<p>“Those of you who say cyclists “yell at you”–are they, perchance, yelling “on your left” or “on your right”? Those are courtesy announcements that indicate that they will be passing you–it doesn’t mean they expect you to get out of the way; it mean they don’t want to scare you.”</p>
<p>Goodness, no, dmd! I would not consider a passing warning “yelling”, and I know the what the words mean since I run on the Beer trail often. The words “get the eff out of my way” or a milder version of that coming from an incoming cyclist are not equivalent of the simple “on the …” :)</p>
<p>I do that when the “bike lane” is too close to parked cars or when the “bike lane” is too narrow, both of which are frequent situations. I don’t ride in the door zone; too dangerous, I don’t want to have a door opened in my face so I get flung under an adjacent oncoming car or truck.</p>
<p>No parked cars involved in any of the cases that I’m thinking of. I am thinking of 4 cases right now of places that I drive regularly that have bike lanes and either a grassy or landscaped shoulder or regular curb and side walk but no possible parking on the right.</p>
<p>Here’s one case I was thinking of. The bicyclist pled guilty to a felony for running several stop lights and killing an elderly pedestrian. He had posted on a bicycling forum, rather callously, that he was ‘too committed’ when the light turned red to stop. No jail time though. </p>
<p>And yes, I do think adult bicyclists should be required to have liability insurance if they are going to be using city streets and endangering pedestrians.</p>
<p>The woman pedestrian in New York City who was hit by the speeding bicyclist is brain dead. I haven’t heard whether the bicyclist is going to be criminally charged. </p>
<p>I always pass with a lot of space, more than 3 feet, because I worry about the cyclist hitting a stone or something and swerving. I hate how vulnerable cyclists look and I am as careful as I can be.</p>
<p>I’ve had two bike accidents there. Once when a truck passed me on the left, then turned right into a parking lot. I had to skid hard to the right and ended up in the parking lot under the truck, between the wheels. The driver never saw me. </p>
<p>The second was when I was going fast downhill with traffic on my left. I was about to go over a storm grate when I realized it was turned the wrong way, with the bars parallel to the road. I couldn’t stop in time and would have been hit had I gone around the grate, so I had to go over. Despite my efforts at a mini-swerve my front wheel went down into the grate and I wiped out. The saving grace was that I was wearing toe clips, so I took the whole bike with me. My thighs hit the handlebars and absorbed a lot of the impact. Otherwise it’s likely I would have done much more damage and would possibly have been thrown in front of a car. Still ended up in the local hospital getting stitches, but pretty lucky overall.</p>
<p>I adhere to Saintfan’s method. Either act like a car or like a pedestrian. When I ride on the road I signal, stop at stop signs and don’t cut between cars. When I have to ride in town I act like a pedestrian. I get off my bike to cross at the crosswalk and slow way down or stop to get around other pedestrians or let them get around me. </p>
<p>Of course not, but if the driver was going a legal 50 MPH and encountered an unexpected bicyclist on a blind curve with traffic coming the other way he may not have been able to stop in time.</p>
<p>I haven’t cycled much in the past few years, but when I did I exclusively rode on dedicated bike paths. I didn’t want my recreation to be deadly. I think recreational bicycle riders who ride PCH with all its traffic are nuts. Yes, it’s legal but it’s not safe. And bicyclists who ride steep curvy mountain roads that force motorists to go around them are creating an unsafe condition. I’ve seen bicyclists riding the Tioga Road into Yosemite, one of the steepest roads anywhere with no guard rails in many places and random fallen rocks that are a much greater hazard to a bicycle than a car. </p>
<p>Same goes for runners. Why do runners run on the road when the sidewalk is right there! </p>
<p>Where I live we don’t have many bike lanes and the dedicated bike paths we do have are crowded with families so it’s usually hard to get a good fast ride in. It’s too likely you’ll come up to a kid on training wheels or a leashed dog just as they swerve into the middle of the path.</p>
<p>We do have a lot of serious cyclists who come to our town to ride. My pet peeve as a driver is the three-abreast riders. There’s just not enough room on our narrow, winding country roads to do that safely.</p>
