In this case the driveway was coned

Misstates evidence. (Only the exit portion of the driveway was coned; the entrance side was not.)

the racer is in aerobars

Fact not in evidence.

The driver knows a RACE is happening

Fact not in evidence.

But, you also ignore a major problem cyclists have with cars on the highway, which is that drivers, and particularly the "I'm the fucking king of the road" style of vehicle driven by this bozo, have a major attitude problem.

Relevance?

This driver passed the cyclist

Fact not in evidence.

and purposely turned right in front of him expecting him to stop

Fact not in evidence.

Am I biased in favor of cyclists? Yes, and I hope everyone here is also 'biased'. And, anyone who says they are not biased at all is full of shit. Please spare me your condescension....and curriculum vitae.

Relevance?

I'm also a retired lawyer

Emphasis on retired.

I was hit from behind 6 times and once from the side by a truck speeding in a residential area.

Getting hit that many times makes me question you more than it does the safety of riding on public roads. And to be clear, I'm not saying that riding on public roads is without danger. Anyone who rides regularly has either been involved in or knows people who have been involved in serious (or worse) collisions with vehicles, etc. But 7 times? You surely are the outlier.

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!
To expect any semi-populated community to close down 40k of roads for several hours so that a few hundred amateurs can indulge themselves in the expensive pasttime is idiotic. To expect business to shut down for the morning just because there's a race is also idiotic. As much as I might fight for legislation protecting cyclists or encouraging/requiring vehicles to respect cyclist, I will not fight for closed courses. If a community will allow it, or if partial closures can accommodate everyone's interests, then great.

And I've raced countless races, both triathlon and road, on roads open or partially open to traffic. And even though I'm aware of a few indicents with vehicles during those races, I've never felt that they were unsafe. And minding the motor vehicles on the road didn't impair my ability to race.

(I'll admit that in road races, the road is de facto closed for the peloton when you consider lead vehicle, follow vehicles, etc.)

Without reading all of the entries before me:

Cones to stop someone from going into a gas station??? Where is a volunteer to stop traffic there???


Jason

---

*****
It's a dry heat!

MOST car/bike collisions are partially the fault of the driver and partially the fault of the cyclist.

Whenever I've crashed, whether it's been while training or, more often, during a race, I always analyze the incident to see if there's something I can learn from it -- something I could have done differently to avoid it. I can only think of one crash (in a crit) over the years that was completely unavoidable. In the others, there's always been something I could have done that would have at least increased the chances of me staying upright.

Several STers stated the biker should've passed on the left of the truck, but the truck could have just as easily been turning left as right. With no blinker, it's a 50/50.

1

There were no cones to stop vehicles from going into the gas station. Only half of the driveway was coned off. But cones or not, you bring up a good point. If you don't want vehicles entering or exiting at a certain place, you need a course marshall.

San Dimas Stage Race in CA has at least one marshall at every driveway on the approx 7+ mile loop road race course. Portions of the race are open to traffic, but it is still controlled. Portions are only open to local traffic. Every once in a while a vehicle ignores a marshall, and every once in a while a marshall makes a mistake.

It was clear that the vehicle was doing something. The cyclist should have slowed and stayed behind the vehicle until it became clear what driver was going to do. There appears to have been plenty of time for that, provided the cyclist was paying attention. It wouldn't surprise me, however, if the cyclist was in race mode with tunnel vision. Understandable, but it still puts him at least partially at fault.

Roadie-turned-triathlete so take it for what it's worth but I've encountered this situation in races and on many training rides.

In my head I'm going through the following steps (because I've had to keep my head on a swivel for 17 years of racing up to this point):
I'm quickly approaching a land yacht from behind
What are my escape options? Not right, that pinches me into the curb and forces a run-in if this guy turns right
I see brake lights which indicates car is up to "something"
Get centered in lane to broaden escape options
Feather brakes to provide a little distance between car and me
I see car is turning right
Wait until rear bumper clears and I can pass on the left while staying in my lane

So I just lost 5-8 seconds on my bike time but it was better than running 6 miles with my bike

This is my self-preservation strategy; I don't know how this plays out legally.

x2 on options. Its all about maximizing your options.

Sure, if you got all the way over to the left with an eye to passing, the truck could have turned left but even then you would have the full opposing lane to manuver into (he won't turn if its not clear of traffic). That would likely give you a shot at having enough room to at least match the truck's turn and hit the grass instead of the truck.

As we see on the video, if you pin yourself too far to the right, you have no where to go if the guy turns into the station. You don't even have enough of an angle to turn and bunny hop the curb (unless you are studdly enough to make the pro move and jump sideways).

If you shade left of middle but not all the way over to the line, you can go right or left as the situation unfolds. That would hve been the move that would have kept the cyclist racing.

