raria

As I was flying over the hood of the car that hit me this Sunday I recall being grateful that the accident happened in my own neighborhood. At least if I was knocked unconscious my neighbors would call my partner, take me to hospital etc. I also figured they'd be able to ID the idiot who was too busy on his phone and rolled through a stop sign so his front bumper hit me square on.

I landed with a thud on my backside and tore up my shorts and right leg badly enough that there was a bit of blood but not too serious.

So imagine my surprise when the neighbors (who I knew but were not close friends with) looked out at me and then promptly went back to what they were doing. Only a ten year old came over and asked me if I was okay. The driver stayed in the car and is not from our neighborhood. Finally a group wandered over to me after a good five minutes and instead of sympathy I got the victim-blaming angle. Why do you cycling on the roads? Are you going to report this so we get speed bumps etc? When the driver finally emerged from his car, they asked him if he was okay. When I explained he rolled through a stop sign they said yes he did, but this was normal and expected and I should have been paying more attention.

By this time I was getting a little annoyed, so I said I would call the police (CAAD 12 was a write off), the neighbors then promptly took the drivers side and said they believed it was my fault. I explained patiently I was not facing a stop sign and the driver had rolled through a stop sign. I pointed to the mark on his front bumper and showed the lack of mark on his front side panel to prove my point.

Amazingly people's memory started to change and they now recalled the driver stopping and me hitting him rather than him hitting me.

I know that some of you will say my memories were impaired but If you have been in an accident (auto or bike) before you may have experience this slowing down of time and burning of the memories into your mind. They even know that the amygdala region of your brain lays down more memories when you believe you are in grave danger. So my recollection is right.

So here I was riding through a neighborhood at 15mph waving to neighbors whose kids go school with mine, whom I say hello to when doing pickups from school. Yet all of that got transcended.

So why do they hate us so much?

fietsbob

Media business creates celebrity, and you are not a celebrity..

you are part of a housing, real estate property market, no longer a community ...

saying any more in cultural analysis becomes a P&R topic...







...

raria

This is a safety forum so lets keep it to that.

The driver was not a celebrity either but they seemed to like him ...

Leisesturm

In other words, it probably wasn't personal.

JoeyBike

Because you have the audacity to get in their way. Period.

So now you know! Now what?

JW Fas

I amount it to laziness and unintentional apathy. Cars are so ubiquitous that they're seen as the norm and the "ruling" mode of transportation. Therefore, in the eyes of most people, everything else is secondary and "optional". While your CAAD12 wasn't the most expensive bike avaikaava, it was still a lot more than your typical person would want to spend on a bike. This goes back to generations of car culture breeding apathy, so it's no surprise most people wouldn't be able to disrindisti good quality bikes from shoddy ones.

For the love of all that is good and decent, get a freaking camera. $300 for a top end model will be the cheapest insurance policy you'll ever buy. Not to mention, try seeing how willing people are to lie when they know they're being filmed.

ridelikeaturtle

Reason # 17,392 to get "incident protection" cameras. Front and rear.

JoeyBike

360* camera? Or two cameras, front and rear? Is cycling so dangerous I need a bank of security cameras running 24/7 just in case? Perhaps I need a new pastime that dose not require constant surveillance video equipment?

JW Fas

This has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with treatment by the legal system and by motorists. By your logic everyone should stop driving cars since doing that places you at a greater risk of injury or death than cycling does. Do you believe that is a reasonable course of action?

Cyclists have historically been treated as inferior at the hands of law enforcement and the courts. Cameras are helping to turn the tide. The average citizen also recognizes a camera when it's conspicuously placed (i.e. on the helmet). Thanks to GoPro's brilliant marketing I've been asked many times if I'm wearing a GoPro. Ever since I began using one five years ago I can count on a single hand how many times I've been intentionally harassed. Prior to that I ran out of fingers every month.

raria

But I didn't get in my neighbors way. They were raking leaves etc.

I find it was personal. It was like I didn't matter and it was all my own fault.

Now that's a viable explanation, but the hatred and contempt and lack of compassion still gets me. It's going to be an awkward few weeks as I see these people walking their kids to school!

brianmcg123

You can get his black box info pulled and possibly GPS from his phone to show he didn't stop. Just an FYI.

JoeyBike

Some other cyclist got in their way at another time in the past. Maybe several other cyclists had the nerve to slow them down for five seconds last week or last year. You are a cyclist, ergo, a PITA, and they hate you and your kind.

