Dang

Yeah man Im telling you. I think thier out to get me. I'm developing a fear for 18 wheels. First, Im just cruzin down a road, humming a tune. minding my own bussiness. And I see a truck w/trailer stopped at a parking lots entrance ready to pull out to the road I'm riding on. I'm only 10 yards from the driveway and the jerk just pulls out in front of me! Hello?! I have to slow way down so I do a few spins in my lane and I notice that's there's absolutly not one car behind me! What a rude a$$-holeI think to myself!
But here's the creepy part. Yesterday while on my bike I was waiting for the light to turn green at a busy intersection. And a different 18 wheeler cruises slowly through the intersection, and the driver of the truck, he just looks at me. Straight into my eyes! With nothing but hate in his eyes! He just keeps starring me down while driving his truck through the whole intersection. I mean he looked like he was really pissed off at me for some reason! He didn't take his eyes off me once the whole time while driving his truck through the intersection!!!!!!
So..just my imagination maybe?

halfspeed

Yes, they hate us. It offends their sensibilities that we engage in recreation in their workplace. After all, they pay high taxes, they may as well own the friggen roads and no pissant cyclist has any right to get in the way of them getting paid.

At least that's how I see the attitude.

Blue Order

I take the eye contact differently. I walk everywhere. When I'm crossing a street, I always make eye contact with approaching motorists. And if I get the sense that they're debating whether to stop or not, I make intense eye contact, to keep them from doing something stupid. For some reason, people are less willing to kill you if you're looking them in the eye while they're doing it. Maybe it shocks them into reality or something. I dunno. Anyway, people who would otherwise pretend they didn't see me decide to behave once I look them in the eye. Except for that one woman inthe SUV who looked me directly in the eye as she gunned her motor and drove straight at me (I was in the middle of the crosswalk, with the right of way, and she was making a left turn as she came at me.). Now, if I ever see her again, she and I need to have a little talk. Out in the alley.

Anyway, my take on the trucker with the eye contact is (1) he was watching to make sure you didn't do something stupid, like dart out in front of him, and (2) he was making eye contact with you to dissuade you from doing something stupid.

That hateful look he gave you? The other day, I had to stare down a motorist because he just wasn't stopping at a red light while I was crossing, so I gave him my "If I have to, I'll drag you out and beat you senseless" stare. Why the trucker was staring that intense? Who knows?

The first guy just seems clueless. Lots of people are clueless. Even cyclists.

SamHouston

It could be fear rather than hate you're seeing. Many truckers are uncomfortable navigating urban areas. It's likely some of the most stressful driving they do. They have to be intimately aware of their dimensions and everything around them, same on the highway sure but you see where I'm going.

My dad was hit, had his ol huffy kinda squashed, trucker didn't have a clue that he was there, or had checked that fender and missed it, whatever. Slowspeed accident, dad was stopped with the truck, a clear spot came, the truck went, smooshed bike which my dad was on feet down, looking for a break in traffic same as truck, jumped clear. A car behind picked him up, pursued, caught, got trucks attention, truck pulled over. They told him he hit a bike, they all go back, dude almost broke down completely when he saw the bike cause he hadn't caught on that my dad was the cyclist. Thought it was a rear axle thing and that he'd smooshed someone.

Maybe some do hate ya, but hell I've driven a 24ft box truck and I was nervous as hell even though I ended up doing it quite a bit for awhile. I can imagine how more a semi would suck, I'll leave that to a pro even if I could drive one, which I can't :/

dan828

No they don't hate you. I have a class "A" license from when I was in school (18 wheels, double trailers, hauled tomatoes for a total of seven summers from under-grad through grad school). Truthfully they were probably nervous about what you were going to do, because the truck has limited maneuverability and requires more stopping distance than anyone on the road ever gives credit for. Driving through urban areas in a truck pretty much sucks out loud. No one, and I mean no one, will cut you any slack-- cars constantly race past you and cut in front of you because they don't want to get stuck behind you, but then slam on their brakes and turn, so you tend to be constantly shifting up and back down through 8 or 9 gears.

I'm willing to bet that the guy staring you down has had cyclists jam through intersections in front of him before, causing him to have to brake and down shift to get going again. And maybe he was thinking "God, here I am stuck driving this stupid truck when I'd much rather be out on my bike enjoying the day."

