jppe

Wednesday was a beautiful day and perfect for a short 2 hour ride from the house after walking 18 holes of golf before lunch.

Normally rides are very uneventful but for whatever reason there were three separate situations within the first few miles of the ride. Maybe folks are just getting more impatient with this all stay at home stuff???

This first video is within the first mile and while this road can be busy it seemed much busier than it has been in weeks.... plus everyone seemed really anxious to get somewhere....especially the dump trucks!


This second one captured another bike rider coming at me..... in the wrong lane on a very busy high speed road where I always ride on the generous shoulder. Plus he wasn't wearing a helmet.....Geez. Darwin theory at practice??


This third one is just really unnecessary. A driver of a red mustang "buzzed" me for no reason whatsoever. There weren't any vehicles coming at us and he could have easily moved over into the other lane. And then he turned off the road about 100 yards ahead. It's better if you have the sound up for this one!!

bruce19

I would take video #3 to local law enforcement. Does your state have a 3 ft. rule?

big john

People are driving worse since the shutdown. Our mayor mentioned it in his nightly tv chat. He said the police have received many complaints and they will be enforcing the speed laws. Also, California Highway Patrol issued similar statements, saying the street racing and crazy driving in the mountains has increased. My friends and I have seen it first hand, too.

berner

Even at my advanced age I'm still surprised at how thoughtless or plain stupid people can be. Was it Einstein, or someone like him who said there is no limit on stupidity - don't remember the complete quote.

Iride01 

That's why I don't ride the line. It only encourages the uncaring and self-important to try and squeeze past you with out crossing the center line on the road.

Talking 'bout vid #3 . Yes, you ought to see what the local PD, Hwy Patrol or Sheriff department says.

DaveLeeNC

My experience in that regard is the opposite, My rule #1 for biking in the area where I live is "don't make the driver's mad - that is when they are most likely to do stupid stuff". And occupying a full lane tends to 'make them mad' (not that staying well right always avoids that) and creates more 'stupid stuff'.

But maybe it is different in different areas of the country.,

dave

jppe

I agree about riding more into the lane. My experience has been drivers will move much more into the oncoming lane and not squeeze you when passing. I ride with a mirror. What I generally do is ride more in the lane to help with that. I saw the vehicles coming up behind me and while the video doesn’t show it I was away from the white line. The first two vehicles did a super job of passing. They slowed their speed and moved over a good deal into the oncoming lane. When I see vehicles passing I instinctively move more to the right to create even more of a buffer. That’s what I did as the vehicles started passing. The Mustang was actually closer to the other vehicles as they were approaching, and I was expecting him to pass like the other two. To my surprise that’s not what he did. Looking at the videos from both my front and rear cameras, he was actually closer to me when he passed than when he was approaching me. Then he turned off the road to the right about 100 yards after he passed me.

i was able to get a clear snapshot of his license plate.

Carbonfiberboy 

Looked like completely normal behavior to me. The red Mustang missed you by over 3'. In the first video, drivers chose their passing moment wisely, passing when there was a wide median. Second video is a little unusual but at least he didn't try to force you out into the middle of the lane, choosing that for himself. Stupid, but he had a perfectly excellent view of the lack of traffic in that lane. What I hate is the salmoners hugging the right, forcing me out when I do not have a perfect view. I yell at those people like a maniac. Third video, again normal. At least his driveway wasn't 50' ahead, which also happens. Just life on the road. My only worry is that someday someone is going to push it too far and have a head-on right in front of me. I don't want to get hit by flying debris. I don't get excited about any of this type of thing. It's bad for your health. I just ride my bike, usually 6" to the left of the line in these conditions. I don't want to get blown to the right, off the asphalt, and then fall to my left.

I do not ride out in the lane, ever. I know a rider who does that all the time, like he owns the road. He's been hit twice. What happens is that a passing car misjudges it and swerves back into their lane, not realizing that they haven't cleared the cyclist, who of course is moving much faster than the driver realizes. I give passing cars as much room as they need. I don't have an exoskeleton.

We have had a couple of incidents here. A guy in our paceline once gave the finger to a car as it passed us too close. The car went up the road out of sight, turned around and came back on the wrong side, at high speed, right on the shoulder, straight at us. We all bailed for the ditch. He didn't swerve. We had a couple minor injuries and one destroyed wheel. So like, don't every do that. Another day, in another paceline on a wide, straight, minor city road with a 6' wide bike lane, our paceline in it, an oncoming slow-moving car suddenly swerved left, came across, hitting and killing one of our riders. The driver got out of it on a judge's ruling of medical incompetence. Too high on prescription meds, something like that. There was a curb to the right, no way out of it.

rowerek

I try to avoid very busy street where bikes have all the rights to be on but unfortunately streets are full of cars, narrow, lacking bike lanes or even shoulders with little space for passing. Drivers have problems maneuvering around the bikes and sometimes drivers make mistakes, misjudge speed and distance, are sloppy or don't pay attention (on phones, texting, etc), and some are trying on purpose to buzz and scare bikers. Not to mention shouting obscenities or throw objects out of the windows.

