Where are you from? I’m curious about that statement. Do they really get jail or you wish they did?
I read that as a wish, and I agree.
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Hah no that was definitely a wish, not a statement of what happens around here.
I’m in Chicago. We’re lucky if the COPS don’t run a red light while talking on their cell phone.
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I try to give driver the benefit of doubt. I don’t know what they are dealing with at the time. I once had a driver pass very close. I threw my hand up to say “what are you doing”. The van stopped and my first thought was “here we go, an abusive driver”. I rolled up to the van and a young woman started apologizing saying she didn’t see me until the last second. I sometimes wave at drivers and people I see when riding. I say Hi to people when I can. I think it might help make people realize we are people just like them. MOST people don’t want to intentionally hurt anyone.
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That’s me stuffed! No driving with kids in the car.
Way worse than a mobile.
I’ve actually kept my favourite idiot driving manoeuvres from my dash cam (I’m on one of them). There’s probably 2 a day that could kill someone so most of them get overwritten.
My old dash cam had stopped working years ago when I witnessed a driver pass through a group of 20-30 cyclists at an intersection in Sydney’s east. It was so close for several of the riders that I had to pull over afterwards to take a few deep breaths and calm down.
Riding in a group won’t save anyone. A camera is best used discretely. Some people will get out and bash you or just hit you with their car. Others will simply not notice you until they feel the thump of your body on the bonnet.
I just ride trails instead.
If it makes you feel any better the state government where I’m living now is introducing new mobile camera systems that detect mobile phone use while driving and the fine has been bumped up to $1000 along with 1/3 of the points on your licence.
It’s good to see something being done in regards to that.
There’s a big element of “us and them” in this on both sides. As cyclists “we” see all these incidents as deliberate, uncaring but there’s a lot more going on than that.
Even when in a car the number of drivers I see with the thousand yard stare of rabbits caught in headlights, all but oblivious to anything outside the narrow cone directly in front of them. Even then the cognition only extends to the vehicle immediately in front.
There’s also a term from marine navigation: constant bearing, reducing distance. Basically if an object is moving at the required speed it appears to stay at the same bearing even though it’s actually getting closer. In a car this manifests as the object being hidden behind the A-pillar of the car until it’s large enough to be visible. It happened to me a couple of years ago when pulling out of a junction: I looked both ways, saw nothing and began to pull out. My wife, who’s normally on top of these things when a passenger, suddenly shouted out. A car was within about ten metres of me, hidden behind the passenger A-pillar. My motion of pulling out of the junction and turning away from the approaching vehicle had kept it out of my sight. Fortunately the other driver had his wits about him and had slowed down.
Out on the roads I’ll thank (with a smile and hand wave) drivers who wait to pass me. I had one occasion when on a long steady incline and a lorry (truck) waited for some while to pass me. Given that slowing down and accelerating costs the driver time and money there’s a “pressure” to keep a constant speed. Commercial vehicles are mobile billboards for the company so I noted the company and once home I rang them to thank them for their driver’s courteous behaviour. The manager at the other end thought I was ringing up to complain and was somewhat relieved!
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I often wave a drivers at junctions who could have pulled out in front of me and probably got away with it. I want them to know I appreciate they didn’t take the chance. Also, cars that pass me who I know have been behind for awhile and took have squeezed past but waited.
I was driving with my sister on a long drive in Australia. She waved at every drive coming the other way and they wave back. I had never seen that before. They do it due to the long straight, boring roads and keeps them aware.
And that’s the problem, on so many levels. Driving is perhaps the most complicated and complex activity most of us will undertake. As time rolls on, I’m super convinced that the human brain and motor vehicle operation, esp. in traffic, have very little cohesion.
Consider that the top three killers in North America are: heart disease, cancer, and…accidents. As a sub-set, traffic “accident” deaths are equivalent to around 10% of cancer deaths.
Now let’s say a doctor appeared on ye ol’ teevee one day claiming s/he has created a medicine which will cure/save 10% of all cancer patients, each and every year. Caveats being that every single cancer patient has to take the medicine each and every day for life, and there is no way to tell who will be cured, just that 10% of all cancer deaths will be eliminated.
There would be rioting in the streets as hoards of people clamoured to fill their pockets with this miracle cure. Governments and politicians would pour money and resources into making sure this medicine never ceased. A national holiday would be proclaimed. Etc.
Now, imagine if the same Dr. on the same teevee show said 1% of all deaths per year could be eliminated with the use of a new ‘drug’. Caveats being that everyone would have to take it every single day for life, no exceptions. The medicine is absolutely free for life to the entire population and comes with only positive side effects (again, no ‘greasy flatulence’).
The Dr. then goes on to explain that cure is simply if we all operated our vehicles with utmost care and attention, followed the laws/rules of the road to the letter, were courteous, civil, and defensive, et al. S/he would be laughed – and booed – off the stage. Called a quack. Labeled a Leftist Pinko Commie for trying to take away our god given rights to Freedom and all those other things people get violent over.
