Car Turns Right, Right in Front of Me
 

I was riding home the other day and a car with two teenage girls went past me and then immediately took a right turn in front of me. Fortunately she did signal and I didn’t crash but I had to jump on the brakes pretty hard to avoid their car. It was an OK road with a nice bike lane. I waved my arms at the driver in frustration but I’m wondering now if anyone knows the actual law (I’m in Oregon if the laws vary much).

It seems to me what she did was wrong but I assume there must be some grey area. If she was several hundred yards ahead and signaled a right then I assume it would be my responsibility to slow down and allow her to make her turn? Maybe not, in that case is the drive supposed to wait for the cyclist to pass on the right side before making their turn? Can anyone quote the law?

Thanks, Scott

Cyclists have the same rights of way as cars. So cars are NOT suppose to make a right turn in front of another car! I actually had someone do this to me...while I was in my car! She had an SUV and she just dragged my car up against the curb as she made a right turn into a gas station directly in front of me! Her insurance paid up.

I've had many cars make right turns in front of me while on my bike. But there has been enough time for them to make their turn...so far so good. I have had a few cars make a left turns in front of me. Boy that pissed me off! In those incidents times their drivers were looking straight at me and just swerved left anyways. I had to swerve on my binders hard to avoid hitting them! One time, I was coming downhill and was doing 35+ mph! I wanted to kill that biotch! How much difference does it take to wait 5 more seconds instead of going now and possibly killing someone? Some people are so self-absorbed and selfish, it is unbelievable what they are willing to risk simply because they can't wait!

...yeah, but when you're a cyclist, this is a "dog bites man" story: it happens so often that it's just not all that remarkable. Many drivers either underestimate the speed of a bicycle or overestimate the speed at which they can take the turn (so they think they will have plenty of time to pass you and turn), or they've got the patience of a cranky two-year-old and they can't bear to wait behind you, or both. Particularly with a younger driver, lack of experience is likely to be a factor. You can fume and steam about your right of way all you want, but unless you want to constantly be panic-stopping (if not fixing your bicycle, picking gravel out of your scrapes, and calling insurance companies), you'll view this as a fairly likely occurrence when a car passes you close to an intersection.

Congratulations, you have experienced the classic "Right Hook". It's wrong and dangerous. A responsible driver would have waited the extra 15 seconds for you to pass, then made the right turn.

Here in WA State, the general rule is:

RCW 46.61.310
(1) No person shall turn a vehicle or move right or left upon a roadway unless and until such movement can be made with reasonable safety nor without giving an appropriate signal in the manner hereinafter provided.

There are more specific rules on how far advance a turn must be signaled, etc. etc. Oregon has similiar laws - I am sure a quick search will bring them to forward to you.

Interesting article here.. has mention of OR bike laws

http://www.sfbike.org/?bikelane_right_turns

i actually witnessed a cop giving a ticket to a driver for doing this the other day on my commute in to work. As I rode by, I couldn't help but smile a little.

I tend to expect it though, because boston has some of the WORST drivers i've ever seen. Even in my car I expect to get right hooked by some yahoo cutting over a lane of traffic to make a turn down a street. The people here just don't seem to care if there's anything in their way.

This.

It happens so often that I hardly even mention it in the "How Was The Commute Today?" thread anymore. Keep your head up and expect drivers to do moronic things.

I always thought a right hook was when they turned right into you...not in front of you.

Bike lanes are usually dotted at intersections because drivers are supposed to merge into them at intersections in order to turn right from the rightmost part of the roadway. Of course if the cyclist is too close for them to do this safely they must wait.

Once the car is waiting to turn right, the cyclist can either slow and wait behind them for them to make their turn, or pass them on the left.

Take a bit more lane and be more mindful of your surroundings.

Here is where law gets a bit tricky. In Oregon I believe the laws are such that a motorist is supposed to look and not cross a BL line if a cyclist is in the BL and approaching. In most of the other states, a motorist is supposed to look and merge into the BL much like a motorist would look and merge into any other lane in a similar move. In any case motorists are supposed to look first, before lateral moves.

Now that said, motorists rarely look in the right mirror when they are in the right lane... so if there is any chance for a motorist to turn right while you approaching... you should take caution and either slow down, or back off or do whatever it takes to stay out of harms way. One thing to do is as you approach a potential right turn, you look first and move left. Of course this is a bit difficult if the area is one business driveway after another, and if you end up having to take a lane along one of those 50MPH streets lined with strip mall after strip mall that can be a hassle as motorist after motorist honks and announces their displeasure... after all you have a bike lane. :rolleyes:

Now the other issue here is that since the motorist often has come up from behind you... they should have seen you and planned ahead for their turn and you being on the right. That never happens... :eek: Motorists just don't see cyclists.

Now you indicated that she signaled... so you had warning... were you trying to pass her? Not a good move.

So again, don't be where a motorist can hit you... avoid passing on the right, move left when approaching a right turn... take a lane when it is one driveway after another... and above all, keep your head moving and looking for cars, cause drivers won't look for you.

