High Energy Minivan Collision - still smiling
 

I'm taking 65% of the fault, cause I knew it was coming. The story...

Lovely day, blue sky, moderate biking temperature for the morning ride into
campus. Typical spring day, except a great constant tailwind around 20mph.
Gives me the option to really fly down the road. I was cycling around 25-30mph
down a wide 50mph (car speed limit) roadway with very wide shoulders. (Typically,
my daily speed down the road is around 15-18mph)

Having a great time. Start to approach first intersection as the roadway narrows while
noticing a minivan come up behind me. I assessed the situation and decided they will
probably jump around me and slow up to make a right hand turn at the stop light
(I was getting ready for the "right hook" scenario). I start to slow as they do exactly
that, but the light is green, they do not signal, so I (stupidly) *hesitated* applying full
brake pressure. The light turns red, I brake more, they then (of coarse) decide to turn
at that moment because they get caught at light (people do this often at this intersection
- they are originally going straight through but the light will change and they will suddenly
turn right because either direction gets them downtown).

Does that make sense?

Here I come, braking full, but not enough room. Again, I knew it was coming, so my
hesitation is really to blame here. I ran into the back right side of the minivan probably around 18mph.

Lowered my left should, put my helmet down....--Bam-- strangely a somwhat gentle
hard stop.

I untangle from bike and minivan as they have not completed the right hand turn (cross
traffic). I step to side of road expecting to offer up a "mea culpa" to said minivan driver,
but, they proceed on as if nothing has happened.

Dumbfounded :twitchy:, but noticing no damage to myself, bike, or minivan as they pull away...
I ponder a moment what to do? Another Minivan witnessing all this from behind pulls up
next to me and asked, "Hey, you okay? That looked vicious!"

assessing.... assessing.... assessing...... "Yeah, I'm fine! - Thanks!"

I proceeded on to work. Taught my class, gave the exam.

All seems okay.

Go figure.

It is still a beautiful spring day. :o

Dr. Joe

Glad you're OK.

If there was space behind the minivan, a lot of the time I'll take the lane in that situation, expecting to clear the (assumed) right-turning vehicle on its left. A lot of the time there's enough space since any car behind the van would have slowed down--because the van slowed down and the car behind has to do the same, if there's one there. There's normally enough space to slip into the lane a second, especially since by this point you're at least going as fast as traffic.

If you're right about them turning, you can slip by on their left, in the same lane. If you do it fast you get to slip by when they've only just started the turn and there's only a couple extra feet of lane so no other car's going to try to fit in it. If you're wrong about them turning and they speed up, then just hop back over to the right. If you're wrong about them turning but they're still going slow (maybe searching for a driveway?), then you've already committed to the pass so I'd still pass them on the left probably, sprinting hard to get out in front of the van. Or I might jam on the brakes--depends on the relative speeds.

Thinking about it, honestly in that situation I usually am slowing down assuming the turn is going to happen. Then they stop, because they usually see me, and I stop, because I can't be *sure* they've seen me, or are not going to go, and I often can't see the driver (tinted windows, etc). Unfortunately I don't like causing a snarl but I'm really averse to passing traffic on the right.

"High-energy collision"... :lol: So CERN's new collider is actually an enormous velodrome!
The minivan just drove off, eh? Is it possible that the driver didn't detect the impact?

With any luck you left a dent or something broken. Too bad you got no plate number. Hit and run is a felony, regardless of fault.

When I read the title, I thought two minivans collided.

LOL, is it possible that driver was distracted to some degree :D You might have been much worse off being in front of that vehicle.

You're lucky though that you didn't get hurt, break your bike or got sued by the owner. On a second thought, maybe it was someone without a drivers license so they preferred to get the hell outta there?

They didn't signal a turn.
Did you both enter the intersection on a red light? (No mention of yellow in your account).
They were guilty of hit-and-run. (Leaving the scene.)

This is why I try to take the lane whenever I roll through lighted intersections. Cars me behind can't pass and hook, and all I have to worry about is watching the brake lights of the car in front of me.

