Tony P.

I've read several articles but none I saw mentioned the level of his inexperience. I stand corrected: the biker who got hit wasn't a clown, his friend was an idiot. BTW, when I ride with an inexperienced rider like my kids, I always evaluate the situation and take the more dangerous position and I'll bet you do, too.

Yoo-hoo, I wasn't there. Isn't it a shame some people can't disagree without making it personal. Just because I don't agree with you doesn't make me part of the problem.

It makes me part of the solution. And you,too.

Progress comes when people disagree and others can consider their point of view. Maybe some other rider will learn from this.

But here's my point. I'll bet that when you're on a bike (or drive) you assume other drivers aren't as morally responsible or skillful as you. If the biker had ridden that way he may have been able to avoid the accident. And that doesn't mean I'm saying the driver wasn't wrong.

phoebeisis

I was unclear.
What matters is HOW LIKELY a given road position is to end badly.
Far left on a narrow highway-a highway where you could easily and more safely FRAP
Well that is more likely to end badly
Either by pissing off an AH
Or by less than competent distracted driving.

Sure you can be hit FRAP-but it is less likely

Going out of your way to Piss off rednecks in Miss Tenn-or just tempting the TEXTING gods
Gee what could go wrong with that?

Equinox

I regret that this has turned personal, but you're doing something I find revolting. In a very real sense, you're victim blaming. Self-agrandizement is your motivation. By criticizing someone who participates in an similar activity, you feel superior. And this does make you part of the problem if you really did believe in advocacy for your fellow riders. You're part of the problem because of your willingness to submit to the almighty motor vehicle even when the driver is guilty of a heinous act.
Very clearly, you stated "Maybe some other rider will learn from this." My position as an advocate for cyclists is, 'Maybe some other motorist will learn from this." See the difference?

Tony P.

How can you say you regret this getting personal but I'm revolting? But I am revolting. Revolting against people who believe anyone who doesn't share their view is inferior.

I agree exactly with one thing you said:

Similar activity being both of us posting on this forum, so readers can decide whether you were talking about you or me.

But you spelled aggrandizement wrong. That's what you get for using big words.

LOL

Equinox

Seriously. You just can't help yourself, can you? Alright. Good luck.

prathmann

To conclude that it is less likely would require a detailed study of the number of cyclists riding in various positions under varying conditions and analysis of a large number of collisions. Your statement of it as if it were a fact doesn't qualify.

I've certainly seen far more crash reports where the cyclist was riding far to the right (either on or all the way off the roadway) than I have of cyclists hit while riding to the left. But that doesn't qualify as evidence either since I don't have detailed studies of the number of riders using various positions who didn't get hit.

I-Like-To-Bike

A very logical observation and a point that is not only often ignored, but sometimes exploited by a few self proclaimed bicycling safety experts with a promotion agenda. These experts cherry pick some accidents stats (that indicate, not surprisingly, that most cyclists get involved in collisions in locations where most cyclists ride) and declare that cyclists who comply with the preferred cycling dogma would never ride in those locations and therefore have reduced their vaguely defined "crash rate" by 80%.

phoebeisis

You are right
there are no studies CLEARLY indicating which road position is safest-or most dangerous.

I can't PROVE IT but if as most here suggest-
this "accident" wasn't an accident-but was intentional
Well it is certainly plausible that the rider "hogging" the lane
is what pissed off the driver that hit him??

Of course I can't prove that-but everyone here has assumed exactly that
He was hit because he pissed off this jerk-by riding far left
"forcing" the drivers to swing completely into the "wrong lane"

Right Rights have NOTHING to do with it

Apparently the GO PRO more experienced rider suggested this lane position to his inexperienced friend
Hey friends like that-who needs enemies!

