Near miss with a garbage truck

[OakLeaf]

Garbage trucks frequently back up in suburban/exurban areas, usually three or four times in a block. That's especially true in areas where customers use the big rolling bins rather than regular trash cans. They also usually work both sides of the street at the same time, so they'll be zig-zagging from side to side. A child in our town was very seriously injured by a garbage truck a few years ago. Definitely be careful around them!

But yeah, their backup beeper should have been sounding, and I'd contact the company about it, and if you were inside city limits where the city has a contract with a private hauler, contact the city as well.


ETA:
Besides what others have mentioned, hugging the curb means you have to move a long way into the path of traffic to avoid obstructions. That makes you doubly invisible and doubly dangerous. Garbage trucks are obviously a special case, but the normal things you'll encounter are potholes and debris. You want to be riding far enough from the curb that (1) you're not constantly dodging that stuff and (2) when something is in your path, you have enough room to go around it to the inside rather than swerving into the path of traffic.

Garbage trucks are not a special case if the street has on-street parking. Stay a car's width from the curb all the time - not just when you're passing parked cars - again, so that you're not constantly swerving in and out of traffic. And obviously be sure to watch those parked cars carefully and avoid getting "doored" - whenever someone is inside one of the cars, give them a door's width of room.