Helmet Head

Again, by the anything is possible principle, I recognize that this is possible. But it's hard to believe.

How do you know she did not look? How do you know she did not drive out of the alley until the back of her car was even with left sides of the bookending vans? How do you know what her sight lines would have been from there? How do you know they would not have been good enough to see far enough? How do you know she did not inch out a bit, far enough to see that 3 feet to the right of the stripe was clear for a ways, before she gunned it, while you were ogling the babe and you just didn't notice that she did that? How do you know she did not look well enough to have clear a leftish position, but not a rightish position in the bike lane?

Edit: In all likelihood, after cutting out the way she did and being smashed into by a cyclist she did not see, she could have easily convinced herself that she pulled out without looking first, even though she had. People do things all day instinctively without really thinking about it, and driving is no different. She could very well have pulled out just far enough to see just far enough to see there were no cars coming close enough to make it safe to quickly pull out, and gunned it, surprised by your sudden smashing into her as much as you were surprised by her "sudden" pulling out. How do you know this is not what happened? Why do you believe that she just blindly pulled out and was not hit by a car or truck due to sheer luck?

Also, either she does this regularly because she lives or works down that alley, or this was a new thing for her. If she lived here regularly you'd think she'd learn an effective way to pull out of there, something like what I described above. Similarly, if this is a new thing for her, it's hard to believe that she would have the confidence to just pull out blindly. Was she drunk? Unless she was drunk, I still think she probably did more checking than you realized because you were not paying attention, and she just missed you because you were in her blind spot.

Helmet Head

I'm not going to engage in a debate/discussion about another debate/discussion. I've PMed you.

Helmet Head

I am constantly learning. Are you?

RobertHurst

How do I know???? Did you really just ask me that? I know because I was there and noted the obvious fact, as did the officer, that her view of the street was completely and entirely and totally blocked by large solid objects. Even if she had inched her car slowly back, which she did not, she still would not have been able to see the travel lanes from inside her vehicle. She was in a real pickle there. She would have had to get out and walk out to the street to see what was coming. Even if she had slowly backed up until the butt end of her car was wagging well into the street, which she did not, she STILL wouldn't have been able to see anything but a tiny sliver of the road. And she did not inch her car back. She stomped the accelerator and rocketed out of the alley, all the way across the travel lane. When the car emerged from the alley it was going fast, backwards. Ever see the Rockford Files?

This has officially become pathetic.

Is there no room for the concept of non-looking drivers and pedestrians in your VC world? That's a pretty serious oversight. So to speak.

Robert

RobertHurst

STOP THE MADNESS.

She did not look because it was physically impossible, unless she has x-ray vision, in which case, she should go for a refund, for her to see the road. Got it? There was no ambiguity to it.

So...Got it?

Got it, HH?

Helmet Head

OK, but still easier said than to picture... how's that address coming?




Of course there is room for the concept of non-looking drivers and pedestrians in my VC world; that's why I trust (that they've noticed and ride accordingly) but verify (that they've actually noticed me before my safety depends on it). The issue of whether this driver was totally blinded from seeing any of the road is only a small piece of this whole thing.

Come to think of it, if this was a regular thing for her, but the trucks being there was unusual, then maybe she did just do a bonehead backout as usual.

Anyway, that does not alleviate you at all from your responsibility to be properly positioned and prepared. You don't enter an intersection that you have not cleared, and you obviously did not clear this one.

Your lesson still boils down to depending on fallible vigilance -- and in particular on not being distracted by a babe on a porch - in order to remember that an alley exists and to approach it appropriately.

The babe notwithstanding, at some point you decided to move right from your position 3 feet to the right of the yellow stripe to one within the door zone bike lane, despite the fact that you were approaching an alley intersection that you knew about, and that the trucks were parked where they were. I don't see how you can explain that decision with distraction.

Helmet Head

Okay, got it. I'm not bringing up this aspect - whether it would have been possible for the driver to see you if you had been further left - any more (if I forget, which I'll try never to do, like a year from me, kindly remind me about this).

Done.

Helmet Head

Robert, while the side issue about whether the driver could have seen you had you been further left has been put to bed, the main issue about that incident remains unexplained.

The babe notwithstanding, at some point you decided to move right from your position 3 feet to the right of the yellow stripe to one within the door zone bike lane, despite the fact that you were approaching an alley intersection that you knew about, and that the sightline-shortening trucks were parked where they were. I don't see how you can explain that decision with distraction.

The broader issue is that you argue that while riding "centerish" has its advantages, because we can be overlooked no matter where we ride, to be more visible to others should not be a reason we do it.