In this world-there are plenty of violent A WHOLES
Adults are aware of this
The Go Pro guy put his buddy at risk-and flimed him

This guy-the driver-won't go to jail-
if he has sufficient funds-he will buy off the rider
and if the DA brings it to trial(extremely unlikely) he won't get a "actual jail time" conviction
The driver will testify-claiming "wasn't aware he hit a person"
the jury-all drivers-will watch that tape-and have no sympathy for the riders
The jury-will find it "funny" that bike riders routinely record their rides?

Yeah he did it intentionally
Yeah he hit him intentionally
Yeah he left the scene-intentionally
Yeah he will buy his way out of jail(assuming he has sufficient funds)

A jury will have "reasonable doubt" because the riders won't be sympathetic
Hell I ride daily-for most of 50 years
and I'm not sympathetic(to the Go pro friend-poor rider-yeah sympathetic to him)

This story is already dying-
If the driver has a spare $250,000-$500,000 or so-he will skate out of jail time
he is already buttering up the guy he hit-
just add some $$-the DA-federal DA- will lose interest
a no injury hit and run-doesn't get jail time

Yes I know he was bruised etc-but he was young fit and lucky-so no mangled victim to display
No injury-+$$$=no jail

This driver-will come off as normal yuppie type
yeah he is a voilent dangerous AH
but he won't seem that way(assuming he isn't a full blown boozer doper-opioid addict)

Equinox

Yep. This will be the outcome. While not as bad as I wish it could be, The driver will definitely live to regret this. It will hit him hard in the pocketbook. His employment situation is going to come into question. What's left of his reputation is shot. I understand he had a very bad reputation anyway. He made out much worse than the victim. I'm sure when he lays in bed at nigh alone with his thoughts, he will realize all the harm he's done to himself because he could not simply take a deep breath and wait 10 seconds. It's really unbelievable. A 10 second psychotic episode cost half a million dollars. Had be acted prudently, he would have driven around that bicyclist and it would have had absolutely zero impact on the rest of his life. Now, money that he could have used for his grandchildren's college education is wasted on lawyers and settlements. I hope other driver's learn from this.

Ninety5rpm

Speaking of cherry-picking, you're picking, in biased fashion, on one aspect of the argument for full lane safety. Anyway, that ship sailed decades ago when the narrow lane exception was added to most FRAP laws, and was re-emphasized a decade ago with the introduction of sharrows and BMUFL signs to identify roads where the narrow lane exception applies, and now with their continued roll out all over the country. If you still don't want to accept that full lane use is safer in general than edge riding, at least on the vast majority of roads that have outside lanes too narrow for safe side-by-side sharing, it's your prerogative, of course. But more and more are trying it and realizing it every day.

phoebeisis

Prathmann-I Like To Bike
I'm very familiar with RR-
when I wrote Likely-I meant in a probability sense

RR is simple-
If far left get 1 " fatal hit by car" per every 100 exposures
Frap gets 1 " fatal hit by car" per 1000 exposures
well RR of riding far right .01/.001 RR=10
10X more likely to have that bad outcome if you ride far left
But RR by itself-is deceptive
because the absolute risks of getting killed by a car-in either position-is probably very low
10 times more likely to get hit by a car-is meaningless by itself
You need to know the absolute risk.

The absolute risk- of being killed by a car while riding a bike- is probably TINY
If FRAP was 1 death per 1,000,000,000 exposures
Far right was one death per 100,000,000 exposures
RR would be a seemingly important 10/1
but it would be a tiny increase in actual risk-
Just 9 more hits per 1,000,000,000 one BILLION exposures

A Frap rider would die 1/100,000,000 of a time per exposure
A Far left rider would die 1/100,000,000 per exposure
The FRAP riders saves himself 9/1,000,000,000 extra deaths per exposure
Pretty sure the FAR LEFT rider gets killed just 9/1,000,000,000 more time by not taking my advice

Far chance I have screwed this up
But my point-RR doesn't mean much by itself
absolute risk-is always more important
I don't know what the absolute risk is of dying-per exposure-on a bicycle
but it would be TINY depending on the time frame
Per 10 minutes of riding might be 1/1,000,000,000