What would help is if everybody would have cameras, front and rear, and dangerous behaviors can be recorded and related to police. Some people, very few, should not be driving (drugs, alcohol, medications, anger/psychological problems, poor eyesight, previous accidents, etc).

SethAZ 

I run into kids and teenagers on bikes going the wrong way from time to time, and it's really annoying, and sometimes dangerous as the kids usually don't have much situational awareness and it can be difficult to predict what they'll do so I can pass them safely. I'll sometimes run into an adult riding some absolute beater down the wrong side of the street without a care in the world. These aren't cyclists; they are just folks using a bike as a means of cheap transportation, probably out of necessity, who probably don't put much thought into it.

I do get my share of folks honking, revving their engines really high, shouting out the windows or whatever as they drive by, though the vast majority of folks don't do that crap. After getting "coal-rolled" by a red dualie diesel pickup several weeks back I started looking into cameras, and just received probably the same one as you, the Cycliq Fly 12 CE. I haven't mounted it yet, but will probably throw it on there today temporarily until I figure out how I want to mount it permanently in a dual mount with my Garmin. If that red dualie ever coal-rolls me again that video is going straight to the sheriff's office.

I do tend to either ride the line, or further right of the line if there's room there. I can't control what the drivers do, only what I do, so I don't try to force their hand by riding out in the lane, just hoping they see me in time and do the right thing.

Happy Feet

I don't see a problem.

Video 1: Except for maybe the last driver (hard to tell with wide angle distortion), all pass wide enough. You appear to be riding on a busier road - what do you expect?
Video 2: Salmoning sucks for him but he gives you the whole shoulder and then some. Whether he wears a helmet is not your concern.
Video 3: I wouldn't complain about the mustang pass. Looks at least 3 feet.

Riding really begins to suck when you start looking for things to be offended by.

Wildwood 

+1
But if this was typical of a whole ride, I'd find a new place to ride - less straight, more curves, lower speed limit, fewer cars.

Road riding - after the viral epidemic - will be much worse on my semi-rural roads. .I'm enjoying it now.

canklecat

The Mustang was less than 3' away. Y'all must not ride with video cameras if you don't think that was close. The ultra-wide angle lenses distort perspective and apparent distance. I'd estimate 2.5' at best, and pulling the usual passive/aggressive BS by gunning the engine while passing.

But being N. Carolina (or S. Carolina), complaining to law enforcement wouldn't do any good. Statistically the Carolinas aren't the worst states. I'm not sure anyone comes close to Florida for worst. But I see a lot more examples out of the Carolinas of hostile drivers toward cyclists, than anywhere else. Way too many hit and run injuries and deaths in SC and NC. But it's difficult to cite statistics because nobody collates data methodically enough for incidences of driver negligence injuring and killing pedestrians and cyclists.

Yeah, that stuff can suck all the fun out of a ride. It's changed my riding behavior. I'm a lot more assertive about taking the lane and releasing it only when it's safe for me to do so. If anyone hits me they won't be able to claim they didn't see me or misjudged the distance because I'm not hugging the fog line. It'll be negligence.

But I'm not bullheaded stupid about it either. There are some roads I just won't ride anymore.

SurferCyclist

Hard to tell from the video if Mustang was too close so need to take OPs word that it was. Think we've probably all had similar experiences where it seems a car/truck has purposely got just a bit too close on purpose. Have to say I thought the road in video #1 looked way too busy and fast to do much cycling on, I'd be avoiding that road for sure.
Where I live in UK lot's of quiet back roads which are great to ride on but I find biggest issue is tractor drivers from local farms rather than cars. Some just think the roads are for them and them alone and several times I've had to take evasive action to avoid getting squashed.

50PlusCycling

Other than the crazy drivers, it looks like a nice place to ride. I live in one of the most densely populated places on earth, and have to go a loooong way to get into the countryside. Though there are far more cars on the roads here in Tokyo than pretty much anywhere, it is one of the safest places to ride a bike. Whenever there is a vehicle collision here (and bicycles are considered vehicles) the larger vehicle is considered automatically at fault, so drivers are particularly careful when they approach a cyclist. An accident resulting in an injury is considered a crime in Japan, and any serious injury or death will result in mandatory jail time for the person charged in the accident. If I am riding drunk, at night on the wrong side of the road, and get hit and killed by a car, the car driver will go to jail, no ifs, ands or buts. It may not be fair, but drivers here are far more careful because of this unfairness.

Papa Tom

It always amazes me how far to the left cars feel they have to swerve to avoid me on my morning bike commute, which is mostly along a two-lane country road. It seems like, any day now, there's going to be a head-on collision that will be attributed to me. I'm glad you captured that first video. Nobody ever believes me when I tell them cars constantly give me about twelve feet of passing space, almost always swerving into oncoming traffic in the process.