Idiotic Car Drivers !!!

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

The second ammendment is useless if citizens can't own current weaponry. The second ammendment is the reason we have the first.

If the constitution required amending, that means they must have made some mistakes.
So it's possible the amendment could be a mistake too!

 

[Instant Karma]

http://www.texaselectricbikes.com/catalog/bike-rack-p-83.html

You can have your cake and eat it too, your very own gun rack for bicycles!!! Let's see those bastards throw food and drinks at you now!

 

[Eric G]

Or fight fire with fire...with your own Potato Cannon...

http://www.instructables.com/id/EDFTHMSTCJEQ2W334L/

You could shorten the barrell but mounting on your bike may be a bit of a challenge...LOL

Eric

 

[knightmb]

http://www.texaselectricbikes.com/catalog/bike-rack-p-83.html

You can have your cake and eat it too, your very own gun rack for bicycles!!! Let's see those bastards throw food and drinks at you now!

Now that's funny. I can only imagine riding by some cops on an e-bike with a bunch of shotguns on the front, LOL.

 

[chashb]

Didn't the original Tidalforce bike have a gun rack?

Charlie

 

[newbie electric rider]

Here is a video of some of the crazy cyclists ever, http://youtube.com/watch?v=nR2ygFn-yR8

 

[chashb]

I just knew it was going to be THAT video. I ran across this awhile back and was quite impressed with the madness.

Charlie

 

[knightmb]

Yeah, saw something similar on the Discovery channel years back. Crazy biking at it's best. I have to give them credit for their quick reflexes though, some of those cars get really close together.

 

[xyster]

Goes to show: physically gifted idiots are far more dangerous on bicycles than motors of any size...

 

[Lowell]

Cool video, but sooner or later riding like that will catch up to them.

 

[Eric G]

Whoa.......breath taking at times.

Eric

 

[brownma30]

Perhaps the best alternative is to do what so many folks in my town (Worcester, MA, USA) do: play your music as loudly as possible as you proceed. Of course, proper woofers would add weight... :wink:

 

[arkmundi]

... and I agree with everyone about the drivers misjudging your speed, it's been the cause of nearly all of my close calls.

I'm reviving the thread in the post-trauma period of recupperation from my accident (see saga thread). The "fun" of my new ebike has been squashed as much as my left hip, as I'm learning the danager of riding faster than normal on roads I must share with the mega-death machines known as cars driven by idiotic drivers.

What was infuriating about this accident is that, like the poster, I was in two near misses with cars before the third one laid me on the pavement. My trip was up Highland Ave, a particularly busy street that I usually avoid, but couldn't for this trip. Busy streets combined with busy people is a deadly combo for bicyclists of any ilk, but especially so with an electric assist hub propeling us faster than what motorists are used to.

The ultimate protection will be a bike-friendly city with designated bike lanes on the roadways.

 

[Doctorbass]

Just an advice for everyone here. This will certainly contrinute to save your life :wink:

Being visible is probably what is the most important when riding a fast electric bike.

Over the 16 500 km i made in electric bike from now, i never had any big risk of mortal accident.

I'm 100% sure this is because my ebike is really visible during days and night for the car drivers.

Bring LUMENS to your ebike and you'll see, these risk of car driver cutting your way while turning or any other commun incident will decrease alot.

Personally i'm using 4 Magicshine on all my 2 wheels ebikes. When i'm at an intersection, i'm 100% sure that all car driver know there is something bright near them ad they can see me, so they tend to pay more attention to their manouvers once the light turn green.

yes... 16000km, 4 fast ebikes, ZERO accident due to stupid and not stupid car drivers.

MAKE IT BRIGHT !!!.. More than enough is better!! :wink:

Doc

 

[The fingers]

I wear lots of bright yellow-green reflective attire, with numerous lights and reflectors day and night and still got hit. Nothing helps all the time because many drivers just aren't looking.

 

[sardini]

Personally i'm using 4 Magicshine on all my 2 wheels ebikes.

Doc

how you power them ? i have 2 x 2200Lumens CREE XM-L T6+XPG-R5 LED Bicycle Light HeadLight headLamp

 

[Ypedal]

Dual Lumenators here..

+1 on daytime lights !!!

 

[Ykick]

Be visible and dress for safety.

Apply effective mental strategies:
• Constantly search the road for changing conditions. Use MSF’s Search, Evaluate, Execute strategy (SEE) to increase time and space safety margins.
• Give yourself space and time to respond to other motorists’ actions.
• Give other motorists time and space to respond to you.
• Use lane positioning to be seen; ride in the part of a lane where you are most visible.
• Watch for turning vehicles.
• Signal your next move in advance.
• Avoid weaving between lanes.
• Pretend you’re invisible, and ride extra defensively.
• Don't ride when you are tired or under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.
• Know and follow the rules of the road.

 

[arkmundi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_lighting

 

[andrew.box]

Those magic shine lights look nice. I'm thinking about lighting on the KMX, a bright headlight, rear red flasher at minimum. I think I'll try and put a red flasher on the top of the flag pole too. It's scary low to the ground. Cars make it a lot scarier.

 

[amberwolf]

The ultimate protection will be a bike-friendly city with designated bike lanes on the roadways.

Perhaps the first part would help, but without properly trained cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers, the lanes don't do anything except give you a special place to be run over in.


In Phoenix, on any major road that has a bike lane (like Greenway Parkway or Cave Creek Road), people dont' really pay a lot of attention to where the right edge of their lane is, and wander over the line. If they're turning right, they just use it as if it were their turn lane, and if you're in it when they do, "oops".

