Right, so when the guy turning right out of a driveway, or a cross street, just looks to his left for oncoming cars, and starts his turn without looking to his right, you'll be just fine.goldenmaine said:
Is road cycling dangerous?
- Thread starter sammyjay
- Start date
I've been hit three times. Once from behind, and twice from the side. That's not counting the two times cars pulled up behind me at a traffic light and tapped me, and the one time a motorcyclist crossed the road to my side and drove straight at me. I also wiped out and broke my femur. Plus so many other close calls with cars and trucks that I can't remember them anymore. .
Road cycling is very dangerous.
Road cycling is very dangerous.
Quote by Yojimbo:"
"I've been hit three times."
Same here. You and me should NOT race to number four!
I helped support a team mate that broke his femur on a training ride. It was so painful we could not move him off the centerline, where he landed. We had to take turns sitting back-to-back with him, keeping him propped up and kept the road blocked in both directions until the ambulance arrived. Broken femurs can be VERY painful injuries.
"I've been hit three times."
Same here. You and me should NOT race to number four!
I helped support a team mate that broke his femur on a training ride. It was so painful we could not move him off the centerline, where he landed. We had to take turns sitting back-to-back with him, keeping him propped up and kept the road blocked in both directions until the ambulance arrived. Broken femurs can be VERY painful injuries.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/02/22/388194181/chilean-cyclist-nearing-record-killed-by-truck-in-rural-thailand?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news
Chilean Cyclist Nearing Record Killed By Truck In Rural Thailand
February 22, 2015 9:31 AM ET
A Chilean man who began an around-the-world bicycle journey four years ago and was closing in on a Guinness distance record, has been killed by a passing pickup truck while he was stopped on the side of a highway in rural Thailand. His Singaporean wife and two-year-old son, who were traveling with him, sustained minor injuries.
The Bangkok Post says the accident occurred near Korat, about 140 miles northeast of Bangkok:
"[Juan Francisco] Guillermo and his family had made a rest stop at a police checkpoint in Khon Kaen's Phon district on Saturday morning before heading off to Nakhon Ratchasima with the bicycle pulling a carriage. Before they left the checkpoint, Guillermo told a policeman he would later travel to Australia.
The accident happened when a speeding pickup truck driven by Tiwarat Ratchaipidet, aged 64, scraped the bicycle on the roadside. The cyclist was thrown from the bicycle and died on the spot."
The newspaper said the driver of the truck, who was unhurt, was charged with "careless driving resulting in death and injury."
The Guardian says: "Guillermo's wife was on another bicycle with their two-year-old son and suffered a slight sprain in the accident, said police Col Torsak Thammingmongkol. It was not clear how long they had accompanied Guillermo in his round-the-world cycling odyssey."
Guillermo, 47, was hoping to break a world record by cycling more than 155,000 miles on five continents within five years.
In 2013, a British couple trying to set a similar cycling record were killed by a pickup truck on a Thai highway east of Bangkok.
Insane...isn't iut?
Chilean Cyclist Nearing Record Killed By Truck In Rural Thailand
February 22, 2015 9:31 AM ET
A Chilean man who began an around-the-world bicycle journey four years ago and was closing in on a Guinness distance record, has been killed by a passing pickup truck while he was stopped on the side of a highway in rural Thailand. His Singaporean wife and two-year-old son, who were traveling with him, sustained minor injuries.
The Bangkok Post says the accident occurred near Korat, about 140 miles northeast of Bangkok:
"[Juan Francisco] Guillermo and his family had made a rest stop at a police checkpoint in Khon Kaen's Phon district on Saturday morning before heading off to Nakhon Ratchasima with the bicycle pulling a carriage. Before they left the checkpoint, Guillermo told a policeman he would later travel to Australia.
The accident happened when a speeding pickup truck driven by Tiwarat Ratchaipidet, aged 64, scraped the bicycle on the roadside. The cyclist was thrown from the bicycle and died on the spot."
The newspaper said the driver of the truck, who was unhurt, was charged with "careless driving resulting in death and injury."
The Guardian says: "Guillermo's wife was on another bicycle with their two-year-old son and suffered a slight sprain in the accident, said police Col Torsak Thammingmongkol. It was not clear how long they had accompanied Guillermo in his round-the-world cycling odyssey."
Guillermo, 47, was hoping to break a world record by cycling more than 155,000 miles on five continents within five years.
In 2013, a British couple trying to set a similar cycling record were killed by a pickup truck on a Thai highway east of Bangkok.
Insane...isn't iut?
