You can everything right, and still lose your life
 

Really sad. Just riding along in a bike lane, then bam, it's over. Not that it would make a difference for this man, but I ride with active bright blinker lights front and rear and a Take-A-Look mirror. I know if a vehicle sees me and moves over. If they don't I watch the vehicle all the way to me, ready to emergency ditch off the road if needed.

Teenage driver was apparently texting while driving......



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Eat, drink and be merry....:beer:

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Wow, so sad! This is why I avoid riding on the streets. Half of the drivers out here in California are on their phone while driving.

Always considered sky diving and mountaineering inherently risky activities, but posts like the above really drives it home about our chosen passion. Enjoy life, enjoy cycling, enjoy it all.

Nothing will change until we completely overhaul the current paradigm and use words like "negligence" instead of "accident," "crash" or "collision" to describe drivers who are indifferent, incompetent or outright hostile toward other people who are lawfully using shared public infrastructure.

The easiest way to get away with mayhem, assault and murder in the US is to hit a pedestrian or cyclist with a car, then invoke the magic words, "They came out of nowhere! I never saw them! The sun was in my eyes! I feared for my life and was just trying to escape!"

If you survive being hit, you'll be lucky if the cop doesn't write up the citation implying that the pedestrian or cyclist was partially at fault for failing to dodge the Dodge. Been there. Despite having the green light, pedestrian walk signal, and being established in the crosswalk, the cop implied I was partially at fault for not jumping out of the way of the driver who ignored the flashing yellow yield signal and was looking down rather than up.

I never ride a bike now without running video, usually front and rear facing.

I seek out rural roads as much as possible, to minimize the risk... like maybe 3 cars or less per mile. Also have a hypothesis that if a road is curvy, drivers won't be able to text and drive as much compared to a straight road.

Also use the Garmin Varia radar / light combo. That's an amazing piece of tech for rural roads... wouldn't want to ride without it.

Aside from that, safety is one of the reasons I'm getting into gravel riding more... at least on gravel, cars usually aren't moving quite as fast.

I don't care if they call it accident or crash, but what is galling about the language is the headline calls this a "bicycling accident". According to the story, the bicycling was fine. The driver swerved the car into the bike lane.

Bummer. Lots more similar incidents here https://www.bikeforums.net/advocacy-safety/

I always hate to hear such tragedy. I live in rural Alabama and have to ride a mountain bike on the road so I can hit the ditch whenever necessary. I only ride my road bikes in town where vehicles are as slow as I am, and I still have to get out of the way. A mirror is absolutely a necessity. The closest bike lane is 1.5 hours away by car in the next big town.

+10000
Amazing piece of kit and works flawlessly (which is not always the case with Garmin). Fortunately drivers in our local rural area are usually pretty good with bikes, but there's always a few idiots around. The Varia is a road riding essential for me.

I bought a Varia a couple weeks ago and love it. It provides yet another little bit of interest/entertainment to break up the miles by watching dots move on the screen. But really, I like that when riding gravel I can pick my line and more confidently know that I am not annoying a vehicle behind me if I am in the center of the road. Once a vehicle pops up on radar, I can move over and not slow them down.

Mixed surface rides are what almost all my solo riding is at this point. 5mi of paved roads to hit gravel, then however many miles I want to ride that day, plus 5mi of paved roads home. The gravel roads are quieter, slower, and hillier. Its a win all the way around.

Very sad, and enraging, actually.
The displayed link you have there is for the story on YouTube - but the URL when you click it you have going to a FoxNews story about it, and brother, let me just say that the comments below that story are reprehensible. :mad:

Ditto all of that. That's why I love the Varia also - it allows me to use the whole lane and pick my line. Previously, I almost always rode in the outer 3 ft of the road, not knowing whether a car was behind... (Yes, I have and use a mirror, but it's distracting to check that every few seconds). Especially if there's a pothole coming up quickly... previously I felt I *always* had to go towards the edge of the road to avoid the pothole, in case a car might be coming up. Sometimes there isn't really time to look back at a mirror after you see the pothole.

The only false positives I've had with the Varia is when I pull off the road and the back end of the bike is pointed toward traffic, or after an intersection with cross traffic. The only false negatives have been when the car matches my speed for a while, but that's after the Varia has already alerted me.

