Almost got wiped

dvnjhn said:

I have seen it posted here quite a bit, but never experianced it.

Today going down a quiet little road on my way to work, A [censored] big lexus went flying past within a foot of me. I almost crapped my pants.

Why the hell do people do this when they have a whole road to pass. There was no other traffic or nothing.

Got to admit it really shook me or a couple of minutes. Next time I will try to get the licence plate and report them.

happens to me too, people are mean with it too, like they'll beep and scream to get on the sidewalk at me, and its mostky the people with big cars too.

Happened to me by a Nissan Murano. I hate drivers that do this. Now in Houston I got no choice but to bike the roads. Maybe I should prevent them doing this by boldy taking the whole lane!

JTE83 said:

Happened to me by a Nissan Murano. I hate drivers that do this. Now in Houston I got no choice but to bike the roads. Maybe I should prevent them doing this by boldy taking the whole lane!

Good way to get run over! There is really nothing that you can legally do about it so just get over it and get on with your life! There are always going to be a couple of jerks out there. life is too short to be worried about them.

That's nothing. Going down Sheridan Road in Chicago, I once got brushed on the side by a car. Thankfully, I got out of this without even a bruise. But it was scary. Under Illinois law, a car has to stay at least 3ft away from a cyclist. Generally, they do that.

JTE83 said:

Happened to me by a Nissan Murano. I hate drivers that do this. Now in Houston I got no choice but to bike the roads. Maybe I should prevent them doing this by boldy taking the whole lane!

Then get followed by a driver who decides to follow you slowly honking their horn at you the whole time, instead of doing the smart thing and merging into the other lane.

A month or so ago a pickup truck came very very close as he was passing me. Scared me, but for only an instant, because then I got hit by the trailer he was towing that was wider than his truck. And he had another lane he could have moved into.

It's a miracle that I didn't get hurt.

I caught up to the bugger at a traffic light a mile or so up the road. He had no idea that he hit me, and he was pretty shook up when I told him. I stopped up the road another half mile or so to recover from the stress, and he stopped to speak to me and apologize again.

The moral is, not everyone drives like an idiot on purpose. Unfortunately, this scares me even more because it means regular joes aren't paying enough attention while driving.

I do agree with one of the previous posters. Nothing you can do about it except get over it, or give up biking.

Some jerk pulled that on me a couple of weeks ago. He stopped at the next light, and I pulled up behind and pretended to be taking pictures of his car and license with my cell phone. He came boiling out of the car and asked me what the *&%$ I thought I was doing. Told him I was taking pictures to turn his sorry a$$ in. He started towards me, so I put the bike down and faced him. The light changed before he got to me, and other cars started honking, so he got back in and drove away, giving me a one-finger salute. Guess I really should learn how to use the camera in that phone! 🙂

Newbie here. Almost everytime I go out someone gives me a few quick honks, they are sometimes in opposing traffic or going the same direction but a few lanes over. Anyone get that? And what's that all about?

waldowales said:

Some jerk pulled that on me a couple of weeks ago. He stopped at the next light, and I pulled up behind and pretended to be taking pictures of his car and license with my cell phone. He came boiling out of the car and asked me what the *&%$ I thought I was doing. Told him I was taking pictures to turn his sorry a$$ in. He started towards me, so I put the bike down and faced him. The light changed before he got to me, and other cars started honking, so he got back in and drove away, giving me a one-finger salute. Guess I really should learn how to use the camera in that phone! 🙂

So, what would've you done if he didn't get back in the car and drive away? Would you get into it with him or what?

waldowales said:

Some jerk pulled that on me a couple of weeks ago. He stopped at the next light, and I pulled up behind and pretended to be taking pictures of his car and license with my cell phone. He came boiling out of the car and asked me what the *&%$ I thought I was doing. Told him I was taking pictures to turn his sorry a$$ in. He started towards me, so I put the bike down and faced him. The light changed before he got to me, and other cars started honking, so he got back in and drove away, giving me a one-finger salute. Guess I really should learn how to use the camera in that phone! 🙂

I like that, it's pretty bold. I am glad nothing more came of it and I hope he learns somthing from the experience.

