ha, sorry, meant to edit my earlier post and hit reply, then post.

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Erik
Strava

clever! + an f bomb. You win?

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Erik
Strava

Dude, Relax! You said it yourself that you have an axe to grind (page 2 of this thread) You clearly are upset and my comments were not "condescension" and saying I was an attorney was not a CV- my apologies were sincere and the PI atty bit was an attempt to show I tend look at accidents looking for the responsible party that has deep pockets (like car insurance companies). If you were not so biased with an axe to grind you would see the baseless assumptions you make below:
1) "truck driver failed to signal"- the video is not clear enough to see if this truck had a flashing signal or not. It appears it was flashing but it is not absolutely clear. it appears posters on this thread are torn as well;
2) "in aerobars and RACING"- RACING Does not relieve anyone (drivers or participants) of using common sense. You never pass on the right;
3) "he didn't care to exercise reasonable caution"- driver possibly/likely used his turn signal. driver turned at a slow rate of speed;
4) "fucking king of the road style of vehicle"- seriously? It's an SUV? I drive a 4 door 4WD GMC truck and my wife drives a Yukon. I don't own the road nor do I think I do but yet I have big cars. I drive them because I want to carry all of my gear, my family and my dog not because I own the world. Get over it. I believe cyclists have equal rights to the road and the vehicle I choose does not confirm nor deny that belief. It's a car not a statement. Maybe he's a rancher, maybe he has a boat or a sailboat? Seriously, an unbiased person could determine that this driver intended to hurt a cyclist because he has a big car?;
5)"bozo"- you can tell by 5-8 seconds of video that this person is a bozo? I think the cyclist utilized less caution;
6) "passed the cyclist and purposely turned right in front of him expecting him to stop...sudden irresponsible behavior."- seriously, you watch a video (5-8 seconds) and know that the driver did it on purpose and it was sudden & irresponsible? this is where your bias takes your argument off track. You make assumptions that just aren't supported. I too believe that cars are deadly to cyclists. I too believe that cars don't give us respect and I too have nearly been hit. BUT when I see something like this that was totally avoidable, I can't blame a vehicle that was lawfully using the roadway. The cyclist should have passed on the left- in fact, had the video shown the cyclist passing another racer on the right and causing a collision, would you have the same opinion that the irresponsible cyclist in front pulled to the side suddenly and irresponsibly?

You're right, I am biased in favor of cyclists, but I also know when to put it aside and realize it's not always someone else's fault.

Road riding is one thing and roadies are sometimes real good at it. TTing is different, then the bike leg of triathlon is still somewhat different. If you notice pro roadies are not real good at handling a TT bike even during major tours. The bikes are different, the position is different and aTri bike is sometimes rode at even different angles than pro TTing bikes. IMHO. Also many replys are about riding not racing. BUT we do want everyone to be safe. probably more education for everyone would help, Cars and Bikes

No problem here. It was an open road and it is the athletes responsibility to look out for traffic. It should be know by all participants on the course, or I at least hope the RD stated that it was an open course so be aware. Let the flaming begin if you do not agree.

On a side note my cousin was killed in Wisconsin a few years ago on a rolling closed course. While he fell behind and was outside of the rolling closed area and got hit and later died. Terrible accident do happen but it looks like the guy in the video is fine. Aaron, wasn't so lucky. We all have to watch out and be defensive in riding.

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Owner of a few Speed Concepts since 2011.

This is why we hear so many more "I was just riding my bike and a car hit me" comments than we used to.

A car ahead is slowing down near a driveway. I'm guessing this car is about to turn. The guy on th ebike was obviously not paying attention to his surroundings.

When you are driving your car, do you try to squeeze past a car on their right when they are about to turn right? No.

Sure, this may have been a race. The driver was just doing what most drivers do when turning right. You woul dnot expect someone to come up from behind and try to overtake you on the right.

The cyclist is totally at fault.

For those who care to analyze the road itself in more detail, go to Google Maps and enter 30171 Dallas Road, West Richland, Washington. You can even use the little yellow guy to look at the street view.

Edit: Just past the driveway, Dallas intersects with Kennedy. Who in the world was in charge of naming those streets?

I am English. We don't regard it as being clever or a bomb. I didn't aim to offend. If it helps a censored version is below and I put it in pink to add a little obviousness to the humour.

Only a roadie would think we were using videotape.

