mandovoodoo

Occurs to me that the problems highlighted here with motorists are essentially the same as those that keep me away from organized bike rides. Of course close following gets practiced. What scares me are the excessive range of bike handling abilities (from amazingly poor to superlative) and lack of attention (have to look to grab a water bottle, sightseeing from a pace line). The cultural aspects of ME ME ME and carelessness towards others bleeds over onto two wheels.

The low number of incidents involving contact in rides and among motorists seems remarkable to me. I see near misses on the roads only rarely. Usually people respond faster than I'd anticipate given the level of inattention. A key difference is the number of near misses involving motorcycles. I see more of those, mainly pulling into the path of motorcycles. Same as happens with bicycles. So maybe the first training item should be to teach people to really look at the road in checking for others. I was trained to sweep up the road surface with my eyes, placing focus along the entire visible distance of the road, rather than merely gazing up the road waiting for something to make itself evident. That would be a start.

Allister

LOL. Aren't statistics fun?

AlmostTrick

Keeping a large buffer in front of your vehicle even in busy traffic is not hard to do. If you refuse to exceed the speed limit, the vehicles in front of you will almost always be pulling farther ahead as you drive, increasing your buffer. Sure, some overtakers will fill the gap, but when your gap is crazy large (2 seconds ain't squat in my book) they won't have to cut it close when they merge into your lane. Plus once they do merge, it's merely a matters of seconds until they are way ahead. A 10 or more mph speed difference actually makes this work even better.

As long as you drive a steady speed, no one is going to just plow into your rear. Keeping a large buffer is exactly what gives you the ability to hold a steady speed, since it is less likely you'll ever have to brake hard, if at all. I continuously prove the large buffer technique is not only safe, but also a very relaxing way to drive.

genec

Agree. "Fat Gaps" as my son calls them.

And of course the real reason to drive the speed limit is to be predictable... if you are flying down the road weaving in and out you tend to be "invisible" to the motorist making judgments on when it is safe to change lanes. If on the other hand you are traveling at the same relative speed, you are easy to spot.

unterhausen

there has been quite a lot of study of this because people got excited over smart roads back in the early 90's. A car length per 10 miles per hour actually puts you at the peak of expected severity of crash, i.e. the relative velocity of two vehicles when they hit. Tailgating obviously increases the likelihood of collision somewhat, but the severity is not as high. The whole secret to driving safely in dense traffic is to be aware of the road conditions ahead of the car in front of you. The people that focus their concentration on the car in front of them are the ones that eventually cause pileups.

degnaw

Actually, isn't that the argument for raising the speed limit? Since nobody drives the speed limit (especially if it's 55mph on a freeway, for example, or 25mph on a wide arterial at the bottom of a hill), I get honked at almost as often as I do when I bike - and it's quite often. Though I do drive the speed limit 95% of the time, i fail to see how it's safer than speeding by 5-10mph.

Roughstuff

Hmmm...randya I agree with ya for the most part, but as some people have pointed out, speeding isn't everything. For example, I am not a speeder but i don't think fo myself as an especially good driver. I sometimes wonder if my courtesy on the road is an attempt to make up for occasional indiscretions.


But I do think that, if I show courtesy and professionalism toward fellow cyclists when I behind the wheel of my vehicle---giving them the lane; giving them 3 feet; using turn signals and being vigilant against right hooks, etc.,---catches on with other drivers.


roughstuff

I-Like-To-Bike

At least half of this thread is about bashing dumb and dumber motorists, the other half is about bashing (rightfully IMO) those who oversimplify the causes and solutions of motor vehicle accidents. None of this thread has a thing to do with bicycling advocacy or the safety of bicyclists. The speed limit on the road is irrelevant to the bicyclists who use it unless they are somehow capable of exceeding it.

AlmostTrick

Exceeding the speed limit by a small amount by itself probably doesn't increase crash risk all that much. It's the small buffers drivers routinely put themselves into while speeding that causes the wrecks. Many seem to think it's a race and will fill any gap no matter how small, in an effort to not allow another driver to get "ahead". It's nearly impossible to do this while following the speed limit.

hurley.girl

Heh, just try this technique on a busy multi-lane highway in NJ. It doesn't work like that. My husband is "Mr. Speed Limit" and likes to keep a large buffer in front of the vehicle. First, being "Mr. Speed Limit" actually makes him a bit dangerous since it's so much slower than the flow of traffic.

Second, he has a lot of trouble maintaining that buffer. This happens when we are in a huge blob of traffic, generally so much traffic that the exceeding the speed limit is out of the question, and he *is* going the same speed as the cars in front. Cars are constantly moving into his buffer, but they can't simply "pull ahead". So he has to slow up to regain the buffer. Then someone else moves into it. It's like we move backwards in traffic. I can see the people behind him getting frustrated as he slows up to regain his buffer, so they change lanes to get ahead of us and usually end up in front of us, in his buffer.

I hope I explained this in a way that makes sense.

facial

Pacificaslim, let's just say that you are an incredibly lucky person for your given driving habit.

For me I cannot adapt to it. Further, when someone slows down they are not necessarily idiotic. If you give yourself enough buffer space then it should be possible.

I regularly navigate the LA freeways - 10, 405, 5, all the top congestion rankers in the nation - and let me tell you, there is still more than enough room for buffer space.

