No one knows for sure, of course, but I think if the cyclist had been riding in the center of the lane for some time as the driver approach, at some point he would have looked up and seen her, and taken notice because she was in the center of his lane. As he got closer, she would have noticed in her rear view mirror that he was about 4-5 seconds back, and then she could have moved aside. But by then he would be aware of her, and more careful not to drift. But with her riding in the bike lane the whole time, any time he looked up as he was approaching her, even if she was visible to him, his subconscious mind would have no reason to bother his conscious mind about her presence, since she was off riding in her lane, outside of his intended path.


A normal level of attention would explain him not being aware of a cyclist up ahead riding in a bike lane for the 10s of seconds, if not minutes, that he was approaching her. Not paying attention for some small number of seconds, 4, 6, 8... would explain why he would have missed seeing her even as he drifted into her.

But not seeing her if she was riding in the center of the lane the whole time he was approaching is something else again.

This occurred in the westbound direction, not eastbound. The driver was looking for the I-280 northbound off-ramp and veered into the bike lane.

The problem isn't bike lanes or no bike lanes, it's incompetent drivers who aren't in control of their vehicle.

I generally see eye to eye with HH on traffic cycling technique, but I see this attempt to catalog a certain type of car/bike crash as pointless at best. I find HH's theory that a cyclist in a bike lane is "out of sight, out of mind" to the motorist to be quite interesting, but when you're looking at a single incident there's so many variables - i.e., you'd never be able to know that the crash wouldn't have happened if there was no bike lane. If someone's going to do a controlled study on the subject, I'd sure be interested in the results. If not, this becomes just another one of those "car hits bike" threads.

A better catchphrase than "out of sight, out of mind" for my hypothesis might be, "out of my intended path, out of my mind"

There was a project here in ohio years ago caled the ohio vally bike web some times refered to as cycle web. What it was was fully seperated bike lanes on major highways. This included extra wide shoulders (10 feet in some areas) bike bridges over off ramps and on ramps or under them as well as bike on and off ramps (ramps never got built as project was axed befor that) There are some signs of the project on highways. Like areas where there is 6 to 10 feet of pavement out side a double gaurd rail. Extensions of the support struts for bridges hanging off the side of bridges out side the guard rail. And many other what drivers consider oddities. If this project had been completed a cyclist could have went nearly any where in ohio or states invulved in the project with out a single worry about being buzzed by a car. The distance between the double gaurd rails was about 4 feet. Big old buffer zone esp when you take in to account cars will be traveling 3 to 5 feet away from the inner gaurd rail to begin with.

The correct phrase would be: Not car, out of my mind.

But that can't be true, or we'd all be hit every day.

My personal experience is that cars do manage to go around me without hitting me. So they must be aware of me.

"I didn't see him".

I contend that "I didn't see him" almost never occurs when the cyclist has been riding up ahead in the driver's path positioned centerish in the lane, and, in the extremely rare case when a motorist might not see the cyclist and continue to approach, when he is within 4-5 seconds the cyclist (monitoring with mirror) can ditch. Works for me, and I've never had to ditch.

In general "I didn't see him" almost always happens when the cyclist's and motorist's paths cross at a single point, or if the cyclist is riding up ahead outside of the motorist's path, like in a bike lane.

Therefore... what, exactly? Stay completely off the roads? What is your recommendation?

Facts man, facts, where are the numbers that show that people riding with a bike lane get hurt more than people without a bike lane? Until we have that this is all just words and fantasies VC or no. My experience shows that drivers are just as stupid to a slow moving traffic lane as they are to a bike lane. If one is riding vehicularly in the bike lane it is no surprise to drivers when the bike smoothly changes lanes to avoid problems in the bike lane. As long as we are taking facts out of context did you know that the majority of children hit by cars were not in the bike lane but were in the MIDDLE of the STREET?

Anyway, I ride VC most of the time, and I use bike lanes. If find different situations require different strategies. If some idiot is weaving all over the road behind me the last thing I want to do is get in front of him, however, most drivers don't weave all over the road, thus most of the time, VC is a good idea.

