snoreville wrote:
The cyclist was in front of the driver when the collision happened, though.
No he wasn't. Wrong again.
snoreville wrote:
The cyclist was in front of the driver when the collision happened, though.
No he wasn't. Wrong again.
Real scientist here wrote:
OK, I'm going to go test your hypothesis by side-swiping cyclists as per the video, and seeing if I notice anything.
There are plenty of them here.
under a bridge wrote:
It's not a bunch of psychopathic drivers, it is one guy trying to get a rise out of us.
True.
Which might be funny in other circumstances but isn't here - he is being a troll about a potential psychopath nearly killing someone because he was annoyed. Personally I don't think that is something to troll about or take lightly
BlaseBill wrote:
under a bridge wrote:It's not a bunch of psychopathic drivers, it is one guy trying to get a rise out of us.
True.
There are a few obvious points:
Cyclist:
1) WTF is that cyclist doing in the middle of the road? Not only is he not over near the shoulder, he isn't even in the middle of his lane. Judging by how casual they were riding I really doubt he's moving over there to avoid a bunch of sand/gravel/potholes
2) Spending ages out in the middle of the road two abreast is sometimes illegal (location dependent) and sometime illegal; it's absolutely discourteous, especially tooling around at 15mph. There are times and places for double pacelines, especially with large groups...but not on well traveled, tourist roads when you're barely riding 15mph.
Bottom line: This cyclist, or if he is totally new and doing just what his friend told him, then his friend; is an obnxious, entitled douchebag. I seriously hope he gets his a$$ fined as much as possible for his behavior.
Driver:
There are two possibilities here:
1)He directly hit the cyclist, with intent
2)He accidentally hit the cyclist, and didn't recognize it.
If it's case 1, the driver is more or less a raging, out of control psychopath that should lose his license permanently and probably be locked away.
Case 2 is a little more complex. I serious doubt it's case two though, because he wouldn't be telling people that a cyclist through a bike at his car if he wasn't specifically aware of an impact by a bike.
Let's assume he didn't know. It's still a colossal failure by the driver.
That guy is over the passenger front wheel, with his leg over the windshield. The driver would have to be utterly oblivious to avoid noticing that.
If you're so clueless on the roads that you don't see an object in the middle of the road...well you damn sure shouldn't be out there driving like that. Anytime you hit something from the front or the side (i.e. it didn't swerve or hit you) it's always your fault and that situation was preventable. It's a colossal display of incompetency to hit something head on/from the side.
The bottom line is that the driver is either a raging, angry lunatic; or just a totally incomptent driver. In one case he should be serving jail time and never seeing the roads again; in the other he should be fined, lose his license, and have to do something to suggest to us he can actually drive a motor vehicle properly.
If ever a thread needed closing ....
sredlums wrote:
cyclists gave me the finger wrote:The other day two cyclists were going side-by-FREAKIN-side on a fairly busy road holding up traffic. The guy driving the car in front of me almost hit the rider on the left. When I passed I honked at them, and yelled "ride single file" out the window. In appreciation, they gave me the finger.
LOL, you Americans are such amateurs at this stuff.
Here in The Netherlands everybody knows how to ride a bike, and the other traffic knows how to navigate around all that.
There's kids and older youth, riding 3 or 4 next to each other on the road (2 is the maximum allowed, but most people don't really care too much). Nobody wears a helmet (only people who ride for pleasure do that, mountainbiking and race cycling etc.), people sit on the luggage rack as passengers, grocery bags hang from the steering bar. People wear headsets, call while riding, or use social media.
In inner cities traffic lights are mostly used as guidence, but if you manage to sneak through without really disturbing traffic too much nobody really cares. People take the shortest route, against traffic in one way streets, through parks etc.
And you know what? It's great! Everybody expects this behavior and therefor takes care to drive cautiously. Hardly anybody gets hurt.
So I guess I should say: keep practicing, guys! :-)
Ya, but you're also the funny looking morons who eat mayonnaise with French fries. This means we're not interested in what you have to say....move along now.
Actually, no he wasn't wrote:
Don't be an idiot wrote:The cyclist was to the side of the car, not the front.
At least LOOK at the photo and video before posting.
snoreville wrote:
The cyclist was in front of the driver when the collision happened, though.
Repeating the previous:
The cyclist brushed into the side of the car, not the front, which is shown plainly in both the photo and video. The same thing would have happened had the car been a wall, or simply not moving at that point.
The photo supports me. Sorry.
An SUV?
What sort of inconsiderate maniac drives around in one of those? He's going to get what's coming to him.
Road rage psycho. Lock him up forever for that attempted murder.
The theory that the car knew about the cyclist just doesn't hold water.
First, recall the white truck that went by first. This was a big obstacle, and moreover with the driver's head in the way, the black Volvo dude would never have spotted someone riding in the middle.
