Yo Spiff

I almost hit another cyclist on my drive to work this morning.

Initially I was appalled at myself, thinking: "How could I do that?". Then I got mad when I realized HE was doing everything wrong. A busy main road with almost no shoulder and not bike friendly at all. Dark clothing, NO LIGHTS OR REFLECTORS before dawn. Hugging the very edge of the road, which tempts drivers to squeeze past you. I had to hit the brakes hard enough that my tires squealed. I crept behind him a bit until I felt it was safe to pull out and pass. Had my own bicycle on the back of the truck at the time. I rolled down the window hoping he would pull up to me at the light so I could say something, but he didn't catch up to me.

I'm going to toss some spare blinky lights in the truck and if I encounter him again, bike ninja is getting some lights. Maybe he'll be smart and use them.

Tundra_Man 

I accidentally hit a cyclist 12 years ago. I was stopped at an intersection waiting to cross a busy one-way street. When there was a break in traffic I started to pull out and suddenly a salmon rider appeared right out in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, but did tap him. Thankfully I didn't even hit him hard enough to knock him off the bike. He cursed at me and then rode off against traffic.

I still feel bad about it years later.

Flying Merkel

I got one riding on the sidewalk against traffic. I was pulling out of a parking lot, he was blazing. Mostly his pride was hurt.

skye

As much as we complain about motorists around here (and I'm often in the front of that line), it is pretty clear that a lot of cyclists are their own worst enemies. Trouble is, how do you fix that? I think we gotta catch 'em young, and teach them how to ride properly from the get-go. By the time someone is an adult, they're going to ride stupid because that's what they learned as kids, and if you try to correct someone, they'll just flip you the bird (and, honestly, rightfully so). I never try to teach an adult cyclist how to ride. They'll just have to learn the hard way.

dramiscram

+1

By the way, here's my latest catch
A nice, big salmon going downstream

Looigi

Yep. Not being conspicuous on a bike is not only hazardous to the rider, but discourteous to other road users.

Essex

Cool. 4 Point MTB Buck antler. Gonna have to put one of these up someday!

mconlonx

"another"...???

delcrossv

AMEN! I've taught my kids to ride with traffic, obey signals, when to take the lane etc. The get around with no problems. That's the key.

Just a few weeks ago I see this guy in his 40's salmoning down our (residential) street. He then crosses the street to go around a parked car, so now he's riding with traffic (so far , so good). Then he crosses the street AGAIN so he can return to salmoning (almost getting clipped by an oncoming car in the process). I did yell "Ride with Traffic!!!" but he just smiled and continued salmoning. Idiot.

CB HI

If your headlights were working properly and you were not following the car ahead 'too closely', how did you get so close to the cyclist that you did not see him before you had to slam on your brakes?

TheHen

I have a lot of sympathy for new cyclists. (I should add that, according to the census numbers, most cyclists seem to be fairly new.) If they ride properly, they will be harassed and told to get off the road. Everyone's been told that. So, to reduce friction with the ignorant motorists, they adopt these bizarre-to-us coping strategies that actually increase their risk.

No wonder so many people quit riding altogether or resort to driving their bikes someplace to ride.

Keith99

Try this for doing everythgin wrong.

Come out of one of the parking lots for a corner strip mall, directly onto the sidewalk for the whole of 10 feet and then into the crosswalk going against traffic.

Wasn't actually a close call, but easily could have been. I was trying to make a legal right turn on red. So I was inching forward and looking to my left for oncomming traffic. Well I started to, but a busy street so I had given up. If it was a little less busy and I got a break at the wrong time for him the guy would have been toast.

Yo Spiff

As I said, he had no lights and was wearing dark colors. Blended in nicely with the trees off to the right. Same reason I often don't see joggers on the bike trail with my 400 lumen headlight. Traffic was not moving fast, so following distance was not a huge amount.

There's probably also a bit of the common driver issue of not expecting to see a cyclist in that location. I'm not looking for a bike ninja in a location where a have never seen a cyclist before.

Which only makes the point, that if another cyclist fails to see him, then he's not making himself visible.

merlinextraligh

There's a reason lights are required on vehicles operated in the dark.

Dark clothes, no lights, no reflectors, edge of the road, it's going to take a pretty decent amount of time, and distance, for even an attentive driver driving the speed limit to see, perceive, and react.

North Coast Joe

I almost nailed a fellow about three months ago, and STILL feel horrible about it despite his riding behavior.

I was backing out of my driveway in the pre-dawn morning hours and nearly backed over him but luckily saw him at the absolute last second before contact. He's not really a rider we'd expect on this forum, but rather an eccentric sort of fellow who seems to alternate between pedaling extremely slowly and propelling his bike with his feet while seated. Dark blue hoodie, jeans and no lights on the bike on an unlit road. I jumped from the car and apologised profusely....why...'cause it shook me up SO much! I'd hate myself for injuring another person under any circumstances...even if it was his behavior that nearly cost him. I also wouldn't want to see how law enforcement would interpret the accident; it may not go my way!

wphamilton

A busy main road with almost no shoulder and not bike friendly at all.

That's ok to ride on.

Dark clothing, NO LIGHTS OR REFLECTORS before dawn. Hugging the very edge of the road, which tempts drivers to squeeze past you.