And I contend it depends completely on the time of day. The only accident I have been in as an adult happened when I was riding in the middle of my lane and a approaching car turned left and t-boned me up onto his hood like a deer. It was morning and the glare blinded him and, guess what? "He just didn't see me".

Well, those pretty yellow lines down the center of most streets seem to prevent most car-on-car head on collisions, and to keep traffic to the right.

That's the truth, ruth.

What you describe, Paul, a left hook, is not what I was talking about. A left hook is a case where the cyclist's and motorist's path meet at a single point (in the intersection), but are otherwise non-coincident. That's exactly when "I didn't see him happens".

What I'm contending is that "I didn't see him" does not happen when the cyclist is riding in the motorist's path for some time, not just at one point as in your example.
In other words, I'm talking about the cyclist and motorist traveling on the same road, in the same lane, for some significant amount of time/distance, with the cyclist ahead of the motorist, and not off to the side and/or in a bike lane. I'm saying in that situation, the "I didn't see him" phenomenon essentially does not happen.

Your statement implies that using a bike lane is necessarily not VC. Is that what you believe?

Nope, just seems like arguments on here imply that. I usually ride to the left most portion of the bike lane and would think this would be a more "VC" way of using a bike lane though as it would theoretically increase visiblity the closer you got to car traffic. It also means if you need to swing out of the bike lane for any reason that your movement will be less severe and will create less of a surprise factor to the motorists behind (and if they have been planning on giving you the 3-5 feet or more of passing clearance that they should they might not even have to swerve when they pass you).

It could be that the likes of your sig foster that opinion... What else would one think upon viewing:

Gene, you're confusing my opposition to the existence of bike lanes with an opposition to the usage of existing bike lanes.

I oppose air pollution too. That doesn't mean I won't use air that has some pollution in it.

I am not confusing anything... I am just reporting what I and others see. If you talk about women in one sentence and in the very next demean red heads, is it not highly likely that someone would then conclude that you don't like redhead women?

You have 4 sentences in your sig, one says check out VC, the very next says bike lanes suck... how could someone not then conclude that VC and bike lanes are in opposition?

Don't blame me for your sig and the conclusions that others may jump to.

Follow the laws and ride to the right. If there is a bike lane, be legal and ride in it.
You're no more visible to others when directly in front of them than when you're a bit to the right. People that pay attention to their driving will see cyclists no matter where they are in the road. This is based on personal experience on the road, where I've had the exact same things happen to me whether I was in the bike lane or out into the lane. YMMV

Motorists should be scanning the road in front of them with their eyes to begin with. Take shoping centers for example. I cant even begin to tell you how many times ive seen shoping carts smashed in to a million pieces on the road in the middle on the side on the side walk etc. Where they have rolled out on to the road i can asure you that the car that hit them was smashed up real good from the hit. I seen one cart get clipped just as it rolled in to the road. The hit peeled the driver side fender back. Yest thats right the cart crossed full lanes of the road in to the drivers path. From the way the carts front end was torn off and up he just barly clipped it while doing 25 30 mph. The driver would never hae hit it had he been scanning the road he could have sweved a tiny bit and sped up a tiny bit and got by with out the hit.He never even tried to break swerve or speed up. Just maintained the line and speed and hit it. Obviously he never seen it. Had he scanned the road with his eyes he would have more than likly missed hitting it.

Its the same thing for alot of hits that are not much more than clippng a cyclists. It could easly be avoided if the driver simply scanned the road in front of him from right to left and back while driving. I ride in silver creek park all the time all roads and parking lots and im always scanning with my eyes ahead of me so i avoid nailing som one on foot or some little kid on their bike. Parents take their kids there to ride the lots because it is safe. And by god i intend to not make it any less safe. So i scan the area infront of me all the time. For a cyclist it also lets us enjoy or ride more as we can adjust our path to avoid hitting ruff areas in the pavement or flat out pot holes. Drivers should do it if for no other reason than to avoid causeing 100s of dolors worth of damge from some small object rolling in to their path.

Disagree with me if you want, but at least disagree with what I am saying, not with something else. If you think that saying that being a bit to the right does not make you significantly less visible, is disagreeing with what I'm saying, then you're not following what I'm saying.