Second, if he was really was going to "intentionally slam" a bicyclist, this was a sloppy job. If that were the case, I'd expect the "hit" to come mid-to-back of the right side, for more plausible deniability.
Finally, if he did have "murderous intent", he's a complete incompetent, managing only to give the guy a few bruises to the hospital.
Who honked the horn in the video? This would also be very interesting to know.
At first viewing, I assumed it was from the truck, but it also makes sense that the driver of the Volvo was the one laying on the horn (twice). This would add more support that this driver was highly agitated and responded by deliberately hitting the cyclist.
Hopefully the authorities can track down the driver of the first truck to ascertain if he was the one honking his horn.
Who honked? wrote:
Who honked the horn in the video? This would also be very interesting to know.
At first viewing, I assumed it was from the truck, but it also makes sense that the driver of the Volvo was the one laying on the horn (twice). This would add more support that this driver was highly agitated and responded by deliberately hitting the cyclist.
Hopefully the authorities can track down the driver of the first truck to ascertain if he was the one honking his horn.
Probably can compute it from the Doppler effect. Most horns are in F (some F#).
Double yellow chicken crosser wrote:
Finally, if he did have "murderous intent", he's a complete incompetent, managing only to give the guy a few bruises to the hospital.
Also, in that case he would have taken out both cyclists, to insure there were no witnesses.
Double yellow chicken crosser wrote:
The theory that the car knew about the cyclist just doesn't hold water.
First, recall the white truck that went by first. This was a big obstacle, and moreover with the driver's head in the way, the black Volvo dude would never have spotted someone riding in the middle.
Second, if he was really was going to "intentionally slam" a bicyclist, this was a sloppy job. If that were the case, I'd expect the "hit" to come mid-to-back of the right side, for more plausible deniability.
Finally, if he did have "murderous intent", he's a complete incompetent, managing only to give the guy a few bruises to the hospital.
You could be right.
If you are, the incompetency of the driver to not notice, and side/front swipe something in the road like that, is staggering.
Also, while I may sympathize with slamming into pedestrians and cyclists, I must point out that the driver of the SUV failed to use the proper turn signal when he changed lanes.
So, that's two strikes against him:
(1) Drives an SUV. Yeah, he's one of those turds.
(2) Neglected use of turn signals.
He also his a cyclist, which we may chalk up as chaotic neutral so we won't count that against him, but he already has two strikes against him and he's also ugly. So that's a third strike.
Double yellow chicken crosser wrote:
The theory that the car knew about the cyclist just doesn't hold water.
No one is claiming that the car knew anything. The driver and the cyclist are the two sentient beings involved. The car is an inanimate object.
LM wrote:
That guy is over the passenger front wheel, with his leg over the windshield. The driver would have to be utterly oblivious to avoid noticing that.
The problem is that you've freeze-framed the exact instant of impact. In reality, this went by faster than the blink of an eye, and the driver was likely looking ahead slightly to left (ongoing traffic), and/or in rearview mirror (to see if cleared GoPro cyclist). I've watched enough NASCAR wrecks from in-car cameras to know that it's easy to miss things, even when they seem "obvious" from slow-mo.
Armchair TV expert wrote:
LM wrote:That guy is over the passenger front wheel, with his leg over the windshield. The driver would have to be utterly oblivious to avoid noticing that.
The problem is that you've freeze-framed the exact instant of impact. In reality, this went by faster than the blink of an eye, and the driver was likely looking ahead slightly to left (ongoing traffic), and/or in rearview mirror (to see if cleared GoPro cyclist). I've watched enough NASCAR wrecks from in-car cameras to know that it's easy to miss things, even when they seem "obvious" from slow-mo.
Thanks Armchair expert. This thread really needed some intelligent input from, if not an NASCAR pro, at least a highly seasoned fan like yourself. Maybe the Volvo driver can have Ernie Irvan appear as an expert witness in his defense. That would def. cinch things up.
Double yellow chicken crosser wrote:
First, recall the white truck that went by first. This was a big obstacle, and moreover with the driver's head in the way, the black Volvo dude would never have spotted someone riding in the middle.
Everyone is missing this.
When you are driving, you have to worry about SIGHT LINES. Anyone who has ever driven next to a 18-wheeler for a few seconds (or even a bus) knows this.
That's the *main* reason (among others) for riding bicycles on the right, for visibility. Here, the lack was multiplied by poor color concepts, blending in to the road.
But let's play what-if. Suppose that the Volvo driver realized at the last milli-second that this unseen cyclist had suddenly appeared, and then proceeded to over-correct, spinning off the road into the ditch on the left, while the cyclists continued laughing.
Would the cyclists be charged with "failure to aid" or whatever the legal term is? Would we have the Go-Pro video plastered all over the Internet then? More likely it would curiously "deleted" without a trace.