Road rage v bike rage?

Rant alert... You've been warned!

I've had just about enough to the bs tough-guy trash talk that many of my fellow cyclists like to spew after being (or seeing videos of someone else) harassed/close-passed by some road-raging self-indulging driver. You know, the 'you've better watch it or I'll chase you down and beat the sh*t out of you,' type of schticks.

So... you, 140 lbs worth of flesh and bones wrapped around some flimsy thin metal or carbon tubes you, are going to chase down the obviously mentally unstable person hiding inside two tons of steel cage who had just clearly demonstrated to both of us not a minute ago his/her lack of both self-control and judgment.

Okay, let's say that you do manage to turn yourselves into a clone of Fabian Cancellara and catch up with the automobile-bounded psychopath. Then what? You are going to talk some reason into him and he is going to see the errors of his ways, prostrate himself before you to ask for forgiveness? In front of a new audience that probably wasn't there to witness your original encounter with the driver (you had chased the bully down, away from the original scene of the crime, remember?), and therefore whose testimony could only begin with; 'Well, the car was stopped at the intersection when the angry cyclist approached the driver, ... and it all went downhill from there,'?

This is the USA... stuff like this


and this


and this


, etc, happen.

Stupidity is not contagious. Don't act like it is. You don't look like a hero when you retaliate... you just end up making it harder for the third party judge (or jury) to discern who the bad guy really is. As someone who gets around almost exclusively by bicycle, I also won't be thanking you for helping adding fuel to the road-raging fire of these automobile-operating lunatics that I might end up having to share some narrow roads with after their encounter with you!

So, in case we ever end up cycling together on these roads someday, this is what I want you to understand; if I'm riding with you, then chances are good that I already think you a cool person whose values need no further proving. Please feel neither the need nor the obligation to defend my honor or whatever from any road-raging hit and run felon wannabes.

The car-bounded psychopath that had just intentionally close-passed/harassed/laid down the horn on us, I deem the depth of uncool turd not worth any more contact with than necessary. I would like nothing better than to be rid of the troll in as short lapse of time as possible. The sooner it gets out of my sights, the better. I'd be extremely grateful if you would choose to demonstrate your superhero self-control, display your supreme ability to stay cool in the face of lunacy and refrain from giving the troll any slightest bit of reason that its hope for escalation and further opportunity to display its trolly traits may be entertained, so that it will leave us alone to resume our pleasant cycling time together without further aggravation.

And if you want to be even cooler, note the driver's appearance, car color, make, model and license plate number, the location of the harassment and report it to the Close Call Database to make it easier for law enforcement to deal with serial road-ragers. Then you'd be my hero for helping making the roads safer for everyone instead of exacerbating the problem.

Single or double?

It's much faster for cars to pass a group of cyclists that is riding two abreast than in a long single file.... And it is safer for the cyclists, too, as doubling up really allows you to control the lane when it is too narrow to allow cars to squeeze past without changing lane (and you are more visible and predictable to drivers, unlike folks at the right edge of the lane who are liable to swerve into the lane/traffic to avoid stuff like broken glass, gravels, pedestrians, etc).

What a bloody week of San Diego Cycling!

This week has been pretty horrendous for San Diego cyclists in terms of 'accidents'.

Last Saturday, Aug 9th, the Southern California randonneur community lost a great friend and rider when Matthew O'Neill (formerly of Chula Vista, but has been living in Carpinteria while completing is PhD study at UC- Santa Barbara) was hit and killed by a car driven by a teenager while cycling on Foxen Canyon Rd in Santa Maria. Like other randos he was lit up like a Christmas tree and obeying traffic laws, but there isn't much a cyclist can do when drivers decide to not give him the safe space of at least 3 feet... Why is that so much to ask when the consequence is the loss of an upstanding and kind human being just a year shy of a doctorate degree with so much to live for?

On Tuesday morning one of my riding partners was riding at the tail end of a group through Valley Center when he was clipped by a close-passing car (that didn't even have the decency to stop) and ended up with two fractured vertebrae, a concussion and a slew of road rashes on his face and limps. He was lucky to not be more seriously injured and that there were other cyclists around to help, and is now home after spending two nights at Palomar Medical Center.