I am not disputing visibility per se. In terms of avoiding the inadvertent drift collision, what's more important than whether you are visible to motorists, is whether they are consciously AWARE of your presence as they are approaching from behind you.

As we all know, a person can look right at someone or something and not be aware of it, no matter how visible, if he's distracted and his subconscious mind does not deem the someone or something worth bringing to the conscious mind's attention.

With that in mind, my contention is that being off to the right, outside of a motorists's intended path, especially if you're separated from that intended path by a stripe, makes the focused/distracted motorist significantly more likely to be unaware of your presence than if you had been traveling in his intended path, and moved aside after riding in his path up ahead for some time made him aware of your presence.

I think you're saying that they are not unaware of us a bit to the right, but notice us and then dismiss us as out of their way? I could at least meet you halfway on that, since my belief is that the motorists we have trouble with are the ones that we'd have trouble with whether we were in the bike lane or right in front of them. These are the motorists that are so zoned that they wouldn't notice us right in the middle of the lane.
I've been right hooked while in the bike lane, and right hooked while taking the lane. There's really no way to say that the ones that did it while I was in the bike lane didn't see me. While taking the lane, the drivers either did the right hook from the left lane, or split the two lanes and still did the right hook.
The stripe really wouldn't have much to do with it, since in a wide right lane I stay a bit to the right of the cars anyway. Veering left and right as I ride is not "holding my line", and is not a good way, to me, to ride. I put it in the same category as going up on the sidealk and back into the street.

I am copying and posting this from the bicyclingadvocacy list at yahoo groups, which was posted today.

It's yet another incident of a cyclist in a bike lane being hit. When drivers treat us as if we're not there when we're in the bike lane it's often because they are not aware that we are there in the bike lane (since they are understandably being more attentive to their intended path). Should they decide to attend to a distraction because they think it's safe to do so at that moment since their intended path is clear, and they drift while attending to the distraction with their eyes off of the road, and there is a cyclist up ahead in the bike lane that they did not notice, well... read on...



Accident Report, Sideswiped by SUV.

I'm OK.

First one since 1989. Over 80,000 miles of incident-free cycling.

North San Diego County.

Sideswiped by a SUV when I was cycling down La Costa Ave toward El Camino
yesterday. Riding my Bachetta Strada recumbent. The tailbox on the back of
the bike took most of the hit. . New Grey Suburban was going over 50, and
it just moved into the bike lane (saw it in the rear view less than a second
before impact). Driver could have been distracted or just a jerk ... Hit
and run.

Police showed up fast (cell phoned 911), I was patched up, and I decided to
ride home so I wouldn¹t get all stiff. Didn¹t get the plate #, but the
Police were great.

Damage to me:

Bruises and some nasty road rash on hip and arm (I was riding at 21 mph when
I hit the pavement). Paramedics checked me out ... No major problems. I
could have had a ride to the Hospital, but I decided to ride home so I
wouldn¹t get all stiff. I've been through this when I used to race bikes
(USCF) and I get locked up if I don't keep moving. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS
TO ANYONE, but it's what I did.

Damage to the bike:

Front tire's sidewall is torn up ... Got home by lowering the air pressure.
One of the tailbox's 3/4" clip that connects the tailbox to the Bachetta's
seat bag adaptor broke, and REI doesn't sell the compatible part anymore.
Even though the Suburban hit the side of the box, the box survived. Need a
new seat cover.

Lesson learned:

"Magic Paint" isn't going to protect you from the distracted driver. I
should have been "Checking 6" more often. Situation awareness and all of
that. Should I have taken the lane? There was a decently wide bike lane in
this case. Still, having the tail box get hit and being clipped into the
pedals made the fall less traumatic.

There's a device called "DriverCam" made in San Diego that records the last
30 seconds on video before and after an accident (yes, it's a very clever
flash-memory based "circular buffer"). I know the folks who make this, I'd
love to have one for the bike. Get that plate # and all of that.

Is there some evidence that motorists 'inadvertantly drift' into bike lanes more than, say, the adjacent traffic lane? I didn't think so. Nothing new to see here, same old mindless anti-bike lane bulltwinkle.