The key is to always leave yourself some out. Once you pin yourself to the right curb, you are just along for the ride if the truck turns.

Ken, I just moved to New Jersey last year. All but two of my accidents happened in Florida. And, yes, I was hit from behind while riding on the right side of the road. The last time was in Orlando in the rain when an unlicensed, uninsured, and drunk (at 8:45 a.m.) female hit me from behind and almost killed me. Threw me 30 feet. I have a permanent back injury as a result. One time a guy was bending down picking up his garage remote and turned right in front of me in the bike lane. He said he didn't see me cause he was getting his remote off the floor! Fortunately I avoided serious injury in that case. Once at a race in Charlottesville, Va, a trucker tried to pass me on a narrow road going uphill. He hit me in the shoulder and push me off the road into the trees. He never stopped.

I started riding in Ohio as a kid and at 10 years of age could ride the 5 miles or so to baseball practice in East Cleveland without a worry. Today, between the pollution, the SUVs filling up the roads, the bad roads, and the bad drivers, a kid would be dead in short order. (BTW, NJ roads are some of the worst I've driven on. The state obviously doesn't have the money to keep them up.)

I'm glad you've had good experience riding in New Jersey. Yours is the experience of one. One of my motorcyle friends just sold his motorcycle after getting hit for the 3rd time. He told me it wasn't safe to ride in New Jersey and he is only about 40. Obviously, opinions vary about the conditions in NJ. Most of my friends think I'm nuts to ever ride on the roads here in Middlesex County. Mercer and Monroe are a bit more rural, so I'm guessing you are much safer down there.

Many races are closed to traffic. At Clearwater they had one lane completely closed for the October World Championships, by way of example, and Ironman UK 2005 had the roads closed, as did Half-Ironman UK 2005. St. Pete closes the roads on one side for the race down there. Ditto for the Clermont races during short course and Olympics. Yes, it's a lot to ask to expect people to give up their Tahoes for a few hours so people might engage in a non-sedentary activity...I guess.

These threads engender a lot of interest mainly out of FEAR. Everyone knows someone who was hit and almost everyone has had some close calls.

Regarding those who say it's irrelevant that a bike race was happening, they are wrong. Traffic laws, and particularly speeds, are governed by the conditions. This driver must have known a race was happening as there were police at the intersections, and extensive coning. To assume he didn't know is to ignore common sense. If it's pouring rain sideways on the New Jersey Turnpike you should slow down, by way of example. The fact people don't slow down is a sign of how conditioned we've become to speeding, ignoring traffic conditions, and engaging in selfish behavior. This driver was impatient and inattentive and I'll bet he never raced a bike in his life.

I support the biker in this case against all the people who would have us live in a world where the carbon belchers rule. When in doubt vote for the biker.

-Robert

---

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

Yes, and good analysis, but all of this could have been avoided had the driver of the 6,000 pound carbon belcher engaged in conditions based driving. But, he was in a hurry, distracted probably playing Angry Birds or eating a double Mac, so he didn't care. Why do people text and drive, talk and drive, eat and drive, put on their make-up while driving, etc.? Because they can get away with it and they don't care enough for the safety of others. If you drive one of these land yachts you obviously don't care about the lung health of your fellow Americans. Get lung cancer, it's not my problem! Or, so they seem to think....or not think.

SLOW DOWN AMERICA!

-Robert

---

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

Amen!

-Robert

---

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

Yes, and good analysis, but all of this could have been avoided had the driver of the 6,000 pound carbon belcher engaged in conditions based driving.

And, if the guy riding the 21 pound carbon sequestering bike had engaged in conditions based riding, he could have avoided the crash too. It almost always takes two to tango. Since the biker is the one who will be losing skin or breaking bones, he should be more careful.

If there were any doubt, I would . . . but there's no doubt. The cyclist was at least equally at fault, and arguably more at fault.

---

''The enemy isn't conservatism. The enemy isn't liberalism. The enemy is bulls**t.''

—Lars-Erik Nelson

Gee, nice of you to put your sole admission at the bottom.... Let's see, close the roads for bikers, but not for triathletes? I've never done a bike race with cars, though I admit I last did a bike race in 1984.

I'd be in favor of legislation requiring that some roads be closed at least one day a month in each county for some non-vehicular activity. Get these fat people out of their SUVs and doing something with their bodies.

In Europe, the trend is away from letting traffic in the central cities, something NYC will have to face some day. Zurich has one small lane, usually, for auto traffic. The public transport takes up most of the road space. Which is one reason why Zurich works so well in terms of efficiency, air quality, and quality of life. Americans have gone too far in the opposite direction. We've become fat, selfish, auto-centric, and insular....

-Robert

---

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

Actually - a more appropriate description would be "vehicle hit by cyclist".

