I try to be conscientious about bikes. I don’t care for them myself and would never have one, but I appreciate that different folks like different things.
And I accidentally cut off a motorcycle rider a few weeks ago. I was wrong and made a mistake by rolling through a stop sign in my quiet residential neighborhood. My view was blocked by a couple of cars at various places in the intersection and I was running late for a very important appointment for the kid, and the kid was in the car talking about the appointment and shuffling some paperwork. In short, I was distracted. So, feel free to tell me how wrong I was but…
I cut the bike off while turning left. The bike honked at me. I felt bad about the missed stop and relieved I had not hit the guy and immediately resolved to focus.
Then he sped up and rolled up along my driver’s side yelling and gesturing. Then he jumped in front of me, braked twice and then came to a complete stop in front of me, of course causing me to stop as well. Then he turned and started giving me the finger and yelling something.
I felt like all this drama was just too much. I got out and said “Really? This is the argument you want to have? Because it seems to me that you are at a distinct disadvantage here.” I got back in went around him and went on my way. I saw in my rear view mirror that he went the other way and was relieved because he could have repeated this whole scenario. And, this being Texas, he was probably gonna shoot us now…
So, while I do try to be conscientious about bikes (and kids, and cars, and squirrels), if you are on a bike, you really do have a higher order of duty to look out for yourself. You are fragile and must be pro-active in protecting yourself. If you are depending on everyone else to protect you, you will be sad.