<p>I can understand drivers and bikers getting frustrated, but I think, for the most part, the frustration is really with road/ bike path design, or lack of design. There are bad and reckless drivers,and there are bad and reckless bike riders. Those we all get frustrated with! In our area the bike lanes are an afterthought, just a line painted on the side of the road, designating the edge as a bike path. There really isn’t extra room. Moving over is fine, when you can, and when you see the biker in time. Sometimes you just can’t see them until you are right there. Bikes also feel a little more unpredictable…not knowing if they will veer out a little when they turn to look at you, or if they will hit a rock, etc and fall. I wish the roads were better designed for serious bikers, but also think there are times when the serious bikers could choose safer routes. I think most casual bikers would be safer on the sidewalk…maybe the sidewalk could be widened and have a painted, designated bike lane! ;-)</p>
<p>No, the driver was going too fast for conditions, the conditions here being a blind curve on a narrow road, and was unable to avoid killing another legal road user. Bicyclists are on roads. Drivers need to drive to accommodate that fact. It is reckless to drive as if there were no cyclists, and then when you kill one, shrug and say, “Oh well, nothing to be done.” There is something to be done: slow down and drive safely, realizing that other people use the road too.</p>
<p>I knew someone would bring up that STRAVA guy in San Francisco who killed the pedestrian. Here’s the difference: you drivers are defending people who drive recklessly and murder cyclists. No cyclist defends the STRAVA guy. Since I live in the area, I had many discussions about that incident with other cyclists when it happened. However, I can’t relate those conversations here, because the words people used to describe him cannot be repeated on this site. Nobody had a good word to say of him. That dude spent time as a guest of the state of California, and everyone I talked to thought he richly merited that little vacation.</p>
<p>On the other hand, when a driver kills a cyclist, you drivers blame the cyclist for his own death. I can’t tell you how offensive that is. It happens every time. It happened when teriwtt’s daughter’s friend died, and here it is again with this blameless cyclist in Oregon. </p>
<p>I don’t say there is a grand conspiracy against cyclists. I say that drivers routinely blame lawful cyclists for their own deaths when a cyclist is killed by a reckless, negligent or incompetent driver. That doesn’t require any conspiracy. It just requires individual drivers to invent self-serving justifications for drivers not being at fault when they kill cyclists. </p>
<p>Or it could just be an accident.
Of course a bicyclist choosing to ride for recreation with their back to traffic, on a two lane 50mph highway with no shoulder and blnd curves, could be termed an accident waiting to happen</p>
<p>Do drivers have no responsibilities not to kill people? If a driver drives in a way that can kill people, it’s OK as long as the people who die are riding bikes? </p>
<p>There have been a couple of complaints about this thread. However, as far as I can see it has remained pretty civil, despite the strongly differing opinions. Complaining to the mods about someone’s opinion, no matter how wrong you think it is, is not going to get action, as long as that opinion isn’t racist or have some other characteristic that is widely viewed as unacceptable. Certainly you can rebut that opinion on here, as long as it is done politely. - FC</p>
<p>So a cyclist cycling is “an accident waiting to happen”? Why isn’t it the reckless driver who is “an accident waiting to happen”? The driver hit the cyclist from behind. Normally, hitting someone from behind is a slam-dunk – the hitter is at fault. </p>
<p>A car traveling at the recommended (?25 mph is my guess) speed limit around a blind curve could have killed a bicyclist, easily. Some accidents resulting out of a very unfortunate combination of circumstances happen left and right. I am not judging either person in that fatal accident, just saying that there could be a third possibility. I lean to think the driver was going faster than it was prudent, but if there were no mandatory reduced speed limit signs posted and he was under the speed limit, then it would be hard to find recklessness. Negligence - maybe. All depends on the actual facts.</p>
<p>Had a very scary experience once in a similar situation. I have to say that the guy who decided to take his Paralympic racing wheelchair on the busy 2-way, no shoulder, 40 mph suburban road with a couple of blind curves was simply insane, IMO. He was so close to the ground and wore gray jersey (and no helmet) that it was really hard to spot him. He was lucky BB was driving around that curve first, and not the insane SUV driver who was tailgating her. </p>