Easy enough to calculate-crudely
Total bike/car deaths divided by total time riding(for USA)


Let's say -USA -1000 deaths 1 billion hours ridden per year
absolute risk 1/1,000,000 deaths per million hours-
or I die 1/1,000,000 times per 1 hour ride

Assuming I did the arithmetic correctly-1 death per million hours-not bad

Obviously I'm just making up these numbers

I think bike/car deaths are actually 800 per year USA-used 1000 to get nice number
I assumed 3 million riders rode 333 hours per year-roughly 1,000,000,000 hours -nice number

But 1 death per million hours riding-seems ballpark-guessing but ballpark

The above is why I didn't get into RR or absolute risk
The only "good number" we have is 800 bike car deaths per year-which I promptly cheated to 1000 deaths
We are all going to die from heart disease cancer other miserable slow lingering deaths
very few will die on a bike-it just isn't that dangerous-(usually)

Oh-fair chance I screwed up left right RR Absolute risk and explanations of same-arithmetic-probably screwed up too
dog and cats are bugging me for walk/treats

Not meaning to make this a fight-
The driver-will be out $250,000 or more before this is over(if he has it)
It will be memorable for him-
all in all-everyone was lucky-

PatrickGSR94

Seems that you all missed the point where I stated that I had not experienced animosity or punishment passing while using Control & Release techniques (communicating with other road users). I don't always stick my hand out and/or wave for every single passing car. And occasionally people ignore my signal to hang back a few seconds, but they still give me a full lane change pass which is what I want. If they choose to be a bonehead and pass on a hill or curve, that's their problem. I want plenty of clearance, and they give it to me even if they choose to ignore my warning to wait.

The majority of my Mindless Motorists videos are people doing just that, making stupid (yet full lane change) passes on curves and hills, on lanes too narrow to share. Close passes are extremely rare. Honking and yelling is even more rare. Before I started using C&R techniques and using the full lane by default, it was almost a daily occurrence, every day that I rode anyway.

*edit* I also have 2 videos of right hook turns, one of them far more close and blatant than the other. And in both of those cases I was near the edge of the road, either near the fog line or in a bike lane. Those are the only 2 times that has happened in my 5 years of riding.

FBinNY 

I think it's sad that so many people here are using this straightforward criminal case (assault, reckless endangerment, leaving the scene) as a jumping off point to press some kind of agenda relating to lane placement, rules or the road, or whatever.

The actual case is very simple, and unrelated to whatever preceded it, since we all seem to agree that whatever preceded it wouldn't justify the action. So, since we agree that the riders conduct wasn't relevant to the case at hand, and didn't directly cause the event, why can't stay focused on the action itself (or is that not controversial enough to entertain).

We can argue forever about double yellows, passing laws, bicycle lane placement, and so on, but IMO those separate and distinct issues form the case at hand. If I were either of the two riders, I'd be offended by anyone who indirectly implied that our actions somehow justified or provoked the incident.

Sometimes a cigar is just a good smoke, and likewise, a jerk is just a jerk.

PatrickGSR94

Totally agree. Whether or not the cyclist could have avoided the incident is of no concern to the actual case at hand. Whether or not I myself could have avoided it doesn't really matter, because the victim may not have been able to.

I-Like-To-Bike

Is "RR" supposed to mean relative risk? Didn't see anything about measuring or evaluating the severity of injuries as a result of collisions, crashes, accidents, falls or otherwise negative events. Does your version of evaluating, measuring or comparing relative risk only consider fatal events?

ItsJustMe

Here, I uploaded it to imgur so you can.

Just uploading this to save and share it. - Album on Imgur

scott967

Sure, but other than going "gee, that's awful", or "there but for the grace of God go I" a thread about a single incident only has real value IMO if we can generalize from the particular to the general WRT advocacy or safety. That's what I think posters in the thread have been doing.

scott s.
.