The only thing about situations like that is sometimes those turkeys will come along the same path and time looking for you. Be careful.

I was at a stop light the other day and there was a huge red truck to my left. A little girl had the nerve to roll down her window and scream for 10 seconds at the top of her lungs... I was kind of shocked because I was concertrating very on hard on some things..:eek:

I don't know why people are doing sth like this. I have experienced it many times....

but my favorite one is when a little kid on a bmx bike, screams at me "c'mon Armstrong!!! GO!" next time a kid does that, i'm gonna stop, and say, "what? you wanna race or somethin?" just to make em stop

I moved to Seoul, Korea and learned to fight for the space against cars when I ride. It's crazy here. Nothing scares me anymore... :eek: j/k

Anyways... when I was in Indiana, it happened few times, and most of them were older drivers.

Elyes said:

I don't know why people are doing sth like this. I have experienced it many times....

I have wondered about it, I have begun commuting by bike much more so there is plenty of opportunity to think about it.

In my experience, I average 1-3 near collisions a week, so far I have had only one. Two thirds of the time they simply don't see us. When I had a collision I was riding on the side walk. this old fella is pulling out of a gas station, I am in the wide open, nothing to obstruct his view of me and I am sure that the big guy in the neon yellow jersey with blinky lights on his bike is hard to miss but I was wrong. I even made eye contact with the dude and still he didn't see me.

I have had several similar incidents and most of the time, if I am able to get the drivers attention it is as if I suddenly materialized out of thin air.

Of the other third, half are just plain crazy. A few weeks ago on the way in to work, I am rolling through a six block area that is pretty rough when this hispanic dude pulls up alongside me, rolls down his window and starts yelling at me in spanish. He keeps pace with me for about two blocks and is just going off on me and finally I say to him "no habla espanol, habla 'english' ?" He looks at me kind of funny, says somthing else in spanish, I stare blankly back at him, he says somthing else that ends with "Maria!" I say "No Maria" and point to my wedding ring. He stares at me, he smiles and drives off.

It was kind of scary, then kind of funny but still scary. For a brief moment I wondered if Alien-eater had found me and was going to kill me...[img]cyclingforums.comicon7.gifOpen ↗[/img]

Once again, I'm glad I live in Corvallis. I might have one close call a week, but it's usually less often than that. If I come to a stop sign on a busy road I generally don't have to wait more than thirty seconds before someone stops to let me cross.

I've only ever had two people yell at me, and they were both the "dumb frat guy" kind of stereotype. One was on foot and yelled "bicyclists are gay!" and the other yelled something similarly stupid while going the opposite direction in a car.

My fiancee thought I should have replied to the first with "I still have a bigger [censored] than you!" If I were quicker of wit, I'd have asked the second one how much he paid for gas.

A close call. Yeah I don't think people really mean to do things like that. Hopefully. Sometimes people with expensive cars like that are so far gone into the material world that they just don't care. Their level of perception is distorted with the focus being on money. So far in their head that they don't look at the world around them.
It can be dangerous so yes you've got to have that defensive riding going on all the time. One would think you'd have the easiest time on a road like that. City riding can be challenging. I always try to make eye contact with people to see if they actually see me before I make a move. The famous one is when they are turning a corner but are looking the other way while rolling. They go on the turn with their head looking the other way. This makes no sense. A driver has to actually look both ways. It is as if they think they have eyes on the other side of their head or something. They just glance and leave no room for a cyclist to be there. This is the thing about bikes that it is not like a pedestrian. We can travel faster and pop up out of no where. So I do my best.

I'm glad you're alright. A few weeks ago, I had a similar issue. I was biking in the rain, in the biking lane on the right side of the road, trying to get home from a friend's house. An SUV comes and pulls a really wide left out of an apartment complex, and their back end almost swings and hits me. I ended up skidding out of the way and falling in the grass alongside the road. People seem to think that, since cyclists are faster than pedestrians, that it's on us to get out of the way.