Being from NY I can only say that my rides are mainly on the trainer or in a spin class. It isn’t worth the risk anymore being killed or seriously injured by some young kid or grandmother heading to the mall. If I do ride outside it’s along the LIE on the service road during the morning hours of the weekend. Other times you are risking your life out here on the road. People don’t care anymore. Some ass yelled out at me from his truck last summer “get on a sidewalk”, I shot up the middle finger and yelled a few choice words for this dead beat trailer park trash man. But, this is the attitude these low lifes have. Why risk ending your life under some one’s wheel.
Don’t go out on Fridays. That’s my number one rule for staying out of trouble in 20+ years of cycling. People are just at their absolute worst on Fridays. I have made one exception to the rule in the years since I adopted it and regretted it almost instantly.
A tow truck driver told me once that if you saw what he had over the years on friday and saturday nights you would never again drive those hours and the only time he did was for his job. The flip side is with all those fools still in bed early mornings on Saturday are easily the best times.
I live in a real hick area that is undergoing urban sprawl of the worst kind with no thought to master planning for bikes, running trails etc. The only other choice is to ride in the rural area with no shoulders and folks in big bubba trucks that don’t know how to deal with bikes. It is frustrating and hair-raising at times. My next location after my kids are gone will deal with these quality of life issues that are important to me.
I was hit just last week by a student driver. Luckily, neither my body or bike took any serious damage.
I used to live in Irvine CA and in San Diego, both of which had excellent bike lanes and trails (especially Irvine). Unfortunately, Maryland is different story.
My one bad incident with a car occurred on a Friday afternoon, a car took a left hand turn in front of me & I ended up with a separated shoulder and 2 dislocated fingers. I agree that Fridays afternoons and evenings are among the worst times to ride, drivers are in a rush to get home for the weekend. Friday and Saturday nights are absolutely the worst due to all the drunk drivers, but usually the only folks that ride during those hours are ultramarathoners doing brevets and the like.
I try to stick to quiet side roads without a lot of traffic, but any time you mix it up with cars on the road there is some chance some idiot won’t be paying attention. I love cycling but the risks are something I often think about and wonder.
I think you made an excellent point about Fridays. I typically see more vehicle to vehicle accidents on that day also.
I’ve also noticed during my limited tenure into cycling that the later in the day I ride on Saturday, the more aggressive the traffic gets. If I’m solo riding, I get it in early and leave the late afternoon for my runs, which are not on the roads.
Not sure what the solution is, but I would be willing to join some type of national lobby or campain to make cycling and pedestrian access on roads safer. I believe i noticed on the news last week that 1,000 pedestrians are hit by vehicles in Boston every year. I’m simply amazed by that statistic.
I had an altercation w/ a vehicle last weekend. As I was pulling my right knee out of his tail light, he was arguing that cyclist don’t have a legal right to be on the roads with cars. I think that’s the mentality of most aggressive drivers. They feel we are tresspassing on their roads.
Still not sure what the answer is… I’ll just continue to roll the dice as I traverse the roads…
I agree with you on what you said. Stupid people believe that bikers belong on a side walk. If you do get hit and live, I dam hope for sure that you get a really good lawyer and sue the shit out of the asshole.
People driving are bad, to be sure. But, I almost collected a border collie trotting across the road in front of me last Friday…he just wasn’t paying attention, and never saw me. I yelled, “Hey DOG”, and startled his one droopy ear straight up. Scared him. I’ve been hit twice, so far…once by a MOBILE HOME. Not a Motor home. Someone was pulling the thing up a long hill and pulled out to pass me…another car came over the crest of the hill, and I got bounced right into the ditch…not a scratch on me. Lucky. Funny, too. I laughed about then, and still do. Could have been tragic if I would have gotten caught under the thing…but, I didn’t.
I got hit by a car 2 1/2 years ago. Teenage driver talking on a cell phone driving an oncoming car made an unsignaled left turn directy into my path as I was on a slight downhill grade with a strong tailwind. I was pretty seriously messed up.