Aus_MTB

dan282, nice post. It really shows what its like from the another perspective.

hillyman

My step-brother is a truck driver. He says they get on the CB and warn other drivers about a cyclist ahead and make jokes about running us off the road. Some take the 'joke' to far but most truckers just think we are a major inconveniece. Avoid any route they may be using to dodge weigh scales, those are some of the drivers that will make your ride a nightmare.

TexasGuy

Unfortunately at the level of an 18-wheeler and a cyclist - its virtualllly impossible for "hatred" to pierce through. This sounds much more like the case of a bitter cyclist. In most cases if the trucker saw you then that is alot more then you can get from most truckers as most truck killings are from cyclists doing stupid **** around 18-wheelers not realizing their range of visibility and blind spots.

jbrians

I drove transport for about 15 years...somewhere about a million kilometers logged and I have to say nothing made me more nervous than cyclists. Without even a second thought, bike riders run stop signs as long as they think they have time to get away with it, ride on the wrong side of the road, make strange turns, etc.
So just imagine you are driving a truck on a fast city street and you are overtaking a rider. Is this going to be one of the ones who follows the rules, is it going to be some jerk who tries to zip across the road in front of me at the last second. Also, my rig was over 70 feet long and it took a long time to pass a bike rider. Ever notice how much draft a truck makes and how much it affects the bike? And just think if there is a pot hole or a sewer grate that the rider has to try to avoid at the same time as the tractor is just beside the bike...that's when the bow-wave from the wind is at it's worst, pushing away from the truck and instantly after that the suction grabs the bike and pulls it into the side of the rear wheels. I hated bikes too when I was driving. Wherever possible, I gave bikes more passing room than I did pedestrians.
I never meet a trucker who liked the thought of pulling bike parts out from under his rig.

hillyman

Bike parts!...How about human remains. They should be thinking about lives here. Life is not like a cartoon where a truck runs over you and you get up and say "Which way did he go?"

DataJunkie

Plus, he could have been glaring at you just for the fact you are staring at him. Men to men stare downs are odd that way.

Mr. Miskatonic

I don't know what it is about some folks, but I honestly can say that in all my years of biking I have never had a problem with a driver of an 18 wheeler.

Smaller trucks, on the other hand...

hillyman

Come to Southern Illinois and ride Route 148 through the refuge

dan828

You know what he meant. The reality is that truck drivers want to avoid accidents more than just about anybody-- besides the horrible consequences of one in reguards to injury and death, it also means they could lose their livelyhood.

And just as an example as to what truck drivers fear about cyclists, there was an accident here a few years ago involving a truck and a cyclist. The driver had pulled up to an intersection and was stopped at a traffic light waiting to make a right hand turn. While he was waiting a cyclist pulled up on his right directly in his blind spot and stopped, waiting to go through the light. When the driver had a chance to go, he made his right hand turn, not knowing that the cyclist was there. His rear trailer tracked right over the top of her and killed her, but the driver never knew what had happened because he was not able to see her at all. Terrible story, but the woman on the bike should have been cognisant of the driver's blind spots, never should not have put herself in that spot. A couple of big points you should take away from the story is that the driver never saw the cyclist because he was physically unable to do so, that he never felt the impact and there was no damage at all to the truck, and that the cyclist could have prevented the situation, whether she had right of way or not. And I'm not blaming the woman-- she obviously didn't know what she was doing was dangerous. Just as most people don't know about how to drive safely around bikes, they don't know how to drive safely around trucks either.

A couple of years later I was responsible for training new drivers for the company I worked for-- I would always have the drivers head by that corner and explain to them exactly what had happened there and what each person in the situation could have done differently to prevent what happened. I spent a good portion of the training time hammering into their heads that with the blind spots that they had and that the huge mass that they were moving around (up to 80,000 lbs) that they could do a lot of damage and that physics was unforgiving, and because of this they had a lot of responsibility.

hillyman

I agree that a big percentage of truckdrivers and car drivers don't want to harm you, BUT
there are some that will try to run you off the road or make you crash just to 'teach you a lesson'.
In 12 years of cycling most of the horror stories I could talk about involved semis. I try to avoid all routes that trucks use on a regular basis.

lilHinault

If you include bus drivers, yes.