Chris0516

Thanks

phoebeisis

I Like To Bike

Well we actually don't have any numbers-so everything I wrote
I mde up from whole cloth
One exception NBC-3 nights ago-said 800 bike deaths from cars per year
Now frankly-I have my doubts about that-
the 800 deaths were probably Total bike riding deaths-some of which are single vehicle-running

There really isn't any data on lane placement likelyhood(sic?) of injury-so I just made some up because i'm that kind of guy
But I told you it was made up,so..


I used 1000 bike car deaths per year(despite NBC claim of 800-because i like nice numbers)
I used 1,000,000,000 total hours riding at risk per year by using my roughly 300 hrs per year
and 3,000,000 riders-then I cheated-claimed 333 hours per rider-once again-nice number

Now 1 death per million hours at risk-frankly it seem low-but since I made it up
it would be roughly 1 death per 10,000,000 miles at risk(10 mph)-that seems low


FBinNY-yes I probably shouldn't have used this as an excuse to attack LC-but I couldn't resist
A experienced rider plops his inexperienced friend on a narrow mountain road-no shoulder
has his inexperienced friend ride FAR LEFT-
a position certain to piss someone off
and he records him
Who in the world would place an inexperienced ride in that position??

The driver-yeah it was 99.999% intentional
and the driver was an incompetent bully-he no doubt meant to crowd the riders over
typical bully type move
but he wasn't even competent enough to do that-
and sneaky SOB ran off-made up a laughable lie(they threw the bike at me)
Hey maybe this guy is a heavy user of something-opoids booze -
of course fair chance he is just an AH

Yeah he did it intentionally-and he left the scene-and he told a stupid lie
and it will cost him a large pile of $$-
maybe he will lose that shiny Volvo(maybe $45,000 new)-be reduced to a 1998 Suburban($2000)
Bet he dodges jail-mainly because no significant injury-
and jurors don't like bike riders-and won't be happy about the lane position
and the driver-will clean himself up
worked at a pricey private school-so safe bet he is a well spoken smooth lying SOB
No jail but plenty of $$

My suspicion is if this ever went to trial(it won't)
the driver's lawyer would show that video- and ask the experienced rider why in the world did he think it was a good idea to put his inexperienced buddy FAR LEFT on a narrow mountian road
And Video him??
The lawyer-if allowed-will suggest this was some sort of martyr to the cause "plan"
Jurors-all drivers-won't understand the lane position-they won't understand the why record
They will take it as meaning the riders were deliberately positioning themselves to create conflict
No way will any driver/juror on earth buy the LC VC controlling the lane is safer argument
heck I ride 1 hour/d for 50 years-I don't buy it-


Yes i do blame the experienced rider-yep I blame him-he is a fool
or worse he set his buddy up to be a martyr -
probably just a fool
but the GoPro at the ready suggests he knows drivers react poorly to that lane position but he put his buddy there anyway
Yes i am blaming the experienced rider
Yeah buddy is a jerk
he dangerously positioned his buddy-and recorded it-
That jerk KNEW he was putting his buddy at risk

Yeah they were legally positioned(but that will be argued)
Yes the driver intentionally hit the rider(might have been a bully move gone bad)-yes he left-yes he is a liar
yes he should go to jail(he won't)
But the experienced rider-jerk-and jurors(all drivers) would see it that way

I-Like-To-Bike

You were clear about it, no problem. The so-called experts who promote their own brand of bicycle safety and deal in the so-called "crash rates" and conjured relative risk of various lane positioning are much less honest about the reliability of their so-called data.

Guessing about relative risk is no problem as long as those who do it recognize it as just speculation, some of it more intelligent and/or honest than the fabricated "expert analysis based on cooked data (as well as omitted data like severity of injuries from "crashes") to support a specific agenda.

