His mirror hit me above the kidney and right on the rib cage/scapula. The bike is relatively unscathed. In fact if I had fallen I would have been ecstatic about the damage. A small scratch on the SRAM Red shifter (left side) and some dinged bar tape. The real damage was to my Cobb saddle...and if you can believe this the bike club that embraced me in Tyler has a member that is a big wig at Cobb and they already shipped me a new one. Exceptional people and customer support there.:thumb:

Camera only...the mirrors have always been a distraction to me...but I think I may try that again.

GoPro3 Silver set at 1080 30fps. You can record at 60fps but it burns up the battery quicker.

Very good ideal.

When you get buzzed like that, note the vehicle number and company name or the tag number, the date, time and location.
Call your local police non-emergency number to find out how to make a formal complaint of dangerous or careless driving. Commercial vehicle operators know exactly who is operating which vehicle on what day and at what time, and they often do not like getting reports like this, see a bus is essentially a 40' long rolling billboard for the company, and if drivers are acting poorly in traffic, that can cost them business.

1. Glad your okay
2. tl;dr- made it to like the 5th post or so
3. Just in case you haven't been made aware yet- http://www.bikeforums.net/advocacy-s...bers-read.html

I don't know if I've been intentionally buzzed or not, but I've had some that were a tad suspect. And I've had the usual yahoo's who like to yell or blow their horns when just about to overtake. But I've never been able to read a license/tag number off the vehicle. A bus or commercial truck might be a bit easier (to get the company name and/or "unit" number). I suppose a pair of cameras would be a big help. How much do they weigh?

Metric Man: so glad it wasn't any worse. Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

Regards, Dick

Holy crap. So unlucky to get hit, so lucky it wasn't worse. :eek:

Definitely see an attorney. Definitely minimize the internet chit chat about it until it is resolved.

Speedy recovery to you!

The VIRB and GoPro are about 6.35 oz each.

I'm partial to these and have them on several of my bikes.

Sprintech Drop Bar mirror

or

Sprintech Amazon link

"Might"? No might involved. With the extent of your injuries, you should open a claim with his insurer. You probably won't have to bring a civil suit in court. Broken bones and ribs, along with a collapsed lung, you're looking at a nice pain and suffering award on top of your medical expenses, and any lost wages if you were out of work.

As far as posting about it goes, the insurance company will be bound by the police's accident report and your Go Pro footage. They aren't in a position to dispute liability. You were struck from behind, and a driver is almost always responsible for striking a vehicle of any kind, or a pedestrian, from the rear. The only issue here is damages, and I wouldn't post anything about how you feel, or anything about the nature of your injuries beyond what you said already. Your hospital and follow up records will also speak for themselves, but there is the issue of pain and suffering. And don't speak to any adjusters. If one contacts you, tell them that you are represented by an attorney. That should end the conversation right then and there. Let your lawyer handle the demand for damages.

First - what a video! It is morbidly fascinating and horrible. Metric Man: I wish you the best for recovery and hope you're riding again soon, with little or no paranoia.

I'd like to preface my question with the statement that I am in NO WAY faulting the cyclist for anything. I'm wondering though if people tend to ride close to the white line? That seemed to be a broad, clean shoulder. I tend to ride closer to the middle or even edge of the shoulder assuming it is relatively clear of debris. Ideally, I'd like the high speed traffic to be able to pass me w/ 3 feet of clearance without drifting over the striped center line of the highway. If I'm close to the white line, they either have to pass closer than that, or move out of their lane - I don't like making anyone do that if not necessary. (If necessary, I don't mind making them do it!)

A lot of time, the further you get from the white line, the more crap is on the shoulder, so you have to ride closer to the white line, so it's not a cut and dried thing for me or anyone.

I don't want OP to respond to this because I in no way want it to be an issue in this. But I'm wondering where other riders default to - closer to the edge of the shoulder or closer to the white line.... and why.

I'm lucky that most of the highway riding I do is on a shoulder with rumble strips. I think they tend to keep the drivers from drifting inadvertently and also give me a heads up when someone is drifting -although in my opinion, there's little or no chance of changing my line to avoid being hit from behind, even with visual (mirror) or audible (rumble strips) warning.

All my best to you Metric Man. Don't take my question as a fault, just genuine curiosity about riding habits.

>>Did you have a rear view mirror? Or just the camera?


>Camera only...the mirrors have always been a distraction to me...but I think I may try that again.

I ride in that situation (along the highway) very frequently and I have a helmet mirror, but I rarely check to watch a car approach me. It would be a different experience if I checked each when I heard it coming, and I just don't do it.