AlmostTrick

You explained it perfectly. The frustration in this case comes from the gap fillers who race up only to immediately have to brake. This is what really slows down the entire line. Race up, slow down, repeat. In that situation I just do my best to hold a steady rate, without allowing my buffer zone to be compromised. If everyone did this we would all "get there" sooner, and in less stressful manner.

EatMyA**

All that is FU**ing WRONG! Take a Driving course. Today. Please. You're a freaking menace.

May I recommend the SMITH driving course for starters?

Barese Rider

Hurley Girl having driven in NJ all my life I bet it is both frustrating and amusing to drive on busy NJ highways with your husband.I remember my first ride in NJ with my father in law to be who was from what I called farm country and not used to our highways..Left lane 55mph doesnt cut it here.. The beeping and fingers didnt disconsert him but he did start to wonder what was wrong .My ribs were hurting from covering up my laughs..That was my last and only highway ride with him..

My father who used to drive a truck for his as a kid taught me to hang on the guy in fronts tail while driving with the drivers side into the safety lane for better vision of whats ahead with one hand on the wheel and the other ready to blast the horn or give the finger sometimes both as needed with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake..

UmneyDurak

Well according to CA driver handbook, you are suppose to enter a freeway at speed that is close to freeway speed. So he is not actually wrong...

Mitchxout

I thought he made sense-maybe I need a driving course.

pacificaslim

Either that, or I could just be very focused on things that keep me safe. Instead of worrying about my exact speed of travel and fighting to stay at 65 and keep a huge buffer, and pissing off people around me and prompting them to behave erratically, I am instead looking at the other vehicles I'm coming up on and getting hints about their intentions, while also continually glancing at my rear-view to see if I need to get over to let someone around me who wishes to travel faster. Since I graduated college in '91, I've only got one ticket (in '99).

bcubed

SL is irrelevant on the "superslab" (i.e. limited-access highway)...it's all about one's speed RELATIVE to the other vehicles.

DOT studies (reference "Proficient Motorcycling" if you desire) show that the optimum safe speed for a motor vehicle is roughly 3-5 MPH in excess of traffic flow, and that accident risk increases in an exponential fashion away from that point, gaining strength as +/- 10 mph is reached.

So, if you're in a 55 zone, with everybody averaging 70, you're taking a substantial safety hit by doing 55.

On occasion, I'll do the SL in my cage, but on a MC...it's too damn risky.

Incidentally, how do y'all feel about busting SL on a bicycle? (going downhill, 25 ain't too hard to crack...)

uke

If I'm going fast enough to break the SL, you bet I'm taking the lane.

M_S

Ever been to Italy?

randya

no but despite the fact that their traffic is noisy and chaotic I'll bet their traffic accident and fatality rate is way lower than in US

pacificaslim

Thank you for posting this and confirming that my view of "safe" driving being called crazy here is indeed safer. Even the government agrees, huh?

randya

I think you have it backwards, crazy driving is being called safe. just because everyone else is doing 70 doesn't mean it's either safe or the right thing to do.

anyway, most cyclists aren't in the freeway environment so the point is moot, what I'm most interested in are city motorists doing 40 in a 25 zone or 50 in a 35 zone.

closetbiker

Reminds me of an old thread

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...sa#post4561678

where Niles H posted a study from: https://casr.adelaide.edu.au/speed/

The study also showed cars involved in casualty crashes were generally travelling faster than cars that were not involved in a crash and none of the travelling speeds below 60 km/h was shown to be associated with a risk of involvement in a casualty crash that was statistically significantly different from the risk at 60 km/h. Above 60 km/h there is an exponential increase in risk of involvement in a casualty crash with increasing travelling speed such that the risk approximately doubles with each 5 km/h increase in travelling speed.

I replied I read a book by Lisa Lewis where she said (and the linked study confirmed this) that the impact of a crash doubles with each 10 mph increase in speed. This adds the increase in involvement in a crash at higher speeds (according to the study)

Also, Lewis mentions that seatbelts are tested in impacts of 30 mph with a vehicle of the same size (did I remember that right too?). Point is, if a car hits either above 30 mph, or into a larger vehicle, the limits of the belt are exceeded.

So it seems insane (although I believe it to be true) that the publics perception that going 10 or 20 kilometers over the posted speed limit is acceptable.

You wouldn't try to put 200 psi in a tire that's rated for 100 psi, would you?

JoeyBike

I think the most interesting part of this whole discussion and the stats posted by the OP is the cold fact that most people are very happy to break the law if it suits their mood and purpose. We are not little puppets dangling on the lawmaker's strings.

When I am behind a steering wheel, I drive very calm and defensively. I take that responsibility very seriously, and since I don't own my own car, if I am behind the wheel, it is most likely someone else's car. However, there are times when I stop looking at the speedometer and go with the flow. I do not like driving in the right lane with traffic merging onto the freeway in the city. So that puts me in the middle or left lane (on a 6-lane freeway, 3 lanes each way). No doubt in my mind it is safer to keep up with traffic a tad above the limit so long as I can keep proper distance up front - which ain't always easy. Otherwise, I drive right on the speed limit.

Now on my bike....that's a whole different story.