I-Like-To-Bike

Unlikely that many bicyclist/jurors on earth would buy the LC VC controlling the lane is safer argument. Evidence can be seen by observing where the great majority of bicyclists position themselves on the street/road.

phoebeisis

I Like To Bike
Yeah there really aren't any good numbers bike deaths bike injuries

Duh-the above-incorrect-
I checked NHTSA-they do have some raw numbers-
Pedal cyclist deaths -increased 2014 to 2015
They also have injury numbers(from memory 50,000/yr)

But no numbers in respect to Lane Position-no surprise

I attempted to inexpertly cut this "table" from the NHTSA site.
Well it says there was a 7.7% increase in traffic deaths 2014 to 2015-the below numbers-aren't my usual "made up numbers"
NHTSA numbers- nothing on lane position of course
I didn't look-but pretty sure there is some"distracted driving" data on the site

7.7-percent increase in total traffic deaths

Total* 2014=32,744 2015=35,092 2,348 increase

Pedalcyclists 2014=729 2015= 818

As I suspected NBC just took the 818 number and ran.
Some of those 818 aren't "car hit bike" "some" are single vehicle bike crashes

The NHTSA has lots of numbers-they have "pedal-cyclists" injury numbers also-
Pedestrians deaths also increased (to 5300 from 4900-but this is from memory) in 2015-but one or two of them are "ours" meaning you "pedal-cyclists" hit them-
safe bet the vast majority are "hit by car" a few hit by motorcycle 1 or 2 hit by bike I guess

bicycle riders are pedal cyclists according to FEDS

phoebeisis

Other numbers NHTSA 2014 vs 2015(actual GOV numbers)

■■ The Nation saw 2,348 more fatalities from motor vehicle crashes in 2015 than in 2014—a 7.2-percent increase.
◆■ The number of passenger car and light-truck occupant fatalities is at its highest since 2009.
• SUV occupant fatalities increased by 382, an addi- tional 10.1 percent over the number in 2014.
• Vanoccupantfatalitiesincreasedby95,a9.3-percent increase.
• Passenger car occupant fatalities increased by 681, a 5.7-percent increase.
• Pickup truck occupant fatalities increased by 200, a 4.7-percent increase.
◆■ Motorcyclist fatalities increased by 382 (an 8.3-percent increase), and the number is the largest since 2012.
◆■ Pedestrian fatalities increased by 466 (a 9.5-percent increase), and are at their highest number since 1996.
◆■ Pedalcyclist fatalities increased by 89 (a 12.2-percent increase), and are at their highest level since 1995.
◆■ Alcohol-impaired driving fatalities increased by 3.2 per- cent, from 9,943 in 2014 to 10,265 in 2015.
■■ Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) increased by 3.5 percent from 2014 to 2015, the largest increase since 1992, nearly 25 years ago.

I-Like-To-Bike

Injury numbers without severity data is useless for evaluating risk, period. A skinned knee "crash" is treated as no different than a "crash" producing catastrophic traumatic injuries such as paralysis, amputation and/or extreme disfigurement when no severity data is collected or used in the analysis.

The lane positioning advocates such as the ardent VC-types frequently use so-called "crash rates" which use totals of injuries with no severity data to make bogus conclusions about relative risk. Thus a bike path with 10,000 users and 100 skinned knee and elbow accidents is considered far more risky than an adjacent road with 300 users and 2 bicycle accidents that resulted in paraplegic causing injuries, due to its horrific "crash rate".

PatrickGSR94

Your whole post puts a whole hell of a lot of speculation on the incident. The camera cyclist "PUT" his friend there? Speculation. He KNEW he was putting his friend at risk? Speculation. Use of camera because he knows drivers react poorly? Maybe, but that's why all cyclists use cameras, to catch situations like this. Obviously. Same reason why motorists use dash cams.

You don't know these cyclists. You don't know why they decided to ride there. Maybe it was the victim's idea to ride that day, maybe he himself wanted to go on the Trace. We don't know one way or the other. Maybe the victim decided to pull up in front of the camera cyclist and lead for awhile, but he happened to pass on the left right at the same time as the cars were passing. Since there's no video from prior to what we've seen, everything you've posted is straight up speculation and victim blaming.