I didn't see you because . . .

[korora]

I just need to vent.

Yesterday on my ride into town a delivery van came within inches of backing out of a parking space into me. I yelled, to no avail, and dodged it by swerving into the lane—it's a good thing nothing was coming behind me.

I stopped to, um, discuss the matter with the driver, who was seemingly oblivious to the fact that a human being (in a high-vis yellow vest, incidentally) was in the bike lane and occupying the space he intended to back into. Did he know how close he came to hitting me? No response. What did he think he was doing? No response. Was he going to apologize? Surly "Well, sorry, then." Pause. Then, "See, I was watching out for the corner of that car next to me."

Was that any excuse for almost f****** killing somebody behind him? No response.

He plainly didn't get it. As far as I can tell, in his world, everything was fine until an angry woman appeared next to his window and started yelling at him. Must be her fault.

[beccaB]

I drive a school bus that people frequently "don't see" All 15 tons of it. People driving around in cars without brains. Scary. I've had to do some tricky bike driving to avoid people that didn't see me while they were driving their cars.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

People driving around in cars without brains.

Yeah, those cars without brains are scary... especially when their drivers have no brains either! lol!

I always ride my bike assuming that drivers don't see me. I'm convinced this has saved my life on more than one occasion.

[Trek420]

I always ride my bike assuming that drivers don't see me.

Be visible, assume you're invisible I like the ads for sleep medicine "driving while asleep without memory of the event has been reported".

Even if the cars had a brain they may be asleep

[OakLeaf]

There's another half to it IMO. Half of them can't see me, and the ones who can, are aiming for me (quite literally, I've found, as running facing traffic has made me acutely aware of target fixation).

It's a lot easier to deal with on the moto when I can twist the throttle and take myself out of their little world in seconds.