Fuckass drivers

[SchralphMacchio]

I guess there are some good things about being a Joey GoPro on a road bike ... you have evidence against fuckass drivers.

This one happened today in Berkeley (on Ashby on the way up to Tunnel Rd. - a VERY popular bike route and regular drivers of this road are no strangers to bike traffic) and is going around all the local bike club mailing lists. I don't know what pisses me off more - the fuckass driver, or the folks who were in position to see the entire thing go down and didn't stop to help.



(fast forward to 2:30 if you want to go straight to the assfuck)

[SLSki]

The fuck would you bring a GP on a road ride? Can't tell if this was an accident or a hater, shitty no one helped.

[BushwackerinPA]

The fuck would you bring a GP on a road ride? Can't tell if this was an accident or a hater, shitty no one helped.

no such thing as an 'accident" the person just attempted murder by their actions and should be tried as such.

[systemoverblow'd]

no such thing as an 'accident" the person just attempted murder by their actions and should be tried as such.

What a fucking idiot. The moron could have been using a phone which is reckless and idiotic but attempted murder? An "accident" is where something that wasn't intended happened. Say the person was having a stroke, or a diabetic having an episode. Still murder?

This is why I have found going with traffic idiotic. You can't see what's coming. Going against the grain and you have time to react.

[Garth Bimble]

The driver of the car is a dick and needs to be prosecuted. Fortunately it appears as though the riders weren't seriously injured. That said, this "VERY popular bike route" looks like a death trap to me...narrow with lots of traffic (Is that a bike lane with all the cars parked in it?) and the cyclists don't help themselves by ignoring basic traffic laws.

[toast2266]

That sucks and the driver needs to get raped in prison. That is also reason #829 why I avoid riding road bikes.

[Yeah!]

You know what sucks almost as much as getting hit by a car?

Watching roadie go-pro footage.

Glad everyone seems to be ok and the bikes don't look too fucked up. Road riding scares me for this reason.

[birdman829]

What a fucking idiot. The moron could have been using a phone which is reckless and idiotic but attempted murder? An "accident" is where something that wasn't intended happened. Say the person was having a stroke, or a diabetic having an episode. Still murder?

This is why I have found going with traffic idiotic. You can't see what's coming. Going against the grain and you have time to react.

Oh yeah, that's why all the serious roadies ride on the wrong side of the road. Dumbass. You WALK into traffic you RIDE with traffic. If time to react is an issue, how much less time does a driver have to react when they come around a corner and a cyclist is going 20mph at them vs 20mph away from them?

Actually, maybe you should just ride on the sidewalk like a fucking moron.

[systemoverblow'd]

Oh yeah, that's why all the serious roadies ride on the wrong side of the road. Dumbass. You WALK into traffic you RIDE with traffic. If time to react is an issue, how much less time does a driver have to react when they come around a corner and a cyclist is going 20mph at them vs 20mph away from them?

Actually, maybe you should just ride on the sidewalk like a fucking moron.

I was posing a question. Wouldn't it be smarter to see what was coming than to be blindsided? Yeah, all those serious roadies that don't track well, double up on busy roads and go around parked cars way into the lane. I think you are giving the majority of these spandex clad hacks too much credit.

You have to think outside the box. Just because people have been doing something stupid for years doesn't mean you should continue to be moronic just because it is the "normal thing we do".

[SchralphMacchio]

system,

a) it is illegal to drive a vehicle, such as a bicycle, against the flow of traffic

b) cyclists on that road ride in the parking lane as a matter of courtesy - they have a legal right to ride in the middle of the road but of course they can only go ~10-18 mph on that stretch where cars want to go a little faster

c) impact energy is directly correlated to the square of the difference in velocity. 2 objects heading at each other with a relative difference in velocity of 40 mph (25 mph car + head on 15 mph bike) has 16 times more impact energy than a car driving 25 hitting a cyclist going 15 (10 mph relative difference in velocity)


Garth, which traffic laws did you see violated, other than the left-handed roll through the stop sign at the beginning of the video? The video does not show that the ride starts in a sparsely trafficked residential area, then turns right onto a highly trafficked main thoroughfare.