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https://www.pbandjcoaching.com
https://www.thisbigroadtrip.com

I was in that race and remember seeing the guy running his bike back to T2. Once the news spread of the accident, of course we all thought the driver was at fault. After seeing the video though, I'm thinking the rider should take most of the blame (if any needs to be assigned).

For what it's worth...
1) There is no formal "bike lane" there - only a shoulder.
2) I am typically doing 30-40mph coming down that hill... but am riding the brakes at the point the video starts due to the corner at the bottom
3) Just past the gas station turn in is a 90 degree right hand turn (with a stop sign) that he was flying into
4) The race director gave explicit instructions that every intersection would be controlled and that we could "blow through the stop signs"
5) I would bet that the rider anticipated the vehicle to be turning right at the stop sign, not into the gas station (even if a blinker and brake lights were visible)

Bottom line... it was an unfortunate accident that occurred in the "heat of the moment" of racing.

No mention that these 3 dudes were obviously drafting?
And totally athletes fault here. As the car slowed down he immediately went right to pass.

Point 5 makes it make a little more sense. Anyone following Point 4 is a little naive and I bet he will not be following that advice again.

+1 on the heat of the moment for the guy though its just one of those things

biker should have moved to the left i agree

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Follow me on Twitter @CK21TRHC
I use what I love: ISM, Blue70, Trek, FLO

I finally did get a chance to look at the video, and the cyclist just made a poor choice. He was behind the auto, and should have slowed down until he figured out which way it was going to turn; or what it was doing. In terms of fault; I would have to put that one on the cyclist in this case...It really sucks for that racer, and it is a bummer all the way that it happened, but it was just an unfortunate mistake that he chose to drift right rather than drift left when the car started to slow down.

Stephen J

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I believe my local reality has been violated.
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Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2

Video is great. Boy is this one has amazing clarity, literally and figuratively.


The fault in this video is so clear to me. Let's turn it around, a bike should be treated like a car, right?


If the bike was turning right and the car plowed into them whose fault would it be?


We spend so, so many hours cycling in training that I find it completely amazing this accident would ever happen. If I rode like what is in this video I would not last a season. I wonder if normal caution went out the window because it was a race. Now I have done things more dangerous than what I normally would do when racing. But it is calculated and I would totally accept fault if something happen.

It is not clear to me if the OP is also the person that was hit. But I am curious what the person hit thought. Do they think it was their fault? Why did they release the video?


Watching the video it is like actually riding and I just could not do that move, passing a car on the right. It just is not in me. I now come out of my aero bars, or are very prepared to, when coming on a car going the opposite way and there is a cross street to my right.

I was hit from behind 6 times and once from the side by a truck speeding in a residential area. I ride indoors for most of my rides now, with the exception of two fairly safe areas I now ride in. One of those areas is Island Beach State Park in New Jersey, which is fairly safe if you ride early and not on holidays. The roads are not safe for bikes. Period. To hold a race without closing it to traffic is idiotic. To enter a race not fully closed to traffic invites injury or worse. We are all stupid for ever having done those open races in the first place! Ditto for swimming in polluted water, or racing in China or other place where the air is badly polluted. I did Ironman UK and we swam in a muck pond full of cow shit. (Had I known in advance the race organizers were so bone headed and stupid I wouldn't have done the race.) Triathletes need to lead on these issues because we are definitely SHEEP on them now and we are the ones in danger.
If we don't fight for these issues, including space on the highways (polluted as the highway air is!), then we will eventually have to stop racing. How many people here bothered to complain to Obama or the EPA over the proposed pollution regs? Probably none. Too busy putting titanium brakes on the $10K bike?
-Robert

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

Nearly all races in the UK are on open roads, it is something that you get used to and so deal with. In most places it is unrealistic to expect crystal clear water to swim in and closed roads for riding. With those requirement there would be hardly any races what so ever and those held would be astronomically expensive. As for the water at IMUK, all open water venues in the UK must pass stringent water quality tests, so obviously not as bad as you wish to portray.

Hope the guy was not hurt but he did not do himself any favors here. It sthe car's "fault" but the rider could have easily avoided this accident.

The rider was overtaking the car (he was catching it even before the car started slowing down to turn). That is always a heads up situation. While the driver in an ideal world should have been much more carefull given the obvious race going on, in the real world, no car driver is ever going to expect to be passed by a bike so the rider needs to take care of himself and stay to the left. Even if the cyclist had just gotten into the middle of the lane he would of had room to swerve to the left and miss the car as soon as he realized it was turning.

