Sometimes when I see threads like this I wonder what percent of the ~800 cyclists killed each year in collisions with motor vehicles, I sometimes wonder, what percent of them had a previous negative interaction with a car. A non-fatal one that they chalked up to cager stupidity and/or hatred of cyclists. Post
#22 is a remarkably cogent summation of what a near ideal set of behaviors and attitudes that can lead to a long, accident free, cycling career looks like. The o.p. says that going forward it will be hard to see his neighbors the same. I would have to ask, did s/he ever know them at all. The bar for what passes for a neighbor is so low these days. People forget that not that long ago you had your neighbors over from time to time, you talked to each other. Often. People you have broken bread with don't take a strangers side when something bad happens to you. People you just wave at as you pull away from the school yard after having dropped your kid(s) off don't have any investment in you personally. When something like the incident under discussion comes down, the reaction is purely objective. I sure hope the o.p. does not intend legal recourse because this thread would not help their case. Nor, I suspect, would a camera. I certainly could be wrong. I wasn't there. But nothing, not the reaction of neighbors, the amount of damage to the bike, the 'flying over the hood' ... none of it supports the o.p. claim that the car hit them and not the other way around. A camera is not needed to win a lawsuit that is supported by forensic evidence. If the driver had fled I might have to walk that back, but the driver stopped. So why do we need the camera(s)?