slagjumper

Just because your paranoid, doesn't mean that there not out to get you. This dude was crushed deliberately be a big rig driver, who, you guessed it -- got off.

https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...6/MN176294.DTL

https://www.laurenjo.com/chris/chris.shtml

Not to be overly morose but:

death 1
https://www.nbc5.com/news/5109482/detail.html

death 2
https://www.nbc5.com/news/5099738/detail.html

death 3
https://www.newsargus.com/news/archiv...13/index.shtml

death 4 (bus)
https://www.wsoctv.com/news/5102027/detail.html

Or just do this:
https://news.google.com/news?as_q=bic...=19&as_maxm=10

dan828

Do accidents happen between trucks and bicyclists? Yes, obviously. Are the truck drivers at fault some times? Of course. Are all truck drivers blood thirsty bicycle hating maniacs? No. I'm much more afraid of cars when I'm out riding, but I give trucks a wide berth because I know that they have big blind spots, are much more limited in their maneuverability and braking, and that driving a truck requires a lot more attention than does driving a car.

No need to beat a dead horse though, I'm thinking everything constructive has already been said.

hillyman

Except you could put on your cycling gear and walk around a truckstop

scarry

Most are pro's, some hate.
https://www.laurenjo.com/chris/chris.shtml



Justice for Chris Robertson? There can be no justice. Sentenced to 8 months with credit for time served, Espinoza shows no sign of any remorse during the trial. Instead cyclists are put on trial for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
https://www.indybay.org/news/2001/11/109246.php

From 2000.
Cyclist Run Over and Killed By Big-Rig Truck in S.F.
Chuck Squatriglia, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, November 18, 2000

A bicycle messenger was killed last night after being run over by a big- rig truck in what might have been a case of road rage, San Francisco police said.

The 32-year-old cyclist was crushed by the 18-wheeler's undercarriage and died shortly after arriving at San Francisco General Hospital, said police Sgt.

Leon Loew.

The victim was riding in a procession of cyclists mourning the recent death of a fellow messenger when the 8:50 p.m. incident happened.

Authorities withheld the dead man's identity pending notification of his family.

The truck driver, identified by police only as a 34-year-old man, was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and remained behind bars early this morning.

"What we're trying to ascertain is if there was intent to run this guy down, " Loew said.

The incident happened as a half-dozen cyclists rode eastbound on Fourth Street in front of a Peterbilt tractor-trailer rig, Loew said.

"They were blocking the roadway, and this is where things get fuzzy," Loew said. "Apparently, the deceased got into a confrontation with the driver."

"Everyone was going eastbound, but they were in the westbound lane," he said. "That's what makes it odd -- everybody was on the wrong side of the road. "

Witnesses told investigators the driver threw a large chunk of wood at the rider, who then "cut off the 18-wheeler, and the driver ran over him." Loew said.

At least nine people witnessed the incident, and several of them stopped the truck and called the police, Loew said.

Investigators were still interviewing witnesses early this morning, and police could offer no further details of the incident.

"It's all really sketchy right now," Loew said. "We've got an extensive investigation under way, and we'll be at it all night."

KrisPistofferson

I used to drive a truck, and my absolute greatest fear was of hitting someone and injuring or killing them. Most 18-wheeler operators are the same in this regard. Being responsible for someone's death is not something anyone wants. So this guy was probably bird-dogging you to make sure you weren't about to dart under his wheels. Truck drivers as a group are about the best drivers on the road, or they wouldn't be able to keep their Class As, and they learn to expect irrational behavior from most people on the road, and drive very defensively.

wildjim

Not True! As when the truck began to turn the driver would have had full view of the trailor wheels!

Truck Drivers "know" that people/vehicles are frequently putting themselves into a blind spot of truck as they are unaware how the truck/trailor tracks or of the danger.

I believe that the truck driver as described above was negligent.

TexasGuy

There is a reason why Illinois made it on the list of lame states

TexasGuy

Wow, talk about a) being pwnt
and b) being just plain ****ing stupid.

Dang

This was a busy intersection. I was stopped. I had both feet on the ground. Waiting for my light to turn green. His light just turned green and as he inched his way through the intersection he glared at me. And he continued to glared at me, turning his head for as long as he could before his trailer blocked his view. And I was also wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. So he couldn't see my eyes. I did nothing to provoke this guy. I was being safe and obeying all laws.