Guest Column: A Cyclist Who's Been Right Hooked, Left Crossed, T-boned and Doored Shares Tips on Riding Safer
Preston Jordan offers some insights, and a reminder about a free defensive cycling class coming to Albany Oct. 16.
A few months ago Albany Patch had an article regarding a motorist crossing Solano hitting a cyclist in the intersection. The article generated a lot of interesting comments. They reminded me of my long and painful process to become a defensive rider. I encourage anyone who cycles, or would like to ride, to get professional help, meaning learn how to ride safely from a professional.
The East Bay Bicycle Coalition offers free classes on cycling safely and one is coming to the Albany YMCA on Oct. 16 from 1 to 4:30 pm. You can register online, and find a schedule of other classes if you can't make the one in Albany. This is a much better way of learning than what I went through.
Tony Caine mentioned in a comment on the aforementioned article that he has had only one accident in 60 years of cycling, and attributes this to defensive cycling. My experience perhaps provides an object lesson in the opposite due to an inclination to physical risk-taking by both nature and nurture.
As such, I have had a number of accidents with motorists in my almost 40 years of riding, some of which go by the terms right hooked, left crossed, t-boned and doored. If you don't know what these mean, hopefully that's because they haven't happened to you. I hope the class or some of the information below will help you preserve this record.
Only two of my accidents with motorists were my fault, but I finally got it into my head that this is small comfort when you're lying on the pavement bleeding, bruised and/or broken yet again. So I slowly learned to ride more defensively.
For me, the first step was keeping my head up and paying attention to what was developing ahead of me. Fairly obvious, huh? But, when I was in my teens and 20s, I would glance up only periodically so I could keep my head down and hammer (a term for really pounding away on the peddles). This was effective for attaining fairly incredible speeds but not so much for avoiding collisions, with one particularly spectacular one as a result.
Moving to the next stage, I learned to tune my lane position for greatest safety. This is the third skill set in the five stage safety progression. At less than about 8 mph I don't worry too much about riding close to parked cars where a motorist could open a door in front of me (the "door zone"). I prefer to hug to the right out of the way of motorist's travel.
This may be sacrilegious with regard to standard safety training but, at those speeds, I find I can stop quickly enough and I have even reached out and closed a car door opening in front of me to get it out of the way. This speed range really only occurs going uphill though, as most adults who know how to use gears (to maintain a pace of 60 to 80 pedal revolutions a minute ("spinning")) easily travel more than 8 mph on level ground (let alone downhill).
As my speed climbs over about 8 mph, I move out of the door zone and further and further into the lane. Above 20 mph, I am in the lane unless there is a cycling lane, in which case I ride just to one side or the other of the stripe depending on if the lane is actually wide enough to get me out of the door zone. What is up ahead is far more dangerous than what is coming up from behind, and moving into the lane improves both my visibility and my ability to see and avoid problems developing in front of me.
I will also move out into the lane rather dramatically when I sense a motorist ahead does not see me and is likely to pull into my right of way. I find moving into the lane puts me where motorists tend to be looking for other motorists. All of a sudden, I seem to go from invisible to visible, and they apply their brakes to give me the right of way.
Absolutely key to being able to develop and apply these lane positioning tactics was acquiring and using a rear view mirror. Yes, it is geeky and confusing at first (okay, the geekiness never really wears off), but it gives me incredible awareness of what is going on behind me so I have more options to deal with what is going on in front of me. I know when and how I can take the lane to increase my visibility of what's ahead without creating risk from behind.
It took a big shove to get me to start using a mirror about 15 years ago. One of the founders of PedEx (a package delivery service using only pedal power) swore by his, and really pressed me to give it a try. I figured he knew from what he spoke, given the hours he spent in urban traffic. I came to find he was absolutely correct and I count on my mirror now to the point that I feel awkward and vulnerable when I have to ride without it.
People who use mirrors have different preferences. There are mirrors that go on the ends of the handlebars, the helmet or glasses. I prefer a mirror on my helmet, as it lets me swivel my head around to see more territory behind me, which handlebar-mounted mirrors don't allow, and it provides a considerable field of view, which is limited with glasses-mounted mirrors as one's head is in the way.
I actually use a glasses mirror mounted upside-down on the edge of my helmet visor and held on with a small zip tie through a hole drilled in the visor (yes, more geekiness).
I have finally been free of accidents with motorists for about 15 years, about as long as I have used a mirror. Solo accidents are another matter but, after my last searing lay down at high speed around a turn on The Alameda, I resolved to take it easy. I have been accident free in the solo category for about seven years (with one minor recent and embarrassing exception in the middle of Solano that is also conveniently difficult to explain).
Anyway, I hope some of the above helps someone avoid an accident. Of course I again must state attending a safety class is a far better way to learn than reading this column, but I hope it is better than nothing if that is your other option. Take care.
What's your number one safety tip for the road?
Tell us in the comments.
Ben Lukas
4:23 pm on Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Preston:
Good summary, thank you for sharing. Sorry you had such hard lessons in bike safety. I too have learned to ride with a mirror, and usually "take the lane" because it is so much safer than being pinned on the side of the road where there are few escape routes from trouble. It does result in an occasional "cheer" from a car, and a "finger wave" now and then, but I have never been in a car/bike accident. However, I have witnessed a couple, and have nursed my wife as she recovered from one as well.