On the same day a bunch of cyclists from the San Diego Bicycle Club riding laps around Fiesta Island was hit by a drugged out driver speeding her car the wrong way on the one-way road. Eight were injured, one, Juan Carlos Vinolo, remains in critical condition. The driver appears to live in her car and is un-insured... so it isn't likely that she will be covering the medical bills of all the folks she injured. (You can help Vinolo pay for his likely to be astronomical medical bills at Gofundme, though!).

ALL taxpayers own the roads no matter if they are driving or cycling or even just walking. The road belongs to everyone. The driver's license and car-related fees just allow you to operate a car on the public road, because your car can easily cause damage or even kill other people... along with causing most of the pavement damages. Giving cyclists AT LEAST 3 feet of space when passing is not only common sensical and a decent thing to do, it is also the law (especially after September 16th).

A last word on the issue... Cyclists do not cease to be human beings when they get on the roads (that they help pay for and use and damage a lot less of it than drivers do), but some drivers cease to be human beings when they get behind the wheel of a car and instantly lose the sense of responsibility for the well being of others around them.

Believe it or not, N Harbor Dr just got more dangerous for bicycles, thanks to new bike lane

I had only ridden east (from Pt Loma toward downtown) on N Harbor Dr through the airport once before, I think it was around December 2012. I was still quite green to road cycling then and this group ride I joined took us through there. It was a horrible nightmare and I still don't know how all 8 or 9 of us survived that airport off-ramp merge just east of Harbor Island Dr. Navigating that merge across two fast moving lanes of traffic made Russian roulette seemed a safe and sane game by comparison.

Overhead view of the area. Bikes would be traveling on the dotted line... only to suddenly find ourselves in the middle of 4.5 lanes of fast traveling cars, with the 1.5 off-ramp lanes on the right trying to merge to our left.

Overhead shot of N Harbor Dr at Harbor Island Dr before bike lane (screenshot from Google Earth).

The merging area where the airport off-ramp merges to N Harbor Dr, before the new bike lane was put in.

After that episode I avoided riding through there on the way home from my Pt Loma rides, and when I do have to go to Downtown from Pt Loma I'd hop onto the sidewalk MUP (multi-use path) at the Harbor Island Dr intersection just to avoid that merge (and, yes, there are always some jerk cyclists riding way too fast and too close to pedestrians and runners on that stretch of the MUP. I guess when they get off their bike and into their car they turn into those drivers that pass other cyclists too fast and too close, too!).

Anyhow, last week a friend took me riding home from Pt Loma through N Harbor Dr again. We got to the Harbor Island Dr intersection and noticed there was now a buffered bike lane leading east on the road... and we got wondering if some new bike infrastructure had been put in to make it safe(r) to stay on the road through the dangerous merge... Naturally we made the mistake of, you know, getting on that buffered bike lane to check it out.

Heading east on N Harbor Dr approaching Harbor Island Dr. We would normally be hopping onto the MUP on the right sidewalk at this intersection.

But last weekend we spotted this... a new buffered bike lane telling us to stay on the road.

Heading east on N Harbor Dr buffered bike lane... Not seeing any warning sign for bikes or cars...

I took a few pics from the airport off-ramp underpass heading toward the merge, and I was looking out for some signs telling cyclists on the bike lane what was coming up ahead or telling the cars coming down the off-ramp to slow or to look for bikes on their left and to yield... or even a traffic light or stop sign that would be controlling the merging lanes' traffic flow. I didn't see anything...

Nope, not a single 'yield' or 'stop' or 'watch for bikes crossing from left' sign. Nothing...

And then there it was! The merge... No warning or caution or yield or stop sign for anyone. Nothing. The thin strip of traffic island that divided the buffered bike lane from the two lanes of airport off-ramp just ends, and the bike lane does this elbow turn to the right and just disappears into the crossing traffic lanes (the right one of which is merging left, so the cars are already preoccupied with making room for each other at that point. Who the heck would be expecting to have to look for any bicycle's sudden appearance on his LEFT??). I could see the buffered bike lane emerging again by the curb on the far side of traffic, but there isn't even a dotted set of line connecting one side to another.

