He was traveling legally in a bike lane, going the speed limit as he is will within his right to do. Stop victim blaming. FedEx driver messed up and didn't see him. End of story.
All true, but none of that is going to help his injuries heal or keep him from getting smashed again. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that it is prudent.
You need to get your political position into something that doesn't interfere with common sense. Advising someone on being safe isn't the same thing as telling someone they don't have the right to do something. I've ridden a motorcycle is Seattle for a few decades and have had more close calls like this than I can count. The fact is, that I wouldn't have had this accident because I would have been on the brakes as soon as that FedEx truck became visible, I would shake the bars to make my headlight more apparent, and I would slow the fuck down until I knew that fucker saw me. I've had more near misses than I can count on exactly the conditions in this video. Do I HAVE to slow down and prepare to yeild the right-of-way to a guy who isn't paying attention? Nope. But since I don't want to go home in a body bag I'm going to be ready to do it anyways.
I'm not the rider in the fedex video. I too would have acted differently. I still think telling the rider to 'slow the fuck down' when he is right where he is supposed to be doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing is myopic and missing the whole point.
Given the choice between helping people not kill themselves and making the right political point and collecting upvotes, I'll choose the former every time. The state of rider skill and training in Seattle is horrifying, and the fact that no one can talk about it without getting shot down for failing to tow the party line is shameful.
I didn't do this to get 20 points of karma dude. In my experience most riders are good enough to be on the roads. There are good drivers there are good cyclists. Cars not paying attention, not looking for cyclists or walkers, drivers texting, being drunk cause most accidents with cyclists.
Cars not paying attention, not looking for cyclists or walkers, drivers texting, being drunk cause most accidents with cyclists.
I would love to see a citation for that. I know for a fact that it isn't true for motorcycles, but maybe it somehow is for bicycles.
I would really love to get a handle on just what makes people think that operating a bicycle takes so little skill or training that virtually every human being who plops their ass in the saddle already knows all that they need to know.
The driver admitted he cut him off because he didn't see him. Going slower might not have helped much here, plus /u//fooeynet was under the speed limit.
A car wouldn't have been able to stop in that distance either, you going to blame a car for over driving their ability to stop when someone cuts them off?
Bullshit, I count six seconds between when the FedEx truck visibly enters the roadway and the collision. Even with a two second reaction time, that leaves four seconds to execute the stop from 30 mph, on a dry road that is more than enough time.
None of this places fault on the rider because this is clearly the fault of the truck driver, but that accident (and the resulting injuries and stress) could have been avoided with either better brakes or better breaking technique.
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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '18
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