Sometimes I'll look back (with the mirror) if I hear a big truck coming, and sometimes I listen to hear if the vehicle changes lanes (the tires make noise as they go over the raised lane markers), but I have to admit that I'm usually oblivious to the cars. I ride on road like that about two hours per week.

Thanks for posting it.

With yahoos, it's not worth pursuing, with COMMERCIAL vehicles, it's different, operators should be trained better, and more aware of the size of their vehicle. I get passed by transit (TTC) buses ALL the time, and drivers always change lanes, and if they can't change lanes, they slow right down and stay behind.


Cameras range from small to tiny, and their capture capability is always getting better. Just thinking, I wonder if a great unit would be a bicycle computer that has a 4" diagonal screen where a pair of micro cameras can be plugged into it. One camera faces forwards, one backwards, and the screen shows the rear video feed with the computer display overlaying it, with the ability to record the video feeds to an SD card. Cameras in that case could be much smaller, not much bigger then a watch battery.

That is for sure, but at the very least, it takes most of the guess work out what type of vehicle, color, and who possibly was at fault for the collision. There was one very rare occurrence that a cyclist's hi def front camera caught a motorist's rear plate as the cyclist was crashing to the ground, leading to the motorist's arrest for hit and run.

I think target fixation is a graduation movement toward the subject. often on a straight line course. he came around that bend and pretty much as soon as you were in sight he turned deliberately toward to you. there's no doubt in my mind and i would find the bastard quilyty in a heartbeat.

My deepest regrets and wishes for an excellent recovery.

When my son was critically injured in 1986, one of the first things we did was to contact an attorney. A civil suit was filed. 11 years later we settled, after two trips to the LA Supreme Court, etc.

Keep in mind that you may have the effects of this injury for some time to come, even lifetime. Your expenses may not just be limited to the hospital bills. There may be psychological effects such as future fears of bicycle riding and even PTSD. And it may take some time for these to show up.

Don't be in a hurry to settle, no matter how large the check is that they wave in front of you.

And, everything you write in these forums will find their way into discovery and a trial, if there is a trial.

Best of luck.

Motor vehicles are limited to 8.5 feet in width without an oversize permit. Lanes are at least 10 feet wide on highways and IIRC 12' wide on interstates. If the cyclist is 1 foot from the white line and the vehicle is 6" from the lane divider line that is at least 4 feet.

Metric Man hope you quickly heal and are able to put this behind you.

Thanks - I'd never thought it through that far. I didn't realize there was that much clearance between the white line and a legal vehicle within the traffic lane. I certainly ride right near to the white line whenever the condition of the shoulder debris warrants it, which probably is more often than not. Sometimes in the traffic lane to avoid debris, although I really don't like doing that on a 50+ mph road regardless of how far back I can see.

If this motorist is thought to be deliberately endangering cyclists by making close passes, hopefully an attorney can possibly find some complaints lodged against this person for making close passes. Though, if the police are trying to cover for this person, trying to find any lodged complaints may be difficult.

My insurance agent, also a bike rider gave me a third eye mirror, laid in the box for a while. Decided to try it, now don't ride without it! I often ride on four lane highway and as far away from the fog line as possible.
A camera can only tell you what happened after the fact, a mirror may give you a heads up to avoid a possible disaster.
Heal quickly, best of luck with getting compensated.

Not diminishing the value of using a mirror, but I don't believe it would've helped in this case.

Frightening vid. Good luck with your recovery.

I do.

Thats a wide shoulder. No way he couldn't have stayed in his lane and missed you.

I wouldn't ride without a mirror. IMHO, It most definitely would have helped if he had been watching the traffic. But eyeballing every single car on a road like that is easier said than done, and with a shoulder that wide, I'm not sure I'd have been doing so.

Damn, that truck was huge. <shiver>

Why would the local police want to cover for this idiot... Eventually someone will die, and a smart lawyer will find out the local cops failed to stop this joker, and the local police will get sued for enough to put the town/city into bankruptcy.

I wonder why the article doesn't mention the obvious question ... was the driver distracted by a cellphone or something else? My guess is that he was.

Why aren't the police investigating that? It would be easy enough to confirm or refute by subpoenaing the guy's cellphone records. And if so, the DA charge him with reckless driving w/serious injury.

Out of town cyclist vs. local prominent business man, if this city's good ol' boy network is like mine, I can see local law enforcement dragging their feet and making things difficult, though not unobtainable.

In one prominent bicycle/vehicle collision case in my state, charges would not have been brought forth to one motorist if a cycling advocate had not remembered a previous complaint filed a year earlier, since law enforcement had inadvertently failed to bring it to light.

Added: "The police chief says that this was not an intentional act."

http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/...ing-after-that

Wow, I'm glad you had this on camera, I'm glad you are alive, wow. Quite a video.