13395351:cornholio said:
bummer. i wanted my follow up question to be if you were wearing all black so then i could berate you for wearing dark colors at night with no light and then being surprised that you got hit. it seems like you at least have some sense though. good luck in the recovery, wear a helmet and pads next time!
Yeah, no I was definitely visible. I was already through the intersection, on a white bike with a light and a high-vis shoulder bag on my back. I wasn't wearing particularly bright coloured clothing, but its' still no excuse to plow through a stop sign in a residential area.
13395457:MaineLandCollab said:
Bitches love hematomas.
13395636:Laurent. said:
All those helmet wearing sissies.
Yeah. Though, I might start riding around with a GoPro attached to the handlebars. I still won't start wearing a helmet right now, unless I'm doing something where I'm really at risk. most of the time, I'm riding in residential neighborhoods, or on the river bike trail, so wearing one isn't exactly going to keep me safe unless someone does this kinda shit.
13395941:El_Barto. said:
Dont even try to complain about cars not following the rules. everyday i see cyclists run stop signs...like its no big deal. cars adhere to the rules far more than bikes. cyclists in portland do as they damn well please seemingly all the time, at every intersection.
You stop at every stop sign when on your bike?
You live in Oregon, right? Didn't Portland, and perhaps the entire state just implement the Idaho stop last year? Technically with that law, you can roll stop signs on a bike all day long as long as you're not impeding traffic flow - which, lets face it, some cyclists do completely have a deathwish and will impede flow for sure.. but so will drivers who can't figure out their Garmin GPS... At least up there, though.. stop signs become yield signs if you're on bike. Stop lights still require you to stop with everyone else, though.
As for me? Well, I Idaho stop everything - hell, in my car I roll stop signs all the time... but if I'm doing that, I'm still slowing down to a pretty low rate of speed. I'm not just neglecting the fact that there's a stop sign there and blasting through it - at least in my car.
Admittedly, I've totally blown through stop signs on my bike in neighborhoods where I know nobody is coming - like if it's the evening in a non-busy residential zone and there's obviously no headlights illuminating the pavement where a car would be coming. I'm always looking for that stuff as a cyclist - including in this accident that just happened, where I saw her lights coming from that direction after having already entered the intersection, fully expecting her to stop at the sign, and then kabamo.
13395958:KravtZ said:
Lets be real here. Most bikers think they own the roads. They legally are supposed to stop at stop signs, lights, obey teh rules of the road, etc. When in reality, these douche bags are the biggest piece of shit on the road. They ride on roads that have literally zero shoulder and curse at you when you pass them and are to close because they are hogging up the road. I can't stand bikers. There are PLENTY of bike friendly roads with big shoulders, etc. Why bikers venture into completely un friendly roads is beyond me. If you get hit its your own fucking fault
In many states, including my own, cars are obligated to give cyclists defensible space of at least 5 feet or something in cases where there is no shoulder or bike lane (or even in those cases if there's space available) - many, and perhaps most drivers oblige this law anyway, which is good... but there are many drivers with a generally bad attitude towards cyclists who feel like they shouldn't be on the road with cars, when they're legally able to be, and will then practically run bikes off the road - then get out and bitch if a cyclist touches their car in effort to stop from crashing - leading to the driver to then get out of the car and berate the cyclist. If a cyclist can touch your car, and you're not stopped at a sign or a light, then you're not giving them enough space. Period.
Additionally, our infra is generally bullshit for cyclists in America. You may think there are bike friendly roads everywhere, but really, unless you've really commuted as a cyclist, you wouldn't know how mediocre and dangerous it can be. Besides, some routes to get to places have absolutely no alternative route that's more friendly for cyclists, so you can't really fault bike commuters for the way the roads are set up. They're just trying to get where everyone else is going without being killed, and as far as I'm concerned, as a driver and a cyclist, that is completely okay, and I'm happy to afford them some extra room for the sake of both of us.
In all my time having lived in Oregon and Sacramento, drivers are generally cognizant of cyclists, and totally respect them. I can only see things improving as infra is put in place.
