Not frequently, but cabs will come to an abrupt stop in the street. If I’m behind one that’s stopped I go around the driver’s side, because you expect the passenger to come out on the side of the sidewalk so they** don’t get hit by a car. I have had to dodge car doors that were flung open on the driver’s side though.
Thankfully I’ve never been hit by anything. A friend of mine though who was hit (and not seriously hurt, but really angry) by a car door on the driver’s side that was flung open in the middle of a busy street asked the driver if it had ever occurred to him that it’s far more likely that a car** will hit the door if he does something like that and the driver didn’t have an answer.
ETA: Just so it’s 100% clear what I mean, I’m referring to cars that are not against the curb or in a parking lane. I’m aware that a driver who is parked legally will obviously come out of the driver’s side door.
And it’s harder to see which cars have just parked if you’re biking fast (if I don’t, I don’t get a shower before work, and that’s worse than being hit by a car).
I turn a corner on a busy street, and I have no idea who just parked and who didn’t. I try to watch for silhouettes in the cars, brake lights, or doors open an inch (who ARE you people who sit at the curb with your backup lights on, or your door ajar? I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re finishing the end of an NPR story). But then I have to wait for a break in traffic to move away from the parked cars, or just barrel on and pray.
On the upside, I get to tell my kids who are into high-risk sports (parkour, urban skateboarding) that I have the more dangerous day.
A few times I’ve come close to hitting pedestrians and bikers on an unlighted section of two-lane road through a business/light industrial district that’s on my way home. On these occasions they were wearing dark clothing with no reflectors, traveling in an area with no sidewalk or road shoulder, and either were actually within the roadway or inches off it to the side.
It’s a good thing I still have pretty good eyesight and reflexes (and don’t text while driving), otherwise there’d be a few extra notches on the side of my car.
*I’m a pedestrian too, but I try to be aware of where I am and where I’m going.
If you choose to ride a vehicle on the streets without brakes you should 1) be put in jail if caught 2) automatically be liable for any accident you are involved in regardless of other circumstances.
The fact that you approach this as “uh, HELLO, we don’t have brakes so how do you expect us to stop, you IDIOTS” says everything one needs to know about the cyclist mentality.
They do actually ticket in Calgary, especially on the pathways. There are often bylaw officers on the pathways stoping cyclists who aren’t giving the right of way, who are speeding, or who don’t have a bell (which is the law). The cop you saw probably looks the other way at vehicle infractions once in a while too.
The only time I’ve ever been hit by a car whle riding, it was by an old guy who flung his door open without warning. With a line of parked cars on one side and fairly heavy traffic on the other, there was nowhere for me to stop or swerve. Fortunately I wasn’t going all that fast and wasn’t hurt either, but I was pissed. The driver leapt out and apologized profusely - actually during his apology he mentioned several times that he didn’t see me there because he ‘didn’t think to look there’.
In any case, I did considerably more damage to his car than he did to me - bent the door back towards the front of the car and left a large, black dent in the panel on the inside of his door. When I pointed out that he could easily have had his door taken right off by a passing car (it was an older car with quite long doors), he just looked at me blankly.
Well, emotions aside, 4 wheels definitely win over 2 wheels or 2 feet.
Bikers and pedestrians (of which I am both): If you’re walking/biking without being careful enough you’re almost asking to be hit by a car. Car = tons of steel. F = ma. Do the math. Not thinking = You. Will. Die.
I’m a cyclist. I stop at stop signs (at least as well or better than the cars do), I wait for red lights, use the bike lanes, etc.
Despite this, I do have a fair amount of incidents. I don’t hit cars but plenty of times I have to hit the brakes real hard, and so on. 10% of the time it is just pure ‘didn’t feel like looking’ on the part of the driver, and 90% of the time it was a driver taking action that put me at risk to try and save about 5-6 seconds. One I have been encountering a fair amount lately is passing me by driving over the a double yellow-line when the driver has cars coming the other direction or a complete lack of line-of-site of the upcoming lane. Yet cyclists are the arrogant & entitled ones?
For the record, I despise the use of fixies - I can sort of understand why the couriers were using them, but for people who don’t make their living by bicycling it is beyond ludicrous. Those things belong in the Velodrome.
But, duuuude, what if my hipster friends saw me on a regular bike? That’d be like wearing non-skinny jeans or a t-shirt without an ironic graphic or a V-neck, or without a vest. Practical shoes, or headgear or bikes? I think not, my man.
(I converted an old Schwinn to a fixie. Almost killed myself. Luckily, most fixed-gear hubs can be flipped to make a single-speed. Lots safer.)
I try to treat every car as if they just parked whether I watched it from a block away or just turned a corner. I know drivers don’t pay attention, so I try to compensate and pay attention for them and most importantly, myself.
I won’t. Bird, Squirrel, Rabbit, Dog, Cat, Idiot [Bicyclist/Motorcyclist/Pedestrian/Auto-driver] Human, doesn’t matter. A roadkill is a roadkill. I’m going to put a star on my fender for you, regardless. I’ve got 2 cats, a dog, a squirrel, a rabbit, a raccoon, 2 (count 'em, two) seagulls, and enough random species of birds to fill out my 34 total (same score as David McCampbell). I’ll happily add an idiot human, and not think anything of it.
ETA: I almost forgot to mention, my sister got a bat! I’m jealous.
The parking lane lines in my city are laid out such that a car parked four inches from the curb can open the driver’s side door without swinging it into traffic. Is this not the case everywhere or are cyclists riding between lanes instead of in them and then complaining about the consequences?
Where I live (Philadelphia) the bikes lanes were mostly laid out without too much attention to how they might work. The bike lane on Spring Garden is a good example - a many places it is properly distant from the bike lane, but a good blind swing could still get a rider who hangs too far to the right.
In other spots, the bike lane is so poorly placed that a large car or even a medium size car that is not parked right against the curb will have its tires on or over the bike lane line. Adding to the problem is that same area had some buckling of the tarmac that makes the far left portion of the bike lane unusable.
Actually, bike riders don;t really pay for road upkeep and construction, unless they are also drivers. DMV fees and gas taxes (in many areas) more than pay for these things. General sales & income taxes dont really go for roads, just the opposite.
Out here the problem is arrogant fixies who ride all dressed in black, with no lights or reflectors*, on the sidewalk or blowing thru stop lights and signs. *
I actually had one of them say that “*you can’t hit what you can’t see”. * :rolleyes:
Mostly, drivers are more clueless than deliberate road arrogance. Mind you, yes, a lot of drivers are clueless and don’t watch out for bike riders. But many bike riders deliberately break the laws and rules of the road.
Utter nonsense. The funding for local roads - where most cyclists are likely to ride, are paid for from the general fund.
Even so, the ideas that roads are paid for by gas taxes and laughably small DMV fees is a myth. This pdf points that out.
IN the meantime, my sales taxes, my property tax, and my state & local income taxes are used to pay for the roads. So yeah, I’d say I pay for the road upkeep quite a bit!
Heck, my Federal income tax is used to pay for systems of roads that I am not allowed to operate my bike on. These roads are hideously more expensive than the tiny handful of bike paths* that cars are not allowed on.
for the record, MUTs (Multi-Use Trails) are not counted as bike paths.