I contend that discounting the value of increased conspicuity due to more prominent lane positioning, as your argument (and a theme of your book) does, reduces the perceived value of more prominent lane positioning, and gives the "adaptive" cyclist less reason to do it, as compared to the vehicular cyclist. While I nor any other VC-ist has ever argued that prominent centerish positioning guarantees being noticed, it is obvious to me how effective it is in terms of greatly reducing the number of incidents of where I am overlooked to practically nil. The more conspicuous lane positioning (when appropriate) also appears to make me more predictable, and the treatment I get from other drivers is much better.

In short, improving safety buffers and the cyclist's sightlines are good reasons to ride further left, but I don't believe that they alone are compelling enough to get cyclist's to leave the bike lane and right side of the road as often as I believe they should in order to optimize their safety. If the goal is to habitualize an innate tendency to gravitate to the center, and stay there, whenever practicable, then these reasons alone are, apparently, just not enough. That they are not enough is illusrated by your Mercedes incident, where you decided to move right, into the bike lane, despite the fact that you were aproaching a blind alley intersection and the car behind you was still a ways back (far enough so as not to be affected by the Mercedes when it suddenly pulled out of the alley moments later). That decision to move right, and the willingness to do it despite the circumstances, revealing a lack of innate tendency for centerish positioning, cannot be explained by distraction. It is explained by a pragmatic "adaptive" cyclist willing to crash once a year who does not value more prominent lane positioning for the VC reasons of being more visible and predictable.

randya

WoW!!!

rando

jesus.

I-Like-To-Bike

Good Lord!

noisebeam

One of the main reasons I move left when passing a blind (as designed or blocked by vehicle) entrance is to maximize my sightlines.

Maybe this was said in all the discussion above (which I admittedly have only scanned thru bits of)

Al

randya

there's a reason they call them 'blind alleys'

JRA

Double wow.

Helmet Head presuming to tell Robert Hurst how to ride a bicycle is seriously one of the funniest things I've seen in while.


That's rich. You crack me up.

randya

Just be forewarned that HH won't tolerate any criticism that he considers to be 'outside the forum guidelines'. I got reported by him yesterday. My fairly innocuous comment was deleted and I received a warning from the mods. HH meanwhile, merrily continues preaching from his soapbox.

That is all. Carry on.

I-Like-To-Bike

Sounds like a condition that warrants a new chapter in the VC psycho-babble play book.

Helmet Head

This is the essence of the Hurst Method, if you will. But despite him writing a book about this, he neglected to do so in (at least) this case: he was approaching an alley intersection that he knew well, to/from which the sight lines were blocked by parked trucks, and still moved right into the door zone bike lane from his position near the center yellow stripe. What I'm saying this illustrates is that to maximize your sightlines alone is not reason enough (apparently) to make it automatic/inherent/default/habitual behavior in a cyclist, and that doing so for the additional reason of making yourself more conspicuous and predictable is what is apparently required to truly integrate this behavior in one's riding.

Furthermore, even with hindsight, while he mentioned going a tad too fast and perhaps being too far right as contributory factors, his main focus is on the factor of him not paying enough attention (because he was distracted by a babe on a porch). His lack of appreciation for the role that moving right played in this is indicated by his not explaining why he was that far right in the first place (at least in the 1st edition), which he clarified here on this forum later (with double-extra hindsight) and, I believe, in the 2nd edition as well. The fact that some car was approaching from behind, though still a ways back, does not explain his decision to move right given his knowledge of the area and the presence of the sightline-shortening trucks, and nor does the distracting babe. If anything, she would have contributed to him not noticing the approaching car from behind. But even if he noticed that car before he was distracted by the babe, that means he decided to move right before he was distracted.

The only explanation I can fathom (which doesn't mean there isn't another one - but if there is, I certainly haven't encountered it) is that he simply does not value centerish/conspicuous/predictable/sightline-extending positioning enough to prevent him from moving right in a situation like this. My concern is that this lackadaisacal attitude (relative to VC) about the importance of lane positioning is conveyed between the lines, if not explicitly, to his readers, to their detriment. Again, Robert expects one crash per year, and one serious injury-causing crash every 3-5 years. Do you? I, for one, have not been seriously injured in a bike crash since I was 10 years old, over 35 years ago.

natelutkjohn

Cyclist superiority complex maybe?

Superiority complex refers to a subconscious neurotic mechanism of compensation developed by the individual as a result of feelings of inferiority.
Behaviors related to this mechanism may include
-an exaggeratedly positive opinion of one’s worth and abilities,
-unrealistically high expectations in goals and achievements for oneself and others,
-pride
-tendency to discredit other’s opinions,
-forcefulness aimed at dominating those considered as weaker or less important, credulity, and others.

