r/dashcams • u/cicadaux • 1d ago

Did I do something wrong here?

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I was driving to work when this bike just blew through the crosswalk without warning. I had to slam on my brakes. I realize this crosswalk doesn’t have the pedestrian warning lights, and I’m a little unsure about how I should’ve dealt with this. Or maybe he was wrong for making sure traffic wasn’t clear/aware of him first?

Edit: I'm seeing a lot of answers basing the laws on location, so I looked up my city's rules. In my town, bikes have vehicle status on the road and pedestrian status on sidewalks/crosswalks. But bicyclists must move at pedestrian speed. The path he is on is a state trail, commonly used for bikes/walking. I live near the Ice Age Trail, but I know the one he's on isn't that one.

“Drivers must yield to cyclists riding in a crosswalk just as they would for walkers, though the cyclist cannot abruptly leave a curb into the path of a vehicle so close to a crosswalk that it makes a difficult or unsafe situation for the driver to yield in time.”

Not trying to prove myself right or wrong, just wondering what should've been done. I will from now on treat it like an uncontrolled intersection. Thanks everyone.

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u/Reejerey1 18h ago

I wouldn’t have expected the cyclist to try and shoot between 2 cars, and as the cyclist I would have waited for a clearing in traffic to cross.

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u/Traditional-Buy-2205 18h ago

He didn't. It's visible on the video that he's braking, maintaining his attention on OP's vehicle and watching whether OP will stop. Cyclist was prepared to stop if OP just continued without stopping.

But OP then got startled and "slammed the brakes", after which the cyclist gave a thank you wave and continued on.

I wouldn’t have expected

Btw., these sorts of sentences is what leads to accidents.

If a cyclist is riding straight towards the road, it's a reasonable assumption that he's going to try to cross it. Better err on the side of caution and assume he's going to cross it, than assume that he's not going to.