JoeyBike

My theory about right hooks has always been that motorists view cyclists as "non-moving" objects, like mail boxes, fire hydrants, and street signs. It's not that the motorist didn't SEE you - he/she JUST PASSED YOU. Now I realize there is far more to that story than I dreamed. Yesterday I witnessed a NOLA streetcar (trolley) very nearly get left-hooked by a motorist who JUST PASSED it. It got me wondering how often this happens. So....a little Google found this:

"The biggest challenge we face is people making left turns in front of streetcars," said Patrice Bell Mercadel, Transdev's public information officer. "There is this lack of knowledge, lack of awareness that the streetcar has the right-of-way. To be clear: the streetcar always has the right-of-way." Source

A streetcar is like a tiny one-car train. It can not dodge you, and can not stop on a dime. It's on a track and 100% predictable where it is going and when it will get there. Compared to a cyclist, a trolley is three bedroom shotgun house! How one Earth do you pass one and then FORGET it's there? Or never see it?? I mean, if motorists aren't seeing the streetcars, what freaking chance do we have on a bike?

The only answer I can see is that some people are just really stupid. Just a matter of time before they cross our path. Literally. Some problems just don't have solutions.

I mean....COME ON PEOPLE!

Maelochs

Well, that's some ground-breaking theorizing right there .... That's some 'really stupid" math. Unless you plan to live forever, you will never meet more than an infinitesimal fraction of the people in this world. If you really think because there are some nuts you must be about to meet one ... fine with me. I wasn't going to hang out with you anyway.

Also ... a more rational analysis ... people underestimate closing speed. When they pass something that appears to be extremely slow, they think it is passed .... and don't realize that when they slow to turn, the thing the just passed doesn't.

I was run off the road by a semi-trailer because the driver passed me near the top of a hill, and din't realize that i could out-accelerate his truck once we each hit the peak. He probably didn't even check his mirror ... I was just a guy on a bike, how fast could I be? (Back in those days ... fast enough to almost get hit, i guess.)

The "solution" is to expect that behavior. i guarantee that has never happened to me since.

mcours2006

Thankfully most, if not all, drivers I've encountered in recent memory have had enough sense to wait for me to pass before making a right/left turn, or at least I've had enough sense to stop or slow down to allow drivers to make their left/right turn. These two combined out to be a good solution.

A mirror does help with avoiding right hooks.

mr_bill

Paul Barnard

I bicycle on St Charles early on weekend mornings sometimes. Even with minimal traffic, you have to be aware of the threats. The bike lane is almost entirely within the door zone. Drivers have no idea why a cyclist may be all the way on the left side of that bike lane. Motorists entering from side streets are looking for cars and maybe street cars, but not really tuned into cyclists. With continuous intersections and driveways, you have to be prepared for a right hooks any time a car comes up behind you. I wouldn't ride it at any other time unless I had to for some reason.

JoeyBike

Ever heard of Karma? Your next right-hook will make you think of this post. Hope it is years away, but odds are: Not

JoeyBike

Maelochs

Wow, dude ... you have some Seruious issues.

Because I dispute your claim on a website, you want me to get hit by a car?

Dude, I believe entirely in karma ... entirely.

You probably don't want to be following up on that thought.

Ever wonder why You have had such a rough riding career?

Seriously ... all internet squabbling aside ... our thoughts are powerful. Don't mess around like that.

jon c. 

Whether with cars or bikes, common traffic accidents won't ever be "solved." Human beings make a lot of mistakes.

mr_bill

What could go wrong?

p.s. In your nearly year old not your picture, NO LEFT TURN and NO LEFT TURN

-mr. bill

Leisesturm

I can't believe that no one has as yet observed that the 'motorist' in the picture is a police officer! Can we agree that a LEO might not be the best example that could be found on the internet to exemplify typical 'motorist' behavior? SMH. In the heat of the moment police officers have done some seriously stupid things that even they would never do if an "Adam 12, see the man, shots fired", didn't just come in over the radio. Or the classic: "donut shop!" Creesh, there surely must have been less specious examples of an unwise abrogation of right of way than this one. SMH. And ... and ... where is the bicycle? I'd understand if the o.p. was in some benighted north midwestern city currently dealing with -50ᵒ wind chills. Cabin fever would explain quite a lot. But ... NOLA? Must be some bad shrimp coming in from the Gulf. Yeah, that's the ticket ... feel better soon Joey. .

mr_bill

Less specious? In full motion video no less.