If he is so hard to see that you had to skid tires, that's probably why he was hugging the side. At least he has a chance that way for drivers to skid around him or squeeze by rather than running him over in the middle. Early morning and late evening are the worst IMO, so easy to miss indistinct shapes. A tail light would help of course.

But if it were me cycling - not to pick on you Spiff but in general - and while I'm just tooling down the road a driver slams on his brakes behind me, that driver needs to tone up his driving skills.

merlinextraligh

I don't agree in that situation. Spiff said it's a main road, so 55mph for speed is a reasonable estimate ( adjust up or down for the actual speed)

At 55 mph, you've got to be able to see, and perceive what you're looking at 279 feet away, or almost a football field. https://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/reactiontime.html

Are you sying that you're always going to be able to see a cyclist on the edge of the road, in the dark, wearing dark clothes with no light, and no reflector 300 feet away?

If I'm on a jury, I acquit Spiff if he was unfortunate enough to have hit the idiot.

Commodus

Perhaps 55mph is not a reasonable speed to be travelling in the dark then. Unless Jacksonville requires that all pedestrians wear lighting as well?

TheHen

I agree that a jury is likely to acquit. However, since the standard safe following distance is two to four seconds, and if he was driving safely he would have been four seconds behind the vehicle in front of him, then he should have been able to see the cyclist 300 feet in front of him as the car in front of him passed him even at 55 mph. He pretty much said he was driving on autopilot when he said part of the reason he didn't see the cyclist was because he didn't expect to see a cyclist there. Don't motorcyclists have a bumper sticker about this sort of mindless driving? (Rhetorical. Yes, they do; "Start Seeing Motorcycles")

I think the OP is looking for people to help him put all of the blame on the ninja. Okay, fine. If the ninja would have had a legal rear reflector, then he might have been able to get your attention soon enough that you wouldn't have had a panic stop. However, if you were driving properly and paying attention, then you also would not have had to skid. He's legally in the wrong, but you have something to learn here too.

By the way, nice idea about carrying some blinkies to hand out to ninjas. You might as well go all in and bring a screwdriver to help them mount the lights as well.

wphamilton

I've seen those numbers but I think they're way overstated. Usually the reaction time is quoted at less than the 1.5 seconds, sometimes half that. Plus braking distance, 150 to 200 feet is more reasonable at 50 mph. Even in the dead dark I try not to outrun my headlights.

Second, I read the post as saying "before dawn", not "in the darkness." Here, and in Ft Worth, dawn is about 7:30 so I had tentatively imagined the time frame, driving to work before dawn, as around 7 to 7:30. Visibility is farther than 300 feet at that time. If it's actually dark, as in no pre-dawn light, then of course the cyclist must have a light.

Third, if it's a matter of physically being unable to see as far as the minimum stopping distance, it would be physically impossible to avoid road hazards of any kind at that time and speed. People do avoid road hazards - not all people, but enough that we know it's not impossible. I expect that a driver on any road should be able to avoid a cyclist who is riding there lawfully.

GrouchoWretch

I don't care for all the pseudo-legalistic wrangling over this. I just want to know how oblivious to reality a human being has to be to ride a bicycle down a high-speed two-lane blacktop in the dark without any sort of lights or even bright colors on him.

Seriously. Imagine sitting in your dark attire astride your lightless bicycle of a crisp predawn hour and contemplating the river of SUVs and pickumups pelting down the shoulderless highway as if impelled by irritable sociopaths with severe tunnelvision-- because, hey, they are-- and you look at this, and you say to yourself, OK, and you pedal yourself into it.

Put yourself in this cyclist's shoes for a moment and see how it feels and imagine doing as he does.

You can't! Because you're not completely insane! Probably. Most of you.

squirtdad

I really don't know why people don't get that a dark garbed cyclist or pedestrian with no reflective surfaces or lights can be impossible to see even for an alert driver. You can see this by just observing bikes at night.

Car headlights have distinct patterns and if an object is not in the pattern even by a few feet it does not get light Items in the oncoming left lane are even more so this way when low beams are used as the pattern for low beams is to avoid blinding on coming traffice.

Sure there is the psychology of vision, like not seeing what your brain isn't expecting to see..

wphamilton

Now just calm down, everyone who's projecting their own imaginations into the situation. Even me. OP said "busy main road" and "before dawn". Unless he gets more specific we don't know that it was "high speed", "55 mph", "two lane backdrop", narrow, dark, or at night! I think probably none of the above, but I'm also projecting.

A "busy main road" describes every road that I ride on. No shoulders describes most of them. I'm not at risk riding on them, and it's not extenuating circumstances if someone hit me, legally or otherwise. And yes, at dawn and dusk I do see ninja cyclists a block or two away - if you can't, you need to tune up your driving skills or not get behind the wheel in the first place. Seriously, it's not an excuse to hurt somebody.

lostforawhile

whether your headlights work right or not, it's hard to see someone in dark clothes with no reflectors at night

curbtender

I love these threads. It's a learning experience for both bikers and drivers. I'm a commercial driver and in/out of driveways all day. My mind is not only on traffic. I have to remind myself all the time, drive, service, paperwork, stop and think... As a bike rider I learn where drivers have the least awareness of bikes and pedestrians. Pedestrians can be the most oblivious hazards out there, for both bikes and cars.