No it's not the safest major bike route, but I have been on hundreds of team rides on that road with large (40 people) and small groups (solo) and not experienced severe vehicle conflict. The parking shoulder is not wide enough to safely have cyclists avoid parked cars (especially their open doors) without veering into the traffic lane. However, the person in the back of the pack signals to the cars that they are merging in (they have EVERY right to do so) and there is plenty of room on the left side of the lane for cars to hug left and leave enough room for riders. In general, the riders will ride single-file and hug the parked cars in the tighter areas - which is almost *more* dangerous since it can entice cars to make unsafe passes.

I think everyone keeps forgetting that cycling on the sidewalk is not only more dangerous than on the street, but it is illegal. Bikes are not pedestrians, and there tends to be more pedestrian conflict, unexpected people/pets/animals/cars pulling through, and poor riding conditions on a sidewalk than on a road. It's called a ROAD bike not a SIDEWALK bike.

[Garth Bimble]

I can't see the video now (youtube blocked at work) but I'm pretty sure they ran a stop sign when they made that right onto the main thoroughfare...when I first saw the vid I thought that they might get hit then. Could be wrong though, if so, sorry.

[SchralphMacchio]

Say the person was having a stroke, or a diabetic having an episode.

That person would have likely stopped the car, not driven onto the freeway onramp further up the road and gotten the fuck out of dodge.

I'll grant that many times, cars do not know they hit cyclists. In this case, the car hit two cyclists cleanly enough that it would have been obvious. It takes a complete fuckass piece of shit to pull off a hit and run when there is such a high chance of killing a cyclist or pedestrian. It takes an even more heartless person to witness the entire episode and not stop.

The more I watch this video the more it pisses me off because the Acura clearly had to drive around the parked Beetle to go so far into the shoulder.

[SchralphMacchio]

I can't see the video now (youtube blocked at work) but I'm pretty sure they ran a stop sign when they made that right onto the main thoroughfare...

You are correct, they also rolled the right handed turn which is a failure to stop. It's a common thing to do because there is enough room for a cyclist to turn directly into the shoulder without stopping. This particular stop sign is also on an incline, which disincentivizes the cyclists from coming to a complete stop because you have to gear down before the stop and lose your momentum.

It is a violation, but it's not something that I consider egregious or likely to cause an accident because they are never involving cross-traffic or causing the cars to veer off. It's not like every driver making a right handed turn comes to a complete stop, do they?

Personally, I admit I will roll that stop sign if the road is empty and slow down my cadence if there are cars, just so I know that no one is going to be driving through the shoulder, but not stop. I come to a complete stop at every stop sign and light that involves potential for cross traffic (such as an oncoming car turning left across my lane etc).

[systemoverblow'd]

I don't condone any rider getting hit as I ride busy city streets and have been hit. But these guys are the epitome of cyclists that give us a bad name. Clearly blowing 2 stops signs, riding side by side taking up the entire lane a couple times, sometimes being up to 5 feet away from the curb even in a parking/breakdown lane, not knowing how to track properly, etc. The front guy when passing a car easily stayed within the breakdown lane, while gopro boy was clearly riding in the road when he didn't need to. Right before they were hit they were both veering left towards the line of the breakdown lane. Again, I am glad they didn't get hurt but I'm not surprised they haven't been hit in the past. They ride like shit.

Stop giving shitty riders a break. I saw the sign "road narrows" and what do they do, they spread out right then. Fucking idiots.

[Hugh Conway]

That's standard bay area bike riding there advres

[Crystal_Mt_Dreamin]

I imagine in full size HD they can get the plates on that one

[Garth Bimble]

Schralph...As a cyclist I agree with what you're saying about rolling through stop signs...I do it all the time when I can get away with it. There's no excuse for what happened to these riders but when they so blatantly ignore traffic laws in a video and then complain about getting hit, I think you'd agree that there are some out there who may not feel as sympathetic as you or I...

Do you know if the driver of the car was caught? You can kind of make out the plate as the car pulls away, but I couldn't make out any numbers.

[Chugachjed]

Where the road narrows they should have taken the lane like a boss. On a bike courtesy can kill.