This is a great lesson in defensive cycling. Anyone who watches this and just sees a driver taking out a cyclist is missing the value in this video.

Ironman UK was closed to traffic in 2005! The water quality at that race was terrible, not to mention the start delay which was 2 hours. Horrible race. If you know so much about water quality at these races perhaps you have a copy of the water quality assessment you could post here?

You are right about not having any races because of water quality, however. Water is a precious resource, yet we let it be polluted by almost anyone. The UK is not any better than the USA in this regard. At the current level of tolerance for poor water quality we will either be dead or the viability of racing will be GONE. Something must change, including acceptance of the status quo.

-Robert

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

I've been living and riding in New Jersey for 28 years without once crashing (once hit by a rear view mirror, though), and your paragraph above is insane. I've never been in a triathlon in the state (or anywhere else, for that matter) in which the bike leg was closed to other traffic, yet to my knowledge nobody was hit by a car in any of those races. The only person I know who was injured in a race (a great triathlete named Roy Mabrey) was hit by a car that disregarded the police barricades that closed that portion of the course, in Florida IIRC. The one triathlete I personally knew who died on the bike did so while passing a dump truck on the right.

I ride all over Monmouth County, into Mercer County, etc. There are roads (your "highways") that I would not ride on, but they are few and far between. I survive by paying attention to everything around me, acting like a car, and anticipating every bone-headed move a drive might make.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Quote:

if the biker had an expectation that no right hand turns by vehicles would be allowed into businesses.

I know you wrote if, but why would the cyclist have any expectation of no right turns allowed when racing on what are obviously roads open to traffic?

Or seeing as you initiated the allegation maybe you should?

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https://www.pbandjcoaching.com
https://www.thisbigroadtrip.com

Sorry, I don't have the specifics and the race has now moved from Sherbourne to Bolton.

If you want an Ironman with good water quality, do Ironman Switzerland in Zurich. Lake Zurich is crystal clear!

Wait, stop here. How do YOU know that the driver knows a race is happening? Sure, there are bikes on the road. Is that in itself proof that a race is on? Remember, most people wouldn't know what a triathlon looked like if it smacked them in the face.


Wait to turn? Wait for what? When he started braking to turn into the gas station, the cyclist was BEHIND him. If he checked his side mirror he would have seen a clear lane. It seems to be a matter of debate whether he actually signalled or not - from the sun angle in the video this is hard to determine. And I would assume that the gas station owner, wanting the business of people driving on that road, would claim that vehicles SHOULD be turning into his place of business. That's what the driveway is there for, isn't it?


What is it, an Explorer? I don't drive one, I wouldn't buy one, but really? Maybe he's got six kids and a smaller vehicle won't work for him (or her). You're making some pretty huge assumptions about the personality of someone who you've never even seen, much less met.



There's a difference between bias and absolutely ignoring the facts of the situation in order to support your viewpoint that EVERY car/bike collision is the fault of the driver.

Newsflash: MOST car/bike collisions are partially the fault of the driver and partially the fault of the cyclist. If you keep getting hit on your bike, you are riding in a reckless manner. Period. If you think you can ride like this yahoo did, you'll probably end up seriously injured or dead - no matter who is 'right' in the eyes of the law.

I did Ironman UK in 2005 as well (and again in 2007) - I thought the water was ok, I've swam in worse (and a lot better !). And although the roads were not fully closed, most of it was on closed roads (at least in the direction we were cycling) and I saw no problems with vehicles on the course. The 2hour delay due to fog was unfortunate, but didn't affect my day too much, sometimes you just have to roll with it. I had a great day, totally enjoyed my race and went back for a second time as did many others.

After watching it a few dozen times over a couple days...

1. I don't think the cyclist was trying to pass on the right, I think he was braking and trying to get out of the way opposed to hitting the Excursion square on.

2. If it was an auto vs auto without video... There is no doubt a police officer would have cited the cyclist for 1.following too closely, 2.Careless Driving, 3. Similar - The general rule of thumb is if you hit someone from behind it is your fault.

3. I think it is pretty clear there was no turn signal. If you where in a car and could prove the vehicle in front did not use the brakes or signal via camera an Officer would cite the Excursion.

4. It is also clear the Excursion did brake before turning, but the cyclist continued and/or couldn't stop in time and caused the accident.

As much as it sucks and a turn signal would have prevented the issue, it is the cyclist fault if we use the rules of the road.