Brian Ratliff

Robert talks about this in his book. It is a good reason, I do it as well. In fact, Robert talks about it in exactly those terms, telling the reader to maximize your own sight lines and not rely on the vision of other road users around you. You see better and you have more space to buy time to react.

Helmet Head

Robert does what he has to do, including taking the risks that he has to take, in order to earn his keep as a messenger. That's fine.

My concern is that his rationalizations for some of his behavior, particularly his implied reliance on the cyclist being 100% vigilant all the time over almost any other arrows in the cyclist's safety quiver (in particular being visible and predictable), are conveyed as being reasonable practices to his readers.

Robert's lack of emphasis on the importance of cyclist visibility and over reliance on the cyclist's ability to be 100% vigilant all the time is not limited to the area of lane positioning. As another example, consider his section on clothing, where he makes no mention of the value of bright/visible colors (again, I'm referring to the 1st edition, not sure about the 2nd, but I doubt it's any different in this respect).

Brian Ratliff

HH arguing with the actual person there about what happened is, actually, pretty hillarious.

HH drawing broad conclusions about a person's riding style by a paragraph in a book which the author holds up as a critique, is pretty hillarious too.

He has a personal vendetta against any opinion not his own. Too bad he has so little experience to stand on in promoting his opinions. It is hillarious though that he is in a one sided pissing match (he's pissing for all he's worth, the other guy is just standing around) with a person with an order of magnitude more experience in riding in traffic.

natelutkjohn

That seems to be what I have taken from most of the discussions - a person arguing about riding in traffic - let's call him "capped noggin" - with people that have had MUCH more experience in riskier traffic situations. But then again, I just get that from reading the posts as they are laid out.

Brian Ratliff

Helmet Head does what he has to do, including taking the risks that he has to take, in order to earn his creds as a VC'ist. That's fine.

My concern is that his rationalizations for some his behavior, particularly his over reliance on lane positioning all the time over almost any other arrows (in particular being observant and allowing space to react or adjust) in the cyclist's safety quiver, are conveyed as being reasonable practices to his readers.

Helmet Head's lack of emphasis on the importance of cyclist awareness and over reliance on the cyclist's ability to predict motorist's behaviors 100% of the time and the motorist's ability to see and react to the cyclist 100% of the time is not limited to the area of lane positioning. As another example, consider his talk on clothing, where he makes no mention of the value of bright/visible colors (see, HH disses on Robert for not making this consideration, but HH also does not make this consideration, instead relying on peek-a-boo lane positioning to grab motorist's attention which he assumes will work 100% of the time).

randya

HH just can't ever admit being wrong. In truth, he's done more to damage the credibility of VC than any other person or group of people here. The real irony is that most of the people arguing against him here also consider themselves to be vehicular cyclists (no caps!) as well.

Helmet Head

Yes, that is my point. He talks about it in his book, but then he provides an example of where he doesn't do it, and doesn't even recognize that he didn't do it with hindsight.

These facts are compiled from his book and his posts here, and are not disputed by Robert (except where noted in parentheses):

1. Robert was riding near the center double-yellow stripe (about 3 feet away) on a 2-lane residential road with 4 1/2 foot door zone bike lanes.
2. He had ridden here thousands of times.
3. He was approaching an intersection with an alley; the sightlines were blocked by parked trucks.
4. He noticed a car approaching from behind, but still a ways back (unclear exactly how far, he can't remember - but obviously close enough to cause him to want to move right, but not close enough to be involved in the crash with the Mercedes that was about to suddenly pull out of the alley).
5. Because of the car approaching from behind, despite approaching an alley with trucks blocking the view, he decided to move right into the bike lane (he clearly states where he is inside the bike lane in the book; in posts here, in this thread, he denied being in the bike lane, but also says he was on the stripe).
6. At some point (after he was already in the bike lane?) he is distracted by a babe on a porch.
7. When the Mercedes E320 pulls out suddenly from the alley, he notices it too late to hit the brakes in time and/or swerve, and crashes into it.
8. He puts primary blame on his being distracted by the babe on the porch, but acknowledges going a tad too fast for conditions and being too far right are contributory factors (not to mention the driver's reckless behavior, of course, but his emphasis is properly placed on cyclist behavior and responsiblity).

My main issue surrounds point (5): his decision to move right despite the conditions, despite what he writes about in terms of staying left for improved sight lines.

Even with hindsight, he doesn't explain the role of that decision to move right. In fact, he doesn't even mention it in the 1st edition, where he doesn't even mention that he was near the center line, and that the reason he moved right was because of the approaching car. I think this illustrates how relatively unimportant Robert believes lane positioning is, and I think it's because he values it only with respect to how it improves sightlines and buffer space for the cyclist, and not for how it improves cyclist visibility and predictability.