Catgrrl70

Here's the link to my BikeWise Report and a map, although it's not a street view: https://www.bikewise.org/pub/report/crash/161
Streetview: https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...bp=12,315,,0,5

It's a 5-way intersection with Yancy/Andover slightly off-set, i.e. it's not possible to travel straight across the street (Avalon) from Yancy and meet up with the roadway on the other side (Andover). Traffic travels N/S on Avalon at usually a higher rate of speed than the posted 35mph speed limit. There is no traffic light at this intersection. All the streets are hills.

I stopped at the stop sign at the top of Yancy, and began my left uphill turn to southbound Avalon across a wide lane and a turn lane. There was no traffic to my left and a line of traffic heading uphill towards me and a red SUV had just pulled up to the stop sign across Avalon on Andover (yes, she pulled up just after I had started to cross, with no turn signal but I had a feeling she was turning to her left). As I continued my left turn, the SUV began "rolling" into the street, while the driver was looking to her right. She continued to move forward and I started yelling bloody murder for her to stop (her window was rolled down) at this point, I was in the middle of the southbound lane looking straight at her grill coming towards me. She still didn't stop. As I was afraid she was going to start accelerating without looking in front of her I moved my bike as far to my left as possible and jumped off to roll out of the way. At this point, she FINALLY looked in front of her as she started to accelerate, still unaware I was there, and braked in the middle of the lane with a look of shock that I was there in front of her.

I was not hurt, just furious and made sure she heard that she must make sure the entire intersection is clear before making any turns. Bike was ok, just a few more scrapes. Another cyclist and a driver make sure I was ok before leaving. The whole line of cars heard me telling her that basically she did a stupid thing, and then she even said, "Yes, I should look, yes, I was not looking, I will be careful."

phillypino215

glad to hear that ur ok with no major harm done.

pedalpedalpedal

I hate drivers who only seem to be able to look in one direction

sanitycheck

I would respond to that intolerant statement, but I'm looking off to the right of the screen right now.

Yan 

She needs to start driving a manual. Rollers frustrate everyone to no end. One of these days I'm going to blow a fuse and push one of them into a passing train

rumrunn6

Good account of what happened. Glad you are OK.

Looking at the picture and thinking about my experiences I have a couple of suggestions. There is some strong sunlight there, plus the angle of the streets intersecting each other, and your account of her distraction looking elsewhere, lead me to suspect that this intersection may be prone to more situations like this from inattentive drivers. I'd like to suggest that you keep your eye out for the same thing happening again here.

From my experience I have some intersections on my route that because of their design, create hazards when poor quality drivers are in them. It may take a death for the city to install a traffic light. Don't let it be yours.

Catgrrl70

Yes, this is a poor intersection, the most dangerous one of my commuting route. The good thing is I use it daily so am very, very aware of the problems - which is why I saw her coming and could predict to a good extent what she was going to do (turn left in front of me). This whole roadway is to be "calmed" by DOT in the fall and I believe this intersection is to be signalized (??). In any case, I've complained about this intersection consistently and the BikeWise site is being used for goot things such as reporting to the city too. I will make sure I am involved in that process.

I'm more concerned about the newbies here. If I see them, I will talk with them about crossing there, especially if they seem scared or hesitant to cross.