This past week I saw someone on a Bird go around the barriers at Old Town and just miss the trolley they didn't look for. I wonder what such an anecdote "proves?"

-mr. bill

MMACH 5

Joey, I know you are not a fan of such measures, taking the lane does help to deter most right-hooks. That being said, situational awareness is a cyclist's strongest safety tool. In my 13 years as a long-distance bicycle commuter across Dallas, I've had two right-hook, scares. Oddly, they were both in the same week. In both cases, my mirror and anticipation played major rolls in me avoiding the collisions.

berner

I'm working on a theory that as the universe expands, there is less gray matter in our brains per cubic centimeter.

JoeyBike

I take the lane when necessary. I just don't camp out there unless I am doing at least 18-20mph. I use a mirror on my helmet visor. And moving at 18-20 seems to make it less likely that a motorist can right-hook me unless they are driving a Formula 1 car or blind in their right eye.

It is rare I get a right hook attempt and only once did they nearly get me. The street was wet and I was flying. It was a miracle I missed them by an inch and didn't fall. Mostly I see it coming in the mirror. But they keep trying, I gotta hand it to them.

JoeyBike

I never said or thought that. And if what I want had any impact on the real world the Oakland Raiders and New Orleans Saints would play each other in the Superbowl every year. Yet is hasn't happened even ONCE.

I am not superstitious. And I have no powers. Right hooks don't always end with a collision. And one day, if you keep riding, some yahoo is going to try you. Then you will have understanding instead of disputing this website.

indyfabz

****

Maelochs

"Some yahoo" tries me On This Website quite frequently.

As far as the rest of your ... "insight," .... I have been hit by cars, trucks, vans, .... not yest a bus or plane .... but I haven't been hit in a lot of years because I learned..
You should learn. You should learn that you apocalyptic doom-screeching is itself superstition.

MOST riders don't get killed by cars. I don't have good numbers, but if fewer than a thousand cyclists get killed each year, the number is probably one in a million.

You live in a fake, hallucinatory world where "It's a war zone out there."

I live in a world where tens of millions of people---a possibly a vastly greater number---ride bike sin perfect safety every day.

Your world view is twisted by superstition, by your insane fear of being killed while riding. That is fine. But that is twice Just In This Thread where you have assured me that I am going to get hit because I won't agree with you.

So ... basically ... until the sane and rational @JoeyBike starts posoting again ... forget you.

I am going to ride my bike and enjoy it ... and do so Safely ... as I have been doing for almost my entire life.

You do whatever you want.

JoeyBike

Only the deceased get counted. The maimed or disabled cyclists don't make the cut in many statistics.

I live in New Orleans. Why just today: https://www.nola.com/crime/

Lucky you.

Not killed. Maimed OR killed.

No, I assume your RISK of being hit exists. How you feel about my posts is irrelevant to this possibility. I have no powers to protect or harm you.

Is that a promise?

I wish you the best of luck.

I want to bike in a safer world. Until i find one and move to it I am choosing the safer approach.

MikeyMK

My town was built with a completely separate cycleway system to the roads. We don't cycle on roads.

Therefore it's already been solved. A safer world for cyclists already exists. Cyclists don't get hit here.

Speak for your own area, and where you have chosen to live and ride.

MikeyMK

Never heard of a street trolley before. That's hilarious. We call them trams. Probably becsuse they're trains that ram cars. Try youtube russian car crashes, trams kick trucks out the way all the time. Crazy Russians.

JoeyBike

Thank you for making my point crystal clear.

Locals call them "streetcars". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcars_in_New_Orleans

livedarklions

Technically, the connection to the overhead wire is the trolley. In a lot of places, "trolley car" has been shortened to "trolley" to refer to the entire vehicle, but only if it's a track vehicle. I have never heard of a trolley bus referred to as a "trolley" or "street trolley."

For some reason, "tram" isn't common usage anywhere in the U.S. that I am aware of.

Cyclist0108

In Britain, "trolley" means "shopping cart."

So a street trolley is something you push around all your remaining belongings in after your wife finds out you bought a Bob Jackson without permission.

mr_bill

We call them "trackless trolleys."

(Kind of like clipless pedals. The phrase "I failed to clip out of my clipless pedals..." makes, uh, sense?)

-mr. bill