And I now see that this video has made the local news down there in the Miami area:
Welch said he is not mad at the driver, who stayed at the scene, and helped him get medical care. He said he posted the video of the accident on YouTube to make others aware.
"Here we have a chance to educate drivers and also educate cyclists," Welch said. "I won't let somebody else's mistake like this one hurt me again in the future. I will be extra vigilant."
This is a commendable conclusion to draw.
Anyway, various people weighed in with their analyses of the collision, and as is invariably the case at least some of these comments had an undercurrent of "this sort of thing would never happen to me"-type smugness. In a way it's a cousin to the "Minnesota Humblebrag," and a good name for it might be "Vehicular Cyclist Exceptionalism." After all, as we've seen before, only the VC adherents have the secret knowledge which enables them to move through American traffic unscathed. To wit:
Scott B. said...
Motorist should have signaled and merged. No vehicle—cyclist in this case—should ever pass on the right.
This appears to be the consensus on this thread. I only mention it again because all of this is vehicular cycling orthodoxy. It's plainly true in this case, and Bike Snob is misdirecting us with his complaint that the motorist didn't look—which is the least useful thing to say about this eminently preventable accident.
MARCH 7, 2018 AT 9:27 PM
Now, as I pointed out in the comments, I do agree that the cyclist in this case was going too fast. Certainly also when riding between traffic and a curb with driveways one should always be prepared for a squeeze, and it took two wrongs to make this collision collabo go down. Nevertheless, I maintain that the fact that the motorist didn't look is in fact the most useful thing to say about this "eminently preventable accident," for when one knows that motorists often don't look one can then adjust one's riding style appropriately. Specifically, one can make a point of riding at a prudent speed in places where motorists and pedestrians are wont to enter the bike lane unexpectedly.
Conversely, saying that no cyclist "should ever pass on the right" is not useful at all. Moreover, it's just plain wrong. Look at this configuration, with the bike lane on the right and the motor vehicle lane on the left:
Are we really to believe that a cyclist should never pass a car while riding in the bike lane on this roadway? Should he or she instead cross over and pass on the left in all circumstances? I think not.
As for the incident itself, if the cyclist had been riding more cautiously he may very well have been able to avoid the collision, but given the manner in which this driver turned across the bike lane without signaling it's also quite possible he might have right-hooked even the most cautious and alert cyclist:
Unless of course that cyclist was a Vehicular Cyclist, because they and drivers share a special mind-melding relationship:
By the way, it's worth noting that even "expert" cyclists have managed to get themselves taken out in exactly the same way:
One crucial difference here is that the driver did signal:
Also, Lucas Brunelle's humblebrags are in a category all their own:
Lucas Brunelle
Published on Nov 12, 2014
I was taught how to crash at the Olympic Training center and it paid off, here I actually ended up on my feet
Well, maybe not completely on their own:
I wonder if they received the same crash training.
By the way, it appears that Brunelle has relocated to Miami, so maybe that was actually him in the first video after all:
He's also grown so desperate for new thrills that he's now riding up escalators:
I'm not impressed unless they do it in Crocs:
I think he just found himself a new sponsor.
from Bike Snob NYC http://ift.tt/2Gb9tz9
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