In my mind, it’s bad enough that cell phones are allowed to be in use by people driving motor vehicles at all … but that we allow TEENAGERS to do so is just so insane it’s beyond belief.
To get to your question … here’s what I did. I moved to a very remote, rural area. I had a job that afforded me the luxury of doing that. I also had a hefty insurance settlement that literally “bought the farm.” I spend a higher percentage of my time on rollers and the trainer than I used to. When I ride outside, I can count the number of cars that pass me on a 50-mile ride on the fingers of two hands. And in most of the area, there’s no cell phone service. I’m more endangered by deer and pit bulls than I am by drivers.
Tomorrow I go for the first century of the season up in the city where I was hit. It’ll be on my mind. I often worry about what might happen and what can happen on rides. But I also think about what my cardiologist said when I saw her a few months back – that I have the heart of a healthy person in their mid-20s. I’ll be 50 this year.
I read a great tip years ago in Bicycling magazine. Get in the habit of reading the license plate of cars as they pass. (I even come up with stupid games using the letters to pass the time on long rides).
Anyway, eventually this becomes second nature and instead of being freaked out when that empty beer can hits you in the back of the head (yep - sure did) you will calmly read the license plate and file a complaint.
It has come in handy more than I care to mention. Guess I should stop wearing those those zebrastriped cycling shorts.
Add Tuesdays to that list as well. I was riding after work tues. about 6:10pm and I got rolled up and put on the deck by an idiot. I was going down a slight hill on the aero bars @ about 25mph, IN THE BIKE LANE! A ford explorer rolls up next to me and as soon as her rear bumper clears my head she turns on her right blinker, I think no way are you going to turn in front of me!! Well as you might have guessed it she did and I kissed her rear tail light group right before bouncing off and hitting the road hard! I am lucky to be here to enjoy my 39th birthday tomorrow, it could have turned out worse. The worst thing is my middle finger on my rt hand looks like a Northwestern football helmet, and the soreness hasn’t gone down any. Oh! I think Sundays can be added to the list as well, one of my buddies in NC was run down from behind as he was training solo, knocked 25ft into a field and left for dead. An oncoming car witnessed the hit and u-turned,chased the hit & run driver down and called the cops. As you might have guessed it driver was an 84 yr. old woman who didn’t know she hit anyone and the trusty North Carolina Hwy. Patrol didn’t feel the need to cite the woman for any traffic violation, it’s just too close to call when you hit somebody who really shouldn’t be on the road in the first place. So, if my buddy mends up Ok and his ear that was reattached grows back, I guess he can go to inside out sports and get himself a new bike. Two stories from the last 13 days, be careful out there!!!
Watching Discovery Health channel tonight, they stated that 700 Americans are killed while cycling in the US every year. Most by vehicle trama.
That’s kind of an alarming number. They also said many of the deaths were due to head trama that occurred when the rider was not wearing a helmet. So, I guess wearing my helmet improves my odds on head trama.
My other comment strays a little from the subject, but I recall there was a debate a couple years ago to keep cell phone towers out of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. The people that lived there didn’t want them. The adjacent resorts and cell companies obviously did. As a cyclist, I’d love to know there are places where I can cycle (or even go for a drive) and not have to worry about some dork talking on a cell phone and not paying attention to their driving. (Not sure who won the battle to put cell towers in the GSMNP.)
I also think we need some good pics of bike accidents…Here’s mine:
Story: Was descending aggressively on Highway 84 in woodside, CA…as I came around the bend (close to, but not over the center line), just my bad luck-a semi was coming up, and was over the line getting wide to make the turn. I went into a skid, started to skid off the road, then overcorrected and started to skid back on. By then, I was past the first semi, but unfortunately, headed toward the grill of the second-The heroic version reads, “I then ditched the bike”, but the reality is probably that I fell off, the bike went under, and I rolled off by the rear wheels…had some serious road rash, but only a broken finger…lucky-and convinced that God must have some work left for me to do on this earth:)