Today at 2PM I was at a signalized "T" intersection in the left turn lane. A van next to me was in the right turn lane. The van driver does what most of us do, he looked to the left to check for oncoming traffic than made his right turn............right into a person on a bike who crossed in front of him while riding (with an Ipod and without helmet) the WRONG way in the bike lane. The van driver immediately hopped out and ran up to the rider who was now laying next to his bike in the lane of traffic. The rider immediately stood up and said he was fine. After the van driver asked several times if there was anything he could do and if the rider was sure he was OK, the rider admonished him to just go on his way.
I have given multimedia bike safety presentations. One of the things I tell folks is to never ride the wrong way just for this reason. A driver looks to where the traffic is coming from. In this case the driver was looking to the left and that's where that cyclist should have been.
Sure, one should always look BOTH ways, but check yourself on the next right turn at a red light. Did YOU look both ways?
Ride smart.
I've got to side with the vehicle driver on this one.
Evening update:
I actually got out for a midweek ride tonight. A half dozen members of my social bike group were riding a 29 mile route from Troutdale into the Columbia River Gorge via some hilly rural roads. In 29 miles we climbed nearly 3000 ft. It was a nice evening.........for late October! About the only difference between this mid June evening and an evening in late October was that it was still daylight! Temperatures in the 50's with fog, drizzle, and light rain.......... yup, Halloween must be just around the corner!
I got tied up in traffic and arrived to the starting point late. Paul led them out right on time so they had nearly a 20 minute head start. I knew that I'd have to ride very hard and even then was not likely to catch them. No worries, I had the route on my GPS and figured if I could at least close the gap a bit it would be good.
I rode hard and even thought I saw bike tracks on the wet pavement at one point. As it ended up if those were bike tracks they weren't from our group. Paul is a bit under the weather yet and the group rode a modified form of the planned route.
I actually beat them back to our vehicles. We all joined together for a post ride debriefing at Edgefield before calling it a night. Good times!
............BIKE............LIFECYCLE.....ROLLERS....TOTAL
Today.......29................0.............0..........29
Jan........618...............0..............0.........618
Feb........692...............0..............0.........692
March......940...............0..............5.........940
April......934...............0..............0.........934
May........905...............0..............0.........905
June.......556...............0..............0.........556
_________________________________________
TOTAL.....4660...............0..............5.........4665
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