Collision with a dog
 

I report my mistakes here, but in this case I’m not sure there’s anything I would have done differently. Maybe if I’d known it can happen, I would have been a bit better prepared, but the “normal” response is still I think statistically better.

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Dog approach situation.

I was commuting from work on a 6-lane 45 mph-posted state highway with very wide shoulders. There was a red light behind me so there was no motor vehicle traffic to my left side. About 20 feet away I saw a 80-100 lb. dog approaching me from a business driveway. I could see the dog looking at me. Dogs in this situation in the past have always begun a chase so I maintained my line and speed. He then walked in front of me and I hit him square on, knocking me down to the side. I have a bit of road rash and some sore muscles, but nothing serious. The dog walked away and I don’t think he was seriously injured.

I’ve got to say it never occurred to me that a dog would just walk in front of me like that while looking at me.

Thoughts:

1. The crash activated my Garmin emergency signal, which I cancelled. This motivated me to make a full-cycle test with my family to confirm that it will notify them. (My family, upon hearing of my crash, were primarily concerned with the condition of the dog.)

2. This is a reminder to me for all the gear all the time (ATGATT). I had zero expectation of ending up on the ground on this commute. (I use the picture in this link for my normal reminder…) 991277-atgatt.jpg (547×686) (bp.blogspot.com)

Otherwise, not much to say other than a reminder that Murphy’s Law isn’t a joke, it is one of the fundamental laws of physics.

I'm glad you are all right, relatively. And the question you knew was coming: What were you riding and is the bike okay?

Looks like you saved the dog from walking out into traffic. He wouldn't have fared so well after a collision with a motor vehicle.

My regular commuter is a touring bike so gross weight probably 200-220 lb. No damage to bike or panniers. Also, in case TXDOT is listening, I did not damage their asphalt.

I'm always on the look out for animals, pedestrians and cars. If something looks like trouble, I slow down and that means I let squirrels cross my path.

Hard to hit a squirrel. I've tried.

I ran over one that thought he could get between the wheels mini speed bump but he disappeared into the weeds before I stopped.

we were going slow doing a sharp turn by a curb on our tandem new to it when a dog broke out of the fence and ran at is. I turned left away handbrakes but my blind wife leaned right and we fell over. Landed on the end of the handbar right where my leg joins my body. massive hematoma and bruise.

I had to merge with traffic one time when a guy was in the bike lane with a camera on a tri-pod shooting pictures. After making sure there wasn't anything coming up behind me I veered to the left to avoid the guy and just before I reached him a dog on a long leash jumped out in front of me. I missed the dog but caught the leash in the bottom bracket area of my bike. It was a medium sized dog @45 pounder. The leash yanked the dog off it's feet with a loud yelp and also caught the tri-pod. Everything kinda flew everywhere. I wasn't hurt, my bike wasn't hurt and the dog wasn't hurt, thankfully. But the idiot thought I owed him a new camera haha. When I showed him the camera on my handlebar that had filmed everything, he packed up and took off without another word. (he might have been crying) At the least, I'm sure the lens on his camera was busted based on the large dent and abrasion I could see in the side of it.

<--- I'm guessing you don't have one of these.

I hope everyone involved came out of it ok.

Maybe that’s the reason. My dog would not look at an oncoming object and walk in front of it. Chasing a duck or a rabbit and get blindsided? All day long. See it coming? He’s backing off.

What breed?

(That one was a golden. RIP)

You don't have to worry about hitting a squirrel; you have to worry about the squirrel hitting you

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happened to me, too. But it was a small dog caught in the wheel. Took me right down. He jumped right at the wheel.

I generally dismount unless it is very clear I am going to outgun the dog. In OP's situation, I would have stopped 100% of the time

It's been my experience that it's good practice to always expect the absolute worse and unexpected results when dealing with kids and animals -- they just do the most illogical things, since they're both on about the same mental level...and that's giving kids the benefit of the doubt. I had a kid on a little bike run directly into my rear wheel on a perpendicular direction. He was looking right at me and I was thinking, surely he's going to stop or turn away. Now whenever I see kids or animals anywhere near me, I'm on guard for the totally unexpected.

Your family being concerned about the dog...that's typical in today's world. It's a funny thing.


This is just out of curiosity, no bearing on the incident. I see you scrubbed out the business sign to the right of the shoulder.

However, I also see that you scrubbed out something in the middle of the roadway to the left of the shoulder. Why? What was it?



.

I've seen a golden retriever look at me and get out of my way. I've seen small dogs bark and try to run at me but held firmly by its leash. I've had a young dalmation off-leash keep at my front wheel I was afraid it would try to get in front of my bike so I had to ride slowly not to run it over but fast enough to try to avoid it stopping me from going. I led it almost out of the park with the owner yelling from far away.

I once (involuntarily) decapitated a small bird that decided that it would be fun to cross the trail between my spokes.

I heard it "pop" and saw feathers flying. When I looked back I saw his head rolling downhill like a ping pong ball. My fork ended up with blood stains and TBH, I felt really bad although there's little I could have done to avoid it.

Was the dog wearing a helmet?

Some dogs might be almost blind and depend on other senses. So always expect the unexpected.

FYI, in many states, the owner of the pet is responsible for damages. But apparently you have nothing significant to you or your bike.

another reminder not to trust eye contact

I think the problem with dogs is it's not clear at all right up to the point of no return which unexpected I should expect. You have almost no time to consider your options, and they are usually mutually exclusive. I can't go by what worked last time because dogs have no respect for precedent.

Last major incident I had with dogs was sort of the opposite of OPs, what looked like a threatening situation turned out to be comical. I was riding on a MUP with nowhere to exit when two dogs are charging at me from the other direction barking in a manner that sounded scary. I hopped off my bike, yelled real loud and put the bike between me and the dogs. At which point, they immediately both sat down staring at me and wagging their tails. I was pretty sure they thought I was going to throw the bike for them to fetch.

Dogs have been intentionally bred for generations to be dumb.

I think the dog I hit was mostly Mastiff. My dog is an adopted stray “50 pounds of brown” mutt.

Name of highway from Google Maps street view.

I’ve thought about this more and I can see the advantage of doing that and using the bike as a shield so I don’t get bit as ldl noted. Thanks!

They are kind of like people.

totally agree. this little ball of energy (off leash) was all over the trail, so I slowed to a crawl to pass them
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