^^THIS is why. You asked.

I-Like-To-Bike

How can the OP "get his black box info pulled and possibly GPS from his phone"? Any suggestions that aren't preposterous?

I-Like-To-Bike

Are you paid for your contribution to the "brilliant marketing" scheme, or do you do your part promoting their product with hyped up claims of "insurance" and "turning the tide" against injustice as an amateur GoPro fan boy?

MMACH 5

People tend to side with whomever they can relate to. Most folks can relate to being in a car, and seeing a cyclist blow a stop sign or just be in their way. Most folks can't relate to someone who rides a bicycle in a vehicular manner. Regardless of being your neighbors, you seem to them like an alien occupying one of the houses, down the street.

B. Carfree

What a bummer neighborhood that must be. Where I live, the motorist might just get his tires slashed for striking a cyclist. HE would be the one calling the police, just to make sure there's a cop around if things get ugly. And this is in the current context after we dropped from 30% of my neighborhood using bikes as their primary means of transportation to half that over the past decade. If this happened a decade ago, the car would definitely suffer damage. Twenty years ago it would have been torched, even if the cops showed up.

That said, I agree with those who said it's a tribal thing. In my neighborhood, people relate to someone riding a bike, but not with the jerk driving into cyclists. In the OP's neighborhood, they see themselves differently.

ridelikeaturtle

What the fxck kind of response is this? Jesus.

Ald1 

Was it a 4 way stop? Anyway this is nothing new. Back when I was in my 20's a LONG time ago (the 70's). I was screaming down a hill when a lady accelerated past me, slammed on her brakes and turned right into me. When they were loading me into the ambulance and I was coming back to concienceness she had to be pulled off me screaming "didn't you see my turn signal" and "you better pay for the damage to my car."
I believe this stems from the attitude (brainwashing) by the automobile industry and others that cars and their owners are entitled to the sole use of the road. Remember, when cars were first introduced on the public streets they were a hazard, routinely plowing down pedestrians, so the term "J" walking was invented by the car industry and promptly introduced to blame the walkers, not the cars. Quickly that took root and horses, pedestrians and bikes became second class citizens for road use with the public's love for the car. It just continues today.
Thats why I try to be a good ambassador on my bike and smile and wave a lot as, unfortunately I've seen too many rude, cyclists too. I no longer ride with some groups as they seem to intentionaly want to p*** off drivers, riding 3 4 abreats on two lane road not moving over when safe to do so because "I'm entitled to the road too" although true, not too smart IMHO. No easy answers.....

brianmcg123

lostarchitect 

He is always needlessly adversarial. I'd suggest ignoring it.

Gallo

I dont feel hated so not part of the us


Being situationally aware whether you have the right of way or not is wise when riding


If you saw him on his phone you did not make eye contact with him


I would still put blame on the driver but we ride much differently. I assume they are not looking will hit me and have hands on the hoods and look for outs at all intersections where I meet cars


Again I would not put blame on you as you did have the right of way at the same time this is the type of accident I have avoided many times and hope to continue to.


I do not think they hate us and have come across a few who do but I do not think they see us so I try to see them.


Twice this week I have had incidents where the driver was not looking when I was crossing a well known cyclist intersection we even have our own light here. The cars are constantly not looking as they race to the right turn on a full red light. I always try to make eye contact if I do not get it I am on my brakes. Most times I am seen and you see a shock on the drivers face I wave in a thank you unlike other cyclist I see rage and yell at the same intersection under the same circumstances. There are times I have to stop because they are so stupid and unaware of their surroundings. It happens allot being situationaly aware is part of riding in my book. Also being friendly to cars and waving each time they stop for me in thanks I think wise as well


Sorry to hear about your bike and your neighbors are not like mine and hope you have no long term injuries

JoeyBike

Yeah. Same here. Same reasons.

I-Like-To-Bike

How easy is it in TN for a private citizen to demand that law enforcement or their insurance company seize/search someone else's "black box" [whatever that is supposed to be] or cell phone/cell phone service provider's GPS information records to get such information? How likely is a positive response to a demand for such a so-called "Fault" determination for a relatively minor fender bender/minor injury accident? Has the Constitution been suspended in 2018 where you live?

I-Like-To-Bike

Sure just accept as fact vague babbling about the alleged power of bicyclists' video camera to provide "cheapest insurance policy you'll ever buy" and "turning the tide."

Leisesturm

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)?