Must apologize to all of bikerdom
 

It would be ironic if some day I killed a biker with my car, but yesterday afternoon I almost did. I was stopped on a busy street to make a left turn onto a quieter residential street. I was facing west into the sun, oncoming traffic was heavy and coming down a hill. I was looking for an opening and not seeing one for some distance. I decided to go through an opening that was small, but not impossible to get through.

I started the left turn, and my daughter cried, "Dad, a bike." I stopped and looked frantically. In the available seconds before the oncoming cars would be upon me, I realized that I couldn't stay where I was. Try as I might, I couldn't see a bike. So I gunned it and made the turn. As I was finishing the turn I saw him out of the right-side windows, coming down the hill at high speed, right out of the sun. He passed behind me, but it must have been very close.

I sat around for a while afterwards trying to abstract out of that episode some general principle to remember so it wouldn't happen again. For a driver, I think it is, don't go into any situation where there are only seconds to complete some maneuver. Just being in such a situation puts one in an addled state of mind, and it requires one to try to process more data than one might be able to process in the available time, and leaves no extra time to make any changes if the decision or maneuver turns out to be the wrong one. In addition, one should always be wondering what the current traffic situation might be hiding; what might be behind a truck, coming out of an alley, coming from the rear on the right or wrong side, or coming out of the sun.

For a biker, we should be alert to what conditions might contribute to making us invisible. Drivers still don't expect to see bikers on busy streets, even if they are generally more sensitive to their presence. It is almost like a trained reflex--streets are for cars. A low sun hides one from anyone looking at one from an angle that requires looking into the sun. A large truck at an intersection could have pleasant surprises waiting on the other side.

So now that I have amost killed each of my kids once while operating a motor vehicle, I'm glad I could ride to work today. Every day, I feel safer on a bike, and less safe in a car.

I ride west in the morning and east at night, so if the sun's out, its always behind me. That makes it easy to remember for me.

Otherwise, my rule of thumb is tha if I can see my shadow in front of me, I'm invisible.

If there were so many cars coming the other way that you could barely squeeze by, IMO perhaps the cyclist was going too fast to safely navigate the intersection especially if the cyclist was passing cars. It's a solid recipe for a right hook if not the left cross you almost put on him. OTOH, could you have been more patient before trying to squeeze through?

On my regular cycling routes, I generally think out where the sun will be when I ride and generally stay away from the busier ones if I am riding into the sun. Of course, on a commute it is less easy to do this but I am fortunate in being able to use either trails or low speed roads to get to my job.

The main thing is that no one was hurt and you are going over what went wrong in your head.

Oh, yes, I definitely consider it my fault. I just didn't realize, AT THE TIME, that I was making an error. That is why I was so eager to analyze it, so that in the future I can recognize a situation when I am about to make an error, and then not make it. If the biker had hit me, I suppose it would have been my fault for not yielding the right of way. Remorse, vast amounts of paperwork, multi-million dollar lawsuits.

My regular commute was a high speed multi lane road with wide shoulder. Obviously I rode the shoulder and rush hour riding at certain locations meant I was passing long lines of cars. I learned to always be aware of any gaps that opened up ... ESPECIALLY at any cross roads/parking lots because often it was to let people turning left accross and the person tuning often could not see a bike. Simular issue was people pulling onto the shoulder early to get around the traffic to make a right turn. I learned to ride defensively and be aware of those situations. I felt the onus was on me cause there were situations where someone working through traffic like the OP truely would not have been able to see a cyclist until it was too late.