LOL - I think that the whistle is effective due to it's more directional sound, so the driver looks, then reacts.

Illegal here because they annoyed motorists.

OK, where did you see that? Is it available? It looks exactly like what I'm thinking of doing myself - taking aftermarket car air horns, ditching the 12v compressor and using a pressure bottle and valve. But if I can just buy it I'd rather do that than wasting time doing it myself.

Airzound fans need not respond - I have one and they don't work in cold temps - I'm hoping one made for cars will.

EDIT: never mind, found it. It's using a plunger. MAYBE OK I guess. Pretty huge ugly thing to put on my dashboard though.

Riding my whole life, commuting seriously over 22 years, with mirrors and Airzound Air Horns. Haven't been hit yet, but a few close calls, most from just not seeing the vehicle; sometimes it was hidden behind a larger one, sometimes it was going too fast to have been seen in the last scan and sometimes, just inexplicable.

The cab drivers in NYC are so inconsiderate I put a car alarm on my bike and hold down the button half the time im riding

Where is pdx? (ie where are you)

The last few seconds before I was hit? I remember thinking "Why the hell are you turning?!", and "NO NO NO NO NO!"

I remember coming to with a bro-tanked guy standing over me yelling" Dude, are you okay?", and scrambling to get out of the road thinking that traffic wasn't going to stop. The funny thing about that route that I took that day was that I had planned it out using Google Maps and county traffic data to be a safer route home, and then that happened. Having almost a decade in EMS, I assessed myself, and while someone was calling 911, I called my wife. It took me three trys to convince her I had been involved in a collision because of my tone of voice and behavior. I guess I flipped that emergency management switch.

"I can beat that yellow light, and if I don't, there's no way the taxi with the driver staring at the light, ignoring me, gunning the engine, will actually hit me..."

If I had a burrito as delicious-sounding as yours, I too might be sufficiently distracted engorging myself to notice the bus barreling down upon me.

The driver just darted left across 4 lanes into me.

From the OP:

I lost track of this thread for a while, but I just read through all the new responses that have come in since I last checked.

So I gather that you can't possibly be prepared enough for all the things that can go wrong. I suppose I'll have to just make sure my life insurance policy is always up-to-date.

Are you serious? Is it really news to you that you can't be prepared for every possibility?

I gather you were being facetious. So was I.

In all seriousness, I started this thread at a time when I wasn't sure if I was feeling vulnerable or immortal out there on the road. I'd been reading so much about people being clipped, doored, mailboxed, and every other imaginable thing, yet I felt so far from the slightest possibility of getting hit on my bike. I was wondering if there was some minor detail about the way I was approaching the road that might make the difference between life and death some fateful day, and it turns out a lot of the people who have had unfortunate meetups with automobiles were just riding along, doing the right thing, as I feel I am always doing.

Scary...

Might as well throw in my closest call. I've never been hit and only crashed once (not counting numerous mountain bike crashes as a kid). I get swiped/brushed about once or twice a month but I've never gone down because of it as I leave plenty of "oh ****" space on my right. Anyway, the one close call happened at this intersection. I had been waiting at the red light to travel northbound across the larger street. When the light changed I began moving forward into the intersection while clipping in my left foot. I remember that I had kind of missed the pedal and was a bit distracted getting my foot in the right place. There was a pickup oncoming and I had a feeling he might turn without signalling and hit me with a left cross, so I was watching him pretty intently. Unfortunately, from my left a car was running the red light (traveling eastward). Since I was focused on the oncoming pickup I didn't notice the car until it was within 10 feet of me. I immediately turned hard to the right and put full back-pressure on my right pedal (this is a fixed gear bike), I didn't even try to touch the brakes, which basically resulted in a insta-trackstand and some slight redirection of my momentum to the right. The car continued through the red and missed the left side of my handlebars by inches. The elderly woman driving it didn't not seem aware at all that she almost hit me, nor that she ran the red light. I came away with a few takeaways:

- I'm really glad I didn't look down at my foot to see why I wasn't clipping in, I probably wouldn't have seen the woman run the red in time to do anything about it.
- I think if I had gone for the brakes I also would've tried to brake in a straight line and would've been hit. I'm not sure why I didn't try to use them, but I'm glad I didn't.
- Possibly the most important lesson learned was not to focus so much on one potential threat that I ignore others. Even if that truck had tried to left cross I had more options for avoidance than I had with somebody running the red. I focused too much on the lesser threat.

>>>I remember that I had kind of missed the pedal and was a bit distracted getting my foot in the right place.<<<<

tx, you bring up a good point. I ride with old-fashioned mountain bike toe cages on my pedals. I've tried riding without them, but after so many years, it just feels like I'm riding naked. However, the few times I've come close to an "oh sh-t!" situation have always involved missing the cage when starting up at an intersection. Given that it only takes a second to put yourself in a dangerous situation, I wonder if, maybe, these clunky things on my pedals are a bad idea for anything but mountain biking.

The nature of risk is that we don't know exactly what will happen, and we don't know the exact likelihood of anything. The best way to mitigate risk is to take what we decide to be reasonable precautions. To be reasonable, the cost of the precaution must be less than the incident you are trying to prevent. When you think about it (too hard), everything is fraught with risk. It's best not to lose sleep over anything. Decide what precautions are reasonable, and do your best to practice them. Know that you will sometimes mess up, and when you do, do your best to forgive yourself, because you are not perfect. Do not feel that your current practices are sufficient to avoid all unforeseen things, because this is arrogance and will lead to disaster. Frequently reevaluate your practices, and work to improve them, because there is always room to improve them.

I wasn't being facetious at all, because your question seemed serious, and it surprised me.

Nah. My comment was totally tongue-in-cheek, sort of a "duuuuhhhhh!" remark, re-stating the obvious. But your well-thought-out, perfectly structured reply above seems like a great way to close this thread.

Thanks. Maybe guys with great names think alike.

Well, it finally happened to me this morning after only a year of regular commuting.

https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...r-compact.html

The few second before impact, my thought was to provide enough clearance to avoid being doored. My thoughts before impact when the car pulled out were "there is no way I can avoid this car and I'm going for a ride".

The only part that's hurting is my right heel/calf. I was clipped in so I must have strained my Achilles somehow.