I wonder how many cyclists understand that they have the right to take the lane in most places in Albany, as I don't know of any lane that is over 14 feet wide.
Summary of California vehicle code here from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_law_in_California#Lane_sharing_is_not_required_when_lane_is_less_than_fourteen_feet_wide
Ken McCroskey
9:23 pm on Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Great piece, Preston! Being confident enough to take the lane (like when coming Westward on Marin as you approach San Pablo) is key. When I take the lane, I ride on the left hand side, right were I would be sitting in a car, were I in one. This way I'm directly in front of the driver behind me, and they can't help but see me (I hope).
I strongly recommend the class this Saturday.
Ken
Copper Hat
12:40 am on Thursday, October 14, 2010
A reality of biking (pedal or powered) is that you are often invisible to cars. Cycling
with this in mind has left me collision-free (with cars, at least) for over 45 years.
(Preston, you don't look old enough to have 40 years of cycling under your belt :-).)
My worst cycling accidents have been my own fault (hit a pothole without a chicken
in Berkeley while carrying a bag of Bongo burgers in my "free" hand), or due to a
pedestrian walking out in front of me (exacerbated by having my front & back brakes
levers swapped - don't ask). Oh. I forgot about when I cycled at an acute angle across
wet railway tracks with obvious results (and thanks to the alert following motorist).
I think "taking the lane" requires some reasonableness (ugh!), judgement (sorry
Webster) and often involves some speed vs. safety trade off (as in much of life).
During the commute on a rainy day I will walk my bike across San Pablo and
Buchanan. No point in contemplating right-of-way issues from a hospital bed.
A mirror is a great idea. Maybe Apple could market one and turn geek into chic.
But I'm not ready for it yet, I'm still getting comfortable with my helmet.
Paul D
7:30 am on Thursday, October 14, 2010
I gave up bicycling for motorcycling years ago but not until three bicycle accidents in 3 months convinced me of one important fact -- you the rider might well have the Right of Way but the car thats gonna eventually hit you definitely has the Right of Weight. And that right wins every time.
Steve Chervitz Trutane
10:14 am on Thursday, October 14, 2010
"Defensive cycling" has kept me nearly accident-free for the past 15 years bike commuting in the Bay area (on top of 8 years bike commuting in Boulder, CO). Regarding "nearly" see http://bit.ly/cGDJdA
I recently got a lesson on the dangers of intersections as a pedestrian that I feel is also relevant to cyclists. I had just entered a crosswalk at an intersection on Sonoma Ave. as a car was approaching on a side street from my right. As I was walking, I attempted to make eye contact with the driver and felt I did, but they kept moving towards the intersection. Sensing that they weren't going to stop, I stopped walking and let them roll through the crosswalk (and stop sign). The driver didn't notice me until they were about even with me, and seemed shocked to see me.
How could it happen that the driver appeared to just look right through me, not noticing me? I believe this is due to a quirk of perception that I've noticed as a motorist: as you are approaching an intersection, if there is another object approaching the same intersection perpendicular to the direction you are moving, that object may appear to be not moving relative to the background scenery.
Our brains usually correct for this effect, but sometimes we miss it. I suspect it played a role during the car-bike collision on Solano Ave this past July (link at beginning of this article). So consider this to be a plug to be more vigilant and hyper-defensive at intersections -- drivers, cyclists, and peds.
Ken McCroskey
11:05 am on Thursday, October 14, 2010
Steve-
I don't know if it was an issue in your incident, but I find the frame on the driver's side of the windshield is a big enough to cover most single pedestrians at close range, and a whole group at a distance. This has been a big problem at Marin and Santa Fe, where the cars are at an angle to the crosswalks.
I'm going to be watching to see if you're hypothesis is correct.
I just hope our kids can learn to be half as cautious as you!
Ken
Brian
7:48 pm on Friday, October 15, 2010
Great comments, everyone!
In 15 years of daily commuting between the Mission/Castro and the financial district in SF, I can climb up on my soap box and say:
1. Wear a helmet.
2. Ride like everyone wants to kill you.
3. Maintain your line.
4. Obey the rules, even at stop signs (the one-foot-down rule applies).
5. Pedestrians have the right-of-way. Always. Also: they have the ability to change direction with amazing speed, and will step off the sidewalk and into your path faster than you can imagine (see item 2).
6. Be visible, especially now that we're getting into shorter daylight hours. The more lights, the better.
7. Communicate: always signal your intentions, whether it be to those behind you, those facing you, or anyone else who might need to know what you plan to do. You might get looks from people who you *know* are thinking you're having a fit, but at least they see you now.
8. Don't trust cyclists, especially in Berkeley (see item 2).
9. Don't wear earphones, talk on the phone (seen it), or do anything else that could possibly distract you from what you're doing. Which is riding a bike - what else do you need?
10. WEAR A HELMET.
Have a good weekend, everyone.
lubov mazur
10:46 am on Sunday, October 17, 2010
Shorter days and bad weather. Shiny wet road surfaces and wet windshields. Those are just four things that make cyclists harder to see. I have no financial interest in the company, but I highly recommend the wheel lights from Monkeylectric. I watched a red light runner skid to a stop in the intersection and avoid a surely fatal collision with a cyclist when the driver saw the LED lightshow coming into the intersection. Take a look on their website http://www.monkeylectric.com/ or youtube. Amazing.