It actually is MORE dangerous to use the bike lane in some places, almost as dangerous as the sidewalk, because poeple pull partly out of driveways with the front end of their car in the street, in the bike lane (or even beyond it sometimes). They don't look first, they go into the street and THEN stop and look for oncoming cars--they are not even looking at the sidewalk or the bike lane, but only out at the middle or left of the car lanes--Iv'e seen lots of accidents with small cars and motorcycles turning right into a later driveway than someone suddenly pops out of, because those vehicles moved to the right of that lane and so out of the area the other driver was even looking in, when they pulled out into the street partway directly into the path of the oncoming car, too late for either one of them to do a thing about it except crash.

My only serious collision was with such a car/driveway problem, a limo that pulled out from behind a bush-covered block wall so far into the street at such speed that they didnt' even stop until they were across the whole righthand lane plus some of the next lane, and while they were lucky that there was a gap in the cars at that instant, allowing all the other cars to screech to a halt and not hit them or each other (rush hour), I wasn't so lucky, as I was really cruisin' downhill on my pedal-only bike back in the 90s, and I hit their passenger door hard enough to taco my wheel and shatter the window and dent the door, and send me all teh way over the limo into bushes on the other side of it past the sidewalk (thankfully not onto the asphalt on the other side of the car or the sidewalk, not sure how I flew at that angle, but thankful for it, as I only got bruised and scratched). Then the limo drove off, never to be found despite all the witnesses, including the passengers.


I've had numerous not-really-close-calls (because I learned not to ride quickly past such places, regardless of what traffic behind me might think) where if I had been on the sidewalk or in the bike lane or where the bike lane would be if there was one, I would've been hit by or crashed into vehicles pulling out of driveways. Instead, when I can't tell for sure it's clear I ride out into the lane, as much as all the way to the left side of it, to give me room to maneuver and time to react--and I will slow down from 20 to as little as 10mph for some of these areas, simply because it's impossible to see if there is a reckless driver or cyclist or pedestrian about to appear in front of me.


Then there are the bike lanes that are along side parked cars, whre the cars park between the bike lane and the sidewalk, and again you can't see well enough far enough in advance for that to be safe, at any speed. Unless the ligth is jsut right you usually cant' see into a car well enough to tell if there is anyone in it, and they do not usually look before opening the door right in front of you. If I rode in the bike lanes past the parked cars like that, I'd've been doored a thousand times in the last decade. So i don't, if I have any choice about it--I ride in the car lane past the bike lane, or at the outside edge of the bike lane if it's wide enough (often it's not even wide enough for a skinny bike much less a typical one, but tha'ts another story). Whenever there are long enough gaps between the parked cars i'll ride in the lane again, but not if there's a chance someoen could door me. On CrazyBIke2 it progably wouldn't hurt me that much, it would almsot surely destroy their door and hurt them if they got out as they opened it and were sandwiched between me and their door, and it would definitely toast at least my front wheel and maybe the fork. So i would rather avoid it, even if the consequences might not be as dire as on a typical bike.




Good lighting helps, but again, wihtout everyone else on the road properly trained as to what taht lighting means and that they should pay attention to it (and everything else on the road and near it), it's not the only part of the solution.


As Ykick posted, followintg the MSF guidelines (especially about being invisible), will help as much as anything else.

These guidelines:
http://www.azbikeped.org/chapter2a.htm
http://www.azbikeped.org/chapter3a.htm
http://www.azbikeped.org/chapter4a.htm
http://www.azbikeped.org/chapter5a.htm
http://www.azbikeped.org/chapter6a.htm
http://www.azbikeped.org/chapter8a.htm
http://www.azbikeped.org/chapter9a.htm
http://www.azbikeped.org/chapter10a.htm
are also helpful, though some specific parts may not apply to some locales, and some things might not be safe in some areas. But in general, it's a decent set of guidelines.

 

[Ykick]

Dug this thread back up to share quick video of a bad spot along my bridge approach. One of those situations where you may have the right of way but the damn car's coming through anyway.
[youtube]LDA0eCxJnI4[/youtube]
Had I not been practicing SEE techniques this would most certainly turn out badly.

They (idiotic car drivers) will KILL you and not care!

 

[dogman dan]

Regardless of the rules of the road, the car always has the right of way.

Mabye the drivers the Doc shares the road with are better than the drivers we in the US southwest have. Here they think a bike lane is a pass on the right lane. Many here learned to drive in Mexico. Stripes on the road are nice decorations to them. Then you have yer texters and phone dialers. Route choice, I feel, is even more important than visibility. No cars is where I'm happy. I'll ride a mile anyday to avoid certain streets. But some spots cannot be gotten around because of highways or whatever.

I've not had any seriously close calls riding ebikes either, but not because I had the right of way. I avoided letting those incidents escalate to life threatening by assuming they will try to hit me, and anticipating soon enough to take evasive action. Often that is in the form of a yeild to something much heavier than me. It's fairly easy to guess those guys at the light in the right lane will turn right into your path, so you just don't zip in front to get hit.

 

[cal3thousand]

I use my all my experiences while driving to my advantage during biking. Like the careful ones, I presume that cars do not see me unless we make eye contact and flirt a bit.

That said, there are just some things that drivers tend to do in certain situations that we need to keep clear of.

Like in Ykick's video, I have some sections where drivers should stop and yield and I should have right of way. I NEVER take the right of way unless I get it visually from the driver's face. . If I'm going through an intersection and a car is about to turn left potentially left-crossing me, I will try to go through when another car is going across and keep it to my left as a full back in football (American)

 

[The fingers]

Major bicycle pinch points should be emblazoned with Share The Road signs and bright yellow-green reflective hash mark lines as in crosswalks and pedestrian safety zones to alert drivers to be careful.