genec

I live in a rural area now... not a lot of people and not a lot of cars. Roads tend to be narrow two lane blacktop... sometimes with a shoulder.

What I am about to discuss is not strictly about cycling... but it affects cyclists.

Twice now in less than 6 weeks, I have seen the same situation: a motorist pulls to the end of their long dirt or gravel driveway, stops at the transition to the street... one doesn't just "fly" down these driveways onto the road, they have to stop. The stops tend to be slow and cautious... stopping, moving ahead slowly, looking... and then the motorist pulls right into the rare car that happens to come by.

Once this happened to me... I was the driver of the rare car coming by on the street (my old truck is bright red). I saw the motorist ahead... he came down his long dirt driveway and stopped. He looked. He looked some more. To me, he seemed to be waiting for me to drive on by... he just waited. Then, just as I was about to cross in front of the driveway, he pulled out. I jammed on the brakes and we just missed colliding.

This morning I am walking along... quiet 25MPH road. I just pass a house as the driver is pulling down to the street. I keep walking. A motorist in a bright red car (hard to miss) is driving toward me and past me, toward where the other driver was pulling down to the end of the driveway... I hear tires squeal and and metal crunch. The driver coming down the driveway has just collided with the very red car on the quiet 25MPH road. Now this all took some time... I was four houses past this when it happened... So again the driver waited at the end of the drive... and then pulled out just as there was a car in the way.

Now this got me to thinking... what the hell is going on... these folks are pulling to the end of their drives, slowing way down to look and transition to the street... and at the last second, they pull out and hit the one car passing by in the last 5 - 10 minutes.

I mean it is uncanny... like the only two vehicles around and they hit. Jeeze makes me wonder if these drivers are driving with their eyes closed or if they start their day with a bottle of scotch. It isn't an age thing either... the first guy I mentioned was young... mid twenties.

So how does this relate to cycling... well heck if they cannot see a bright red car or truck... how in the heck can they see a lone cyclist?

SloButWide 

I suspect some of these are momentary distractions - pull to the end of the drive, look right, get distracted, pull out into a car from the left. That just changes the question, why can't they adjust the radio / make sure the garage door closed / make sure they brought their lunch etc before moving the car?

indyfabz

My girlfriend borrowed my red car and left it parked outside her parents' house. In broad daylight a teenager who lived down the street smashed into it head on whole it was parked along the curb. He claimed it was sun glare. I didn't believe it since at the time of the accident the sun would have been too high in the sky and not shining in his direction. Plus, there were tall tree in the background. I think he was just distracted. He had just left the house. Wouldn't be surprised if he was texting someone to tell them that he was on his way to wherever it was that he was going.

Maybe it was sun glare in the two situations you describe? You do mention that at least one was in the morning. Or maybe this...I am hyper-observant, and I walk a lot. I routinely encounter pedestrians and drivers who, despite looking, are not registering the presence of others. Take the scenario when all 6' 2" of me in my bright, red parka is in the crosswalk and a motorist nearly hits me despite looking straight ahead. Sometimes when I yell at them they say "Sorry. I didn't see you." They saw me in the sense that the light reflecting from my body reached their eyes, but their brains did not register my presence. It's as if the only thing their brains are registering is what's 2' in front of their faces and they are distracted by so many other things in their heads.

Digital_Cowboy

If they can't look in both directions without getting distracted, maybe they shouldn't be driving a car. Maybe they need to walk or take the bus. What happens if next time it's a small child?

Yeah, there are way TOO many distractions in the car these days. What the bloody hell ever happened to just driving the damned car?!?!

As when a motorist hits a cyclist when a motorist hits ANYONE, and then say's "I didn't see you/them/it" the cop on the scene should be taking that down as an admission of guilt.

350htrr

I think it's more like they know the odds are low that a vehicle, or anything would be coming so they aren't actually looking conscientiously, it's just a learned automatic driving habit, slowdown and sort of look but the mind isn't actually paying attention to the input from the eyes as nothing is expected to be there. Or more likely it's expected that nothing will be coming so they can go as soon as they go through the "learned automatic motions"... JMO

dprayvd

SloButSide puts it plain.

Drivers nearly unerringly come to the/an/their intersection looking towards their right. Towards their right‽
Then, seeming only then, they gaze left? What do drivers expect to happen?

I've posted regarding this subject before.

dprayvd

I meant SloButWide.

WTF is up with the edit function on this shyte website?

digger

After being a passenger in several vehicles, I've noticed this:

Coming up to an intersection and wanting to turn left...

Looking right and rolling up to intersection...

Still looking right and rolling up to intersection...

More Looking right and rolling up to intersection...

Ram on the accelerator, then look left...

Slam on brake.

howsteepisit

Or maybe its from the seemingly inevitable need for anyone leaving anywhere to call and say "I am on my way", usually after they start driving, or texting the same message. No proof, just my own biased thoughts on cell phone in cars use.

Paul Barnard

I operate under the assumption cross traffic will not yield right of way to me. Fortunately, our relative low speed and relative small size can work to our advantage in accident avoidance.

B. Carfree

My working hypothesis for these things is that motorists don't really look when they approach a T-intersection. They just go through the motions until their internal timer tells them they have waited long enough.