Road cycling becomes less dangerous the more experienced you are. It is like first learning how to ride a bike. Although it may be scary, you have to practice and learn the rules. Sure it is risky. But there is a reward for taking that risk! Don't let horror stories stop you from road cycling.
It depends on the person riding. If one is careful and doing the right precautions of looking at every directions in the road, not riding too fast in traffic, etc...Then, you can be pretty safe. Thankfully, I haven't had a major accident by road biking because I make sure that I'm careful, especially in traffic and public roads. I also ride my motorcycle when going to work and school and I can say that the disciplines I learned from road cycling have been very useful to me and kept me safe from major riding accidents.
Hahaha, well - I think this stems from the teachings many of us got as kids, that we should walk towards the stream of cars so as to be able to see potential hazards. I don't know why some people extend that to bike usage though, that's hilariousCAMPYBOB said:"I bike on the side of the road and always go against the flow of cars so I can see the incoming cars."
Thats close to how it works here, we like to blame the victim.mpre53 said:Right, so when the guy turning right out of a driveway, or a cross street, just looks to his left for oncoming cars, and starts his turn without looking to his right, you'll be just fine.
Notes From the Scrum: The thing you love can kill you
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As the car’s front bumper hit my rear wheel, the sound of it wasn’t heard but absorbed. The front wheel popped out, and the tire ripped off as the violence of energy went from car to bike and human being. I came down on a naked fork going roughly 25 miles per hour.
And so this is how it happens. This is how you die.
My brain is on fire and the slivers of seconds are bending and stretching. I look over my left shoulder and see the car passing above. The time is long still, and the pitch of a terrified nervous system mutes the rest of the world into nothing. My right hip and calf help bring me to a slow, grinding stop on the side of Monarch Road outside of Boulder, Colorado.
I rest my head on the asphalt and close my eyes. Awareness is smoke, there and gone.
***
“WHAT THE F—K! REALLY?” my friend Kevin is yelling. I’ve never heard him yell.
I see feet coming toward me and hear a woman screaming. I do not move because I am either afraid or unable; there is no distinction in my body between them.
“I HIT YOU I HIT YOU,” she is screaming, running closer. Her eyes are leaking, and she covers her mouth with her hands. She gasps for air as the panic wrings her lungs out.
I ask if someone can get her to sit down. I stood up not 30 seconds later, able to walk and think.
Kevin says I laid there in a fetal position, a broken and bent bike next to me, for five to 10 minutes. Life stops and slows down and speeds up in the same seconds at the raging confluence of fear, panic, and gratitude.
People are everywhere, and the traffic of presence is jammed in my head. Cars stopped; a deputy from the sheriff’s office arrived; a firefighter was pressing my wrist and along my vertebrae; I watched the road rash on my lower right leg, at first blush the only real injury, begin to weep. The general consensus was that I was on some nine-lives stuff, flanked by angels, lucky beyond reason. I never even heard the car before it hit me. The driver wrote her speed down on the police report as “35?”
We were all thankful and happy under the circumstances; I had been obliterated from behind at a decent clip speed and was standing up, talking. We were happy as we could be, given the fact that I could be dead.
Until the Colorado Highway Patrol showed up.
Walking toward me as I sat on the side of the road shivering under a heavy coat, one of them asked, without any precursor, if we were riding two across. If we were riding in the middle of the road.
Imagine for a moment what agenda it must take to approach a man, who has just seen his very short 32 years roll before him on old movie film, a question like that.
No, and no. Maybe if we were two across in the middle of the road, someone would have seen me and not ran into me square from behind. And even if I was, I have a right to be on the road — as a rider, driver, runner — and not be struck from behind, ever.
I was given a ticket for something amounting to failing to move over when being overtaken. I asked the officer to tell me why it was he though I was riding in the middle of the road. He responded that he wasn’t going to explain himself. That I could hire a re-creationist if I wanted. That he wasn’t going to explain himself, again. And for a second time that I could hire a re-creationist if I wanted.
In the clarity of hindsight, I wish I would have said, flatly, “No, I don’t want to. I want you to do the right thing, not be a cyclist-hating cop; that’s what I really want.” Imagine being cited for failing to move over while driving on an empty two-lane country road after being hit from behind. Would that ever happen? Why is a human being on a bike, with nothing but fabric and Styrofoam between him and the cars and the road, seemingly less protected by the law than the driver of an F-350?
The ticket was for $24. It is meaningless in the galaxy of points on driving records and dollars. And yet it is profoundly upsetting. The driver, who was profoundly apologetic and upset, was given a much stiffer ticket.