The Dick in the acura should be caned publicly and had their drivers license revoked.

[systemoverblow'd]

Do you know if the driver of the car was caught? You can kind of make out the plate as the car pulls away, but I couldn't make out any numbers.

You probably could with the raw. I download the shitty 480p version from youtube, blew it up, inverted it and did some noise reduction and was able to pull out some detail but the youtube compression kills it. I bet with the good quality you could definitely get much closer, or at least enough to give to the cops...

[reynolds.trailrun]

Where the road narrows they should have taken the lane like a boss. On a bike courtesy can kill.

This! When solo I am usually hugging the line anyway to stay away from the dumbfucks on 4 wheels. When tailing in a group I start to fan out a bit before to a) signal to traffic that we are going to merge and b) let the other cyclists in front have time to merge in front of me.

Not saying accidents do not happen but they can be avoided 90% of the time. 1) Do not drive and talk on the phone especially on a busy thoroughfare. So if fuckhead in the Acura was on the phone take his/her license for a long time. 2) Other distracting shit like makeup or anything for that matter, you knew you were going to have to divide your time on busy thoroughfare. They lost their privilege to drive on a public route for a long time. Yeah, we all do dumbshit behind the wheel. That is not beside the point. I hate talking on the phone on any road even in BFE. I will stop at the next pulloff and then talk. No drive. Before I started cycling I did but now after having so many friends ass fucked sideways by dumbfucks on phones. Nope.

[Garth Bimble]

I always give my fellow cyclists the utmost courtesy when I'm driving but the other day I almost killed one and not by accident. I pull up to a stop sign at an intersection near my office where cross traffic doesn't have to stop. There's a limited sight distance for traffic coming from my left if you stop behind or at the stop sign, so I pull forward a bit so I can see what's coming. Douchebag cum-guzzler on some flat-barred commuting shit box is approaching the intersection from the left so I wait. As he's riding by though he's looking at me and giving me shit, apparently for doing him a fucking favor and pulling forward so I wouldn't run over his stupid ass. I felt like chasing him down and explaining it to him but that would have been way too agro I guess.

/end rant

[reynolds.trailrun]

Douchebag cum-guzzler on some flat-barred commuting shit box is approaching the intersection from the left so I wait.
/end rant

As a cyclist, it irritates me to no end when another "cyclist" does dumbshit of the like. Rolling stop signs when taking a right onto known not so busy streets, meh who does not on a bike or in a car. I have run down cyclist who repeatedly ran red lights on a rather busy thoroughfare. Kicker, about a month before me chasing his ass down a fellow cyclist had been killed by a driver about 3 blocks away. So yeah that shit is dangerous in that area. Even better, I stopped at every red light on a bike, 4, and still caught his hipster ass. I gave him a few choice words and he looked at me like I was the dumbass. I will admit I have "ran" a few red lights on a bike after waiting for the damn thing to change for a good 3-4 minutes (yes I was on the little sensor if it had one) when no cars passed, i.e. only a fucking lead brick with wheels would trigger the sensor. In other words, I do think that some of our actions as a collective group of cyclists (I am hoping most on here do not do really dumbshit on the road that could kill) have incited the hatred among some drivers. But in general there are a lot of dumb fucks behind the wheel.

[Shredhead]

I saw a car drifting all over the place the other day. The lady driving was talking on the phone and putting on makeup, while a little fluffy dog sat in her lap.

[jqualls]

Maybe the riders are not the best riders and are lucky they have not been hit yet but that car was about a 1/2 car width across the white line and unacceptable regardless. Accidents happen and whether the driver was distracted will probably never be known but the fact they just left behind two riders is unbelievable to me. They should be hunted down and prosecuted.

[systemoverblow'd]

Maybe the riders are not the best riders and are lucky they have not been hit yet but that car was about a 1/2 car width across the white line and unacceptable regardless. Accidents happen and whether the driver was distracted will probably never be known but the fact they just left behind two riders is unbelievable to me. They should be hunted down and prosecuted.

I agree, for hit and run. But not attempted murder like DouchebagginPA suggests.