The law is on your side, but that never stopped a "right hook" collision yet. Oh and sadly, motorists will make right turns from the next lane over... :twitchy:

Wow, beautiful site; great video demonstrations of how it is supposed to work.

Now if there were only some way to get motorists to understand this.

Well, it happens more often than not to cyclists. What's worse is if they stop completely during the turn and block your lane...cars in the next lane will be going too fast for one to go around that way as an emergency maneuver. Can't count the number of times I did extreme brake testing because of drivers like that.

this is basically a right hook, but at least the driver managed to get past the OP before turning right, I can almost understand the thinking in that case. It's the ones that start turning right even though they should realize you are beside them that make me wonder how they survive a drive down the block.

IMO, if they pass you then turn right soon enough to make you hit your brakes, they're in the wrong. I don't know about the law, that's just my opinion.

It doesn't happen much to me, but for some reason it happened to me twice in one ride last week; car passed me, then signalled a right turn. I think they saw me and realized they'd be hitting me if they turned, so they were waiting, but I wasn't going to bet my life that I was reading them right, so I braked, cut behind them and passed them on the left.

This has a nice summary of ways cyclists get in accidents.

http://bicyclesafe.com/

One thing I find that seems to work is to move a bit to the left, positioning yourself further into the lane, when approaching intersections where this is likely to occur (remembering that it's a commute you do every day, or frequently enough that you get to know the dangers for every inch of road), so as to force the motorist to go around you, BEFORE they attempt to move into your right-of-way and make the turn.

In my experience, this almost always works to make the motorist wait to turn after you have passed into the intersection.

In NYC, the bike lanes are not stripped at the intersection, but any experienced NYC rider KNOWS that a car will take the bike lane to make the turn.

Getting a motorist to look and see that there's a bike in either the same lane of traffic, or in the bike lane is an impossible task. As example, I played leap-frog with a Pathfinder 2 weeks ago, catching him at the lights, passing, then having him pass me, then me catching again, for a mile or so. He then proceeded to pass me and hook me as he parked at the curb. As is window was rolled down I stopped and politley asked him why he almost hit me and he quiet innocently told me he didn't see me. Yeah Right !. I almost washed his eyes out with a squirt of Gatorade, but decided why bother (besides the fact that it's called Assault).

SB

It happens to me, but only occasionally - lane positioning and riding pace (even in a bike lane) can help avoid it. Oddly, maintaining a high cadence also seems to help - the only times recently that I've had a close call with a right hook were when I was tired, and when I'm tired I tend to mash instead of spin. My hypothesis is that, when your legs are moving fast, drivers tend to think you're moving fast, regardless of whether you're in your lowest gear or not. :)

It can be very difficult for a driver to judge a cyclist's pace, though - I had an eye-opening experience a couple of weeks ago when I was driving and passed a cyclist not too far from my turn. He was going faster than I'd expected, and I ended up having to go to the next turnoff so that I didn't turn too close in front of him. I felt like an idiot, but at least I didn't run into him or force him to make emergency evasive maneuvers.

Part of my commute is prone to similar issues. I'm *always* watching the cars around me. And co workers think I am crazy for riding with 50 mph traffic on a limited access road with a bike like wide enough for a car.

Another dangerous situation is passing cars waiting at a red light and then the light turns green. People don't look for bikes and can easily end up cutting you off. If every driver used blinkers, cyclists could be more proactive.

You must understand the "right hook" from the drivers perspective. Any object (cyclist included) traveling on the road going slower than the driver is actually stationary and therefore not moving at all. So once they pass you, you are no longer a concern and they can just go ahead and turn. Its like passing a park bench.

This is also why drivers are so desperate to get by slower traffic. The traffic isn't slower its stopped altogether (in the drivers' mind) and who in their right mind would sit behind a stopped car or cyclist. You simply must put all lives at risk to get around this parked vehicle at once.

Now that you know how a driver thinks, you can safely share the road with them as you know what to expect from them.....insanity.

^^ The zen of riding in traffic in a nutshell. :beer:

When someone makes a right into you or just in front of you, it is a right hook...but the judges only give points to the driver if he/she hits you. I think they get extra points based upon how many feet you are thrown, while the cyclist can get points for style, number of full gainers and sticking the landing.

More accurately, drivers are used to passing objects that, whether stationary or moving, will not then overtake and pass them on the right. If a car passes another car, that second car must be behind the first car, and doesn't need to be a concern if the driver of the first car is going to turn right. It's bozo behavior for a driver to pass another driver and then immediately turn right, and in extreme situations they may get rear-ended for it, but they don't have to worry about crossing space (what space?) where the second car would be driving if it were continuing straight ahead.

(It's kind of pointless to pretend that every driver drops acid and loses 50 IQ points every time they get behind the wheel -- it may satisfy some cyclists' need to look down on drivers, but it's dishonest. Understanding how drivers' minds really work makes you safer; characterizing drivers as completely irrational morons only makes you irritatingly smug -- and possibly dead to boot.)