If you watch the vid, it looks like the entrance may have been blocked, but the cone was moved. (it's on it's side in the vid).

Clearly the RD needs to be publicly flogged. The driver needs to lose his licence and serve hard time and the cyclist banned from all futre races since in the US accidents don't happen.

People, the car couldn't have been turning left since there wasn't a road or driveway there.

What about a U-Turn, and how would the biker, having just come off a fast downhill, be able to do the 50,000 computations the people in this thread think he should have made? LOL! Many of the racers are beginners, which is why safety is paramount, but even an experienced cyclist can make a bad judgement given 5 seconds and the effort of a race. Some of you act as though you can't remember what it's like to race....

To the guy who said the race director should be flogged, I agree.

-Robert

---

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

Ah, so it's more like "the part of New Jersey in which I live" have roads that shouldn't be biked. Well, duh: much of your county is very urban. Go south of Spotswood, and everything west of there is rural and very nice. Sussex, Warren, Hunterdon, Somerset, and much of Mercer counties are outstanding for riding. There are triathlons every weekend in Burlington, Cumberland and Atlantic counties every weekend without a single road closure (except the new Atlantic City triathlon in which they are closing part of the Atlantic City Expressway!) and without any bike-car injuries of which I'm aware. And the roads in these areas are excellent: I've had exactly one flat tire this year on the roads.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

To all of you saying the cyclist could have avoided the truck, your problem is you are using common sense and self preservation.

You see, those are not valid in the 21st century.

What is valid is I am right and you are wrong. I in this case beign the cylist/triathlete/me. etc and you being anyoen who is the opposite.

End of sarcasm. I am dumbfounded at the ever increasing number of cyclists involved in collisions with cars. Like some others here, I have ridden for sport or recreation for over 25 years and have never been hit. Throw in time as a paper boy or outh, and that number goes up a number of years. I have had a few near misses. Why were they near misses? I could predict what was about to happen and go into crash avoidance mode.

How many people in the US have ever participated in a race, even a 5k? Ten percent? So how do the other 90% know how to react to a bunch of cyclists on the road? Did I miss the "what to do if there is a race on the road" portion of driver's ed?

Actually it could have been. There is a four way stop intersection not 50 feet beyond the driveway where the vehicle turned right. In fact, the bike course takes a 90 degree right turn at that intersection, so I'm sure the rider was biased towards staying right if for no other reason. He may have been simply expecting the vehicle to stop at the stop sign. Even if there was a right turn light blinking, if he assumed that the vehicle was turning at the road, rather than the driveway, he would have expected the traffic control officer to hold the car while he scooted by.

From the driver's perspective, if they checked mirrors and rubbernecked before turning, they would have seen a cyclist in the road behind them, slowing to stop at an intersection. The rider was NOT in the bike lane / shoulder section of the road. The driver would have no expectation that the rider would dart to the right and try to pass at that very moment.

Ultimately it was a bad assumption, but I don't think it's entirely as clear as it seems to some that either party was at "fault". I'd lean towards placing the bulk of responsibility on the rider, but I can see how he would have arrived at the series of decisions he made that led to the crash.

Turn signal or not, this is 90% the cyclists fault, no way you can pass there. Just idiotic. If you are not riding defensively on an open street, you deserve what you get. To ask a distracted driver (in my mind ALL drivers are distracted) of likely limited intelligence (I think most of this world is full of idiots) to be able to calculate the distance needed to turn in front of a bike moving at full speed, is asking too much. To rely on anyone but yourself to stay out of harms way while riding on the road is the surest fire way to become the next one in line at the ER. Not to mention, as an earlier poster pointed out, the cyclist HIT THE TRUCK. In a front to rear, car on car accident the driver behind is almost always found at fault as they were likely not giving enough room, I don't know how it could be different here.
Not to mention the video is inconclusive as to whether the driver used a hand signal (hey maybe he knew his turn signal is out), so I don't know how a ticket could possibly be issued.

What about a U-Turn? Great question. It's entirely possible that the driver could have decided to randomly pull a U-turn. This means that if the cyclist had been to the right, they would have been hit (car would have had to swing wide to get enough room for the turn) and if they'd been to the left, they would have been hit.

That means that as others have said, it's the cyclist's responsibility to look at the car's brake lights and see that they are doing *something*, and stay a safe distance back until it's clear what that something is!

You seem to think they should just be able to keep riding with their head down. If this is what you think racing should be, I suggest you stick to computrainer races. They seem perfect for you.

Do you have ANY evidence that the driver was speeding or distracted or otherwise not driving according to the rules of the road? When they started their turn the cyclist was BEHIND them. If they'd checked their side mirror they would have seen nothing there.

I also have a strong suspicion (given your description of being hit from behind so many times) that you can't shoulder check without swerving 3 feet into traffic.