Those that use the Garmin Varia: Do you use it with a Garmin device or your cellphone or both? Does it audibly alert so that if using a phone (android in my case) you can have the phone in a pocket or handlebar bag and still hear an alert - that is, if you don't want to mount phone/garmin on the handlebars? I was hit by a pickup truck from the rear many years ago and while he really dinged up my body, I managed to dent the entire length of the pickup truck bed with my butt!!!!

I use it with a garmin gps. it can work on a phone with the garmin app. notification is an audible 'beep', a little moving dot that represents the approaching vehicle, and side colors that turn a light shade of red and turn green once the vehicle passes.

I too, have flashers and a Take-A-Look mirror, and watch vehicle behavior behind me and always have in mind the possibility of "ditching" or at least pulling over. I will also use hand signals to catch a driver's attention, and all four bikes have AirZound Airhorns and once in a while I'll honk to alert cars behind me.

But flashers are a must. And a take-a-look or helmet mirror greatly improves situational awareness!

But even after minimizing risks, there will still be unexpected factors beyond our control.

The Garmin Varia radar unit, how well does it recognize cars behind and either to the right or left of you? How about interference such as hills, signs, traffic lights etc? Any false positives, or is it pretty accurate?

I don't really want my bike to start looking like Batman's duty belt but these sound interesting. I also wear a Garmin Fenix 5x watch all the time and as my bike computer and it's compatible with the Varia.

I use it with a Garmin head unit which gives both visible and audible warning. I haven't used the Garmin phone app, but it looks like it would work in a very similar way. Not sure how effective it would be in your pocket though. The visible indicator is very useful to see cars closing in on you. There is also the option of a simple bar mounted dedicated indicator if you don't have a head unit. I believe it also works with some other non-Garmin head units e.g. Wahoo.

It is pretty flawless in my experience. It picks up any vehicle approaching from behind regardless of its positioning to your left or right. It picks them up very early too, usually well before you hear them so you get a good 10 seconds or more warning before they actually reach you. It can even see up to 3 cars approaching in a line behind you. Signs, traffic lights, hills etc don't seem to be an issue. It only drops out if it loses line of direct sight to the approaching vehicle, like if you are going into a very sharp bend where the approaching car goes out of sight again. But it will pick it up again once it regains line of sight. I can't honestly remember getting any false positives or negatives. It also alerts you more aggressively if something is approaching unusually fast.

It really is one of those rare pieces of tech that exceeds expectations. It would maybe be of less use in an urban setting when cars are passing you literally every few seconds anyway, but out in a rural setting it is utterly brilliant!

and half of cyclists here in Chicago do the same, means 100% in total?
gm

Flashers are a must for emergency vehicles traveling at high speeds. Solid front lights are great for all other road users especially those with a good brightness and beam pattern.

I agree with all of that. It never beeps on stationary objects like signs, bridges, trees. It also never beeps for oncoming cars that have passed and are now behind and moving away. If I pull off the road and lean the bike up against something, it will continue to alert for any car passing behind on the road, so that's a slight annoyance, but those are not really false positives as the cars are really there. I didn't like the elastic band mounts that came in the box, so I purchased a clamp-on style mount, but other than that, it's just about perfect. If I lost mine, I would purchase another one *immediately*.

Pretty good review of it here:

Sigh, so much to buy:
(1) Garmin Varia to alert me if a car is approaching; if only this device could tell whether the car is about to pass or run me over!
(2) Apple Watch with fall detection to alert my emergency contact and emergency services if #1 does not prevent someone from running me over.
(3) Front and rear cameras so that I (or my estate) can recover from the negligent or reckless driver who ran me over.
Total all three and it's more than what some people spend on their wheels.

It does actually give you a good clue. It alerts you more aggressively if the approaching vehicle doesn’t slow down or is closing very fast. Whenever I get that alert I immediately look over my shoulder and prepare to pull off the road if necessary. There is enough time as the warning is early. Usually you can see by the changing speed of the approaching “dot” whether or not the driver has at least seen you in the road.

It gives you a LOT more awareness of what is travelling approx 10 seconds behind you and how fast it is approaching.

I use it with my garmin watch which I strap around the handlebar. Alerts you on how fast a vehicle is closing and if there are additional vehicles behind them. Double beeps and turns deep red on a high speed approach.

I enjoy that on most rural roads you can take the entire lane with confidence knowing that you have plenty of time and awareness to adjust for the occasional vehicle.