town and Country is 6' wide - excluding mirrors. Including mirrors, it's 7' 5". (BTW, the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica is over 7.5' wide, including mirrors.)

And they didn't cross the double yellow - they touched the double yellow.

Feel free to do the math.

-mr. bill

kingston 

11-7.5-4-1.5=-2

Doesn't seem right to me, but you're the one doing the correcting.

trailangel

Why you too far left? Riding in spot where right side car tire runs.
You can safely move a foot to the right..... making the van pass with 3 ft.
IMO.

Wilfred Laurier

Sheesh! Weren't you paying attention? He doesn't want responses that might be helpful - just comments that support his opinion.

FBinNY 

IMO this is one of those non issues we see so often here on BF. I don;t know about Minnesota laws, but here in NY the police don't (can't?) issue traffic citations based on 3rd party information, except as part of an accident report.

The problem is one of practical realities. To prosecute a citation the state has to PROVE it's case in court, the same as with any other crime (except that the process is more informal). So, should the driver contest the citation, you'd have to come to court with the video to authenticate it, then the judge would have to decide whether it was conclusive enough to sustain the charge.

IMO it isn't, or as they say in the NFL, "not conclusive enough to overturn the ruling on the field".

rumrunn6

kinda obvious he stayed on this side of the double yellow line because of the the upcoming construction equipment & oncoming traffic. so he probably buzzed you pretty good and didn't slow down at all. probably cuz he wanted to pass you before reaching the construction equipment & the car w the ladder. in fact he might have even sped up. really dumb. if it was me I would have slowed & followed until it was safe to pass. fyi if you use a mirror you can see what is about to transpire & move over a little bit to give the van more room. if I was a cop, I'd give the guy a ticket

rumrunn6

yeah it's pretty edgy in here, but that's the nature of this particular forum/thread. it's certainly not gonna change. so just take what you can from it ...

mconlonx

I made a complaint to the cops of assault when someone hit me with their arm out the window. I don't know if intentional or not, but they didn't stop, had personalized licence plate, and I made the call to the cops. They tracked the car down and asked me if I'd be OK with a 3ft passing violation, which I relented to. In retrospect, if they couldn't be tagged for assault, I should have pressed for hit and run violation, another misdemeanor.

Hypno Toad

I did not request a citation, I requested the police contact the driver to educate them on a bikes right to use the road and the 3 foot minimum passing distance. I recognize that the police can not (should not) issue citations based on video (unless their were injuries or property damage).

In my area, I have had a wide variety to of response from the PD when submitting video. Some give no feedback at all; some call me personally to say the contacted the driver with information about a bike's rights on the road.

I generally have low expectations, however, if we stay silent, nothing will change to improve safety on our roads.

Hypno Toad

To the posts addressing my question, THANK YOU! I appreciate the posts that shared their methodology. So here's the image I used and my methodology:

Untitled.jpg

I still don't get the new image/attachment loader... (yes, I'm dumb). The image loaded is too small to read the text, so here's what I wrote:

Assuming a 26" OD of this tire - and on this image/display it measures 11.5 cm

The distance between the van's tire and bikes' tire on this image is 17 cm - converting to an estimate of 38" between the minivan's tire and the bike's tire. Subtract 6-8" the van's side-view mirror and 10-12" the distance between my tire and shoulder. This puts the van's mirror 18-22" from striking my shoulder. (footnote, the red line at the bottom is not the line I used to measure, the correctly measurement is lower in the image)

CB HI

Based on my experience using a wide angle camera looking at the video and knowing how close someone passed by actually being there:

The van passed your camera 3 feet away from camera to the side of the van. subtract 1 foot for your handlebar and 6 inches for the van side mirror and you had a 6" to 12" pass.

As a minimum, the cops should have had a talk with the driver.

Camilo

I guess I'm going to be one who you have decided shouldn't post on this thread, but I don't care.

Regardless of actual distance, or 3' and "as far right as practicable" rules, it looks like a safe pass to me. My opinion is that if a pass like that really bothers you enough to start yelling and spend time at the police station, you might be either not very experienced, or too sensitive. It wouldnt bother me enough to get upset, start yelling or waste my time bringing it to the police. But I've got a lot of other things to spend my time and energy on.

howsteepisit

I cannot tell if its 3'or not. Plus, for this type of film all the cyclist need do is slightly veer towards the car and Boom! a 3' violation.

AlexCyclistRoch

Wow, somebody's got WAAAY too much time on his hands.....

02Giant 

Exactly my observation. I was about to make a similar post when I scrolled down and saw your reply.

Chris0516

2-3ft.