My friend was somehow convinced that the airport off-ramp traffic had a 'yield' sign that they need to obey (if there is one, it must be way back up toward the top of the overpass 'cause I'm sure I didn't notice any in the last 100 yds or so) and just turned with the disappearing bike lane and went right across traffic. I don't know how, but he somehow made it across without getting hit. I had much less faith in drivers' ability to obey any yield sign (especially ones that I myself hadn't seen), so I slowed and the yellow car in the lane closest to me just blew by. The red car in the far right merging lane hesitated a bit before also blowing by... but there was a good little gap behind him that I could thread through if only the next car in the lane next to me would just go, but he didn't! He slowed to try to help me cross, which made it even more awkward 'cause the last thing I wanted was for him to slow and block me from view of the not-yielding car in the far right lane. People gets killed that way all the time! Luckily for me, tho, the car in far right lane had a sensible driver and he also slowed when he saw this other car slowed, and I managed it across. I was grateful for those drivers, but I couldn't be more mad at the traffic engineer who came up with this scenario if I had tried. Felt like I had just survived an assassination attempt!

I'm afraid I didn't taking any photo as I tried to survive the merge and right after it. I was far too busy cursing and wishing all sorts of ill stuff on whoever it was that designed that interchange for bikes. As a local I knew about this dangerous interchange and only ventured onto it last week because I was LURED into by the new bike lane. Otherwise I would have just gotten onto the sidewalk MUP and not be in conflict with any car at all. What are the chances for the tourists trying to get around town by bicycle who aren't familiar with the area at all?

If any cyclist gets hit by a car there and dies, the traffic engineer that designed that interchange ought to be charged with premeditated murder. Before this buffered bike lane was put in, at least cyclists finding ourselves suddenly in the middle of the traffic could just stay in the lane and take a while to merge to the curb. Now the bike lane wants us to suddenly do a 90 degree turn across 1.5 lanes of traffic that hasn't been told to look out for us... and we aren't even told to stop where the divider ends either. We're just supposed to roll along, turn right with the vanishing bike lane and somehow all those cars speeding down the airport off-ramp that's trying to merge left to the main road are supposed to totally miss us.

And to think that I have been told fairly recently by some car-centric morons that "bikes should just stay in the city and ride only in bike lanes"...

Why drivers should tell cyclists to NOT ride to the far right of the lane

The next time you drive down the street and see someone cycling up ahead in the lane and you start to get annoyed at the prospect of having to slow down a bit and change lane to pass a bicycle (even though you wouldn't be half as annoyed if you have to do the same thing for another car), and the voice in your head goes; 'look at that inconsiderate biker! There are 3 feet between him and the parked cars. Why can't he scoot a foot or two closer to the car so that I can just squeeze by without losing any speed?' Watch the videos below and be glad that the bike rider is riding outside of the 'door zone' rather than in one, and tell the next cyclists you see on the road who do ride close to parked cars on the right side of the lane that they SHOULD BE riding closer to the middle of the lane instead. The cyclists you can easily see near the middle of the lane are the ones you can easily avoid getting into a collision with. It's the cyclists riding nearly invisibly (obscured by parked cars) to the far right of the lane that have the potential to suddenly get bumped into your path with little or no notice at all.



Do you see what happens when a cyclist is hit by an opening car door? Here is another look...



What happens to the cyclist when she is hit by an opening car door? She gets deflected into the next traffic lane, doesn't she? Now... imagine yourselves the driver of the car just innocently passing by in the lane to the left... Do you see what I'm talking about now? It isn't the idiot that opens the car door without first checking traffic that will end up delivering the fatal blow to the hit cyclist. It's YOU!

You will be the one that ends up with recurring nightmare of a helpless cyclist suddenly landing on the pavement right in front of you with no reaction time at all. You will be the one that feels the thump of the impact (and probably also the sickening sensation of the wheel rolling over a human body). Your car will be the car with almost all the damages and all the blood splattered on it. Yes, you... all because another person opened his car door when traffic isn't clear, and because another person was riding his bike close enough to the parked car to be hit by its opening door.



Also, to my fellow cyclists, you actually need to ride a bit further away from the cars than the length of their doors. You need to be far enough away to not instinctively swerve away from the opening door because there's no time to check for passing traffic! It's much better to get honked at by impatient people than to end up dead and making a manslaughter out of another innocent road user. Don't ride in the door zone where you can end up a human ping pong ball or be screened (by parked cars) from view of any car coming out of the side roads! This is especially important when you are riding in a group (where if you get hit by a car door you could end up sending the cyclist to your left flying helplessly into the next traffic lane... not to mention causing many others behind you to crash into the wreckage, of course)!