I had a situation very similar to the OP's years ago while driving a truck near a small city. I was the top of the T with 84000 pounds of rolling death, otherwise known as double trailers full of fresh tomatoes, 75-feet long. As a car approached the intersection, I downshifted. When she stopped, I relaxed a little. When she looked right at me and remained stopped, I relaxed a little more. Then she pulled out right in front of me. I had a ditch on my right side, an oncoming car on my left and the face of a small child in a car seat right in front of me. My choices were to kill the innocent oncoming (and likely me), risk my death by hitting the ditch, or brake as well as possible while downshifting frantically and applying the engine brake and laying on the air horn like the end of the world. I chose the latter. She heard me and floored it. We missed each other by just a couple of feet. Let me tell you, that child's face was absolutely enormous by the time we ended this bit of fun.

canklecat

I've seen this in rural areas too. But in reality (which ain't always rural), most of the time nothing happens. So we don't notice that most drivers look and wait. We only remember the near misses. It's like those street lights that flicker on and off when we approach? Are we magically controlling them with our powerful presence? Or do we only notice them when we're nearby, and in reality street lights flicker all the time.

And how 'bout those traffic lights that turn red just before we arrive when we're late for an appointment? And those empty convenience stores that suddenly fill up with customers in line ahead of us, all wanting scratch off lotto tickets and to cash their paychecks, when we're in a hurry, have one item and cash?

People. They're the worst.

Paul Barnard

Nice work!

AlmostTrick

I've not seen that happen. Maybe just bad luck?

FBinNY 

I see similar stuff at stop signs all the time. I've always chalked it up to a combination of nervousness, and slow mental processing.

Driver comes to a stop, and looks around, maybe even looks both ways. But he process slow, so he looks left, decides it's OK, then looks right, decides that's OK, then pulls out. Unfortunately, he processes slowly, or maybe is nervous, so he looses too much time on his 2nd look and by that time the info from the first is stale. Likewise, he might only look in one direction, decide it's OK, then be slow to use that info to drive out.

I see a variation of this at expressway on-ramps. Driver is waiting to enter, looks back and sees a long enough gap behind the "red" car. So he waits for the red car to clear, then looses so much time before actually moving that 3/4s of the gap are past before he starts his merge.

As they say "timing is everything", and some people are severely handicapped when it comes to that.

OldTryGuy

A constant SW FL. occurrence caused by the......I didn't see the car coming until it was closer and then figured I had plenty of time to pull out before it got to me, simply because these idiots can not judge distance and speed. Same as the car passing biker and turning right, which I had happen about 4.5 hours ago while I was cruising along at a 26mph tail wind assisted speed.

dragoonO1

I believe that the average person is unable to correctly estimate the speed and direction of a moving object, or at least they require too much time to make an accurate estimate. The human brain also discards a lot of visual data, especially in the case of any unexpected event. Some people are literally unable to see what is right in front of them if an unexpected event conflicts with their expectations.

Chris0516

It almost seems like the drivers' were aiming for each other. I agree, how can they see the cyclist. If a motorist can't see a motorist, how will they see a cyclist.

hooCycles

I think that what we can learn from this is that cars do not see what they do not expect to see.

The driver pulling out of the driveway knows that the road is infrequently traveled, and so even though his eyes tell him there is an approaching car, he does not see a car.

Similarly, cyclists are infrequently encountered on roads and so even when a driver's eyes sees a cyclist, the signal is ignored since the sight was not expected.

I have been an advocate of this philosophy for quite some time.

Digital_Cowboy

OTG,

The other day, I'm traveling down a narrow, quiet residential street. That sadly allows on street parking. I had a pickup pull up behind me. While we went through the area with cars parked on both sides of the road the driver was both polite and patient. As soon as I/we cleared the last parked car that's when their "true nature" came out. The motorist starts honking at me, and when I signal that I'm want to make a left hand turn that's when he decides that he's going to pass me.

What the hell is up with that?!?!

Digital_Cowboy

Exactly, which is why in spite of the misconception that a LOT of people have that operating on the sidewalk is "safer" than doing so in the lane. It's because the further away something is the less likely our brains are to record it as being a threat.

Jim from Boston

An important lesson I learned in driver's ed that has stuck with me so many years, was this aphorism, "You really don't have the right of way, until the other driver yields it." So I always do a quick check at any intersection, driving, cycling, or walking.

AlmostTrick

Yet many of us here have been riding for decades and are still around to complain about it. Go figure

genec

Not being able to judge distance/speed/timing... definitely a cycling issue. If these folks cannot judge the speed and approach of a bright motor vehicle, they will never judge a bicycle correctly.

BTW no glare involved in any of this... this happened on the typical overcast days in the area. Once incident was in the afternoon, the other just before noon... Just shocked me at how simple the traffic situation was, and yet collisions or near collisions occurred. I could understand this sort of thing for a motorist making a left turn across several lanes of busy traffic... but these were situations where only two vehicles and no other traffic were involved... in very low speed situations. No pressure, yet... bam!

genec

I think this is the case... BTW FIFY... cars cannot see (at least not yet), it is the drivers that have this "situational blindness... "