It was a ******** day all around. And for the second time in several months, VeloNews’ technical editor Caley Fretz came and picked a battered version of myself up and drove me home.
***
After I stopped skidding and as I lay on the pavement with the side of my head on the ground, I noticed an incredible stillness. The calm of a stop after the velocity of a crash is remarkable; everything has happened, then a deep nothing.
I am still here. I can move my toes and fingers. I am not dead. I am fine.
That was December 2. I’ve ridden some since then. I hear the cars behind me and try not to think about them as sharks below, but fear is a constant light rain, rusting out belief and trust. I only allowed myself to think about the magnitude of what happened recently, and it was more a reckoning than self-discourse.
You can die riding your bike on a sunny afternoon on a lonely, arrow-straight road just outside of town. The thing you love can kill you. And it still might.
But you don’t stop, because you aren’t dead or defeated. And one day the sound of cars won’t feel how it does now, and existence on the road will go back to the buzzing symphony of hubs clicking and voices floating.
But until then, it sounds like madness. I’m just trying not to hear it.
Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2015/01/news/road/notes-scrum-thing-love-can-kill_358177#4LvMfKPssWuXceaV.99
- By Matthew Beaudin
- Published Jan. 14, 2015
- Updated Jan. 14, 2015 at 7:31 PM EST
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image: http://cdn.velonews.competitor.com/files/2015/01/IMG_1912-659x440.jpg
I see feet coming toward me and hear a woman screaming. I do not move because I am either afraid or unable; there is no distinction in my body between them. "I HIT YOU, I HIT YOU," she is screaming, running closer. Photo: Kevin Scott Batchelor
image: http://cdn.velonews.competitor.com/files/2015/01/IMG_1905-659x440.jpg
The general consensus was that I was on some nine-lives stuff, flanked by angels, lucky beyond reason. I never even heard the car before it hit me. Photo: Caley Fretz | VeloNews.com
1 of 2
As the car’s front bumper hit my rear wheel, the sound of it wasn’t heard but absorbed. The front wheel popped out, and the tire ripped off as the violence of energy went from car to bike and human being. I came down on a naked fork going roughly 25 miles per hour.
And so this is how it happens. This is how you die.
My brain is on fire and the slivers of seconds are bending and stretching. I look over my left shoulder and see the car passing above. The time is long still, and the pitch of a terrified nervous system mutes the rest of the world into nothing. My right hip and calf help bring me to a slow, grinding stop on the side of Monarch Road outside of Boulder, Colorado.
I rest my head on the asphalt and close my eyes. Awareness is smoke, there and gone.
***
“WHAT THE F—K! REALLY?” my friend Kevin is yelling. I’ve never heard him yell.
I see feet coming toward me and hear a woman screaming. I do not move because I am either afraid or unable; there is no distinction in my body between them.
“I HIT YOU I HIT YOU,” she is screaming, running closer. Her eyes are leaking, and she covers her mouth with her hands. She gasps for air as the panic wrings her lungs out.
I ask if someone can get her to sit down. I stood up not 30 seconds later, able to walk and think.
Kevin says I laid there in a fetal position, a broken and bent bike next to me, for five to 10 minutes. Life stops and slows down and speeds up in the same seconds at the raging confluence of fear, panic, and gratitude.
People are everywhere, and the traffic of presence is jammed in my head. Cars stopped; a deputy from the sheriff’s office arrived; a firefighter was pressing my wrist and along my vertebrae; I watched the road rash on my lower right leg, at first blush the only real injury, begin to weep. The general consensus was that I was on some nine-lives stuff, flanked by angels, lucky beyond reason. I never even heard the car before it hit me. The driver wrote her speed down on the police report as “35?”
We were all thankful and happy under the circumstances; I had been obliterated from behind at a decent clip speed and was standing up, talking. We were happy as we could be, given the fact that I could be dead.
Until the Colorado Highway Patrol showed up.
Walking toward me as I sat on the side of the road shivering under a heavy coat, one of them asked, without any precursor, if we were riding two across. If we were riding in the middle of the road.
Imagine for a moment what agenda it must take to approach a man, who has just seen his very short 32 years roll before him on old movie film, a question like that.
No, and no. Maybe if we were two across in the middle of the road, someone would have seen me and not ran into me square from behind. And even if I was, I have a right to be on the road — as a rider, driver, runner — and not be struck from behind, ever.