Driver: What was that thump?
Passenger: I think it was a Higgs-Boson colliding with your van!
Driver: Bah, doesn't exist. *continues driving*

Nice. :D

..just a brief comment....

I did take the lane the right one of two in that direction. The minivan went into the other lane and around me and back in front of me as the intersection approached. The light goes from green to red quickly (very brief yellow).

The more I run this in my mind, the more it was really me going too fast into the intersection, not slowing enough to "be ready"
for all the potential scenarios that I prepare for with this particular spot. I was "spring time daydreaming."

I'm feeling stoooopid.

Regardless, I think there is no way they didn't notice the 3.5 TeV collision as many stranglets were created. Why did the minivan
continue? I stopped (obviously) and was going to check everything including the minivan. Oh well.

Live and learn (big stress on the "live" part there). - Need to pay attention - I got a bit lazy.

Dr. Joe

Am I reading this wrong or did you attempt a right turn without stopping at a red light? If so, I'd say that not stopping rather than hesitating was your mistake.

I don't mean to be judgmental here, but that would be my suggestion for future safety. Yellow lights freak me out because I know there are drivers who will come flying up to make a right turn before it turns red. Consequently, I generally stop at yellow lights too.


Edit: I just re-read it. It sounds like I misunderstood before and that you hesitated before braking rather than hesitating before turning. In that case, this sounds like a standard right hook where the driver simply failed to yield. I would assign 100% of the blame to the driver in that case, even while acknowledging that we as cyclists need to watch out for ourselves and do what we can to avoid these things.

Glad you weren't hurt, apparently. However, are you sure you didn't injure anything? If you hit the van going 18-20 mph, it's hard to believe you didn't hurt something.

Most importantly - was your bike OK?

I got right hooked by a young girl and as I slammed on the breaks my bike went out from under me and under her car. As she was running over my front tire I thought, "OMG this is going to terrify her!". So I jumped up to show her I was OK and she never looked back and kept on going. I picked my bike up and just started walking.

yes and no. It was green as we all entered the intersection. It appeared minivan was going straight, I was to make a right turn. Light changed quickly. We then all met at same location with a boom.

I've already mentioned that I am taking the blame on this one. -DOH!-

thanks for sharing. the more collision reports we hear, the better. glad you are OK.

Being a classically trained astrophysicist my cat like reflexes allowed me to put as much body in contact
with as much area of the back of the minivan as possible, thus spreading out the impact forces evenly and
with much less impulse and bruising.

-or- I got plum lucky.

Bike does have a paint scratch on front fork and back fender clasp is busted where my foot rebounded into it.

Time for the ride home! - slowly- I'm not sure of the front rim.

Dr. Joe

"Blame" is not as useful as a concept for these situations, folks. Here's the way I see it. I try to prevent every accident I can. Many situations I'm in, the blame could be said to be on the other party--right hooks, someone else running a red, whatever. Is it my "fault" if I get hit by someone clearly acting dangerously/illegally? I suppose it depends on your definition of fault, but I figure that a lot of that stuff is preventable even if it's not my fault in a legal sense. I don't think "I could have avoided it" means "it was my fault". It's like getting assaulted--it's not your fault if you got attacked wandering around in a sketchy area, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been avoided.

Yes, we have rights, and they include not getting right hooked. But the rights themselves don't completely prevent me from getting run over. Only I can do that (to the extent I can).

I'm glad everything is fine. This kind of remind me of something stupid I did...

I was on my SS mountain bike around campus. I was sitting behind a car, not really paying attention much to the car, but to the nice weather. I was waiting for them to turn left so I could go straight when I thought they started turning. Turns out they had just moved up a bit and I biked into the back of their car. It was under 5 mph, but I noticed they stopped talking and looked back. I started looking around pretending like nothing happened.

After they pulled away I noticed some dirt or black rubber on their white car. Oops!

Glad to hear you are ok. Just want to remind you to replace the helmet if you think it may have made contact with anything. The EPS compresses and is only "good" for one impact.

If you slammed into the car with your left shoulder and hands on the bars you might want to get your left AC checked out... I'm sure the motorist figured it was a hit and run type deal.

You know this already, but don't run green's.