Using videos to blame motorist for your mistakes
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Using videos to blame motorist for your mistakes
I often see videos from bicyclists explaining how a motorist was wrong and the bicyclist was endangered. Many times bicyclist are there own worst enemy. The one I saw today linked from bikinginla was very annoying. It was listed under the war on bicycles and it is claimed that the bicyclist was brake checked. There is a video showing a car approaching from the rear and a video from the front of the bicycle. The front view shows were the road narrows and has a sharrow in it. There is also a yield sign at a cross road. The bicyclist stays to the right edge of the curb where it narrows instead of taking the lane. Then yells at the motorist for passing to close and doesn't notice the motorist stopping at the yield sign. If I had been approaching a bicyclist at that intersection I would have waited on the bicyclist because it would have been an unsafe pass. The Video should be entitled how my low attention span nearly made me a road cookie. Tell me what you think.
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DItto, need a link. Googling for it shows many, many videos from that site.
I'll say this, though: When I began video recording my commute to "catch" bad or dangerous drivers, I learned more about my own behavior.
I'll say this, though: When I began video recording my commute to "catch" bad or dangerous drivers, I learned more about my own behavior.
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If a motorist can't pass a bicycle safely, and when the motorist doesn't bother to look out of the front of their vehicle beyond 3m up the road in front of themselves, it matters very little where the cyclist was in the road.
Sure, it's good to "take the lane" to discourage motorists from doing stupid things, forcing them to observe what's going on in front of them (!). But if the cyclist doesn't force them to do that, it doesn't exonerate the motorist of responsibility from doing dangerous things.
Sure, it's good to "take the lane" to discourage motorists from doing stupid things, forcing them to observe what's going on in front of them (!). But if the cyclist doesn't force them to do that, it doesn't exonerate the motorist of responsibility from doing dangerous things.
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(The driver may have done something actually wrong at another point in the video, but that wasn't the argument being made)
One of my related pet peeves is with videos that celebrate some very dodgy interactions with traffic. One features a cyclist later killed in an interaction with a vehicle. No charges were filed in that case, but if any were, the video would be a goldmine for the driver's attorney.
Last edited by UniChris; 03-13-21 at 12:05 PM.
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I got into an argument with someone yesterday complaining about hostile drivers, he posted a video of him riding in a traffic-heavy mulit-lane road, making lots of sudden lane changes without signaling and riding faster than the traffic around him, and then getting mad because somebody nearly swerved into his erratic ass
Another guy on the same thread said that someone brake-checked him for no reason, then revealed later in the conversation that he (the cyclist) had earlier road-raged at the driver for honking his horn which set off the whole altercation
There's just a very small subset of cyclists who want to make the roads out to be like the thunderdome, where we are all hostile belligerents out for blood. The reality is (at least the American) roadways are a gauntlet of confused, stupid people designed by other confused, stupid people.
Another guy on the same thread said that someone brake-checked him for no reason, then revealed later in the conversation that he (the cyclist) had earlier road-raged at the driver for honking his horn which set off the whole altercation
There's just a very small subset of cyclists who want to make the roads out to be like the thunderdome, where we are all hostile belligerents out for blood. The reality is (at least the American) roadways are a gauntlet of confused, stupid people designed by other confused, stupid people.