Someone From My Cycling Club Hit (but ok)

[bikerchick68]

man, how scary... people really do try to intimidate us sometimes for kicks... sickos... and other times they're just oblivious. Either way, just one more reminder to be as careful as we can be... and hope it's enough! Glad he's gonna be OK...

[RoadRaven]

Hi Nanci... glad to hear he was ok... my partner had that happen last year - a wing mirror just brushed him... he didn't go off the road, but he was fuming when he got back - and he was riding with a pack on a training ride, so not like he was on his own and difficult to see or anything...

Perhaps bike-safety awareness should be part of getting a driving license, and people sitting there test should have to practice/show how they pass bikes... and maybe get stats or pix of the results of careless driving...

GRRRR...

[Nanci]

If you read that Safety Brochure for Law Enforcement that I posted, it states that the rider should be two feet from the edge of the roadway, and a passing vehicle needs to be three feet horizontally away from the bike, so for a car to pass a bike safely without crossing into the oncoming lane, the lane must be at least 14 feet wide. I _know_ people pass me all the time closer than three feet. And I definitely ride closer than two feet from the edge of the roadway, a lot of the time it's like 6", if I'm trying to stay out of the way...

Oh, and I found out it's ok to pass a bike in a no passing zone, if there is no oncoming traffic. In Florida. I didn't know that.

It should somehow be made public knowledge about how much room a bike needs- because I'm sure Walmart Shopper had no idea she needed to give the bike a three foot space, and if she _had_ thought about that, she wouldn't have dinged him with her mirror.

Nanci

[RoadRaven]

Yeah... I did read that - very interesting

Here in NZ cars are supposed to pass 1.5 metres out from the cyclist - thats 4-5 feet I think...

And guess how many actually do? Not THAT many

[susiej]

In Philadelphia, the bike lanes are only about 2 1/2 feet wide.

Or, as the drivers seem to think of them, the "double parking lane." Grrr.

S.

[Barb]

I live in an area that has no bike lanes. "Heck lady, this is the motor city, what do we need bike lanes for"?!!!! Needless to say, I am VERY cautious when i ride.

[Nanci]

The rider from my club who got "dinged" by a mirror and broke his collar bone in the resulting crash had a nagging hip pain. Well, it turns out he discovered yesterday he fractured his pelvis in the crash...I'm surprised the ER he went to didn't do a pelvis film- that's standard in any trauma situation. (C-spine, chest and pelvis are the three standard films, then see if any extremities hurt.) Weird. Amazing it could go that long undiscovered.

Nanci