We will expend immense energies into stopping foreign bodies from killing us (e.g. disease), but do almost nothing when it comes to stopping killing each other (e.g. driving).
Point being, humans are messy and weird (even more so in large quantities) and no amount of wrangling will make us any less so.
(I’ll also add that we are a poor fit for most technologies (see driving). Burning stuff is still our most used/“valuable” tech.)
/rant over. maybe.
It’s sunny here today, I’d better go enjoy it!
Stay safe out there!
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Related article just posted.
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Read it when the verdict came out. Have a good time in that comments section.
As stated, the aggro drivers are more than likely not the outright dangerous drivers.
It’s so crazy to think that riding a bike on a road has created this whole nasty ball of I don’t know what. Look at all the complex parts involved: drivers, cyclists, police, lawyers, legal system, city planners, politicians, etc.
All I want to do is travel from A to B without being killed and/or traumatized…is that too much to ask?!
My favorite aggressive driver story from this past season…
Group ride of around 5 of us rolling single file on a country road - no shoulder, double yellow line, but good visibility ahead.
I was on the front, so unaware of some of this until after the fact, but was filled in later.
Two door Audi came up behind us and was very aggravated not to be able to immediately pass due to oncoming traffic. Revved engine, very close to last rider (reasons we assume he was aggravated)
Finally (maybe 15-20 seconds) able to pass us and tried to roll coal on us as he went past. This was the first I was aware of him, still riding to the side, single file. Hear the engine rev up extremely high, starts pushing smoke from his diesel into us, and flies by us. About 50 feet in front of me the smoke changes from dark black to white and becomes overwhelming - to the point that all visibility is lost for us.
I call out that we’re slowing down because I can’t see anything (literally a wall of white smoke). We roll through it slowly for 150-200 yards and then it clears and we see the car pulled off on the shoulder with a very very upset elderly man and his wife sitting in a car with what, we guessed, was a thrown piston rod in his nice fancy car
To be fair to him - he did nothing overtly dangerous (didn’t pass close, but did pass fast) and paid an extremely heavy price for it
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If there was a list for sh!ttiest drivers…
This is my personal favourite… never charged because the person who hired the car denied being the driver - apparently that was the end of that.
There’s a great column by a former fighter pilot describing this and other phenomenon at play on the road and people’s ability to avoid collisions:
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This reminds me that I read recently in an article on indoor air quality about the co2 concentration in a car with the windows closed & ac off (or recirculating). I don’t remember the ppm’s mentioned offhand but it was quite high. And one of the side effects of higher co2 levels is drowsiness.
Makes sense to be but I had never really thought about it previously.
That makes sense.
The studies I was referring to had more to do with the way our brains go into auto pilot when driving.
It’s a pretty basic task after all.
Add to that the poor circulation and it’s not surprising that lot’s of accidents occur through a total lack of focus on the drivers part.
That’s just the thing – driving is most definitely NOT a “pretty basic task”. It’s one of, if not the most, complex task we do on a daily basis. It only seems like it’s a basic task after we’ve normalized and habituated the mechanics of point-and-steer.
Most people don’t think in terms of risk and/or probabilities, if they did they surely wouldn’t drive.
Here’s the checklist:
https://www.ucalgary.ca/FTWguidelines/content/functions-needed-driving
I do a lot of cycling advocacy work here locally because I have some professional experience interacting with city and county government bodies doing other transportation work (not cycling related). Here’s my jam:
As cyclists we are third class citizens.
If a motorist hits another motorist, police will respond and the district attorney will act because they are first class citizens.
If a motorist hits a pedestrian who is a protected class from a motor vehicle, and the stars align, the police will respond and the district attorney MAY act depending on what they can prove and how big their case load is (my uncle used to be the DA in a neighboring county, save me the speech on how the law is supposed to work). Pedestrians are second class citizens.
We are cyclists. If we get it, it’ll be our fault because we are third class citizens. The law does not consider us a protected class, and we have less rights than a pedestrian because we are supposed to be equal to cars.
So, I train indoor, ride MTB and gravel outdoor, and occasionally ride road for kicks if there’s an event I want to do and roll the dice.
That’s the best you can do. At least in California.
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It’s not, but many drivers do it on autopilot - and that’s the problem.
I wonder if Tesla self driving mode does a better job at avoiding cyclists than humans. That’ll be the only way roads get safer for cyclists - at least in most countries (I’m in Amsterdam right now; different here)
Explainer: Is a $2,000 fine and community service fair for killing a cyclist?..
That’s not for sure a penalty enough even if it was considered as an “accident”. It was murder even if it was non intentional. Drivers always should consider the fact that driving dangerously there’s a chance on having a crash. Disrespect for the road traffic rules is walfway for disaster and therefor not merely by accident but because of a drivers intentionally disrespect for rules ment to keep everybody safe on the roads.