I was given a ticket for something amounting to failing to move over when being overtaken. I asked the officer to tell me why it was he though I was riding in the middle of the road. He responded that he wasn’t going to explain himself. That I could hire a re-creationist if I wanted. That he wasn’t going to explain himself, again. And for a second time that I could hire a re-creationist if I wanted.
In the clarity of hindsight, I wish I would have said, flatly, “No, I don’t want to. I want you to do the right thing, not be a cyclist-hating cop; that’s what I really want.” Imagine being cited for failing to move over while driving on an empty two-lane country road after being hit from behind. Would that ever happen? Why is a human being on a bike, with nothing but fabric and Styrofoam between him and the cars and the road, seemingly less protected by the law than the driver of an F-350?
The ticket was for $24. It is meaningless in the galaxy of points on driving records and dollars. And yet it is profoundly upsetting. The driver, who was profoundly apologetic and upset, was given a much stiffer ticket.
It was a ******** day all around. And for the second time in several months, VeloNews’ technical editor Caley Fretz came and picked a battered version of myself up and drove me home.
***
After I stopped skidding and as I lay on the pavement with the side of my head on the ground, I noticed an incredible stillness. The calm of a stop after the velocity of a crash is remarkable; everything has happened, then a deep nothing.
I am still here. I can move my toes and fingers. I am not dead. I am fine.
That was December 2. I’ve ridden some since then. I hear the cars behind me and try not to think about them as sharks below, but fear is a constant light rain, rusting out belief and trust. I only allowed myself to think about the magnitude of what happened recently, and it was more a reckoning than self-discourse.
You can die riding your bike on a sunny afternoon on a lonely, arrow-straight road just outside of town. The thing you love can kill you. And it still might.
But you don’t stop, because you aren’t dead or defeated. And one day the sound of cars won’t feel how it does now, and existence on the road will go back to the buzzing symphony of hubs clicking and voices floating.
But until then, it sounds like madness. I’m just trying not to hear it.
Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2015/01/news/road/notes-scrum-thing-love-can-kill_358177#4LvMfKPssWuXceaV.99
That is a good story Bob. I know that feeling " I am about to be killed" but it was on a motorcycle not a bike and a long time ago. It was a calm resolute feeling, no movie flashing before my eyes and just enough time to tell myself" this is it".
I got tagged from behind by a car that left a long set of skid marks (OSHP report has the measurements) slowing from an admitted 65 MPH in a 55 MPH zone to maybe 45 MPH when he made contact with my Clement-wrapped Campy rear rim.
I flew through the air with greatest of ease...
I flew far enough and long enough that I actually had time for two distinct thoughts.
1. My back is really hurt.
2. It's REALLY going to hurt when I come back down to planet earth.
I was correct on the first thought. L1 and L2 were broken with lots of soft tissue damage.
And totally wrong on the second one. I felt no pain as I bounced and slid to a stop, the right foot still clipped in.
OSHP refused to cite the stoned driver, but my shark had him and his insurance company for lunch and probably two-dozen boat payments for desert.
Before they let the driver skate on my little tale, I never would have believed the Colorado cyclist was cited for failure to move over. Un-fracking-believable.
Ohio is getting close to passing our 3' law, but it isn't on the books yet. Out of committee last I heard.
I flew through the air with greatest of ease...
I flew far enough and long enough that I actually had time for two distinct thoughts.
1. My back is really hurt.
2. It's REALLY going to hurt when I come back down to planet earth.
I was correct on the first thought. L1 and L2 were broken with lots of soft tissue damage.
And totally wrong on the second one. I felt no pain as I bounced and slid to a stop, the right foot still clipped in.
OSHP refused to cite the stoned driver, but my shark had him and his insurance company for lunch and probably two-dozen boat payments for desert.
Before they let the driver skate on my little tale, I never would have believed the Colorado cyclist was cited for failure to move over. Un-fracking-believable.
Ohio is getting close to passing our 3' law, but it isn't on the books yet. Out of committee last I heard.
I was invited today to testify before the state senate next Thursday on some hit and run legislation I have proposed. Actually I had other plans but we will see. Good luck on the 3 foot law Bob. I wrote the one in Tennessee that passed a few years back but some here can't read obviously.
I myself have never been involved in an accident with a car, but I know people who have been involved in that. It's really unpleasent expierence, sometimes ending with a death or serious injury that might stay with you for life. So in my opinion, yes, its dangerous, but definitely depends on the cyclist and the roads he chooses to cycle on. If the roads are filled with heavy traffic, there is definitely more chances to get hit by a car. Choose off-roads, where the traffic is minimum, than your chances to be involved in an accident are minimum. Stay safe my cycling friends!
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